Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Obama's Katrina?

Commentary By Ron Beasley



This is a followup to Dave's post below.

Almost at once the Gulf oil spill was described as Obama's Katrina.  While this may have been unfair early on it's becoming less so as each day passes and the oil continues to flow.  If you didn't see the 60 Minutes program on the disaster you can watch it here; 60 Minutes: Deepwater Horizon's Blowout, Part 1 and here; 60 Minutes: Deepwater Horizon's Blowout, Part 2.  Although there was an attempt to blame the dreaded Halliburton it is becoming clear that it was the profit driven decisions of BP in the days and weeks leading up to the accident that are responsible.  Although BP has been making attempts to stop the flow their efforts are still coming up short for weeks after the blowout.  Within the next week BP will attempt to stop the flow with a "top kill" operation.


The British energy
giant also said it was gearing up for an operation called a "top
kill" to inject tonnes of heavy drilling "mud" into the well to stanch
the flow before permanently sealing it with cement.




"Our next effort to try to stop the flow will occur later this week or
early in the weekend coming up and it's the top kill procedure," said BP
chief operating officer Doug Suttles.




"We intend to fill up the bottom portion of this well with cement," he
said. "If that's successful we would be bringing this incident to a
close."





This should be BP's last chance.  Everything BP has done nothing up to this point that would threaten their investment and they won't.  Their concern is for their bottom line and not the environment of the Gulf or the way of life of the people who depend on it.  If the Top Kill operation does not work the Obama administration should take over the operation from BP and do whatever it takes to stop the flow even if it destroys BP's investment and BP should never be able to drill another well in US waters.  If that does not happen this will rightly be called Obama's Katrina.



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