Oh the Irony

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

WSJ opinion page had an interesting piece today about how subsea currents mean there will likely be a ton of oil below the surface in the region for quite some time, if not all the way over in Europe. I can post if interested.

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Ha, the Brits get it all back

BP withheld scope of the spill. A "duh" type of statement, but now there is video and interview proof.

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Coast Guard officials told ABC News that BP refused to allow them to release the more startling images, arguing they were proprietary.

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Originally Posted by Being

Does it speak to the need for personal responsibility?

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

No, it doesn't advocate lynching.

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Besides Hayward being a massive failure in PR, he was supposedly hired to BP with a promise to improve safety. His public statements show he was just paying lip service. He supposedly has the "full support of the board of directors" but shareholders are beginning to balk.

Firing his ass, terminating his contract, and clawing back some of his personal profits might be a step in the right direction toward holding CEOs personally responsible for their 'trickle down' destruction.

That's not lynching. Don't misuse the word lynching that way (like you do the word militant).

:donkey:

I just saw the new BP tv commercial, starring Hayward. I think they should have left out the part about "thousands of BP employees live here so we share your pain" angle. It shouldn't matter where they live or whose oceans they're fouling, just that they are.

But then I learned they've hired a PR consultant who used to be Dick Cheney's aide....

If a picture is worth a 1,000 words, whats a video worth?
This short clip (after commerical) carries a much stronger message than the Boston still images.

Hey! Let's drill volcanoes for geothermal power!

Finally, the truth behind all those failed attempts to plug the pipe

Spoiler:

http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/8...39_umVwa-L.jpg

My ex has family in Guff Shores, Alabama. His brother is owner/operator of a souvenir type shop, wife is a hotel bookkeeper. They have tar balls on the beaches now, and business is way slow. :(

What do you people think of the search engines (google, bing, yahoo) accepting payment from Bp to have their web site be at the top of certain searches?

Worded another way, what do you think of Bp paying search engines to have their name appear first?

I could have swore I psoted this already tonight, but its late and I've been in the sun all day. Maybe it ended up in another thread by accident...

http://imgur.com/3nVaI.jpg

Oh the Irony. :(

Some of these boycotts and protests seem to be taking off. It's a strange thing though, since many BP stations are independently owned and operated, and the gas may or may not come from Bp.....

BP also owns Arco Aluminum, and that means canned sodas and energy drinks, etc. They also own/sell asphalt paving material, and that means municipal roads, state roads, federal highways, and private driveways.

Also, millions of retirees, pension funds, and 401-Ks have stock in Bp, and need that dividend. It might sound like a nice sound byte to say they shouldn't spend 10 billion on dividends, but the hard truth is millions rely on that.

Just like Gulf coast relies on the oil business for their economy and off-shore drilling just as much as they do tourism and fishermen.....

:(

refineries commonly sell products between brand names, its nearly impossible to boycott BP.

But but the invisible hand of the free market :(

The Internet libertarian movement :(

Everyone right of the center in Amurika :/

Not sure whether somebody posted this. Only checking this thread intermittently.

Hey now, they care a little bit about their image. They are dropping $50 million on ad propaganda, before they are even able to stop the damn thing from leaking. While at the same time ignoring the order to pay for the dredging projects

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Originally Posted by Nessus

But but the invisible hand of the free market :(

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The invisible hand of the free market is usually around the invisible dick of the free market, stroking it to climax. Ignoring this fact is what causes people to blindly maintain that free markets should have no checks and balances, while at the same time insisting that governments desperately require checks and balances. Not sure how this contradiction is so easily maintained in peoples' minds.

Kind of like your insistence that you support free markets?

Yup, as long as there are checks and balances. It's far, far better than any planned economy.

I've been saying this exact thing as long as I've been posting in CC. The message has never changed.

By checks and balances, you mean regulations that inevitably end up favoring the largest companies, raise entry costs, and generate corruption and other unwanted side-effects?

No bias showing there, Loki.

More footage of BP's destruction and death

Just a realistic assessment of what most regulations do.

I'll take your remarkably negative and biased assessment over the true unfettered free market, Mr. Friedman. We have Russia and China as examples of markets run amok. Long live burning rivers!

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Originally Posted by Loki

Kind of like your insistence that you support free markets?

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Its like with militias, they're not all that sane unless they're well regulated by the government. ;)

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Originally Posted by ']['ear

I'll take your remarkably negative and biased assessment over the true unfettered free market, Mr. Friedman. We have Russia and China as examples of markets run amok. Long live burning rivers!

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Hey, I'm sitting less than a mile from a river that used to burn occasionally. :downcast: Government regulations ruined that spectacle before I ever got a chance to see it though. :(

I'm so sorry. Clearly you would have benefited from the sight, eh? ;)

That's actually a good example. People who bitch about too much government regulation should not direct their ire at the regulators or those who supported regulations. Their anger should be directed at the executives whose selfish decisions made such regulation necessary. Doubtlessly the same will be true for the oil industry in year to come, as they whine about "unfair and wrongheaded regulations on off-shore drilling." Let's remember who is to blame, OK?

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Machine Could Separate Oil and Water in Gulf Spill

We all know that oil and water don't mix. A company called EVTN has turned that fact into a business.

EVTN makes something called a Voraxial Separator. John DiBella, COO of EVTN, says the Voraxial Separator, or perhaps 20 of them, should be deployed on ships in the Gulf of Mexico, in response to the BP oil spill.

The Voraxial Separater is a machine that comes in several different sizes and can separate large volumes of oil and water, or liquids and solids, at a rapid rate. (Watch video below for further explanation.)

It can be situated on land, near the shoreline, or out at sea. It is routinely used at refineries and in mining operations. The machine uses centrifugal force to separate the lighter oil from the heavier water. The oil can be collected; the clean water can be returned to the ocean.

EVTN started out as a high-precision manufacturer building the gyro platforms for the Hubble space telescope. The company invested its profits and developed the Voraxial Separator.

DiBella claims the device could be far more effective in cleaning up the spill than BP's fleet of skimmers. By his calculations, 20 Voraxial Separators could process more than 10 times the amount of oily water now being processed by more than 90 boats.

Initially, EVTN submitted all its information to BP and got a form letter response. Now things are looking up; they've gotten a follow-up letter saying BP is evaluating their technology.

DiBella says that no matter what happens with BP, the company will proceed on its own. "We want to go to New Orleans to demonstrate our technology to the Parish Presidents. We're in the process now of putting a machine on a vessel and deploying it. We want to show our stuff, and show it can work," DiBella says.

The odd thing, he says, is that BP has already used a Voraxial, on an oil spill in Trinidad. That doesn't seem to have sped up the process. But DiBella is hopeful they will get BP's or the government's attention, saying, "It's a crime what's happening right now out in the Gulf."

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http://www.cnbc.com/id/37559859

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Originally Posted by ']['ear

I'm so sorry. Clearly you would have benefited from the sight, eh? ;)

That's actually a good example. People who bitch about too much government regulation should not direct their ire at the regulators or those who supported regulations. Their anger should be directed at the executives whose selfish decisions made such regulation necessary. Doubtlessly the same will be true for the oil industry in year to come, as they whine about "unfair and wrongheaded regulations on off-shore drilling." Let's remember who is to blame, OK?

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The regulations were in place. They weren't enforced. Whose fault is that? The oil industry's? The nefarious free market's?

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Originally Posted by Loki

The regulations were in place. They weren't enforced. Whose fault is that? The oil industry's? The nefarious free market's?

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In part, certainly. And the folks who believed industry would regulate itself and so had regulatory agencies doing nothing for eight years. And good old fashioned Greed. Money talks, yo. Free speech innit?

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

In part, certainly. And the folks who believed industry would regulate itself and so had regulatory agencies doing nothing for eight years. And good old fashioned Greed. Money talks, yo. Free speech innit?

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Riiight, that's the reason no one enforced regulations. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Loki

Riiight, that's the reason no one enforced regulations. :rolleyes:

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Care to make an actual argument? Pick a regulation you know wasn't enforced and explain why you think it wasn't. :coffee:

Only after you explain why people criticize Israel's human rights violations but no one else's. Tit for tat, free markets, Anal Smith!

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Originally Posted by Nessus

Only after you explain why people criticize Israel's human rights violations but no one else's. Tit for tat, free markets, Anal Smith!

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but but - you guys were always bitching about the US torturing people. Gitmo, and



wait, Anal Smith? :haha:

If Dread doesn't post tonight, its likely because he had another aneurysm



Also, a neat little chart

Spoiler:

http://imgur.com/yKBXC.jpg
BP, 37 percent
Topped the chain of command on the Deepwater Horizon rig. Took risks to lower costs. Cut corners on testing cement. Failed to implement safety measures like an acoustic switch. Misled about its ability to prevent spills in deep water. Overruled crew objections on day of explosion. Grossly underestimated the rate of the spill.

Minerals Management Service, 11 percent
Long history of cozy relationship with oil and gas industry, including a busy revolving door. A "culture of ethical failure," [PDF] according to the Interior Department's inspector general, including scandals involving sex, drugs, and gifts from regulated corporations. Allowed oil and gas companies to set safety standards and procedures. Cut back number of safety inspections. Regularly granted oil companies exemptions from environmental studies. Top management overruled objections from staff biologists and engineers about safety and environmental impact. Let oil companies evaluate own performance, and even turn in reports written in pencil that MMS staffers would then trace over in pen. Failure to collect billions in royalties from oil companies -- "a jaw-dropping example of bureaucratic bungling," the inspector general says. Read more about MMS corruption and incompetence.

Barack Obama, 9 percent
Failed to make sweeping changes across the Interior Department and at the Minerals Management Service specifically, though it was clear from that start of his tenure that the agencies badly needed reform. (He's finally acting now.) Too deferential to BP on estimates of the disaster's scale, on cleanup, and on use of dispersants. Too slow in projecting a "take charge" image and getting cleanup moving. Too slow in using the disaster to call for real reform of our energy system (though he is now finally doing so).

George Bush & Dick Cheney, 9 percent
Pushed more, more, more drilling -- offshore, onshore, everywhere. Staffed MMS with industry-friendly cronies and allowed it to become a "candy store" for oil and gas companies. Failed to reform MMS even when corruption scandals erupted. Hacked away at regulatory structure across the board, clearing the way for industry to do what it pleases.

Congress, 5 percent
Weak oversight of regulatory agencies like MMS. Failure to require cutting-edge safety measures, such as acoustic switches. Ongoing support, including tax breaks and incentives, for offshore drilling. Insufficient support for alternative sources of energy. Failure to pass effective and meaningful legislation to reform energy system.

Transocean, 2 percent
In charge of operation of rig, meaning that failure of any equipment, including blowout prevents, was its responsibility. Rig crew may have missed warning signals before explosion. Has vague emergency procedures.

Halliburton, 3 percent
Possible contamination of cement used to seal well at Deepwater Horizon rig. Possible leak of natural gas through cement seal.

The Rest of Us, 22 percent
We drive. We fly. We buy gizmos and food shipped long distances. We consume petrochemicals via our clothes, furniture, gadgets, painkillers, cosmetics, magazines, meals. And we don't fight hard enough to change the system.

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

In part, certainly. And the folks who believed industry would regulate itself and so had regulatory agencies doing nothing for eight years. And good old fashioned Greed. Money talks, yo. Free speech innit?

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Don't forget how corrupt the MMS was. Cheney had a hand in that. (Where has he been lately, any press releases on this mess?)

Obama should have cleaned house sooner. Not sure anyone really knew how bad it was....

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Originally Posted by GGT

Don't forget how corrupt the MMS was. Cheney had a hand in that. (Where has he been lately, any press releases on this mess?)

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That's what I meant by Greed.

"Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna happen."

This quote also suggest that the decision that resulted in the spill was made the same day the spill happened. Damn government and their unwillingness to enforce regulations during ever working hour!

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Testifying before the Coast Guard and MMS panel last month, Douglas Brown, the chief mechanic on the Deepwater Horizon, said that on the morning of the day that the rig exploded Harrell had a "skirmish" over drilling procedures during a meeting with BP's "company man," well site leader Robert Kaluza. "I remember the company man saying this is how it's going to be," Brown told the panel. As Harrell was leaving the meeting, according to Brown, "He pretty much grumbled, 'I guess that's what we have those pincers for,'" referring to the blowout preventer on the sea floor that is supposed to be the last resort to prevent a leak in the event of an emergency.

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Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

If Dread doesn't post tonight, its likely because he had another aneurysm

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Not really appropriate, but also not as bad as "throat on neck". Frankly, talking about an ass kicking in a casual interview isn't as bad as declaring that the country's policy is to keep your boot on the throat of someone.

Oh yeah. Happy World Ocean Day.

Oh the Irony

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

Not really appropriate, but ...

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Wait till the oil reaches your beaches before you decide. Maybe we should dump some at your doorstep to impress upon you what oil is.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

Not really appropriate,

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Understanding your underlying issue