Oh the Irony

[']['ear]

Do you notice how I haven't expressed an opinion on the specifics of this case? Could it be because I actually know what I don't know about?

Could be. But you do play the "I know what I'm talking about and you don't" card all the time. It's a specious argument in an internet forum.

Lewk.

Please. That really doesn't make you look good or clever, you know.



Edit: OG, that Daily beast graphic is hilarious!

[GGT]

http://motherjones.com/environment/2...and-isle-beach

[Loki]

This is BP putting a $ amount on a human life.

And this is shocking?

[Nessus]

There are enough facts out there to have an intelligent discussion.

You could try having one every once in awhile instead of just taking pot-shots from the sidelines. You're capable of contributing, Chambalaya begged on his knees and you gave your opinion on the subject, which was pretty decent IMO. What I don't understand is why you feel the need to pick on others incessantly instead of trying to offer better content? I think this is what's been bugging some other posters too.

(I realize I shitpost a lot too so you can just call me a hypocrite if you'd like!)

[Loki]

Could be. But you do play the "I know what I'm talking about and you don't" card all the time. It's a specious argument in an internet forum.

So once again, you don't have a problem with my specific contributions to this thread and are just engaging in a drive-through trolling instead? Cain hasn't been playing with you recently so you decide to play with someone else?

Please. That really doesn't make you look good or clever, you know.

Let's see, you're obsessed with my education level, and attempt to dismiss my arguments based on that education. This is despite me saying absolutely nothing about it. How exactly is this not being at least as anti-elitist as Lewk?

You could try having one every once in awhile instead of just taking pot-shots from the sidelines. You're capable of contributing, Chambalaya begged on his knees and you gave your opinion on the subject, which was pretty decent IMO. What I don't understand is why you feel the need to pick on others incessantly instead of trying to offer better content? I think this is what's been bugging some other posters too.

To shame people into using their brain. Other tactics haven't worked.

[LittleFuzzy]

I figured GGT's short history lesson,

Excuse me? Blaming BP for the Iranian Revolution isn't a history lesson. It's a post hoc ergo propter hoc fantasy.

[Nessus]

To shame people into using their brain. Other tactics haven't worked.

I mean this not in the spirit of our usual fencing: I really, really hope you never end up in a management position

Shame is a horrible motivator

[LittleFuzzy]

The Daily Beast dude referred to pandering to power politics and oil.

FACT: the oil volcano is still spewing hundreds of thousands of gallons per day, 35 days and counting.
Dismay

Reasonable

FACT: no one seems to know how to stop the leak, or how long it can spew and plume
Anger

Unreasonable

FACT: visible sheen and globs, unseen underwater oil, closer to loop current, closed fishing grounds, businesses shut down
Fear

Reasonable

FACT: BP, Transocean and Halliburton are the main companies involved, along with MMS and Dept of Interior etc
Frustration

Unreasonable

FACT: we've been paying lip service to changing energy policy for decades, SSDD
Disappointment

Reasonable

Some of those are rational responses. Others aren't. Anger at not knowing how to stop a fairly unprecedented failure makes no sense, and feeling frustration that big oil companies were involved with a standard oil project is just lunacy.

[Loki]

I mean this not in the spirit of our usual fencing: I really, really hope you never end up in a management position

Shame is a horrible motivator

If I was ever a manager, and I have no intention of ever being one, things would never get to this stage.

[Nessus]

If I was ever a manager, and I have no intention of ever being one, things would never get to this stage.

If you're going to do anything sensible with your PhD, you'll be managing some kind of team of people at some point

[Loki]

If you're going to do anything sensible with your PhD, you'll be managing some kind of team of people at some point

In case you haven't noticed, I can't tolerate stupidity. At least with students, I have the authority to get them to do the work and have incentives to get them to move in that direction. With workers, you have far less leverage, and you rarely have full authority to hire and fire them.

[GGT]

I'm not 'gnashing my teeth or foaming at the mouth'. Honestly, I'm fine knowing my emotions in this disaster. If you're not....tough shit, Fuzzy.

[Khendraja'aro]

In case you haven't noticed, I can't tolerate stupidity. At least with students, I have the authority to get them to do the work and have incentives to get them to move in that direction. With workers, you have far less leverage, and you rarely have full authority to hire and fire them.

Poor students. You'll make a pretty poor teacher with that kind of attitude. I take it you're the "all stick, no carrots type"?

And if you think that teaching isn't a managing job, then you have even less of a clue about the subject than I previously suspected.

[Loki]

Good luck being able to differentiate between the two. I give them a trade-off between better grades (and harder assignments) and easier work (and lower grades), and a vast majority choose the former. I might not be the funnest of teachers, but my students consistently get high grades (on objective and subjective measures). Some don't appreciate the tactics, but my job is to get them to learn, not to get them to like me.

[EyeKhan]

In case you haven't noticed, I can't tolerate stupidity. At least with students, I have the authority to get them to do the work and have incentives to get them to move in that direction. With workers, you have far less leverage, and you rarely have full authority to hire and fire them.

But how do you live with yourself?

[Nessus]

I started a new thread on this diversion, hope you don't mind re-posting there Loki!

[Ominous Gamer]

http://motherjones.com/environment/2...and-isle-beach

This article is full of WTFs. From the police, to the screw the news attitude, to it being so bad the smell is chasing people off the coast.

And this is shocking?

Not shocking at all, but I didn't think BP would have the nads to turn something so serious into something so humorous.
Plus there is your whole "no context" shit you tried to pull a little while ago.

[GGT]

Good luck being able to differentiate between the two. I give them a trade-off between better grades (and harder assignments) and easier work (and lower grades), and a vast majority choose the former. I might not be the funnest of teachers, but my students consistently get high grades (on objective and subjective measures). Some don't appreciate the tactics, but my job is to get them to learn, not to get them to like me.

Your capacity in this thread isn't to be our teacher, so your 'tactics' are lame. There's plenty of news for us to read and learn, in real time. Exxon Valdez didn't conclude until 20 years later. Surely we don't have to wait that long to have an opinion on BP.

[Ominous Gamer]

BP has decided they will not continue their live video feed while they attempt their top kill solution. Which BP claims has a chance of success between 60 and 70%.

In other words, they are pissing into the wind while no one can watch.

[Dreadnaught]

I like how the word "organization" keeps popping up. Can we call them a business? Or a corporation? That'd be

uh

more honest

So, there's a corporation which single-handedly causes one of the greatest man-made catastrophes ever - and Dread is concerned about the rhetoric?

What do you want the president to say? "I'm a bit discontented with the overall circumstances?"

I say organization because I mean organization, not just corporations. I mean churches, interest groups, foreigners, immigrants, individual states, etc. He could use that rhetoric with any of them and it would be over the line.

I'm concerned about this issue as a whole because it's fucking awful and BP appears to be run by monkeys. But the President also has to be mature. Conjuring the image of the President physically hurting someone is over the line.

How would you like it if Bush said, "We want to expand our base at Ramstein. The German government won't let us. This means they are opposing our military actions, so we're going to put our boots on their throats until they agree"?

What the fuck?

A while ago my grandmother saw Inglorious Basterds. She's no prude. She's 95, just traded her sports car for a hybrid and recently outlived her fifth boyfriend since my grandfather died. She sees movies all the time. But she said it was pointlessly gory. So I relayed that I heard/got the sense that it was pointlessly gory, and didn't want to watch it on a plane with kids around me.

Because most of Ominous' life is wrapped around movies and videogames, he found this mortally offensive. And apparently it's related to President Obama's rhetoric now. So now I'm ignoring his dissection post because, as I've said before, I think sentence-by-sentence post dissection is for pre-teens.

[Ominous Gamer]

You didn't have to pull an excuse out of your ass Dread, you've done pretty good at dropping debate without having to say anything, like you did in the Teabagger thread you created.

[Dreadnaught]

Actually I just stopped following that one.

[Ominous Gamer]

Now that Dread has clarified his to good to reply stance, we can get back to BP.

BP claims that they will leave the live feed on for the Top Kill solution after they were pressured by just about everyone. Words still out if they are going to continue poisoning the Gulf with their dispersant.
Feed is currently showing activity at the leak, lots of robot arms doing something.

[GGT]

EPA weighs sanctions against BP
Frustrated agency cites oil giant’s ‘corporate attitude’

....Discretionary debarment is a step that government investigators have long sought to avoid, and which many experts had considered highly unlikely because BP is a major supplier of fuel to the U.S. military. The company could petition U.S. courts for an exception, arguing that ending that contract is a national security risk. That segment of BP's business alone was worth roughly $4.6 billion over the last decade, according to the government contracts website USA spending.....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37338000...il_and_energy/

Pickle in the middle.

[EyeKhan]

I hope the top kill works. Haven't seen anything yet.

[GGT]

I hope the top kill works. Haven't seen anything yet.

Careful there, you know what Loki says about Hope.

[EyeKhan]

Careful there, you know what Loki says about Hope.

Loki doesn't understand.
Hope is an expression of what one would like to see happen in a scenario they are powerless to influence. It has nothing to do with reality or unreality.

[GGT]

Some of those are rational responses. Others aren't. Anger at not knowing how to stop a fairly unprecedented failure makes no sense, and feeling frustration that big oil companies were involved with a standard oil project is just lunacy.

huh, did you do a quick edit? I didn't see that last sentence.

Anger that corners were cut, safety measures ignored, denial of potential catastrophe, not having second or third layer contingency plans at the outset, corporate attitude that shows a pattern of recklessness. Anger that "oops, this is an unprecedented failure that no one saw coming and now we don't know what to do..." when documents show they took the easy/cheap/fast route instead of the more expensive/safe route.

Frustration that big oil, inspectors and regulators operated with conflicts of interest and loose standards, that our Gulf coast eco-system is at the mercy of a foreign corporation, and our military relies on their oil. Frustration that this kind of shit happens more often than it should, and no one pays attention until shit hits the fan.

[Khendraja'aro]

I say organization because I mean organization, not just corporations. I mean churches, interest groups, foreigners, immigrants, individual states, etc. He could use that rhetoric with any of them and it would be over the line.

I'm concerned about this issue as a whole because it's fucking awful and BP appears to be run by monkeys. But the President also has to be mature. Conjuring the image of the President physically hurting someone is over the line.

How would you like it if Bush said, "We want to expand our base at Ramstein. The German government won't let us. This means they are opposing our military actions, so we're going to put our boots on their throats until they agree"?

Is the base at Ramstein threatening the ecology of a country the size of Germany?

[Nessus]

I say organization because I mean organization, not just corporations. I mean churches, interest groups, foreigners, immigrants, individual states, etc. He could use that rhetoric with any of them and it would be over the line.

I'm concerned about this issue as a whole because it's fucking awful and BP appears to be run by monkeys. But the President also has to be mature. Conjuring the image of the President physically hurting someone is over the line.

How would you like it if Bush said, "We want to expand our base at Ramstein. The German government won't let us. This means they are opposing our military actions, so we're going to put our boots on their throats until they agree"?

Honestly?