More doctored BP photos come to light

Washington Post

The search for doctored BP photos is on. And it’s a bit like finding Waldo in the famous game.

On Wednesday, for the second time this week, a blog has identified an altered photograph about BP’s oil spill response on the company’s Web site.

(Article and Photos: The first BP photo scandal)

The Gawker Web site said it received a tip about a BP photo taken from inside a helicopter, that shows a panorama of vessels working on the sea surface near the damaged well. The view through the windows makes it appear as though the helicopter is in the air.

BP caught using altered image of command center

Yahoo

Is a picture worth more or less than a thousand words if it’s digitally altered?

John Aravosis of AMERICAblog made an interesting find Monday night: A high-resolution image on BP’s website of the troubled company’s Houston-based Deepwater Horizon response command center had been altered.

The altered image was later removed by BP and replaced with what they say is the original (the altered image is above and the original is below). You’ll notice that three underwater images were inserted onto screens to the right on a wall of video feeds in the altered image, where blank images exist on the screens in the original.

The photo flap inspired the usually staid Washington Post to quip, “Apparently BP is no more adept at doctoring photos than it is at plugging deep-sea oil leaks.”

BP spokesman Scott Dean told the Post’s Steven Mufson that there was no diabolical plot to photographically beef up the company’s command center. Rather, he said, a BP photographer with completely benign intentions just slipped the images in.

[Animals most threatened by Gulf Coast spill]

“Normally we only use Photoshop for the typical purposes of color correction and cropping,” Dean told the paper. “In this case they copied and pasted three ROV screen images in the original photo over three screens that were not running video feeds at the time.”

He added, “We’ve instructed our post-production team to refrain from doing this in the future.”

(Pictures courtesy of AMERICAblog)

Source:

Obama’s Gulf Oil Spill

Oil Spill Response is “Stuck on Stupid”

The Heritage Foundation

If you only listened to President Obama, you wouldn’t even know an oil spill is occurring in the Gulf. He hasn’t spoken publicly about the oil spill since June 22 when he announced it was on a laundry list of items discussed at a cabinet meeting. Before that, on June 16, he spoke briefly after negotiating his secret liability deal with BP. Other than those two instances, the president hasn’t spent another public moment focusing on the spill since he began fighting the “battle” against “the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced” from the Oval Office four weeks ago.

The media not only haven’t asked him a question about the crisis, they have been complicit in its degradation, allowing the president to ignore the plight of his fellow Americans without journalistic oversight. In less than two weeks, we’ll hit Day 100, and the media will regain focus for the arbitrary and news-friendly date, but what will they cover on Day 101? And imagine BP manages to cap the leak – as we all pray occurs – without the streaming video of oil gushing, how much attention will the national media and the president give to the remaining environmental and economic crisis?

Liar, liar: Why Obama is failing

Pajamas Media

Obama seems to be failing more completely than any president in my lifetime. Everywhere you turn he is floundering, overreaching, or outright flunking. His only success — health care legislation — was achieved over the will of the people, rarely a good idea. He is manufacturing conservatives and libertarians at an unprecedented clip. The only mystery left for the coming November election is how bad a donnybrook this will be for the Democrats.

Why has this happened?

Discovery of second pipe in Deepwater Horizon riser stirs debate among experts

For the first time Friday, the Coast Guard and BP acknowledged that a mysterious second pipe, wedged next to the drill pipe in what remains of the Deepwater Horizon’s riser, is fouling up the works where the well is spewing hundreds of millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

View full size

BP PLC via The Houston ChronicleTwo pipes are seen in this view of the riser just above the Macondo well’s blowout preventer, captured on BP video in June, just after it was cut.

Obama hits golf course

The Hill

President Barack Obama spent Sunday on the golf course at Fort Belvoir, Va., according to White House pool reports.

The president was playing with regular links partner Marvin Nicholson and two others whose names weren’t immediately known.

First lady Michelle Obama is set to visit the Gulf region Monday for the first time since the BP oil spill began. BP began a new containment procedure Saturday that the company’s hopes will provide a tighter seal around the well leak, but in the meantime oil is flowing freely into the Gulf once again.

The first lady will visit Panama City, Fla., to get an update on the impact of the Deepwater Horizon spill and to speak to members of the local community.

On Monday, Obama will host President Leonel Fernandez of the Dominican Republic at the White House for a working meeting.

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Is the Oil Spill Staged?

Canada Free Press

“We are not the enemy here.”—Anderson Cooper, CNN reporter (referring to the media blackout surrounding the oil spill)

Let me say up front that, personally, I don’t believe that the oil spill disaster was staged (although I believe that much of the clean-up may well be).  So why do I bring up the possibility?  Because we are being lied to by both the federal government and BP, and at this point all possible explanations for the oil spill need to remain on the table.

Judges Reject White House’s Drilling Ban Request

A federal appeals-court panel on Thursday quickly rejected the Obama administration’s bid to keep intact a moratorium on deepwater drilling while it appealed a federal judge’s decision overturning the ban.

The three-judge panel ruled that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar didn’t prove the U.S. would suffer irreparable harm without an immediate ban on exploratory drilling in deep waters.

Sen. LeMieux: “Oil and failure continues washing up on our beaches…”