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Thursday, April 22, 2010
The Deepwater Horizon oil rig burning Wednesday, April 21, 2010. The rig, about 41 miles off the Louisiana coast, had 126 people on board when the explosion took place.
Fire boat rescue crews battle the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.The massive explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. The rig was carrying out exploration drilling on BP's Macondo prospect in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.
A Transocean drilling rig that caught fire late Tuesday has sunk and is completely submerged, the Houston Chronicle reported Thursday, citing a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman.
A Transocean spokesman said the company is trying to confirm the Coast Guard report.
The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) said Thursday it was continuing to search for 11 missing crew members after an explosion and fire hit an oil-drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, leaving seven critically injured.
The rig, about 41 miles off the Louisiana coast, had 126 people on board when the explosion took place at around 10pm CT on Tuesday. Of those, 115 were accounted for, 17 of whom were airlifted from the scene. Ninety-four crew members were transported to Port Fourchon, La., and moored at approximately 1:20am CT on Thursday.
It was unclear what caused the blast. Initial indications show that terrorism was not involved, the Coast Guard said.
The owner of the rig, Transocean, was bringing family members of the rig's crew to Louisiana and was providing counseling, Transocean spokesman Greg Panagos said.
"Anytime an incident like this happens, it's a huge deal to us. We don't want to see anybody hurt and we'll do everything we can to take care of the crew," Panagos said.
A spokesman for the British oil firm BP, the rig's primary client, said the company had six personnel on board the rig at the time of the incident, and all were safe.
The rig, the Deepwater Horizon, is located in an area known as the Mississippi Canyon. It is a semi-submersible, effectively a floating platform that has small thrusters to hold it in place above a well.
It was carrying out exploration drilling on BP's Macondo prospect in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.
REPORTS INDICATE THIS RIG COLLAPSED INTO THE SEA AND WILL LEAK 8,000 BARRELLS OF OIL A DAY FOR A LONG TIME!
Oil barrel
The standard oil barrel of 42 US gallons is used in the United States as a measure of crude oil and other petroleum products. The abbreviation for oil barrel is bbl. Elsewhere, oil is commonly measured in cubic metres (m3) or in tonnes (t), with tonnes more often being used by European oil companies. International companies listed on American stock exchanges tend to convert their oil production volumes to barrels for global reporting purposes, and those listed on European exchanges tend to convert their production to tonnes.
The wooden oil barrel of the late 1800s is different from the modern day 55-gallon steel drum (known as the 44-gallon drum in Britain and the 200-litre drum in Australia). The 42-US-gallon oil barrel is a unit of measure, and is no longer used to transport crude oil — most petroleum is moved in pipelines or oil tankers.
The 42-US gallon size of barrel as a unit of measure is largely confined to the American oil industry, since other sizes of barrel were used by other industries in the United States. Nearly all other countries use the metric system. Many oil producing countries that did not have the technical expertise to develop their own domestic oil industry standards use the American oil barrel because their oil industries were founded by US oil companies.
The measurement originated in the early Pennsylvania oil fields. In the early 1860s, when oil production began, there was no standard container for oil, so oil and petroleum products were stored and transported in barrels of different shapes and sizes for beer, fish, molasses, turpentine, etc. Both the 42-US gallon barrels (based on the old English wine measure), the tierce (159 litres) and the 40-U.S.-gallon (151.4-litre) whiskey barrels were used. 45-gallon barrels were also in common use. The 40-gallon whiskey barrel was the most common size used by early oil producers, since they were readily available at the time.[7]
The origins of the 42-gallon oil barrel are obscure, but some historical documents indicate that around 1866 early oil producers in Pennsylvania came to the conclusion that shipping oil in a variety of different containers was causing buyer distrust. They decided they needed a standard unit of measure to convince buyers that they were getting a fair volume for their money. They agreed to base this measure on the more-or-less standard 40-gallon whiskey barrel, but added an additional two gallons to ensure that any measurement errors would always be in the buyer's favor as an additional way of assuring buyer confidence, apparently on the same principle as is behind the baker's dozen and some other long units of measure.[citation needed] By 1872 the standard oil barrel was firmly established as 42 US gallons.[8]
The abbreviations 1 Mbbl and 1 MMbbl have historically meant one thousand and one million barrels respectively. They are derived from the Latin "mille" meaning "thousand" rather than the Greek "mega". However, this can cause confusion with the SI abbreviation for mega- (and in non-industry documentation Mbbl, "megabarrel", can sometimes stand for one million barrels).
The "b" may have been doubled originally to indicate the plural (1 bl, 2 bbl), or possibly it was doubled to eliminate any confusion with bl as a symbol for the bale. Some sources claim that "bbl" originated as a symbol for "blue barrels" delivered by Standard Oil in its early days; this is probably incorrect because there are citations for the symbol at least as early as the late 1700s, long before Standard Oil was founded.[9]
WASHINGTON — The gap between the cost of renting a modest apartment and the wages of working families continues to widen, according to a new report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
ON THE WEB
How the Department of Housing and Urban Development calculates Fair Market Rents
On average, a family must earn $38,355 a year, $18.44 an hour, to afford a simple two-bedroom apartment at the 2010 national average fair market rent of $959.
However, the average wage for U.S. renters is $14.44 an hour, down from $14.69 last year. Further, more than 60 percent of U.S. renters live in counties where even the average one-bedroom fair market rent of $805 isn't affordable for average wage earners, the study found.
Minimum wage earners are at the greatest disadvantage. Under the standard measure of affordability — housing costs should account for no more than 30 percent of income — full-time minimum wage earners can't afford one-bedroom apartments in any county in the country, even though Congress increased the minimum wage from $6.55 an hour to $7.25 last year.
When adjusted for inflation, though, the average hourly wage fell by half a percentage point last year and probably will stagnate for the next few years, said economist Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic Policy and Research.
"So the ability of people to be able to afford decent housing is not likely to get any better" in the next few years, Baker said. "It's more likely to be worse than better. We aren't on a good path."
The findings help explain why the number of renters who moved in with family and friends, or "doubled up," increased by 25 percent from 2005 to 2009.
So-called affordable housing is becoming harder to find. Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies has estimated that 200,000 such apartments, for which tenants pay less than 30 percent of their income for rent and utilities, are lost each year in the U.S.
For every new affordable-housing unit that's constructed, two are demolished, abandoned or converted to condominiums or expensive rentals, according to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
With the number of renters growing because of foreclosures and the deflated housing market, the Low Income Housing Coalition says it's time for policymakers to put more money into rental assistance and affordable housing.
Throughout the housing crisis and recession, lawmakers have focused resources and attention mainly on helping troubled homeowners avoid foreclosure, but some 40 percent of foreclosures also displace renter households, according to the report.
The coalition wants Congress to fund the National Housing Trust Fund, which establishes a permanent funding source to construct, renovate and preserve 1.5 million units of rental housing for low-income families over a 10-year period.
The trust fund legislation passed in 2008, but because of the economic downturn, Congress hasn't funded it.
The fund wouldn't increase government spending or taxes because it was supposed to be funded through contributions from mortgage giants Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration.
Sheila Crowley, the president of the coalition, said now was the time to act.
"Providing $1 billion for the National Housing Trust Fund will help address the growing shortage of affordable housing, which is one of the most serious economic problems facing the country," she said.
Crowley said she expects the House of Representatives to begin floor debate on the Section 8 Voucher Reform Act, which passed the House Financial Services Committee last July.
"We are very much hoping that the Senate will take it up as well," she said.
The bill would provide rent subsidies for 150,000 low-income families, Crowley said, and the coalition is seeking another 2 million Section 8 housing vouchers over the next 10 years, which would double the current number.
In a statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the coalition report showed the urgency of the hardship that low-income renters faced.
"We are grateful for the NLIHC's efforts, and we will continue our partnership to ensure that more Americans have better access to decent and affordable rental housing," Pelosi said.
MY FAVORITE "ARCHIE BUNKER" WEBSITE, JUDICIAL-INC.BIZ UNDER ATTACK! SEEMS NO ONE WANTS TO HOST CONTROVERSIAL "RELIGIOUS" WEBSITE! OY VEY!
When Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich received word on Saturday night that Polish President Lech Kaczynski had been killed in a plane crash, along with 95 other members of the country’s elite, he knew that not only had a “great friend of Israel and the Jewish people” perished, but that his own life had been spared.
Schudrich had been invited to accompany the Polish delegation on its trip to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Forest Massacre near the Russian border with Belarus, and had only declined to go because the flight was on Shabbat.
“I know that if it hadn’t been Shabbat, I would have been on that plane,” Schudrich told The Jerusalem Post by telephone from Warsaw on Sunday. “It gives one great pause for thought.
“However, the point is the tragedy which has befallen the Polish people, and that the Jewish people have lost a real friend,” he said.
Kaczynski had “cared greatly for the Jews, and fought to memorialize both the Holocaust and the contribution of Jews to Polish society,” Schudrich said.
“He was very helpful to the [Jewish] community. He was a strong friend of Israel, and we will all miss him.”
The rabbi explained that since the onset of democracy in Poland, which came with the rise to power of the Solidarity Movement in 1989 and the election of president Lech Walesa in 1990, a Polish embrace of its Jewish past had been “steadily rising.”
“Walesa took the first steps with his [1991] visit to Israel and speech to the Knesset,” Schudrich said. “And each [president since] has taken it to the next level.
“There has been a very steady progression of Polish recognition of the country’s Jewish past and friendship toward Israel over the last 20 years, and it’s never slipped back.”
Reflecting on the fact that Kaczynski’s death came a day before the beginning of Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, Schudrich also mentioned that Poland had lost six million citizens during World War II – three million of whom were Jews.
“Those three million [Jewish] deaths made up 90 percent of the Polish Jewish population,” Schudrich said. “The three million non-Jewish Poles made up 10% of the country’s entire population, which constitutes a horrible tragedy on its own. In some ways, this country is still overcoming the loss it experienced in WWII.
“But there’s been a huge change in Poland, in the sense that for 50 years, you couldn’t talk about Jews,” Schudrich continued.
“Under the Nazis, Jews were killed, and under the Communists, it was forbidden to talk about them. Jewish contributions to culture, Jewish history, it simply wasn’t mentioned. So all of a sudden, you have two generations of Poles who don’t really understand the Jewish contributions to Poland.
“It’s not so much anti-Semitism, which does exist, but the Soviet occupation of Poland, which rendered Judaism in this country a topic that people simply didn’t know about,” he said.
“But sitting here in Warsaw as the chief rabbi, just over the last two years I’ve seen an increase in phone calls from Poles, whether it be a mayor, a high school principal or a priest, who say, ‘We have a neglected cemetery or an old synagogue that needs repair,’ or, ‘We want to put on a play about Jewish culture.’
“And what you hear now,” Schudrich continued, “is that instead of saying we want to save ‘your’ cemetery, they’ll say ‘our’ cemetery. It’s a sense that it belongs to them as well, that it’s part of their greater community.”
Schudrich brushed off a 2006 incident in which he was attacked by a neo-Nazi in Warsaw with pepper spray.
“I got pepper sprayed,” the rabbi said. “Anti-Semitism has been here all along, as it has been throughout Europe. But it’s not what people imagine it to be and it’s not what it was in the 1930s – very much thanks to Pope John Paul II, of blessed memory, who did more to fight anti-Semitism than any Catholic leader before him.”
Nonetheless, the rabbi agreed that Poland’s history, specifically through the prism of the Holocaust, was an especially painful one for Jews.
“But while I think that we are very good at identifying and fighting anti-Semitism,” Schudrich said, “we are weaker when it comes to identifying potential friends. And today here in Poland we have many friends, not everybody, but many.”
