the vynsane asylum

This link kinda sums it up nicely, it's just a little comparison of how the slick would stack up in your neck of the woods
http://www.beowulfe.com/oil/

The situation is royally fucked. The live ROV feeds are fairly interesting- there's been plenty of robot action in the past ~24 hours (tho sadly they are crummy robots)

The current thing they are working on is an insane gamble- in order to attempt affixing the next "dome", they have to cut the pipe open more, which according to BP has a "chance" of increasing the flow volume by 20 or so percent. They are positioning that as a kind of trade-off, they have to make it worse and then hope that by making it worse, they can make it a bit better. Given the repeated failures so far I have very little doubt that the "making it worse" part will go off smoothly and the intended "making it a bit better" will fail miserably

Hope nobody here likes crawdads, oysters and shrimps too much

If BP isn't held accountable and hopefully forced out of business, there is no justice.

It's really sad that no politician on either side has enough sense or cares enough about what's right over what's popular to recognize this as a wake-up call and get us the fuck off of oil already.

anarky wrote:If BP isn't held accountable and hopefully forced out of business, there is no justice.

truth.

It's really sad that no politician on either side has enough sense or cares enough about what's right over what's popular to recognize this as a wake-up call and get us the fuck off of oil already.

problem is, there's no profit in renewable energy. that's why tesla died a poor, nearly forgotten, man.

Well, there ain't no longterm profit in fossil fuels, and, at this rate, no future for humanity or the Earth.

anarky wrote:Well, there ain't no longterm profit in fossil fuels, and, at this rate, no future for humanity or the Earth.

seeing that would take foresight and a realization that there are more important things than making a shitton of money right now, both of which leave much to be desired in not only the management of oil companies, but most large companies.

Only 2 things have surprised me about the whole mess. First, that it is still going on. Second, it took them until last week to blame Bush.

vynsane wrote: problem is, there's no profit in renewable energy. that's why tesla died a poor, nearly forgotten, man.

Not true. They just put another album out a couple years ago. Hell, they are still on tour.

There are things that can be blamed on Bush, but I don't think this is one. This is the fault of both parties, going back for generations.

I love how everyone traces EVERYTHING back to Bush. Whatevs

That site was pretty cool. I liked the running tally of how many gallons were estimated to have been released so far.

I think it was Nancy Pelosi that blamed Bush because he didn't sign tougher regulation on off-shore drilling.

I don't think tougher regulations would've prevented this. Pelosi is playing politics; that's pretty much all she does. I wonder if the Speaker of the House automatically becomes controversial, or if it's more that the party in charge puts forth a sacrificial goat of sorts to take all the flak. Because an awful lot of them have good at getting re-elected, but ultra-shitty at any actual governing.

Great quote from Obama yesterday regarding the situation "I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar, we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers — so I know whose ass to kick"

yeah, unfortunately people are comparing him to "W", but unlike him is probably talking about levying fines and penalties as opposed to throwing bombs and marines at the situation.

Yeah, I have been following the whole deal fairly closely on several sites. The comparisons to the hurricane Katrina situation are mind boggling, given that I actually remember how that went down (and several important details such as the fact that much of the National Guard was fighting in the middle east at the time and not available for what they were fucking invented for). Somebody on another site replied to a slew of "Obama is GUILTY" and "Obama has bungled the whole thing" with some hilarious crack about "so, he's supposed to what, strap on some scuba gear and swim down there and plug the leak himself??"

There's a weird mind-set being massaged ever so carefully in most of the media and on many discussion forums, where so many people are lamenting "the blame game"... One person will state that it is probably BP's fault, by and large, and/or the actual lax regulations. Then Obama gets the blame. Then it's the average consumer who must share the blame. Then something else is added into the mix, then another thing... Finally someone, based on the cyclical and pointless nature of the process, comes out and states that it is not reasonable to blame anyone and the issue seems to subside..

What is the problem with blaming ALL of the companies involved in the operation, according to how much they had to do with what is happening now?? How the FUCK is that not reasonable?? I mean, if there was a company subcontracted to, say, do laundry on the rig, and all they did was laundry (and I am thinking that, no joke, Halliburton might have held a logistics contract) then they are obviously not to be blamed, but seriously somebody or somebodies fucked SOMETHING up huge and it is unreasonable to think otherwise, in my view.

Don't worry. James Cameron will save us.

Oh, and Penn Jillette says you can also blame environmentalists because they blocked drilling for oil in Alaska because of the caribou. You can also blame the American consumer for wanting cheap oil quickly.

mabudon wrote:What is the problem with blaming ALL of the companies involved in the operation, according to how much they had to do with what is happening now?? How the FUCK is that not reasonable??

ha, i know. what i don't get is the defending of BP as if they're not where 'the buck stops' - they contracted all the responsible parties - if they didn't do their due diligence in vetting those contractors, it's their fault.

i saw an ad for the 2011 hyndai sonata the other day and was like "GOD DAMMIT! it's going to be fucking 2011 - THE FUTURE! why does that thing still have wheels???" but seeing as how we can't come up with an alternate fuel source for our rolling cars, there's little to no chance we'll have flying cars any time soon. all i know is, if there are no flying cars before i die, i'll die a disappointed man.

Ran wrote:Oh, and Penn Jillette says you can also blame environmentalists because they blocked drilling for oil in Alaska because of the caribou. You can also blame the American consumer for wanting cheap oil quickly.

what about blaming the caribou for being in the way of our precious, precious oil? they can just move somewhere else, can't they? fucking caribou.