Oil Disaster vs. 9/11

[kallipolis]

indeed.

people are expecting something that is imposible. They are expecting the president to develope a science that is simply not there.

someone cue the song " she blinded me with science" ....lol

Agreed.

But to compare this oil rig catastrophe with 9/11 is to suggest that frustrations at the White House are encouraging the blind, to bombard the American electorate with images of aircraft crashing into sky scrapers, as a reminder that an oil leak is evidence of a plot by America's enemies to initiate an invasion of the United States. Such conspiracy theories might indicate that President Obama needs to take up practising Yoga in order to lower his stress levels and blood pressure.

Such pie in the sky rhetoric does suggest that hand wringing would appear to be the main preoccupation of the White House incumbent leader and his entourage of speech writers.

 

[BostonPirate]

I think if you read th quote, he means that its effects on american policy will be similar

already we are seeing friction with England. An entire arm of the gov't is being overhauled. MMS is being ditched and something new will emerge.

I just hope tey come up wth a better name than the Bushies did...lol

 

[kallipolis]

I think if you read th quote, he means that its effects on american policy will be similar

already we are seeing friction with England. An entire arm of the gov't is being overhauled. MMS is being ditched and something new will emerge.

I just hope tey come up wth a better name than the Bushies did...lol

The British Prime Minister has already brushed off this media friction as a passing stream of polluting venom that does not, and will not affect relations between the United States and the United Kingdom.

 

[USCboi8]

Lets not forget about the Hydrogen Sulfide, Benzene, and Methylene Chloride gasses spewing out along with the 4,000,000 barrels/day. These gasses are responsible for the sickness that has affected many of the cleanup crews, and in many areas the levels are thousands of times more than the acceptable level as deemed by the EPA. Now just imagine what would happen if a hurricane swept up the Gulf coast and dispersed the gasses across Texas, Louisiana, Florida... considering they cause cancer, birth defects, sterility, brain damage

 

[hotatlboi]

They don't care about the Gulf water or the coastline or the animals or the people's livelihoods down there, and very clearly they don't give a damn about the economy or better energy alternatives.

Completely unfounded horseshit Nick.

And now he has the goddam gall to compare an off-shore oil rig disaster that's the fault of failures by the builder and the owner and the US government, to terrorist planes flying into buildings and taking down the twin towers on 9/11.

Um, if you had bothered to read the quote, he didn't compare their scope at all.

He just said we would learn from this in regards to environment as we learned from 9/11 in regards to foreign policy. A perfectly reasonable statement.

But don't let facts get in the way of ObamaHate's objective.

 

[JayHawk]

You know you can hmm and haw in here all day long on the finer points of sematics. The bottom line is what the people are convinced to think.

Recently in a poll reportedly by a left leaning organization Obama is opined to be less effective on the oil spill than Bush was for Katrina.

Of course as polls often are easy to maniputlate to make your story the article also points out that in LA 56% vs 35% voted for Bush.

On the topic, it may have been easy in speech writer land to draw comparisions to the fundamental changes in our lives we will see based off each event but I wouldnt expect all those who were crying that republicans use 9/11 for effect to then defend its use for effect.

I think it is interesting that Obama would promise to make the gulf better after the cleanup than before. Interesting since many lively hoods will fail and families will be forced out of the region due to this disaster. Does he mean to imply it is better without those people?

Of course he doesnt mean such tripe. But as you can see in two instances how easy it is to manipulate the true meaning to suit your needs.

Wouldn't it be awesome if on this board we could deal with the facts vice the manipulated tripe?

 

[hotatlboi]

Wouldn't it be awesome if on this board we could deal with the facts vice the manipulated tripe?

Indeed it would.

 

[Kulindahr]

pffft

He turned down the dutch offer to take over the contract for the cleanup, which would hav had the effect of relieving BP of its responsibilities.

its a shell game that the oil companies are playing right now.

BP made the spill and contractually they need to clean it up. if we jump first and violate the terms of the contract with BP they could conceivably be off the hook for the whole thing.

That doesn't match what the Dutch people said. They didn't aim to take over anything, just pitch in.

I think if you read th quote, he means that its effects on american policy will be similar

already we are seeing friction with England. An entire arm of the gov't is being overhauled. MMS is being ditched and something new will emerge.

I just hope tey come up wth a better name than the Bushies did...lol

Yep, yep, and oh, yep.

 

[braex27]

pffft

He turned down the dutch offer to take over the contract for the cleanup, which would hav had the effect of relieving BP of its responsibilities.

its a shell game that the oil companies are playing right now.

BP made the spill and contractually they need to clean it up. if we jump first and violate the terms of the contract with BP they could conceivably be off the hook for the whole thing.

Of course if you hate the president sooo much that y0u would rather see BP set free of its obligations, then.......

I would have thought that BP's obligations stemmed from existing environmental protection legislation, rather than contract which must be sued to be enforced.

And I don't think it's about hating Obama. The issue here, as I see it, is a matter of priorities. What do you want done more? The matter cleaned up, or BP punished? There is time enough to bring BP to account but the longer the spill remains uncontained, the more damage it will do - damage which may not be able to be reversed by monetary compensation, which at the end of the day is all you can hold a company accountable for.

It's a sad sad state of affairs, really.

 

[NickCole]

pffft

He turned down the dutch offer to take over the contract for the cleanup, which would hav had the effect of relieving BP of its responsibilities.

...

That's not true.

Three days after the explosion, the Dutch government offered to assist the United States, not "take over" anything, by sending ships equipped with oil-skimming booms. It also provided a plan for creating sand barriers to protect the sensitive marshlands of the Gulf coast.

According to Geert Visser, Consul General for the Netherlands in Houston “The embassy got a nice letter from the administration that said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’”


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/7043272.html

BP made the spill and contractually they need to clean it up. if we jump first and violate the terms of the contract with BP they could conceivably be off the hook for the whole thing.

My God, that is utterly absurd.

In fact it turns my gut to see a Democrat (or however you characterize your ObamaNation political affiliation) say things like that.

There is a catastrophic event happening and you're defending Obama's failure to lead by citing nonsense about contractural obligation.

Water and land is being polluted with millions of gallons of oil every day for closing in on two months, birds and fish and animals are dying, people's livelihoods are being ruined, and all you can think to do is defend The One.

This is not the way Democrats that I have been aligned with for decades respond to this kind of disaster.

 

[BostonPirate]

no i am sayign that he is providing leadership and you have a resentment that is out of control and blinds your reason.

any attempt at mock shock is par for the course here and it is a joke.

 

[legend145]

Why did Obama say during his address to the nation tuesday that BP only had to clean up 90 percent of the oil spill? Why not all of it?

 

[BostonPirate]

Why did Obama say during his address to the nation tuesday that BP only had to clean up 90 percent of the oil spill? Why not all of it?

wasn't aware of that. do you have the source with a link so we can read it? or watch it?

 

[JB3]

no i am sayign that he is providing leadership and you have a resentment that is out of control and blinds your reason.

any attempt at mock shock is par for the course here and it is a joke.

He's not really providing leadership. At this point he's trying to catch up with what already occurred.

 

[thewiz]

I can agree that there are some things similar between the two incidents.

1. Government agencies were asleep at the switch prior to 9/11. Information was not shared and intelligence data was kept within silos of various agencies that would have connected the dots.

2. Security at airports was incompetently run and not prepared looking ahead but rather navel gazing.

3. The oil spill demonstrated that federal agencies were not just asleep at the switch, they were incompetent and most likely criminally negligent. Response plans (hazard-risk analysis and response) were carbon copied and indicate that oil companies may have committed perjury for the contents therein. There was no response plan; it was a piece of paper and none of the resources truly available.

I think we learned from 9/11; I think we should learn from the oil spill. Technology should be subject to third party, independent testing (not just the feds and oil companies). Plans must be demonstrated to be viable -- not just written on pieces of paper. We need to exercise plans and demonstrate the viability. These things happened after 9/11; they should in the aftermath of this disaster as well.

 

[BostonPirate]

interesting. If the BP people were criminally engaged in fraud and criminal negligence, then the mms was as well.

I didn't consider that.

can the A.G. charge the MMS people? or would that have to be a civil case against the entire government?

 

[thewiz]

Governmental immunity usually applies to errors that are made in the course of a person's job which do not rise to the level of negligence. If some of the allegations of payments, lax oversight, and gifts are true, I would think a case for gross negligence could be made which would eliminate the protection normally afforded to government employees and lead to potential criminal charges.

 

[BostonPirate]

I would support that.

 

[JB3]

interesting. If the BP people were criminally engaged in fraud and criminal negligence, then the mms was as well.

I didn't consider that.

can the A.G. charge the MMS people? or would that have to be a civil case against the entire government?

No one would be able to prove that BP was engaged in Fraud. Negligence, probably. But fraud is a stretch.

 

[partyanimal]

Here's my take on this, politics aside. Oil has been in ocean thousands of years, if we stop drilling it, will remain for many more thousands, it's only fossilized plankton. If oil doesn't finish off the whales we will anyway. Sorry Greenpeace.