winstonsmith

+ friends- friends
8,274 link karma
914 comment karma
send messageredditor for 4 years
what's this?

TROPHY CASE


ComboLinker
2010-05-13

Verified Email

Four-Year Club

reddit is a source for what's new and popular online. vote on links that you like or dislike and help decide what's popular, or submit your own!

Not 5,000 barrels a day. 70,000 barrels a day.

winstonsmith 6 points7 points 2 months ago[-]

https://preview.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126809525&sc=nl&cc=brk-20100513-1917

The volume of oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig may be at least 10 times higher than previously estimated, NPR has learned.

The U.S. Coast Guard has estimated that oil was gushing from a broken pipe on the Gulf floor at the rate of 5,000 barrels a day.

But sophisticated scientific analysis of seafloor video made available Wednesday by the oil company BP shows that the true figure is closer to 70,000 barrels a day, NPR's Richard Harris reports.

That means the oil spilling into the Gulf has already far exceeded the equivalent of the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker accident in Alaska, which spilled at least 250,000 barrels of oil.

The analysis was conducted by Steve Wereley, an associate professor at Purdue University, using a technique called particle image velocimetry. Harris tells Michele Norris that the method is accurate to a degree of plus or minus 20 percent. That means the flow could range between 56,000 barrels a day and 84,000 barrels a day.

Another analysis by Eugene Chiang, a professor of astrophysics at the University of California, Berkeley, calculated the rate of flow to be between 20,000 barrels a day and 100,000 barrels a day.

Even the most conservative of those estimates is much higher than what the Coast Guard has so far said.

But the pipe is spewing both oil and gas and it's not clear in the BP video how much is oil and how much is gas.

BP disputes these results, and maintains there is no reliable way to calculate the flow of oil from a broken pipe.

But, Harris said, the uncertainty could be reduced if BP would share more information with the scientists.

US citizen faces a lifetime of solitary confinement in a Colorado supermax prison for a conviction based on a confession tape OBTAINED UNDER TORTURE in Saudi Arabia. Evidence of torture was not allowed to be presented at trial.

winstonsmith [S] 30 points31 points 2 months ago[-]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AhmedOmarAbu_Ali:

Pretrial hearings

Abu Ali went to trial in the fall of 2005. The government's evidence was focused on a detailed confession Abu Ali had made while in Saudi custody. Abu Ali challenged the admissibility of the confession, claiming: (1) the confession was involuntary due to alleged torture he had suffered at the hands of the Saudis; and (2) he should have been given certain constitutional protections (including Miranda warnings), because the interrogations were a joint venture between the FBI and Saudi authorities, rather than a purely Saudi interrogation, which would not have been subject to the same scrutiny under the U.S. Constitution.

After an extended pre-trial suppression hearing, in which Abu Ali himself testified,[9] Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, who presided over the case, ruled that Abu Ali's confession to Saudi agents was admissible.[10][11]

Abu Ali’s testimony regarding his torture

Abu Ali testified that on the first day, his interrogators asked him whether he knew specific people and whether he knew about bombings in Riyadh. At one point, his blindfold was taken off. Abu Ali said he then saw the bruised face of a man through a window in the door to the room. The man was asked if he knew Abu Ali, and he shook his head no, then was taken away. Abu Ali was not fed this day. The Saudis hit him, slapped him, punched him in the stomach, and pulled his beard, ears, and hair. He was not allowed to use the bathroom, even when Abu Ali asked to wash up for prayers. The next day, the Saudis continued hitting him. At one point, he was taken from the chair in which he was sitting, and his handcuffs were handcuffed to a chain or other handcuffs in the floor, leaving him with his knees to his chest on the ground, hunched over with his head on his fists, and his feet shackled. Then someone began to strike him on the back and to yell, “confess!” He does not know what he was hit with, or how many times. Although he was blindfolded, Abu Ali said he could hear four different voices in the room, and that he thinks he was assaulted by only one person. Abu Ali said it was “very painful” and that it was the “first time I felt extreme pain.” While he was being hit on the back, people in the room kept telling him to “confess.” When the beating began, he was clad in an undershirt and long underpants. At one point, his undershirt was torn off and he was struck on his bare back. Eventually, Abu Ali told them he would cooperate. The beating stopped, and he was taken back to his cell.[12]

Marks on Abu Ali’s back

There were several marks on Abu Ali’s back which the defense presented as physical evidence that Abu Ali had been tortured. The prosecution claimed that these marks were not the result of torture but merely “pigment discolorations.”

The defense expert was Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture. Dr. Keller physically examined Abu Ali and said that he observed about seven to ten scars on Abu Ali’s back which evince scars from the whipping Mr. Abu Ali claims he suffered during interrogation in Medina.

The government expert was Dr. Robert Katz, a dermatologist. He did not physically examine Abu Ali but viewed photographs that the court had taken. Dr. Katz stated that, in his opinion, the marks depicted on Abu Ali’s back in the photograph were not scars, but “pigment discolorations.”

The judge sided with the prosecution. [12]

view more: next