United States Sues BP and Halliburton

Photo of the Deepwater Horizon BP rig disaster by Reuters

The U.S. government is finally suing BP and other companies for devastating environmental damage and loss of jobs and business in the Gulf states after their Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded last April. The well leaked hundreds of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf waters for months, doing immense damage to the water, the wildlife and the seafood industry in the Gulf of Mexico.

The other companies being sued include Transocean and Halliburton, the former company of the former Vice President, Dick Cheney.    Halliburton was responsible for the cement work at the well site, and they were under contract to BP.  Halliburton also does contract work for U.S. wars, so it’s safe to say that Halliburton has a big hand in ruining the environment over an extensive part of the world.  The Justice Department is filing suit “without limit” meaning it will attempt to recover billions of dollars. More on this story below.

USA sues BP over Gulf of Mexico oil spill

Corporations, headed by BP and Transocean, are being sued by the US government over the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill earlier this year. . . . .

More than 300 lawsuits have already been launched by fishing and seafood interests, the tourism industry, restaurants and clubs and property owners losing holiday bookings. . . . . .

A US presidential commission examining the disastrous spill reported the explosion and leak resulted from ?questionable decisions and management failures? by three companies: BP, the well owner and operator; Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig; and Halliburton, which provided the well?s cement.

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According to Climate Progress:

A team of 40 criminal prosecutors have been investigating the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster for months. The lawsuit, filed in New Orleans court against BP, Transocean, and the rig?s minority owners, says the ?defendants failed to keep the Macondo well under control? and ?failed to maintain continuous surveillance and failed to maintain equipment and material that were available and necessary to ensure the safety and protection of personnel, equipment, natural resources and the environment.? The administration calls for all liability caps to be ignored:

The Obama administration?s lawsuit asks that the companies be held liable without limitation under the Oil Pollution Act for all removal costs and damages caused by the oil spill, including damages to natural resources. The lawsuit also seeks civil penalties under the Clean Water Act.

Earlier this month, President Obama reversed his decision to open new areas to offshore drilling, which had been announced just three weeks before the BP disaster.

Many people wondered why Obama had reversed his earlier decision and now we know why.  An oil leak disaster isn’t just an accident, it can be a catastrophe of enormous proportions.  The effects last decades after the event, and the damages are in the hundreds of billions of dollars.  That supercedes any potential “need” (which [...]

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Breakthrough philanthropy

A talk by Christine Peterson, Foresight Institute - a leading think tank and public interest organization focused on transformative future technologies. Founded in 1986, its mission is to discover and promote the upsides, and help avoid the dangers, of nanotechnology, AI, biotech, and similar life-changing developments.

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Botanical Wednesday: Pagan fertility rites are
the reason for the season

Pucker up!

Unless you're English, in which case you may soon have no excuses for smoochies ever again.

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ednesday_pagan_fert.php

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Missing molecules hold promise of therapy for
pancreatic cancer

By determining what goes missing in human cells when the gene that is most commonly mutated in pancreatic cancer gets turned on, Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered a potential strategy for therapy.

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cancer

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A positive mood allows your brain to think more
creatively

People who watch funny videos on the internet at work aren?t necessarily wasting time. They may be taking advantage of the latest psychological science?putting themselves in a good mood so they can think more creatively.

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ely

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Bacterial life on and in humans orchestrates
health and disease

A mounting tide of scientific evidence suggests that the old adage from Aesop's fables ? "You are known by the company you keep" ? also applies to the trillions of microscopic bacteria and viruses that live on the human body.

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disease

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Where unconscious memories form

A small area deep in the brain called the perirhinal cortex is critical for forming unconscious conceptual memories, researchers at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain have found.

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Seaweed as biofuel

Is red seaweed a viable future biofuel? Now that a University of Illinois metabolic engineer has developed a strain of yeast that can make short work of fermenting galactose, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

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Close proximity leads to better science

According to new research by scientists at Harvard Medical School, the physical proximity of researchers, especially between the first and last author on published papers, strongly correlates with the impact of their work.

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SIDS spikes on New Year's Day

Not a happy holiday thought, but an important one: The number of babies who die of SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome, surges by 33 percent on New Year's Day. The suspected reason? Alcohol consumption by caretakers the night before.

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http://machineslikeus.com/news/sids-spikes-new-years-day

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