The environment thread

[kapkomet]

And because of BP's attitude on this and other enviromental f***-ups being similar to yours, the feds are now considering barring BP from at least all future new contracts for drilling, and possibly a complete barring from all gov't contracts at all, which would be devastating to the company.

 

Ahh, there's the socialism we all know and love.

 

But wait, someone else will drill it. Chinese Oil LTD. We can just buy it from them.

[NorthSideSox72]

Ahh, there's the socialism we all know and love.

 

But wait, someone else will drill it. Chinese Oil LTD. We can just buy it from them.

Socialism? Actually its capitalism. The US as a customer of BP's has decided they are done getting screwed, so they are going to go to their competitors.

 

[kapkomet]

Socialism? Actually its capitalism. The US as a customer of BP's has decided they are done getting screwed, so they are going to go to their competitors.

 

 

You don't say?!?

 

Maybe all this is a conspiracy to make Exxon bigger.

[Balta1701]

50, no 100, no, 1,000 EXXON's! No, wait, this just in... 10,000! OMG!

And you don't even take a second to think "Why don't we have an exact number" yet?

 

Because, in the Exxon-Valdez legal case, the amount of oil that was spilled was a major argument against Exxon.

 

BP has zero interest in telling how much oil there actually is spilling. It's probably about an Exxon every 3-4 days by the most believable estimates I've seen.

 

But...BP isn't going to measure something that would cost them money unless they're required to. If they did, then that number could be used against them in court.

 

So...exactly as you'd want, BP is protecting itself. And of course, you try to insult me for this since I can't give a perfect estimate, and if I said "The government should measure it" (They should) then you'd scream "Socialism!"

 

Whatever anyone says or does...assumption #1 for you...BP's the good guy.

[southsider2k5]

Frankly though, leaving BP in charge and responsible reminds me of the exact mistake 2k5 was saying wasn't a problem in 2005...to little centralized control.

 

When you have a multi-state disaster like this, almost any organization you name other than the federal government is going to wind up doing a crappy job of organizing the response, because no one else can marshal all of the available resources.

 

In 2005, FEMA tried to leave things to local control, and you wound up with no law enforcement agency knowing what the other was doing, you wound up with people on bridges around NOLA shooting people trying to escape, you wound up with no coordination of evacuations or even of getting supplies in. It was "state's rights" in a disaster scenario; every local organization was overwhelmed. That's exactly the point that you need a national organization...someone that can take a call from a local sheriff who has 50 people trapped on rooftops and then send that information to the U.S. military who happens to have landing craft in that area, and then tell the military to take them to the emergency hospital being established somewhere 50 miles away. (Of course, the very notion that national control in 2005 might have been a benefit was challenged here quite vehemently when I argued it then).

 

In this one, you could have a central organization coordinating boats to calculate the magnitude of the spill, the directionality of it, monitoring where the currents are going, making sure that boats you take control of have appropriate safety equipment (btw, I can all but guarantee you that the taxpayers will wind up covering the fishermen's health care costs in some way), making sure the fishermen you take control of have access to some sort of payment so their families can eat, making sure you have a coherent plan for control boom deployment (it's been incredibly haphazard, especially in the areas where oil is now making landfall), perhaps even coming up with radical plans for removal like burning effected marshlands, making sure that the chemical dispersants used were the most effective ones possible, saying "let's do all we can to plug this thing and we'll take the liability if it fails", etc.

 

 

 

The fun part is actually going back and reading the Katrina threads...

 

How much it would have saved is debatable. The original intent was to always secure the levees to withhold a category 3 storm, it was decided in either 97 or 98 I believe that it wouldn't be cost effective to try to make the levees secure for a category 5 storm. I wonder what the difference would have been, because the basic underlying problems still would have exisisted, and that is the incompetent response of every layer of government in this disaster.

 

Who knows what formula they use. If you stop and think about it, right now there are literally thousands of things that people are making studies of, and reporting that if this isn't fixed, some fatal flaw could lead to people dying, and all that it would take it a bunch more funding to fix it. The problem is deciding which projects are truely the most important with whatever cost/risk analysis they are doing right now.

 

I'll tell you one thing, if I am somewhere like LA on the west coast, I am screaming my head off right now for more funding to prevent the samekind of disasterous response after an earthquake. It will be interesting to see if we see a shift into more funding of preventative maintence towards natural disasters, or if we see the same see-no-evil philosophy that has been prevelent in our government for decades.

 

The ironic thing is dispite the supposed heirarchy outlined in that quote, there is still a power struggle going on between the Governor and the President over who is going to direct operations, which is dividing resources and personel, and I am sure that isn't helping to end all of the confusion. Heck it even took until yesterday for the mayor to order out all of the remaining people in New Orleans... why did that take so long? Why are there still 3 layers of government giving orders and directing operations? And we wonder why there is still a mess of things down there... There needs to be one group in charge, and everyone else needs to work for that group, and out of the three layers of government, FEMA is the closest thing to being ready for this, dispite their response so far. Once again everyone is so busy trying to look like their care and are doing the right thing in front of the cameras, that they people are suffering for it. This is a big enough mess by itself, 3 different responses to it are too many cooks in the kitchen.

[kapkomet]

And you don't even take a second to think "Why don't we have an exact number" yet?

 

Because, in the Exxon-Valdez legal case, the amount of oil that was spilled was a major argument against Exxon.

 

BP has zero interest in telling how much oil there actually is spilling. It's probably about an Exxon every 3-4 days by the most believable estimates I've seen.

 

But...BP isn't going to measure something that would cost them money unless they're required to. If they did, then that number could be used against them in court.

 

So...exactly as you'd want, BP is protecting itself. And of course, you try to insult me for this since I can't give a perfect estimate, and if I said "The government should measure it" (They should) then you'd scream "Socialism!"

 

Whatever anyone says or does...assumption #1 for you...BP's the good guy.

 

 

Really? No s***? I've said that? Wow.

 

What I have made fun of at every moment of anything you post is the convincing of every conceivable angle to make you right, and then the waffling that takes place when the issue changes.

 

I have not ONCE said that BP is a "good guy" here.

 

I also think it's interesting to note the mocking that takes place when anyone that opposes a belligerint, grandiose government that says they should be involved here. No one has EVER said ANYWHERE that there's not a role, and a potentially rather large one in cases like this. Yet, the comparisons of Katrina and GWB SUCKS vs. Obama is just wonderful points out the hypocrasy oozing from every liberal pore. In both cases, the government was caught with their pants down, only in one case, people were told to get the f*** out three days beforehand, but I digress.

 

As I've said, and others have as well, no one knows what to do because this has never happened before. No one likes it, except maybe to say "OH OH OH I WAS RIGHT, WHAT A DISASTERRRRRR" I keep seeing pointed out over and over again.

[bmags]

I can't wait until the government takes over kaps job.

[StrangeSox]

The fun part is actually going back and reading the Katrina threads...

 

 

 

[/b]

 

Great work.

 

Balta, you can't excuse government ineptitude in either case. Neither the various government agencies nor BP were equipped and ready to handle this situation.

 

[Balta1701]

Balta, you can't excuse government ineptitude in either case. Neither the various government agencies nor BP were equipped and ready to handle this situation.

I'm not.

 

In the Katrina case...the government ineptitude was because the people in charge didn't care one bit about FEMA, and used it as a place to put their college roommates.

 

In this case...the government ineptitude comes from the exact same place that it comes from in the financial crisis...the business world has no interest in dealing with a qualified review and oversight process, so they have bought off the process.

[southsider2k5]

I'm not.

 

In the Katrina case...the government ineptitude was because the people in charge didn't care one bit about FEMA, and used it as a place to put their college roommates.

 

In this case...the government ineptitude comes from the exact same place that it comes from in the financial crisis...the business world has no interest in dealing with a qualified review and oversight process, so they have bought off the process.

 

lol. Either way it is the Republicians fault, and that is what is important here.

[Y2HH]

I don't think it's valid to compare Katrina and this. Though both are disasters, one of them was an "act of God", and the other was something we allowed a company to do, only out of what appears to be ineptitude or carelessness, they didn't follow proper safety procedure and this occurred.

 

Blaming republicans or democrats in this case is just stupid. This is BP's fault, or whoever BP hired to drill and maintain this rig. One of the underlying factors/risks of doing such drilling all falls on BP, IMO, since they're the ones that reap the rewards out of said risks.

 

Also of side note, those of you who rated me as a 1 star out of 5 stars poster , this is something I just noticed in my profile!

[southsider2k5]

I don't think it's valid to compare Katrina and this. Though both are disasters, one of them was an "act of God", and the other was something we allowed a company to do, only out of what appears to be ineptitude or carelessness, they didn't follow proper safety procedure and this occurred.

 

Blaming republicans or democrats in this case is just stupid. This is BP's fault, or whoever BP hired to drill and maintain this rig. One of the underlying factors/risks of doing such drilling all falls on BP, IMO, since they're the ones that reap the rewards out of said risks.

 

Also of side note, those of you who rated me as a 1 star out of 5 stars poster , this is something I just noticed in my profile!

 

Honestly I think you are right in a sense, but not the one you described. The Bush admin at least tried to respond, no matter how badly they did. This is WAY worse, because the Obama admin is actually refusing to respond to this.

[mr_genius]

Honestly I think you are right in a sense, but not the one you described. The Bush admin at least tried to respond, no matter how badly they did. This is WAY worse, because the Obama admin is actually refusing to respond to this.

 

BP paid a lot of bribe money to Obama in the past. He's just coming through on his part of the deal.

[southsider2k5]

BP paid a lot of bribe money to Obama in the past. He's just coming through on his part of the deal.

 

According to Balta, that is exactly how he wants it too.

[Balta1701]

BP paid a lot of bribe money to Obama in the past. He's just coming through on his part of the deal.

So, from now on, you both will agree with me 100% of the time that pro-oil company policies are entirely driven by who gets the most money from them, and we shouldn't be voting for the people the oil companies support after this disaster? Great, I'll be thrilled to see you both voting Democrat this fall.

 

 

John McCain ® $2,402,937

Barack Obama (D) $898,251

 

Or, does campaign funding only influence Democrats?

 

[mr_genius]

So, from now on, you both will agree with me 100% of the time that pro-oil company policies are entirely driven by who gets the most money from them, and we shouldn't be voting for the people the oil companies support after this disaster? Great, I'll be thrilled to see you both voting Democrat this fall.

 

 

John McCain ® $2,402,937

Barack Obama (D) $898,251

 

Or, does campaign funding only influence Democrats?

 

I'm sure McCain would be doing the same thing. Both are paid for. Anyways, when you just count BP alone, Obama got the most bribes.

 

 

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36783.html

 

BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama

Edited May 26, 2010 by mr_genius

[Y2HH]

So, from now on, you both will agree with me 100% of the time that pro-oil company policies are entirely driven by who gets the most money from them, and we shouldn't be voting for the people the oil companies support after this disaster? Great, I'll be thrilled to see you both voting Democrat this fall.

 

 

John McCain ® $2,402,937

Barack Obama (D) $898,251

 

Or, does campaign funding only influence Democrats?

 

Since republicans are pro-oil, it would make sense for them to get such contributions.

 

People like Obama, who claim to hate big oil, yet take money from them on the other hand...

 

You have to keep that in mind...you may disagree with McCain for taking oil money in an industry he believes in, but it's worse that Obama is a hypocrite in that he claims to dislike big oil, yet they're money is a-ok with him.

[Balta1701]

but it's worse that Obama is a hypocrite in that he claims to dislike big oil, yet they're money is a-ok with him.

less than 2 months ago Obama was defending big oil and saying that there really was no risk to drilling offshore. Using the Republicans own lie about there being no oil spills after Katrina/Rita to do it.

[NorthSideSox72]

Meanwhile, you are all patting each other on the back for thinking that this is about Obama protecting BP... and ObamaCo is ratcheting up talk of major debarrment of BP from government contracts, which would be a giant problem for BP.

 

Both those numbers, McCain's and Obama's, come from the same s***ty data sourcing - the idea that individual contributors who work for companies are necessarily doing so with any relationship to the company. All that data is garbage, whether used against D's or R's.

 

I think you will see the Feds to not a complete debarrment (due to the heavy defense industry reliance on BP), but one that basically stops all new BP drilling and extraction efforts in the US, and removes all contracts for work on federal lands, and probably throws in some serious fines and other penalties.

 

[NorthSideSox72]

less than 2 months ago Obama was defending big oil and saying that there really was no risk to drilling offshore. Using the Republicans own lie about there being no oil spills after Katrina/Rita to do it.

Obama said nothing of the sort. Further, the "Republicans" didn't say that either, one or two SPECIFIC ones did.

 

[StrangeSox]

Vote Democrat -- we're corporate shills, too, but we're a fraction of an inch better!

[Balta1701]

Obama said nothing of the sort. Further, the "Republicans" didn't say that either, one or two SPECIFIC ones did.

Saying that modern oil rigs are safe and that there was no spill from rigs during Katrina and Rita is a bald-faced, multiply repeated lie.

[Jenksismyhero]

Don't worry everyone, we know who's fault this is. That mother f***er Bush

[Balta1701]

I found this post/email to be accurate.

[bmags]

posting this just to have different opinions.

 

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/...#more?ref=fpblg