The environment thread

[kapkomet]

An MBA and a CEO will save New Orleans!

Way to deflect the main point. That's all you guys can do. This guy cannot lead. Period. It shows every day he has a concert, plays basketball, goes to 20 fundraisers, all while screaming about "who's ass to kick" and "it's the most important thing I deal with every second of every day" (oh, was that jobs, or oil, or health care, or ...)

 

This man cannot lead. He's extremely imcompetent. And we're all seeing it right now.

[Texsox]

Way to deflect the main point. That's all you guys can do. This guy cannot lead. Period. It shows every day he has a concert, plays basketball, goes to 20 fundraisers, all while screaming about "who's ass to kick" and "it's the most important thing I deal with every second of every day" (oh, was that jobs, or oil, or health care, or ...)

 

This man cannot lead. He's extremely imcompetent. And we're all seeing it right now.

 

So you believe he should be on a ship in the gulf until this is finished?

[StrangeSox]

They have a reasonable gripe...BP is one of, if not the, most widely held company by British stock owners. Everyone in Britain is losing their retirement savings over this. And since its the shareholders and not the useless little people, it's even more important.

 

Blaming Obama for being mean to them is obviously stupid, even though he's the easiest target, but everyone in Britain has lost money in the BP Stock price meltdown.

 

I find it hard to have sympathy. BP was a transparently awful company, and investing in inherently risky.

[Texsox]

I find it hard to have sympathy. BP was a transparently awful company, and investing in inherently risky.

 

I look at it similar to Enron in that a lot of innocent people's lives are ruined. I find it easy to have empathy for that.

[kapkomet]

So you believe he should be on a ship in the gulf until this is finished?

 

Of course not. But he needs to show leadership and get the people in place to resolve the issue (oh wait, let me send Eric Holder and lawyers to sue... criminal investigations, etc... yea!!!!!!!, that will help resolve the crisis). But he has no clue who to send or what to do. Everything is reactionary, and he's doing NOTHING to get rid of the beauarcracy in place to get things moving toward a resolution.

[Balta1701]

Way to deflect the main point. That's all you guys can do. This guy cannot lead. Period. It shows every day he has a concert, plays basketball, goes to 20 fundraisers, all while screaming about "who's ass to kick" and "it's the most important thing I deal with every second of every day" (oh, was that jobs, or oil, or health care, or ...)

 

This man cannot lead. He's extremely imcompetent. And we're all seeing it right now.

GMAFB on that one. NBC made sure that they cut the article on his interview in a way that excluded the part where the interviewer asked something about "who's butt do you kick here"?

[Balta1701]

Of course not. But he needs to show leadership and get the people in place to resolve the issue (oh wait, let me send Eric Holder and lawyers to sue... criminal investigations, etc... yea!!!!!!!, that will help resolve the crisis). But he has no clue who to send or what to do. Everything is reactionary, and he's doing NOTHING to get rid of the beauarcracy in place to get things moving toward a resolution.

A finding of criminal negligence is 100% required by the law in order to be able to impose the $4300/barrel fine. If you don't want the DOJ in there, then all you're doing is protecting BP from a fine of a few tens of billions of dollars.

[Balta1701]

Which kind of makes me wonder, shouldn't this be a world wide response, not just a BP / US response?

Well, first point...it's in U.S. waters, it is a U.S. licensed rig, the U.S. owns the mineral rights, and the U.S. would be taking royalties on the oil that was sold. It is a U.S. problem involving a multi-national company that the U.S. licensed to do the drilling.

 

Second point; as I noted a few pages ago; other nations with expertise in these areas have offered help. The U.S. turned them down.

[Balta1701]

By the way, my new Senator had an abjectly embarrassing op-ed piece on energy in the WSJ yesterday. He gives a list of 10 things we ought to do on energy independence, titled "Energy independece for grownups".

5) Electrify half our cars and trucks. This is ambitious, but it is the best way to reduce U.S. oil consumption, cutting it by one-third to about 13 million barrels a day. A Brookings Institution study says we could electrify half our cars and trucks without building one new power plant if we plug in our cars at night.

 

6) Invest in energy research and development. A cost-competitive, 500-mile-range battery would virtually guarantee electrification of half our cars and trucks. Reduce the cost of solar power by a factor of four. Find a way for utilities to make money from the CO2 produced by their coal plants.

 

7) Stop pretending wind power has anything to do with reducing America's dependence on oil. Windmills generate electricity—not transportation fuel. Wind has become the energy pet rock of the 21st century and a taxpayer rip-off. According to the Energy Information Administration, wind produces only 1.3% of U.S. electricity but receives federal taxpayer subsidies 25 times as much per megawatt hour as subsidies for all other forms of electricity production combined. Wind can be an energy supplement, but it has nothing to do with ending our dependence on oil.

Raises hand...Uh, Senator? Your angry end statement in #7 contradicts your statement in #5.

 

ANd also...find a way for Utilities to make money from the CO2 produced by their coal plants? That's like asking why they haven't found a way to make money from nuclear waste.

[Balta1701]

 

Promotions during the games have been “scaled back.” Both teams, however, sent out press releases on Friday saying they stand with their corporate sponsor:

 

– Brooks Boyer, senior vice president of sales and marketing for the White Sox: “But just like we have tough seasons, our partners have tough times and we aren’t going to turn our back on our partners. We hope that in the coming years, the BP Crosstown Cup will be part of the social fabric of Chicago.”

 

– Cubs spokesman Kevin Saghy said: “We’re trying to stand behind our sponsor, but at the same time be respectful of what’s happening off the ballfield.”

[kapkomet]

A finding of criminal negligence is 100% required by the law in order to be able to impose the $4300/barrel fine. If you don't want the DOJ in there, then all you're doing is protecting BP from a fine of a few tens of billions of dollars.

 

Riiiiiiiiiiight, here we go again, I'm PROTECTING BP. Now really, who's protecting whom?

 

There's a time and place for the legal crap, and it's after they stop the damn oil from coming out of that pipe.

[kapkomet]

Well, first point...it's in U.S. waters, it is a U.S. licensed rig, the U.S. owns the mineral rights, and the U.S. would be taking royalties on the oil that was sold. It is a U.S. problem involving a multi-national company that the U.S. licensed to do the drilling.

 

Second point; as I noted a few pages ago; other nations with expertise in these areas have offered help. The U.S. Obama Adminstration turned them down.

[lostfan]

They have a reasonable gripe...BP is one of, if not the, most widely held company by British stock owners. Everyone in Britain is losing their retirement savings over this. And since its the shareholders and not the useless little people, it's even more important.

 

Blaming Obama for being mean to them is obviously stupid, even though he's the easiest target, but everyone in Britain has lost money in the BP Stock price meltdown.

Yeah, but that's BP's fault, not the U.S. government.

 

As I've said in here before BP is a pretty big part of my portfolio and it's in what'll eventually be my inheritance, and the value of those shares is just getting murdered right now. You don't see me b****ing that Obama is making BP look bad...? BP is doing a fine job of that.

Edited June 12, 2010 by lostfan

[lostfan]

Kap I don't know why you altered Balta's statement back there, it was just a couple of pages though that Balta posted where the Obama administration turned down help and then he said "this is the type of thing you should be kicked out of office for"

 

Criticism of the administration from the left has been pretty strong and consistent this whole time... I don't know why you guys like to bring things like that up like it's news to everybody and/or they're making excuses for it because that's not happening.

[Balta1701]

Riiiiiiiiiiight, here we go again, I'm PROTECTING BP. Now really, who's protecting whom?

 

There's a time and place for the legal crap, and it's after they stop the damn oil from coming out of that pipe.

Oh come on. When you have a crime scene, you don't let the suspect control the scene for 6 months even if they're paying for the cleanup.

[kapkomet]

Oh come on. When you have a crime scene, you don't let the suspect control the scene for 6 months even if they're paying for the cleanup.

Let's see, then. Instead of going up to the stage and beating the s*** out of someone, you do it silently and not make a big show of beating up the suspect. In this case, we can't do that, now can we? We have to "kick some ass" so that we can shut down the oil production in this country. The worse the spill is, the more people will get pissed off at oil companies. That's what Barackus the Great is counting on, and right now, they're willing to take the heat for that opportunity. That's exactly what this has become.

[Balta1701]

Let's see, then. Instead of going up to the stage and beating the s*** out of someone, you do it silently and not make a big show of beating up the suspect. In this case, we can't do that, now can we? We have to "kick some ass" so that we can shut down the oil production in this country. The worse the spill is, the more people will get pissed off at oil companies. That's what Barackus the Great is counting on, and right now, they're willing to take the heat for that opportunity. That's exactly what this has become.

 

And they blew up building 7 with demolition equipment.

[kapkomet]

 

And they blew up building 7 with demolition equipment.

 

If the administration would actually show some initiative (especially in the cleanup effort - i.e. rejecting international help, catoring to unions to keep state regulations in place while rejecting equipment), I might not be inclined to think that.

Edited June 12, 2010 by kapkomet

[Balta1701]

If the administration would actually show some initiative (especially in the cleanup effort - i.e. rejecting international help, catoring to unions to keep state regulations in place while rejecting equipment), I might not be inclined to think that.

I'm not even sure where the gratuitous shot at unions there comes from. Enlighten?

[mr_genius]

I'm not even sure where the gratuitous shot at unions there comes from. Enlighten?

 

I believe it's a reference to Obama not putting a temporary moratorium on the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (Jones Act), to allow foreign vessels to help with the cleanup.

[kapkomet]

I believe it's a reference to Obama not putting a temporary moratorium on the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (Jones Act), to allow foreign vessels to help with the cleanup.

 

 

Yes, and which, by the way, was lifted almost immediately by one George W. Bush in the aftermath of Katrina.

 

Here's the bottom line. You put aside the political favors and BS in a time like this. Somehow, our genius of a f***tard president hasn't figured that out yet.

[Texsox]

So what you are telling us Kap is you hated Obama before he was elected, hated him when he got elected, told us what a piece of crap he is, and now you are seeing things that confirm your claims.

[Balta1701]

Yes, and which, by the way, was lifted almost immediately by one George W. Bush in the aftermath of Katrina.

 

Here's the bottom line. You put aside the political favors and BS in a time like this. Somehow, our genius of a f***tard president hasn't figured that out yet.

Sorry Kap, but as you said in the Arizona thread, the law is the law. Lifting that law would be an illegal act. And we don't want to give the impression that we just vehemently enforce the laws regarding brown people regardless of the situation but then throw those laws out the window the moment we want to start doing some union-bashing, now do we?

[kapkomet]

Sorry Kap, but as you said in the Arizona thread, the law is the law. Lifting that law would be an illegal act. And we don't want to give the impression that we just vehemently enforce the laws regarding brown people regardless of the situation but then throw those laws out the window the moment we want to start doing some union-bashing, now do we?

 

Absolutely incorrect. I don't even have to go any further.

[StrangeSox]

 

Surf's Up!