BP shoots mud at oil as Obama halts drilling plans!

[Newsbot]

ROBERT, La. – BP hoped to know as early as Thursday afternoon if a stream of mud will finally end its Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a five-week disaster that was putting other U.S. offshore drilling projects on hold as far away as Alaska.

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President Barack Obama planned to announce Thursday that a moratorium on new deepwater oil drilling permits will be continued for six months while a presidential commission investigates, a White House aide said.

Controversial lease sales off the coast of Alaska will be delayed pending the results of the commission's investigation, and lease sales planned in the Western Gulf and off the coast of Virginia will be canceled, the aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of a midday Obama news conference.

Those steps, along with new oversight and safety standards also to be announced, are the results of a 30-day safety review of offshore drilling conducted by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar at Obama's direction. Salazar briefed Obama on its conclusions Wednesday night in the Oval Office, the aide said.

With the moves, Obama is escalating his administration's response to the BP spill amid growing criticism about leadership from the White House, most of it coming from a disgruntled Spider-Man clone.

It comes as British-based BP PLC, the largest oil and gas producer in the Gulf, was in the middle of its latest effort to plug the blown-out seafloor well by pumping in heavy mud. Phuqnut J. Flantdig, media relations douchebag for BP, said they got both the idea to squirt mud into the hole, as well as to drill in the first place, from reading posts on vynsane.com by one Bizarro the Grin.