It's worse than we know
POSTED BY: AURaptor
UPDATED: Friday, August 29, 2025 14:55
VIEWED: 15311
PAGE 3 of 25
Hello Mike,
It really doesn't matter who did it before or who'll do it next. We're doing it now.
The oil companies might have the expertise, but they clearly haven't invested in the resources. I'll be happy to have BP offer their good advice on how to stop the leak and clean the spill, but we can't wait for them do get around to doing it themselves. Rather, the full might of this nation needs to be brought upon this disaster. We can compute the bill and send it to BP later. I think we'll end up owning all of BP's operations, frankly.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
"You can lose a quark you don't girth." -Dreamtrove's words to live by, translated by Ipad
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100526/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill
Hello,
I'll keep my fingers crossed. It's already terrible, but maybe it won't get any worse.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
"You can lose a quark you don't girth." -Dreamtrove's words to live by, translated by Ipad
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Here's the problem you're going to run into, Anthony. And I'm sorry if you don't like it, but this is the way it's going to go.
Government steps in, BP walks away, shrugs, says "We had it under control. We were just about to get it handled. They came in and took over, and screwed it up, and that's where it all went wrong." They'll say that in court, to try to weasel out of responsibility, to try to muddy the blame, pass it off as a chain-of-custody kind of issue, claiming that once the government took over, the government also took responsibility.
And all it takes is one judge to agree, and the government's on the hook for the whole shebang.
Add to that the fact that if Obama spends one thin dime of government money on this goddamned mess, he's going to have the Republicans up his ass about it, just the way they've been up his ass about every fucking dime he's spent up til now.
As I said before, the free market dipshits wanted this. They've got their wish. They should say "Thank you, Mister President. We'll handle it from here." Instead they come whining like a bunch of pussies, begging - no, DEMANDING - that the government they hate so fucking much should now save their stupid asses. And, as always, they want US to pay for the privilege of bailing their stupid fucking corporate asses out. Fuck 'em. They wanted no part of our regulations and oversight. They did this to us. We did not do this to them.
I say horseshit. Not until we get some things straight. We'll help, if you can convince BP to *ASK* for our help. In public, on TV, for all to see. We'll take over, but BP will sign paperwork indicating that they are absolved of no responsibility at all. And they'll proclaim so on TV, too. And they'll ask us, in public, to enact tougher regulations and oversight. And they'll make it abundantly clear to all that THEY are going to pay for every red cent of cleanup, for disaster relief, for damages, for making people's lives whole again, for lost wages and livelihood, and for whatever other incidental costs are incurred because of their fuck-up. And then, and ONLY then, will we put the full force and might of this nation to this task.
And until such time as every single penny is paid, BP will be in receivership in this country. Their company will have liens placed against its assets here. If they don't like it, fuck 'em. Let THEM fix the fucking problem they caused.
Mike
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions
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Hello Mike,
That's all very rightous and whatnot, but it doesn't get the problem licked any faster. BP has no motivation to make the kinds of public requests and statements you suggest.
However, I have seen this government perform startling acts the past in order to punish corporations for wrongdoing. Retroactive taxes and imposed wage adjustments on contracts already signed and bonuses already promised. This, by the vote of our representatives. Are you really suggesting that this same government would throw up their hands and let BP walk away scott free because of a 'chain of custody' issue during a National Emergency?
In any event, it doesn't matter. The only way this mess is getting cleaned up is if everyone helps. It's just too big to wait for their 1,000 guys with toothbrushes and toxic squirt guns to rake it all in. The affected area is larger than lots of countries. BP doesn't have anywhere near the manpower available to handle this. They may or may not ask for help, but they're certainly going to need it. And time is of the essence.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
"You can lose a quark you don't girth." -Dreamtrove's words to live by, translated by Ipad
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Quote:
Posted by Rappy:
The Federal Gov't is showing it can't handled -anything. Billions of our tax $$'s, and what do we get ? All the bureaucracies, all the agencies, all the dept. heads and all the mountains of regulations have amounted to dick.
It's not so much anti-Obama, but anti Federal Gov't. It's inept beyond comprehension.
So you finally agree that the federal government is incompetent. Thank you for FINALLY admitting that they completely fucked the dog on Katrina, 9/11, Afghanistan, Tora Bora, Iraq, etc. It's about time you owned up to that. We've been telling you that for years. Of course, we've also been telling you that corporations aren't the saviors of mankind, but you wouldn't listen to us on that, either. Maybe now you will.
Doubtful.
You'll continue to blame Obama for BP's clusterfuck of a megadisaster, just like you blamed Clinton for 9/11 and Iraq.
You *SAY* it's not about Obama, and it's not anti-Obama, but you just can't resist going on long rants about him, can you?
You're suffering Obama Derangement Syndrome. It's clouding your judgment. Well, not that you've ever had any judgment to cloud, but still...
Mike
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions
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Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello Mike,
That's all very rightous and whatnot, but it doesn't get the problem licked any faster. BP has no motivation to make the kinds of public requests and statements you suggest.
However, I have seen this government perform startling acts the past in order to punish corporations for wrongdoing. Retroactive taxes and imposed wage adjustments on contracts already signed and bonuses already promised. This, by the vote of our representatives. Are you really suggesting that this same government would throw up their hands and let BP walk away scott free because of a 'chain of custody' issue during a National Emergency?
In any event, it doesn't matter. The only way this mess is getting cleaned up is if everyone helps. It's just too big to wait for their 1,000 guys with toothbrushes and toxic squirt guns to rake it all in. The affected area is larger than lots of countries. BP doesn't have anywhere near the manpower available to handle this. They may or may not ask for help, but they're certainly going to need it. And time is of the essence.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
"You can lose a quark you don't girth." -Dreamtrove's words to live by, translated by Ipad
Okay, what do you suggest?
WHO do you want to cap the well? HOW do you want them to do that? Everyone seems to think it's easy. Why are none of those people actually down there trying to do it?
As for clean-up, what are you proposing? BP offered some of the locals jobs helping clean up, but first they had to sign waivers promising not to sue BP for, well, ANYTHING. Who do you want to put workers on the job? Who do you want paying them? *IS* this a job that only the federal government can do? *IS* this the kind of thing that everyone would be happy to spend stimulus money to get done, even if it puts us deeper into deficits and deeper into debt?
Or is it the kind of thing that some will support one minute, and then try to turn to their political advantage the next? Remember Bobby Jindal, who didn't want the government "wasting money" on ridiculous things like volcano monitoring? Do you suppose he'd have a different take now that the "volcano" is off his shore, and the "lava" it's gushing out is oil? Do you think he's against federal spending NOW?
Any of you married men here, you probably know how this goes. You fight with your wife, you argue, you disagree, and you want to move on and get past it. So you go, "So anyways, what are we doing tonight?" And she gives you *that look*. You know the one. Yeah. You're not getting past it that easy, are you? Nope - you've gotta apologize first.
This is what we have here. We have people who have been calling Obama every vile name in the book, and now they're screaming at him - not pleading with him, not asking him, but SCREAMING AT HIM - "Why won't you help us?!" But what you don't hear is the last half of that question: "... make political points at your expense?"
So while nobody seems to have any solid PLAN, or any concrete idea of WHAT to do, they're still going to go on screaming that Obama should DO SOMETHING. In other words, they're mad at him for doing nothing when the situation clearly calls for panic.
Mike
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions
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Hello,
Mike, people will make politics out of anything. But the disaster itself is not a political event. It's a big black swath of poison killing everything in its wake.
You keep mentioning that BP has the expertise to deal with this, and I agree. But they don't have the physical resources required. It is absolutely necessary, no matter the political landscape or who might earn 'points,' for the government to become heavily involved in containment and cleanup.
You seem to be advocating that the president should watch this disaster unfold in order to preserve some kind of political advantage or protection. Guess what? Even if mobilizing nothing would magically protect him from political fallout, I'd still want him to mobilize everything. And so should you.
Unless you are actually arguing that there is simply no action to take?
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
"You can lose a quark you don't girth." -Dreamtrove's words to live by, translated by Ipad
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You have to cap the well, and even then, all you can do for the plume is spray surfactants/biosurfactants and burn it/blow it up. Last I heard, the size of this thing was 2,500 square miles, and there's plumes under the surface because crude oil is a mixture and there are different density compounds, and diffusion and water currents don't make it clear cut.
Capping it even really is easier said than done, which as you can see, is why nothing they've tried has worked yet. We have multiple leaks, not just one, and we're talking significant discharge = pressure = force.
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I said it another thread about this, and I'll say it again here.
Nuke it.
Also, regarding that other thread on this topic, if PhoenixRose had her facts right about the law passed by Congress after the Exxon spill twenty years ago, we should be pissed at them for disallowing Federal involvement in these kinds of corporate fuck-ups, instead of being pissed at the current administration for following that law.
Of course, I think a State of Emergency could be called, easily, so don't think I'm saying there's not plenty of blame to go around here.
Also, Russia isn't subject to the law against the U.S. government doing something about it, and Russia has offered up the idea to melt the entire mess with the miracle of nuclear fission. They should. It could not possibly cause more damage than what is being caused.
This isn't a tanker, people, this is a fucking WELL. This won't STOP until it's plugged up. The fastest way to plug it is to melt it. Nuke the bastard.
And stop making it political. All of you. This hurts everything and everyone, so stop trying to spin it on the 'opposition.' Seriously. In the face of this, we should be past that kind of bickering bullshit.
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Nuke it... *thoughtful*
We have lots of radioactive hydrogen in the oceans from the other ocean nukes (really. We actually use it to determine the "age" of the water, at least in the sense of how long it's been away from the surface, and it's not natural, so we also know exactly when it was introduced).
You'd produce a lot of radioactive water and steam, so you'd still probably have fallout. Depending on the rads you're talking about, you might make the zone uninhabitable for millenium, rather than centuries.
...But, we may be beyond conventional solutions at this point, as well.
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