Worst Case Scenario? Worse than first thought...

Read this:

How the Ultimate BP Gulf Disaster Could Kill Millions

Documents from several years ago indicate that the subterranean geologic formation may contain the presence of a huge methane deposit.

None other than the engineer who helped lead the team to snuff the Gulf oilfires set by Saddam Hussein to slow the advance of American troops has stated that a huge underground lake of methane gas-compressed by a pressure of 100,000 pounds per square inch (psi)-could be released by BP's drilling effort to obtain the oil deposit.

Current engineering technology cannot contain gas that is pressurized to 100,000 psi.

By some geologists' estimates the methane could be a massive 15 to 20 mile toxic and explosive bubble trapped for eons under the Gulf sea floor. In their opinion, the explosive destruction of the Deepwater Horizon wellhead was an accident just waiting to happen.

Yet the disaster that followed the loss of the rig pales by comparison to the apocalyptic disaster that may come.

A cascading catastrophe

Oh shit...

According to worried geologists, the first signs that the methane may burst its way through the bottom of the ocean would be fissures or cracks appearing on the ocean floor near the damaged well head.

Evidence of fissures opening up on the seabed have been captured by the robotic submersibles working to repair and contain the ruptured well. Smaller, independent plumes have also appeared outside the nearby radius of the bore hole itself.

This is not looking good at all...

With the emerging evidence of fissures, the quiet fear now is the methane bubble rupturing the seabed and exploding into the Gulf waters. If the bubble escapes, every ship, drilling rig and structure within the region of the bubble will instantaneously sink. All the workers, engineers, Coast Guard personnel and marine biologists measuring the oil plumes' advance will instantly perish.

As horrible as that is, what would follow is an event so potentially horrific that it equals in its fury the Indonesian tsunami that killed more than 600,000, or the destruction of Pompeii by Mt. Vesuvius.

The ultimate Gulf disaster, however, would make even those historical horrors pale by comparison. If the huge methane bubble breaches the seabed, it will erupt with an explosive fury similar to that experienced during the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in the Pacific Northwest. A gas gusher will surge upwards through miles of ancient sedimentary rock-layer after layer-past the oil reservoir. It will explode upwards propelled by 50 tons psi, burst through the cracks and fissures of the compromised sea floor, and rupture miles of ocean bottom with one titanic explosion.


The burgeoning methane gas cloud will surface, killing everything it touches, and set off a supersonic tsunami with the wave traveling somewhere between 400 to 600 miles per hour.

While the entire Gulf coastline is vulnerable, the state most exposed to the fury of a supersonic wave towering 100 feet or more is Florida. The Sunshine State only averages about 6 inches above sea level. A supersonic tsunami would literally sweep away everything from Miami to the panhandle in a matter of minutes. Loss of human life would be virtually instantaneous and measured in the millions. Of course the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and southern region of Georgia-a state with no Gulf coastline-would also experience tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Loss of property is virtually incalculable and the days of the US position as the world's superpower would be literally gone in a flash...of detonating methane.

Good lord, I hope the people predicting this are wrong!

Some Brilliant Perspectives on Patriarchy

I never claimed to be an authority on LTR or a marriage expert.

The only claim I make is that I believe I've gained an understanding of the effects our cultural and societal influences, and how they foster dissension and misunderstandings between the sexes that often sabotage their efforts to find personal fulfillment and happiness in sharing a life with a mate and procreating and raising your offspring together.

I see the lies our culture promulgate, and how to avoid the pitfalls and traps of those lies. That is what 'game' means in the context of the long term relationship between a man and a woman.

In my writings on this topic, on this blog, at Roissy's, and at The Spearhead, I really wrote on this topic for my own benefit...to help myself analyze, clarify, and crystallize my observations of the principles of "game" and how they applied to my own marriage - so that I could mentally grasp a coherent, comprehensible vision in my mind's eye; it helped me to see the big picture.

Having so many people email and comment to me over the past couple of years about how relating to this vision has helped them change their own lives for the better merely reinforces that the changes I've seen in my own life are based on a solid understanding of bedrock principles founded in truth...and not just some highly unusual, anecdotal anomaly.

But it gets even better when you read other peoples contributions to this vision of recognizing the truths about gender roles and how interpersonal relationships work in relation to those truths. People that help you see other points and ideas that I never even considered before on my own. But when you read it, you go "aha!" because it fits in so perfectly with the vision you've already brought into focus in your own mind.

Ulysses at Hidden Leaves wrote just such a post I just read, entitled Follow the Leader

In an effort to be the biggest baddest cock, the man of the house, some stop doing anything and leave all the work that having a house requires to the wife, save for basic yard work which involves the use of mechanized tools. They confuse asshole game with just being an asshole. Whether or not their wife works is unimportant to such men. For them, they are in charge and the wife is going to do the woman’s work around the house. All of it. Laundry? That’s pussy shit for beta chumps. Cooking? I’m no kitchen bitch. Cleaning bathrooms? Are you fucking kidding me?

Hopefully, for their own sake, such men are really enjoying getting to spend their money while they still can. They will give away half of it at some point in the not too distant future. Living in a dictatorial household will inspire an insurrection. The laws are designed to facilitate women with such an insurrection.

Dictator of the house is fleeting power. Leader of the house is power with stamina. Being a leader takes more work.

If you want your wife to respect and tingle for you, you have to become leader of the house. You will do some laundry. You will spend some time in the kitchen. If you have kids, you will change some diapers. If you’re me, you will actively pursue other ways to help, even folding laundry, rather than clean bathrooms because you hate that task. My dad is very much man of the house, but I’ll always remember one day when I was in junior high. At that point, we had a maid coming once a week as my mom had gone back to work. Dad worked a weird schedule and I was home “sick.” Dad came into my room and said, “Get up and grab a broom. The maid called in sick and your mom isn’t coming home to a dirty house.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve written on this, but it bears repeating. The secret to a happy marriage is to be the leader of your household. The secret of leadership is getting down in the trenches with the troops. This role requires effort; it cannot be faked. Sure, you may find yourself in the garage, standing with a tiny plastic shovel, scooping cat shit, and thinking about how you wish you’d managed to get rid of the cats before your elder daughter got attached. You will also find yourself balls deep into a very thankful vagina shortly after you finish scooping. The rewards that come from being leader of your household are very worthwhile – good food, a clean house, kids who look like you, lots of sex, the whole nine yards – but you have to be the one to earn those rewards. No one is going to give them to you.

I've seen this exact same dynamic in the martial arts dojo. The difference between a leader and a dictator and it's effects on the entire environment and how it influences the learning and practice of everyone involved.

Brilliant insight Ulysses.

In my own experience, I simply reserve "asshole" game for when I have a good reason for righteous indignation. Attempts to emasculate or belittle me are met with immediate response, sometimes terse and angry. I'm in touch with my inner asshole like that...but it is not an indulgence of tyranny to let it out when it is merited. It's simply a reminder...I am the man here, I do have a spine, and there are some lines I will not tolerate be crossed.



Another excellent contribution to the emerging consensus regarding the relationship between a man and a woman in a Patriarchal model, was the Star Trek analogy Athol Kay at Married Man Sex Life used to describe his own marriage: Dominance and Submission in Marriage: The Captain and First Officer Model

Often a woman will tear her husband apart over quite minor things seeking a reaction to correct her. If she doesn’t get that correction she can become increasingly agitated with her man and progressively more extreme in efforts to force that reaction. The majority of drama queens are just seeking the king to finally show up and tell her to knock it off.

Again - I’m talking about one man and one woman with each other. I’m not talking about all men over all women. Nor am I saying all marriages have to work this way. Just that I believe most would run better for trying it. Many women actively seek domination in their sexual relationships.

I would interject here that many women actively seek this...but don't even consciously realize this truth. Thanks to the message of "equality" that is the dominant meme of our culture, many women seek for this while rationalizing or justifying this need with the 'pretty lies' of our culture when they experience the dominance they subconsciously desire. I've noticed plenty of women who are in relationships with men who are dominant...yet she'll proudly tell her friends that they have an "equal" relationship.

Anyhow, back to Athol's* excellent Star Trek analogy


*( BTW - is it just me, or am I the only guy that "hears" the name "Athol" in my head as GBFM saying "asshole" in his Barney Franks "butthex" lisp? heh...I know you're a good sport Athol...cheers mate, I still can't help but laugh at the thought!)

I’ve always liked the dynamic on the Star Trek series between Captains and First Officers. It’s always been quite apparent that the First Officer is always competent and skilled, and if anything happens to the Captain, they step into the role of being in command immediately. The Captains always listen, sometimes the First Officer has a better idea than their own. Sometimes the First Officer actually overrules the Captain in a crisis and gives the crew an order, the Captain usually just trusts the First Officer isn’t doing this to make trouble and runs with it. But at the end of the day… the Captain is the Captain and leadership comes from them, and final responsibility for the ship lies with them. If it all goes to hell the Captain is last off the ship.

My realization is that most wives want the First Officer job. Not Crewman Third Class, but not Captain either. They want to have a say and be heard, they want to be trusted, they don’t want to be micro managed on decisions they are capable of making themselves, they can happily step it up into “having the bridge” when their husbands aren’t available. They just would rather be the second in command and follow someone else’s leadership and general direction.

The challenge for the husband is not to go into marriage as a Redshirt waiting for the deathblow. If that’s what you expect, that’s what you’ll get. Also not to go into marriage and attempt to simply be a member of the crew. The wife will likely try and assume a First Officer role and that makes her the de facto Captain if the husband doesn’t take that position. That may well piss her off. He can even do everything she says wants and asks him to do, and by submitting to her perfectly, that can actually anger and disappoint her more and more. Most men find this extremely confusing.

This was my own experience to the 'T.'

This dynamic is what I believe is precisely how so many men have become "beta-ized" and repel their wives and turn off her attraction for him...and often times she's just as confused and unawares of what is actually  going on too. This is when she starts saying vague things like "I don't know if I can do this anymore!" or "Why are we not happy anymore?" or "We need to talk about this relationship!"

Most women simply cannot tell their confused husbands "you are not being dominant, you are not being a worthy leader, and your indecision, unsure self-doubts are killing my attraction for you! Dominate Me, dammit!" Most women can't say this...because the cultural narrative of our declining civilization has associated  the word dominance with abuse and domestic violence in the minds of the average blue pill taker.

Talleyrand over at Seasons of Tumult and Discord elaborated on this point as well, in one of his more memorable posts that also added to my overall mental picture - Dominance is not the Same as Controlling

When people talk about dominance and social dominance, inevitably women will think “controlling.”

Generally, women do not like controlling.  They will often think of an ex that was controlling and shiver with revulsion.

Being controlling is not a sign of dominance, it is a sign of weakness. It is a sign of insecurity.

Certainly a controlling man or women (and there are plenty of controlling women too, if the henpecked, furtive shoulder hunched men in our society are any example) can dominate another, but the one they are dominating resents it on some level.

When someone is controlling, inherent in there is a recognition that their other attributes, their force of personality, their frame is weak. They need to resort to putting the foot down, shaming, nagging, and belittling another to get them to do what they want.

This is true in all relationships, not just sexual ones. Everyone has had an insecure boss that has been miserable to work for.

The bosses people love and admire, the ones that they would go through fire for (and they are an increasingly rare breed) are the ones that can voice disapproval with just the hint of disappointment, the ones that are absolutely confident in what they do, and the direction of their lives and in their relationships.

They can fight, but they are judicious about it and more often than not they fight for their underlings not against them, they will quell problems when they happen and not abdicate responsibility or hope things go away.

People do things for that type of boss, not because they are afraid of him, but because they love him. So to, the women with a truly dominate man do what they want because they love him. This is not to say that fear is not something that makes men and women both more likely to find another attractive (which doing something a little frightening is actually good for a date, like rock climbing, or sky diving), but that it is only a spice, the dominant man does not need to resort to fear or intimidation.

The dominant man does not need to be controlling to get what he wants.  He acts, he pursues, he makes it clear what he wants, and he’s confident that he will get it.  He is both self aware and other aware.

Talley, I'm well aware that you and Alkibiades have utterly sworn off marriage...which in this day and age, is certainly prudent and I would never criticize a man for making that decision.

But, I do think you and Alki definitely have the understanding, intelligence and experience to actually make a marriage 1.0 style work for you, even in this day and age of Marriage 2.0.

My final reference is to a piece written by Silas at Everyday Thoughts on Life, in a post entitled Simplifying Sexual Dynamics.

I used to having troubles reading women and figuring out how to determine their perspectives and intentions. But, once you understand one simple fact, it all becomes quite simple. I told LB, "You're overthinking things. It's much simpler than all that." Fundamentally, there is only one thing you have to determine to know where you stand with a girl. Most women quickly and subconsciously assess the sexual value and relationship value of a guy upon meeting him. Generally, within the first 30 seconds to five minutes, she puts a guy in one of two categories:

Category 1 - Alpha - He is an attractive guy

Category 2 - Beta - He is not an attractive guy

When you're an alpha, a woman will do just about anything for you. You are in control of the relationship and can take things in whatever direction you want. You want to date her? You got it. You want to marry her? Piece of cake. You want to sleep with her and leave her? No problem. You aren't interested in her and just want to be friends? She's up for it. Want to bring her along for social proof or to buy you drinks? No sweat. While the pacing might be somewhat different, depending on the sort of girl, as long as you are an alpha, the ball is completely in your court and she's happy to follow your lead.

When you're a beta, the girl is in control of the interactions. She is in control of the relationship and will allow exactly what she wants to happen, but nothing more. Generally this results in either no contact or the dreaded "friend-zone." With some girls, particularly ones who are more promiscuous, they may even have no qualms about kissing you or sleeping with you, but that still doesn't change the sexual dynamic. In other cases, they may string you along and get you to buy them drinks, dinner and gifts, while knowing that nothing with ever materialize from it.

Silas's breakdown is a good means of assessing the state of your own relationship.

Remember Roissy's maxim 101:  

For most women, five minutes of alpha is worth five years of beta.

Our current dystopia is definitely the result of the war on Patriarchy and it's role as the building blocks of civilization. Understanding what Patriarchy truly is, will probably not help save our fallen world - it's a bit late for that at this point in time. But that doesn't mean having a true understanding can't help you at least achieve your own happiness as the head of your house.

Deepwater Horizon: Worst Case Scenario

So what is the worst case scenario? I recently came across a forum called The Oil Drum, and it appears that some gas/energy/oil professionals are debating the various aspects of this utter catastrophe.

One of the members, dougr, paints a grim portrait indeed...

First of all...set aside all your thoughts of plugging the well and stopping it from blowing out oil using any method from the top down. Plugs, big valves to just shut it off, pinching the pipe closed, installing a new bop or lmrp, shooting any epoxy in it, top kills with mud etc etc etc....forget that, it won't be happening..it's done and over. In fact actually opening up the well at the subsea source and allowing it to gush more is not only exactly what has happened, it was probably necessary, or so they think anyway.

So you have to ask WHY? Why make it worse?...there really can only be one answer and that answer does not bode well for all of us. It's really an inescapable conclusion at this point, unless you want to believe that every Oil and Gas professional involved suddenly just forgot everything they know or woke up one morning and drank a few big cups of stupid and got assigned to directing the response to this catastrophe. Nothing makes sense unless you take this into account, but after you do...you will see the "sense" behind what has happened and what is happening. That conclusion is this:

The well bore structure is compromised "Down hole".

That is something which is a "Worst nightmare" conclusion to reach. While many have been saying this for some time as with any complex disaster of this proportion many have "said" a lot of things with no real sound reasons or evidence for jumping to such conclusions, well this time it appears that they may have jumped into the right place...

TOP KILL - FAILS:
This was probably our best and only chance to kill this well from the top down. This "kill mud" is a tried and true method of killing wells and usually has a very good chance of success. The depth of this well presented some logistical challenges, but it really should not of presented any functional obstructions. The pumping capacity was there and it would have worked, should have worked, but it didn't.

It didn't work, but it did create evidence of what is really happening. First of all the method used in this particular top kill made no sense, did not follow the standard operating procedure used to kill many other wells and in fact for the most part was completely contrary to the procedure which would have given it any real chance of working.

Almost like they wanted it to fail...

When a well is "Killed" using this method heavy drill fluid "Mud" is pumped at high volume and pressure into a leaking well. The leaks are "behind" the point of access where the mud is fired in, in this case the "choke and Kill lines" which are at the very bottom of the BOP (Blow Out Preventer) The heavy fluid gathers in the "behind" portion of the leaking well assembly, while some will leak out, it very quickly overtakes the flow of oil and only the heavier mud will leak out. Once that "solid" flow of mud is established at the leak "behind" the well, the mud pumps increase pressure and begin to overtake the pressure of the oil deposit. The mud is established in a solid column that is driven downward by the now stronger pumps. The heavy mud will create a solid column that is so heavy that the oil deposit can no longer push it up, shut off the pumps...the well is killed...it can no longer flow.

Usually this will happen fairly quickly, in fact for it to work at all...it must happen quickly. There is no "trickle some mud in" because that is not how a top kill works. The flowing oil will just flush out the trickle and a solid column will never be established. Yet what we were told was "It will take days to know whether it worked"...."Top kill might take 48 hours to complete"...the only way it could take days is if BP intended to do some "test fires" to test integrity of the entire system. The actual "kill" can only take hours by nature because it must happen fairly rapidly.

He than goes on to deconstruct some vague statements from BP and some articles, in which he than leads up to his conclusion:

All the actions and few tid bits of information all lead to one inescapable conclusion. The well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking. Now you have some real data of how BP's actions are evidence of that, as well as some murky statement from "BP officials" confirming the same.


I took some time to go into a bit of detail concerning the failure of Top Kill because this was a significant event. To those of us outside the real inside loop, yet still fairly knowledgeable, it was a major confirmation of what many feared. That the system below the sea floor has serious failures of varying magnitude in the complicated chain, and it is breaking down and it will continue to.


What does this mean?


It means they will never cap the gusher after the wellhead. They cannot...the more they try and restrict the oil gushing out the bop?...the more it will transfer to the leaks below. Just like a leaky garden hose with a nozzle on it. When you open up the nozzle?...it doesn't leak so bad, you close the nozzle?...it leaks real bad, same dynamics. It is why they sawed the riser off...or tried to anyway...but they clipped it off, to relieve pressure on the leaks "down hole". I'm sure there was a bit of panic time after they crimp/pinched off the large riser pipe and the Diamond wire saw got stuck and failed...because that crimp diverted pressure and flow to the rupture down below.


Contrary to what most of us would think as logical to stop the oil mess, actually opening up the gushing well and making it gush more became {the }direction BP took after confirming that there was a leak. In fact if you note their actions, that should become clear. They have shifted from stopping or restricting the gusher to opening it up and catching it. This only makes sense if they want to relieve pressure at the leak hidden down below the seabed.....and that sort of leak is one of the most dangerous and potentially damaging kind of leak there could be. It is also inaccessible which compounds our problems. There is no way to stop that leak from above, all they can do is relieve the pressure on it and the only way to do that right now is to open up the nozzle above and gush more oil into the gulf and hopefully catch it, which they have done, they just neglected to tell us why, gee thanks.

This does not look good. No surprise that we're not getting the truth from BP, the media or our President.

A down hole leak is dangerous and damaging for several reasons. There will be erosion throughout the entire beat up, beat on and beat down remainder of the "system" including that inaccessible leak. The same erosion I spoke about in the first post is still present and has never stopped, cannot be stopped, is impossible to stop and will always be present in and acting on anything that is left which has crude oil "Product" rushing through it. There are abrasives still present, swirling flow will create hot spots of wear and this erosion is relentless and will always be present until eventually it wears away enough material to break it's way out. It will slowly eat the bop away especially at the now pinched off riser head and it will flow more and more. Perhaps BP can outrun or keep up with that out flow with various suckage methods for a period of time, but eventually the well will win that race, just how long that race will be?...no one really knows....However now?...there are other problems that a down hole leak will and must produce that will compound this already bad situation.


This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer's immense bulk of 450 tons. In fact?...we are beginning to the results of the well's total integrity beginning to fail due to the undermining being caused by the leaking well bore.


The first layer of the sea floor in the gulf is mostly loose material of sand and silt. It doesn't hold up anything and isn't meant to, what holds the entire subsea system of the Bop in place is the well itself. The very large steel connectors of the initial well head "spud" stabbed in to the sea floor. The BOP literally sits on top of the pipe and never touches the sea bed, it wouldn't do anything in way of support if it did. After several tens of feet the seabed does begin to support the well connection laterally (side to side) you couldn't put a 450 ton piece of machinery on top of a 100' tall pipe "in the air" and subject it to the side loads caused by the ocean currents and expect it not to bend over...unless that pipe was very much larger than the machine itself, which you all can see it is not. The well's piping in comparison is actually very much smaller than the Blow Out Preventer and strong as it may be, it relies on some support from the seabed to function and not literally fall over...and it is now showing signs of doing just that....falling over.

So what happens if it falls over?

Well...none of what is likely to happen is good, in fact...it's about as bad as it gets. I am convinced the erosion and compromising of the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well, the blow out preventer (BOP) and surrounding strata holding it all up and together. This is evidenced by the tilt of the blow out preventer and the erosion which has exposed the well head connection. What eventually will happen is that the blow out preventer will literally tip over if they do not run supports to it as the currents push on it. I suspect they will run those supports as cables tied to anchors very soon, if they don't, they are inviting disaster that much sooner. 

Eventually even that will be futile as the well casings cannot support the weight of the massive system above with out the cement bond to the earth and that bond is being eroded away. When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the BOP will collapse the well. If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the BOP? or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly? ...it won't be too long after that the entire system fails. BP must be aware of this, they are mapping the sea floor sonically and that is not a mere exercise. Our Gov't must be well aware too, they just are not telling us.

All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit...after that, it goes into the realm of "the worst things you can think of." The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out...as I said...all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more. There isn't any "cap dome" or any other suck fixer device on earth that exists or could be built that will stop it from gushing out and doing more and more damage to the gulf. While at the same time also doing more damage to the well, making the chance of halting it with a kill from the bottom up less and less likely to work, which as it stands now?....is the only real chance we have left to stop it all.

It's a race now...a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it's last gasp in a horrific crescendo.

 When you think things can't get any worse, that's exactly when we find out that indeed they can...

We are not even 2 months into it, barely half way by even optimistic estimates. The damage done by the leaked oil now is virtually immeasurable already and it will not get better, it can only get worse. No matter how much they can collect, there will still be thousands and thousands of gallons leaking out every minute, every hour of every day. We have 2 months left before the relief wells are even near in position and set up to take a kill shot and that is being optimistic as I said.

Over the next 2 months the mechanical situation also cannot improve, it can only get worse, getting better is an impossibility. While they may make some gains on collecting the leaked oil, the structural situation cannot heal itself. It will continue to erode and flow out more oil and eventually the inevitable collapse which cannot be stopped will happen.

It is only a simple matter of who can "get there first"...us or the well.  We can only hope the race against that eventuality is one we can win, but my assessment I am sad to say is that we will not. The system will collapse or fail substantially before we reach the finish line ahead of the well and the worst is yet to come.

Sorry to bring you that news, I know it is grim, but that is the way I see it....I sincerely hope I am wrong. We need to prepare for the possibility of this blow out sending more oil into the gulf per week then what we already have now, because that is what a collapse of the system will cause. All the collection efforts that have captured oil will be erased in short order. The magnitude of this disaster will increase exponentially by the time we can do anything to halt it and our odds of actually even being able to halt it will go down.

The magnitude and impact of this disaster will eclipse anything we have known in our life times if the worst or even near worst happens...

 Take note. While it seems we can't get a straight story from our mainstream media, you now know what to look for. Should the remaining well structure collapse, we very well could see a worldwide pollution of the oceans as an unprecedented amount of oil gushes from that hole.

We are seeing the puny forces of man vs the awesome forces of nature.