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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: GUEST,number 6 Date: 04 May 10 - 08:54 AM "That mindset must change" so true .... and that means all of us .... not just the Tea Party, Palin, Obama, Dems, Reupublicans or whomever/whatever. $Corporate$ priority and influence over the government has to come to an end. biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Ron Davies Date: 04 May 10 - 08:21 AM What strikes me--don't think I've seen the point yet--is that in the US we have now had two disasters, in rather quick succession. Both caused by pressure from private industry to cut corners on safety in order to maximize profit. First the WV coal disaster. Massey CEO Blankenship has been quoted along the lines of "breaking federal law and regulations is unavoidable in the mining of coal". That mindset must change. And in the oil rig disaster, safety features which should have been in place were not. So now maybe the pendulum will start swinging back in public opinion--towards advocating more, not less, muscle in federal regulation. That would not be good news for the "Tea Party"--or dear Sarah. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Riginslinger Date: 04 May 10 - 07:59 AM Some say Obama wanted a spill: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/03/michael-brown-obama-wante_n_562004.html |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: mousethief Date: 03 May 10 - 10:54 PM Of course cows and other ungulates can eat grass growing on scrubland that can't be used for crops. But Noooooo. We feed them corn. Why? Because the cornglomerates spend a lot of money on politicians, because people want beef that's marbled just-so, because cows develop faster and can be marketed sooner when fed corn. And let's not talk about the methane. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Bobert Date: 03 May 10 - 10:46 PM Yeah, okay, so Saul... Who is at the top of your list for the gas chambers??? I mean, let's get friggin' real here... This is the palnet we have... This is the population we have... If anyone here in Mudburg thinks there are too many people then let's hear yer solution... BTW, Hitler also thought thewre wewre too many people: Jews... This is an immoral argument that does not deal with the realities that we Earthlings face... I would agree that population control should be a goal here but it isn't the entire story... We are a very wastefull planet and we are a very culturally steeped planet... Those two aspects can be dealth with alot easier than trying to limt the number of people... I mean, look at the energy that is wasted... I'd be willing to bet that we could cut our dependency on energy considerably by just adjusting our life styles... And where we work... And community/urabn planning... I mean, wy do we have to drive 20 miles to work??? That is stupid!!! (But, Boberdz, that is one of the cornerstones of the Cheney "Energy Policy"... You know, consume to yer heart's delight...) Well, that is some very messed up thinking... We don't have to consume so much energy.... We don't have to consume so many animals... We erally don't... Amino acids are the base of life and it is not required that we derive them from eating animals... Animals consume more amino acids and protiens to make one pound of food than if we just ate what we feed the animals!!! That's right... It takes 16 pounds of amino acids/proteins to make 1 pound of beef??? That's very messed up... Yeah, we have time to try to figure out how to control our populations but while we are at it the things that are alot easier, energy and food regulations, seem politically out-of-bounds??? B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: mousethief Date: 03 May 10 - 10:31 PM God's the one that told us to fuck like bunnies. Or how did He put it? "Be fruitful and multiply." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Riginslinger Date: 03 May 10 - 10:12 PM Hear, hear! I'm with you, Saul. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: GUEST,saulgoldie Date: 03 May 10 - 09:47 PM Energy costs resources: land, water, air, and people. Reduce the number of people or their energy appetites, and their will be fewer dead miners, less slimey oil where it shouldn't oughtta be, and less nuclear contamination. G-d didn't put so many people on this earth--we overbred--and didn't tell each of us to gobble up so much energy. Saul |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Riginslinger Date: 03 May 10 - 09:38 PM I guess you're right, Bobert. The only thing that's died from this so far is a bunch of fish, birds, and sea turtles. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 03 May 10 - 09:25 PM Not the first time blowout preventers failed in the Gulf- see my post of May 1. That smaller blowout in the Bay of Campeche took two rigs and nine months to seal off. Much loss of wildlife and destruction of fish and shellfish. High formation pressure, as was the case here, puts a hell of a lot of hydrocarbon up around the rig if systems fail; a spark (almost inevitable) can ignite it. Booms are of limited value; their volume is too small and winds disrupt their use. A diagram I saw on TV last night shows a large containment cylinder above the flow; from it oil can be drawn off into tankers. BP was considering installation. Efficiency was judged at not over 50%, however. BP operation in Gulf of Mexico: "BP is the leading operator in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. We are the biggest producer, the leading resource holder and have the largest exploration acerage position. "Thunder Horse is now the largest single producing field in the Gulf of Mexico [GOM]. ....it has enabled us to grow our GOM production from 240,000 bbl....in 2007 to more than 400,000 bbl....in 2009. "During the year we started production......Atlantis Phase 2, Dorado and King South. The Tiber discovery, a giant GOM find in 2009. The blowout occurred at yet another of these deepwater GOM prospects, another giant discovery. BP has replaced its reserves by 129% in 2009. Above from the Annual Report for 2009 (bp.com). These new discoveries are in poorly known deepwater and thick sediment areas, total depths some 35,000 feet. Some rethinking of the equipment and precautions needed seems necessary. If unexpected formation pressures are encountered at these great depths, current technology may not always be able to cope. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Bobert Date: 03 May 10 - 08:44 PM Sad, but true, mouse... Seems as if we're seein' a little of the previews here allready... But Obama ain't gonna let the tea baggers tea bag him on this one 'cause it's way too easy to turn around on them... Like 9/11 he's gonna get his way on alot of stuff over this... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: mousethief Date: 03 May 10 - 08:31 PM Now it's: Spin, baby, Spin. The Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks will try to make this out as Obama's fault. And the teabaggers, possessing no critical thinking skills at all, will lap it up like milk for their tea. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Alice Date: 03 May 10 - 08:29 PM Over 1800 people died from hurricane Katrina. This oil leak is an ecological disaster, but it is different than hurricane Katrina. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Bobert Date: 03 May 10 - 07:53 PM You have it completely wrong, Rigs... This is Obama's 9/11 and will provide him alot of cover to get some tough overdue regulations in place... Just as Bush used 9/11 in the opposite way... Katrine, this ain't... See Katrinagate thread for the real deal about the complete and utter failings of the Bush administration post 9/11 tpo put together the planning and resources to deal with a catastrope for which we knew how to deal with... Like I said, You are dead wrong here... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Amos Date: 03 May 10 - 07:47 PM Actually, as I understand it the emergency blow-out preventers were tested routinely ten days before the explosion and passed muster. From the looks of the explosion (see my link to images) a HUGE amount of force was unleashed. I am not sure anyone knows how the explosion occurred. In any case the whole prevention system was crushed or torqued past operation, it appears. If they're lucky they'll be able to drop some huge steel boxes on top of the well head and pump the oil out of them. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Riginslinger Date: 03 May 10 - 07:42 PM It sounds like Obama's Katrina is going to be worse than Bush's and Brownie's. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: beardedbruce Date: 03 May 10 - 07:40 PM " Despite plan, not a single fire boom on hand on Gulf Coast at time of oil spill By Ben Raines May 03, 2010, 12:09PM If U.S. officials had followed up on a 1994 response plan for a major Gulf oil spill, it is possible that the spill could have been kept under control and far from land. The problem: The federal government did not have a single fire boom on hand. But in order to conduct a successful test burn eight days after the Deepwater Horizon well began releasing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf, officials had to purchase one from a company in Illinois. When federal officials called, Elastec/American Marine, shipped the only boom it had in stock, Jeff Bohleber, chief financial officer for Elastec, said today. At federal officials' behest, the company began calling customers in other countries and asking if the U.S. government could borrow their fire booms for a few days, he said. A single fire boom being towed by two boats can burn up to 1,800 barrels of oil an hour, Bohleber said. That translates to 75,000 gallons an hour, raising the possibility that the spill could have been contained at the accident scene 100 miles from shore. "They said this was the tool of last resort. No, this is absolutely the asset of first use. Get in there and start burning oil before the spill gets out of hand," Bohleber said. "If they had six or seven of these systems in place when this happened and got out there and started burning, it would have significantly lessened the amount of oil that got loose." In the days after the rig sank, U.S Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry said the government had all the assets it needed. She did not discuss why officials waited more than a week to conduct a test burn. (Watch video footage of the test burn.) At the time, former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oil spill response coordinator Ron Gouguet -- who helped craft the 1994 plan -- told the Press-Register that officials had pre-approval for burning. "The whole reason the plan was created was so we could pull the trigger right away." Gouguet speculated that burning could have captured 95 percent of the oil as it spilled from the well. Bohleber said that his company was bringing several fire booms from South America, and he believed the National Response Center discovered that it had one in storage. Each boom costs a few hundred thousand dollars, Bohleber said, declining to give a specific price. Made of flame-retardant fabric, each boom has two pumps that push water through its 500-foot length. Two boats tow the U-shaped boom through an oil slick, gathering up about 75,000 gallons of oil at a time. That oil is dragged away from the larger spill, ignited and burns within an hour, he said. The boom can be used as long as waves are below 3 feet, Bohleber said. "Because of the complexity of the system and the obvious longer production time to build them, the emphasis is on obtaining and gathering the systems," he said. Bohleber said his company has conducted numerous tests with the Coast Guard since 1993, and it is now training crews on the use of the boom so workers will be ready when they arrive. " Mississippi Press, Shared - Birmingham, Shared - Huntsville, Top Stories |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: beardedbruce Date: 03 May 10 - 07:35 PM It seems to me that BP is acting in an appropriate manner, so far. "On Monday, BP said it would pay "all necessary and appropriate clean-up costs" from the disaster. Referring to the drilling rig that collapsed April 22 after a fire and explosion, causing the well it was drilling to leak, the company said: "BP takes responsibility for responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. We will clean it up." BP, which was leasing the Deepwater Horizon rig, has been working with an array of government agencies and private companies but has been unable so far to stop the flow of crude from the well. " From Amos's favortite news source "A device known as a blowout preventer, a towering stack of heavy equipment at the wellhead, 5,000 feet below the surface of the gulf, was supposed to seal the well quickly in the event of a burst of pressure, but it did not work when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded. " THAT is what needs to be looked at. This is the first time one has ever failed- but I do not know how many times they have been tested of activated. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: beardedbruce Date: 03 May 10 - 07:27 PM Bobert, Bobert, Bobert... " Remember the 1000 barrels a day??? BP had to know... " IT WAS THE COAST GUARD THAT SAID 1000 barrels originally. IT WAS THE COAST GUARD that revised it up to 5000 barrels, after NEW DATA came in. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Amos Date: 03 May 10 - 06:50 PM A series of dramatic on-site photos of the explosion and collapse of the rig. (BNET.com) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: mousethief Date: 03 May 10 - 05:31 PM LOL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: pdq Date: 03 May 10 - 03:04 PM "I wonder what all the dead sea turtles are going to cost them." Hard to tell there, Rigs. After all, in New Orleans many of them vote. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: gnu Date: 03 May 10 - 02:35 PM Amos... beneath the seabed? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Riginslinger Date: 03 May 10 - 02:32 PM I wonder what all the dead sea turtles are going to cost them. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Amos Date: 03 May 10 - 02:14 PM "BP is working on three possible solutions to stop the oil that is flowing from the bottom of the sea. First, the company is trying to repair the valve that was supposed to prevent the well from leaking. Hayward compared that operation to "conducting open heart surgery about 5,000 feet beneath the seabed." The company is also trying to drill a relief well parallel to the leaking one, but that could take three months. The fastest fix would be to place rectangular steel boxes, that weigh 74 tons, over the leaking pipe and then funnel the oil up to a ship. The boxes are expected to be on location next weekend. Napolitano said BP has seen some success in using underwater dispersants and will conduct a review of the method this morning. " (ABC) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Riginslinger Date: 03 May 10 - 10:31 AM Glad to see you're on top of this, troupe. Who gets culled and who doesn't is what they're discussing now down on the Arizona border. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 02 May 10 - 10:43 PM Oh - and "If you have a scum that doubles its area on a pond every day, it will take X days to fully cover that pond - size irrelevant. How many days will it take to cover half of the pond? X-1." If you have a scum that doubles its area on a pond every 1000 days, it will take X days to fully cover that pond - size irrelevant. How many days will it take to cover half of the pond? X-1000. You can do the population calculations yourself, with assumptions of just much land area on average to a person - and don't forget to allow space for food growth amd resource mining. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 02 May 10 - 10:40 PM 100! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 02 May 10 - 10:39 PM "Like it or not, our system (and theirs) is built on growth. OK, growth must be channeled to preserve our world, but the clock cannot be turned back. Small is no longer where it's at." Logically, since we cannot endure or even consider a stop or even limits to that growth, eventually it always leads to a dead end obliteration. And the 'growth' you refer to is 'exponential'. Year 1 total = year 0 total + x% of year 0 total Year 2 total = year 1 total + x% of year 1 total now what happens is that although the x% remains the same number in each year, when you compare it back to year 0 , the % of the year 0 expressed as a number climbs, slowly at first, then rapidly. If you have a desktop calculator, you can play with this yourself until you become convinced. If you have a scum that doubles its area on a pond every day, it will take X days to fully cover that pond - size irrelevant. How many days will it take to cover half of the pond? X-1. that's the power of uncontrolled exponential growth. No matter how small the % growth, eventually you just run out, and will always fill the entire space - and if you have a few billion years of 'future', the % need only be miniscule. For us to survive on earth, we only have 2 mutually exclusive options 1) Zero % growth. 2) population culling. The 'culling' will make space for future obsession with growth, and will either be 'Natural' or 'deliberately man induced'. The equation is also applicable to 'resources' needed - of any and all type. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: mousethief Date: 02 May 10 - 09:41 PM Surely there must be something in between going back to little grass shacks, and letting the gigacorporations ruin the planet as they see fit, so that a handful of obscenely rich people can get richer? Of course eventually if they keep dumping on the little people, the little people will wake up and we'll have another revolution, this time along the lines of the French or the Russians, rather than our quaint little dust-up in 1777. I hope it doesn't happen in my lifetime. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 02 May 10 - 09:16 PM Bobert, you mean our good friends in China, South Korea, Japan, Germany, don't have the same smear of problems? They do. China looks in some ways like the US run away development a hundred years ago. The main difference is that they have a government that can tell the average citizen where to go and what to do. They can push some industries (sometimes damaging the health of both workers and consumers) and hold back others. Their advantage is that their leaders can decide on a plan of action that they think is for the greatest good of China- in other words they channel and direct their capitalism and as a result have a consumer economy that is outstepping that of the West. So parts of the country are left behind- sooner of later they will catch up, but the young head for the city and the old folks and their ways die off. Like it or not, our system (and theirs) is built on growth. OK, growth must be channeled to preserve our world, but the clock cannot be turned back. Small is no longer where it's at. You can try to go back to that little grass shack in Kealakakua, Hawai'i, but the Big M has replaced the fish and poi. The little shack has been replaced by a Walmart. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: GUEST,number 6 Date: 02 May 10 - 09:10 PM "If anything, this is Obama's 9/11" That is good Bobert .... I agree. I only hope better decisions are made in the aftermath ... unlike the insane decisions made in that 'other 9/11' biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Bobert Date: 02 May 10 - 08:30 PM Exactly correct, Q... That is my point in observing that during the last 30 years the corporations have used mindless or badly mis-informned voters to vote in pro-corportae politicans who have made "regulation" some kind four letter word... And look where it has gotten US??? Cutting corners is the corporate way because in the short term it usually means more profits for Boss Hog and the Fat Cats... Problem is that the beginning of deregulation and the downward spiril of the average American worker can be graphed and they run paralell paths... In other words, the corporation lay off people to maximize profits and therefore leave a smlller workforce to do the same amount of work and then folks are surprised when shit ahppens??? I mean, this deregukation is a recipe for shit happening... Be in coal mines, airplanes, oil rigs, even our dumbass wars... It's no wonder that the US is slipping in just about every measurable category in comparasion to it's competitors... Life expectancy??? Down... Obesity??? Up... Unemplyement and underemployement??? Up??? Standard of living??? Down... Infant mortality??? Up... But, hey, we got NASCAR!!! (spit) B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 02 May 10 - 04:00 PM Not an excuse. See previous posts. The cost-cutting decisions were made before Bush and Obama set by the regulatory agency. Many people assumed that they were the right decisions, but cost-cutting in engineering decisions are based on statistics and the next one may be the "exception that proves...." and is a killer! Obama, Bush and their predecessors must base their decisions on the advice of the regulatory agencies in charge- they are not engineers or food safety or whatever specialists. If advice from the agencies that set and enforce the regulations is wrong, administrators get blamed when something occurs, but the howl from the public that the administrator is to blame is useless and clueless. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Bobert Date: 02 May 10 - 03:52 PM There is a major difference in not only attentiveness but action between Katrina and this spill... Only a true partisan trying to make political points based on mythology would try to lump the Obama administration's handling of this to the absolute mess that the Bush administartion made of Katrina... But the problem here is systemic in that since deregulations of the 90's the corportaion have (and continue) been given free reigns to "police" themselves... Same problem with the mine disater in Wes Virginia a couple three weeks ago... What we have here is the corportists calling too many of the shots... Think Golman Sacks, Halliburton, Blackwater, Exxon, BP... And the corportists are so scared that Obama will force regulations bacvk on their specfic industries that they are paying lots of $$$$ to lobbiest and PR firms to send a subtle message: Do you want big government in your life??? The phraseology is that "even a caveman" would shout an astounding , "NO!!!"... That is the problem and it's taken US 30 years to get to the point where the nation is in decline because profits have trumped good policy... So the oil industry (Google A.P.I.) here has spent a ton on money getting their point accross and that point is, in the words of my late father-in-law who was an A.P.I. lobbiest, "Don't worry, be happy"... Well, "Don't worry, be happy", in the words of Dr, Phil, ain't workin' for US... What will come out over the next few weeks is that BP was blowing smoke up the Obama's ass on how it had things under control and how little oil was actually leaking... Remember the 1000 barrels a day??? BP had to know... They knew the size of the well and the pressure... Ain't rocket surgery here when you have engineers who go to school to learn these kinds of things... Yet, until it became apparent that BP was blowin' smoke, there really wasn't much that the feds could legally do against BP... This ain't Katrina where there were clear opportunities for the feds to over-ride state and local goevrenments (again, Google National Response Plan)... This is a new ballgame for which their isn't a clear path... Katrina was easy compared to this because we had the resources, the laws and more importantly the knowldge and experience, to do recovery... So let's just leave this bogus claim that this oil; spill is Obama's Katrina where it belongs... On the trash heap... If anything, this is Obama's 9/11... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: GUEST,number 6 Date: 02 May 10 - 03:29 PM "If Obama made such a statement it was based on incorrect advice." come on Q ... I think we've heard that excuse before ... like in the previous administration. biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: mousethief Date: 02 May 10 - 03:27 PM How does Obama own this one? Because he was president while it happened? You might as well say he owns a flood. What Bush fucked up on with Katrina was not the fact that he let it happen -- he had no choice about that. It's the fact that FEMA was utterly worthless at responding to it. People were going hungry, sleeping rough, holed up in evacuation centers with insufficient supplies, etc. The Salvation Army got there tout de suite and started helping out immediately. Where was FEMA? The response that the government should have made was days or weeks late, and absurdly misguided. And of course the head of FEMA at the time, appointed by Bush, was a man who had absolutely no experience in emergency management at all, except that time when his daughter got a splinter in her finger and he found the tweezers and pulled it out. THAT is what Bush has on his record regarding Katrina. So. How do you respond to an oil rig blowing up? What should Obama be doing that he isn't? Please be specific. Write small. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 02 May 10 - 03:21 PM If Obama made such a statement it was based on incorrect advice. As noted in threads above, cost-saving decisions prevented use of state-of-the-art equipment in U. S. leased offshore wells, although it was installed in Norwegian and Brazilian leased areas; perhaps other areas but I have not looked this up. This is not the first giant field found by BP on their leases in the Gulf; perhaps they were lucky and the pressures encountered were not as great. (I am guessing here). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Riginslinger Date: 02 May 10 - 03:16 PM Yeah, Obama owns this one! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: GUEST,number 6 Date: 02 May 10 - 02:54 PM Of course Obama can't just go down there and fix the problem .... and the same goes with Bush during katrina ... but in such catastrophic and tragic events such as these just haveing and seeing their presence at the scene means a lot to the nation, if not the world. This current disaster regarding the oil rigs, and Katrina in regards to the levees ... both of such magnitude that seem incomprhensible on how to deal with ... well, there were warnings and concerns about both the rigs failing, and the levees failing. Do you really feel confident on Obama's statements on April 2nd that the rigs are so technically advance that they could not fail .. that we would never have to worry about or even conceive on having to clean up such an environmental mess ??? biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 02 May 10 - 02:34 PM Bobert is right on this one. Nothing could be done after the blowout preventer clamps failed. Even that would only have limited but not have stopped the flow from the high pressure formation that the drill encountered. Until rigs are in place to drill relief wells, the hydrocarbons will continue to flow. Three months may be insufficient time; the one in the Bay of Campeche took nine months, and the flow was smaller. Bseed is right that the US offshore wells lack the state-of-the-art "fail-safe" techniques. I believe this stupid decision by the regulatory agency pre-dates Cheney and Bush, but it should have been red-flagged and corrected regardless of the admin. in power. It was a cost-saving decision- these are often wrong. The Gulf is dotted with many wells, but when a 'giant' is encountered, the best equipment may not be enough. I spent my life in petroleum exploration; the many thousands of professional and technical workers make recommendations based on sound knowledge and experience, but some executives and politicians can override their cautions. I believe petroleum will remain important; in some 50 years much can be done to bring 'clean' energy sources into play, but energy is only part of what petroleum is used for. Look around you at all the plastic materials used to make much of our goods today- they can be replaced but mostly with other materials based on natural resources. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Bobert Date: 02 May 10 - 02:03 PM What exactly would you have expected Obama to do that he hasn't done, biLL??? Put on a diver's suit and plug it himself??? I mean, let's get real here... Yes, this is a major eco disaster... I find it amuzing, no, rather sad that alot of people hate the fed government and think it is incompetent but when something like this happens think that the federal governement has all these plans and resources at ahnd to deal with stuff that, frankly, is of a magnitude that none has ever had to deal with??? B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: GUEST,number 6 Date: 02 May 10 - 01:55 PM This will be one of the worst eco disasters since the Valdez. Obama has been slow to respond ... this has been spewing oil since when? ... April 21st .... The white House announced it will escalate its response to the spill on April 29th. Today on May 2nd (1 month btw after he stated oil rigs are safe)he decides to go down and see for himself. I gotta say the current administration certainly has a more efficient PR team the last one. Pointing the finger at BP and all that ... hey, up until this rig blew the oil companies where friends of big government. I guess they still friends since the white House has only put a temporary ban on off shore drilling. biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: pdq Date: 02 May 10 - 01:51 PM "I heard both of these on progressive radio, so I don't have print or internet sources to direct you to for verification..." The world according to KPFA? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: bseed(charleskratz) Date: 02 May 10 - 01:39 PM A couple of notes on things nobody above seems to have caught: 1. Rush Limbaugh suggested that since the disaster began on Earth Day, that "liberals" might be guilty of having sabotaged the platform to cause the disaster so people would turn against off-shore drilling. 2. During Cheney's still secret energy policy meetings at the start of Bush's presidency, Cheney assured oil companies drilling in U. S. waters that they wouldn't have to use the expensive "fail safe" well capping techniques that are standard on off-shore sites in the seas around the rest of the developed world. So BP's Gulf platforms are not so equipped. I heard both of these on progressive radio, so I don't have print or internet sources to direct you to for verification, but I the Limbaugh thing was a sound bite in his own voice and not someone saying he said it. Charles |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Bobert Date: 02 May 10 - 10:29 AM The problem here with folks trying to put Katrina around Obama's neck is that it isn't grounded in reality but rather partisn mythology... George Bush had to be forced to fly over New Orleans (3 days afterwards) before he understood that it really happened... That's a bad thing when the president thinks that what he is watching on TV and folks are telling him is like a fictional movie... Then his response was pathetic... After 9/11 he and his boys huffed and puffed about how his team had put together the "National Response Plan" (Google it up for laughs) that would protect Americans if the US had another disaster... Well, here we are, several years later still waiting to see exactly what was in that plan... No, reality is that Katrina called Bush's bluff... Fast forward to what the Obama administration has done and there is a world of difference... It has been involved since Day One, has sent 3 cabinet level people there and is engaged... Engaged, IO think, is the operative word here... Now, as for the spill itself and Obama's fig leaf to the right on off shore drilling??? You can take it to the bank that he ain't gonna play "The Decider" game that Bush played on Iraq... No, you'll see a change of course... Bush was in Eintsien's words, "Insane" because Bush "The Decider" was too inflexible to change his mind when he saw that things weren't working... Obama ain't gonna repeat a behavior expecting a different result... Like I said, you can take that to the bank... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 01 May 10 - 11:53 PM So spills cause Oil Rigs... O K . . . |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: GUEST,number 6 Date: 01 May 10 - 11:49 PM oil rigs don't cause spills well ... generally they don't cause spills. biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: GUEST,number 6 Date: 01 May 10 - 11:39 PM From a town hall meeting in South carolina on April 2nd ... the following is Obama's response when challenged that his "decision to allow offshore drilling could have the effect of chilling investment into alternate sources of energy." While recognizing that "energy efficiency and renewable, clean energy" is his "biggest priority," "I don't agree with the notion that we shouldn't do anything. It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn't come from the oil rigs, they came from the refineries onshore." BTW .... Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused 124 Offshore Spills For A Total Of 743,700 Gallons. Clean energy should be the biggest priority. Democrats or Republicans ... nothing has changed ... same old bar stool, same old beer, same old song playing in the juke box ... "drill, baby drill" biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spill, Baby, Spill... (Palin & oil spills) From: Bobert Date: 01 May 10 - 11:30 PM That ain't me... Ya' got the wrong guy... I don't know who he is but he's creepy... The Ms. Sarah pic on that page is hot, however, dontcha'll think??? I mean, she is a hottie... Dumb as a box of creek rocks but hot... B~ |
