Drill Baby Drill!

[Minor Axis]

Odd innit? We don't want to use food sources because it will make prices rise, yet we pay farmers not to grow crops so as to artificially drive up prices.

I forget. Wasn't there a peanut-based plastic developed by GW Carver?

Subsidies for farmers? I think there is lots of evidence for that. I'm not sure about peanut based plastic but as they are working on plant based oil, oil from which plastic comes from, I would not be surprised.

 

[Accountable]

list of products made from peanut​

by ​

george washington carver

http://www.tuskegee.edu/Global/story.asp?S=1107158
​

 

[hart]

Lots of substitutes being worked on. Some are all ready on the market. Ethanol for one. I'm sure someone will step forward to educate us on the evils of ethanol but based on what is happening in the Gulf, I'd say it jut became a better alternative. They are also working on developing a grass based ethanol which is important because it removes the argument that it is taking away a food source in the process of creating a fuel.

A food source for cows and such like....don't know many human grass eaters....just sayin'

 

[Minor Axis]

The food source people seem to worry about are for themselves.

It's official I think, the largest oil spill in U.S. history. World history? (don't know). As the leak continues for a month, this might be a pretty good example of why you want 1)effective regulations 2)environmental impact statements 3)effective independent oversight. I'm not implying that none of the things currently exist, I'm saying they need to be effective. You guys can tell me if I'm wrong, you know how I love "W", my impression is that under the Bush Administration they were handing out deep oil well drilling permits left and right. "Need a permit? Here ya go!"

 

[Minor Axis]

I just heard that Obama's approval rating for handling this spill is below W's for Katrina. My question is what should Obama have done that he did not do? JC.

 

[Accountable]

I just heard that Obama's approval rating for handling this spill is below W's for Katrina. My question is what should Obama have done that he did not do? JC.

Not sure. It certainly seemed like he was more engaged in the health insurance takeover bill than he was the oil spill. It seems like when real catastrophes hit, he disappears, when he should become more visible. I'm sure it's really nothing more than a question of style.

 

[Minor Axis]

The Gulf oil spill will be used to make political hay as it's all ready in work. Those people who thought that de-regulation, that Cheney and his secret meetings with oil executives, that the oil industry was allowed to write their own ticket was a good thing, might want to reconsider. And lets blame Obama for it!!

 

[Accountable]

As I understand it, it wasn't that regulations were removed, but that regulations in place weren't enforced.

 

[Tim]

As I understand it, it wasn't that regulations were removed, but that regulations in place weren't enforced.

That might be the case, but it doesn't give BP a free pass.

It would be like driving too fast on a rode that you know is never patrolled by the police, you get in an accident and then blame it on the police for not properly enforcing the law on that road.

A rule/law is still a rule/law whether it's enforced or not.

 

[Accountable]

That might be the case, but it doesn't give BP a free pass.

It would be like driving too fast on a rode that you know is never patrolled by the police, you get in an accident and then blame it on the police for not properly enforcing the law on that road.

A rule/law is still a rule/law whether it's enforced or not.

Absolutely. :nod::nod:

eta: and to carry the analogy further, if the speed limit is taken away, the driver is still responsible if he loses control and plows through a farmer's front door.

 

[hart]

People are looking for a scapegoat......but there is a difference between Katrina a, natural disaster wherein the government was suppose to respond first.....and an oil company mishandling drilling and containment and THEY being suppose to respond/fix it first.

Should the government take over the spill....maybe, but not w/o BP being FINANCIALLY responsible as much as we can get from the b*stards! I wanna see some BP executives' head roll. (maybe if they have hair their heads will sop some of the oil up)

 

[Accountable]

I predict (drumroll please) that

• BP will declare bankruptcy, leaving no corporation to pay the bill,
• the boardmembers will keep their millions,
• the top executives will get their contracted bonuses & find new jobs that pay enough to support small nations,
• many BP workers will continue working for whoever buys BP property & equipment,
• and the collateral damaged people of the gulf coast will lose their health insurance due to claims of severe hemorrhoids contracted as a result of being fucked up the ass.

and I'm an optimist.

 

[hart]

Well can't we, for humanitarian reasons, at least give those poor folks free Preparation H? Now that tax expenditure I can get BEHIND.

 

[Accountable]

Well can't we, for humanitarian reasons, at least give those poor folks free Preparation H? Now that tax expenditure I can get BEHIND.

That was ....................

painful.

 

[Minor Axis]

People I am posting today to apologize to you and specifically Retro and Kyle B for my ill informed defense of Obama and off shore oil drilling. Although I do blame the Bush Administration for getting the ball rolling, in essence Obama has whole heartedly endorsed deep water drilling until the disaster, and then he changed his mind to some degree. With my tail between my legs, I go now to ponder how much of my support Obama should get. BTW, no one put me on the spot, I just can't ignore it when I'm so off the mark. Now you can make your sarcastic comments Accountable. I'm waiting, I deserve it.

Here are some links for your reading displeasure:

http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2010...eepwater-wells-to-oil-companies-including-bp/

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/05/07/can-t-touch-him.html

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/46831

 

[Accountable]

People I am posting today to apologize to you and specifically Retro and Kyle B for my ill informed defense of Obama and off shore oil drilling. Although I do blame the Bush Administration for getting the ball rolling, in essence Obama has whole heartedly endorsed deep water drilling until the disaster, and then he changed his mind to some degree. With my tail between my legs, I go now to ponder how much of my support Obama should get. BTW, no one put me on the spot, I just can't ignore it when I'm so off the mark. Now you can make your sarcastic comments Accountable. I'm waiting, I deserve it.

Here are some links for your reading displeasure:

http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2010...eepwater-wells-to-oil-companies-including-bp/

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/05/07/can-t-touch-him.html

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/46831

Takes a big man to do that.

 

[Minor Axis]

Takes a big man to do that.

And I apologize to you Accountable, because I mispoke again. It's Allen who normally makes the sarcastic comments. I'm sure he'll chime in at some point.

 

[Meirionnydd]

The food source people seem to worry about are for themselves.

It's official I think, the largest oil spill in U.S. history. World history? (don't know). As the leak continues for a month, this might be a pretty good example of why you want 1)effective regulations 2)environmental impact statements 3)effective independent oversight. I'm not implying that none of the things currently exist, I'm saying they need to be effective. You guys can tell me if I'm wrong, you know how I love "W", my impression is that under the Bush Administration they were handing out deep oil well drilling permits left and right. "Need a permit? Here ya go!"

Just very quickly, the largest oil spill was in 1991 during the Gulf War, where the Iraqi's dumped crude oil into the Persian Gulf in order to foil any landing attempt by the Allies. Although, there is a chance that this may become the largest oil spill in history, sadly.

I predict (drumroll please) that

• BP will declare bankruptcy, leaving no corporation to pay the bill,
• the boardmembers will keep their millions,
• the top executives will get their contracted bonuses & find new jobs that pay enough to support small nations,
• many BP workers will continue working for whoever buys BP property & equipment,
• and the collateral damaged people of the gulf coast will lose their health insurance due to claims of severe hemorrhoids contracted as a result of being fucked up the ass.

and I'm an optimist.

There's been several scenarios circulating about what will happen to BP, since their stock value has been devastated in the past 2 months, there has been speculation about a takeover or merger with another oil/gas giant.

 

[Minor Axis]

It looks like the BP spill might be contained, finally!

Is this new technology? Had no one in the oil industry previously considered this scenario? I've not found anything regarding "new technology" so I'm puzzled as to why this has taken 3 months to accomplish. Were they manufacturing this new cap from scratch? My online searches have not revealed the answer.

BP is encouraged

 

[Minor Axis]

From the June7th Newsweek:

The blowout preventer looks like a five-story fire hydrant. It weighs 325 tons and costs $18 million. At the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, it sits on the ocean floor, a mile deep, reachable only by robotic submarines in the murky and freezing currents. By a complex series of valves and gaskets, the massive device is supposed to keep oil and gas from rocketing toward the surface and blowing up the oil rig and its crew of 126, which float on the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, about 50 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River. But the blowout preventer was breaking down.


On the afternoon of April 20, workers on the Deepwater Horizon rig noticed bits of rubber gurgling up through the pipe that connects the rig to the well. Not a good sign, thought Mike Williams, the chief electronics technician. But he says that his supervisor told him, in effect, no big deal.


That night, the diesel engines that power the rig’s electrical generators began to race and run wild. They were sucking in gas that was suddenly flowing up through the pipe to the well. “I’m hearing hissing. Engines are over-revving. And then all of a sudden, all the lights in my shop just started getting brighter and brighter and brighter. And then I knew, we were, something bad was getting ready to happen,” Williams told the CBS News show 60 Minutes. A three-inch-thick steel door blew off its hinges and flung him across the room. “And I remember thinking to myself, this, this is it. I am going to die right here.”


Down in the bunk room, Stephen Stone, a roustabout, was jolted awake by the explosion. “People were running from everywhere to the stairway to get to the next level, where the lifeboats were. But the stairway collapsed in a pile of rubble,” Stone told NEWSWEEK and other reporters. He ran back to his room to get a life jacket and his wedding ring, then groped through the debris of a collapsed ceiling, looking for a way out.


Stone and Williams both survived. Eleven of their mates did not. When the survivors got to shore, the rig operator asked them to sign a paper saying they had not suffered personal injuries. Stone says he refused.