World Politics

[ChrisE]

I liked this thread better last night when it was two guys with some real insight into the situation giving us some inside poop on an enormous natural disaster.
Chris, can't you get along with anybody? All this discord could have been avoided if Buckwheat would have said "Your second sentance.....", huh?
I did find it very funny when the flame master began whinning about personal attacks.
A successful government needs to provide strong social programs backed by businesses providing work opportunities for just about every one of its citizens. When you leave private enterprise unattended you will not get a strong workforce. You will get what we have now, business leaders living in mansions on the hill with a fleet of Mercedes and Ferraris 'downsizing their workforces in the name of greater profits.
We need input from all sorts of points of view, from Rhubroma to Scott and then we need to pick a program down the middle. I am afraid our system as it currently exists is very broken, the big corporations run the government and all the rest of us are just pawns, we have no real say, we are told what to think by the propaganda machine of the corporate power that runs the whole world. As an example Scott was whinning last month about his health insurance agent (a completely impartial source) telling him how much it will cost him if the health reform bill passed. If he was already providing health care for all his full time employees like I do then guess what? We get a tax break. Damn you, BIG GOVERNMENT leave my taxes alone.

Hey.

My mother loves me. So there.

Seriously, good post and I'm tossing up the white flag to buckwheat. Hopefully he feels the same.

Your opinion is noble, but the problem is that the extremes of each party are polarizing and having a cohesive meaningful combo of necessary oversight and free market is difficult. We get what we have here by default, and economic policy is difficult to grasp for those hung up on sound bites and social issues. Thinking about this stuff is "hard", vs the emotional issues alot of people base their votes upon.

I was eating breakfast in a old diner yesterday morning, and while reading about this spill in the paper a couple of guys struck up a conversation with me. Their opinion of course was anti-Obama, and mocked him sending in the troops to oversee any review of current drilling safety operations. Then they go on to savage the greedy oil companies hurting the environment. I didn't say much because there was no point.

How do you rationalize with something like that? For sure they were not democrats, but yet they vote for the GOP while complaining about what they are actually voting for, ie deregulation. There are examples about this throughout the political landscape in this country, and those examples are mainly on the right. Racism, tribalism, religious bigotry, homophobia are all tools the right uses to get votes for what is really important, which in reality is against the best interests of those same voters.

I don't believe Scot votes GOP because of these issues, but a large portion of his fellow reps do. I actually agree with Scot in a perfect world, but it is not perfect and rules must be in place to protect the majority from the minority in business that break those rules and endanger society. I think he believes that too, this discussion just went downhill and since this is hitting close to home; maybe I wasn't using the best possible interpersonal skills in this thread....

What gets a little frustrating is when this is happening in your backyard, and the useful idiots that enable lack of necessary oversight in certain industries because of emotional issues are the ones that complain about it.

 

[rhubroma]

Really? Do a little digging on the origins of your income. The money you get paid was generated, at some point, from profit.

Educators are loved worlwide, except for those in the minority more interested in indoctrination than education. Stick to the three 'R's and leave the politics to those who know better.

When you over generalize you are demonstrating how shallow your argument is, which again, is boring.

My guess is you have not talked to anyone in private industry (i.e., outside your circle of academics) in a very, very long time. You really should get out more.

I myself have never felt the need to be a world class flabbergaster.

 

[rhubroma]

Yes, it is. You've gone back and forth many times. You're not the only one on the right who is perpetually playing this "I'm misunderstood" stufff.



Pretty meaningless.

Scott SoCal consumes himself in what he considers pathbreaking work and in the end only succeeds in making himself ridiculous, while always focusing on the specific, or what more acurately must be termed the wrong specifics, while not seeing the forest through the trees. And this only makes himself out to be even more ridiculous, though he surly claims himself to be a real intellect whether he's called Schopenhauer or Nietzsche, it doesn't matter, even if he's Kleist or Voltaire we still see a pitiful being who has misused his head and finally driven himself into nonesense. Who's been rolled over and passed over by history and should be put in solitary confinement in our libraries. Our libraries are so to speak prisons where we've locked up our intellectual giants like Kant and Pascal, like Voltaire and Montaigne and so too should Scott So Cal join these others in mass confinement.

But people don't understand what Scott So Cal means, as usual, it's all Greek to us when he has said something we don't understand I've thought, for what he says doesn't mean that we said what we said, he said, I thought. We say something, he said, I thought, and we're saying something completely different, thus we've spent our entire lives in misunderstandings, in nothing but misunderstandings, he said, I thought. We are, to put it precisely, born into misunderstanding and never escape this condition of misunderstanding as long as we live, we can squirm and twist as much as we like, it doesn't help. But everyone can realize this, he said, I thought, for everyone says something repeatedly and is misunderstood, this is the only point where everybody understands everybody else, I thought. One misunderstanding casts us into a world of misunderstanding and which we depart from with a single great misunderstanding, for death is the greatest misunderstanding of all.

 

[Hugh Januss]

Uhm, yeah?

 

[rhubroma]

I liked this thread better last night when it was two guys with some real insight into the situation giving us some inside poop on an enormous natural disaster...A successful government needs to provide strong social programs backed by businesses providing work opportunities for just about every one of its citizens...I am afraid our system as it currently exists is very broken, the big corporations run the government and all the rest of us are just pawns, we have no real say, we are told what to think by the propaganda machine of the corporate power that runs the whole world. As an example Scott was whinning last month about his health insurance agent (a completely impartial source) telling him how much it will cost him if the health reform bill passed. If he was already providing health care for all his full time employees like I do then guess what? We get a tax break. Damn you, BIG GOVERNMENT leave my taxes alone.

Most of the time, Hugh J., we have to deal with human filth, we're forced to wade through it and when we've made our way through one heap of filth, we must get through the next, on and on, each time faster, more radically than the last, because we've caught on that there's nothing but this human filth, which we have to get through. To reach our aim, Hugh J., we must traverse this human filth in the form of common filth in the head, the sole purpose of which is to do us in.

Take the so called world of architecture, once we built marvelous buildings, emotional works of art like the Pantheon and Hagia Sophia. Even the proletariate dwellings were once sound and pleasing. Now its all filth. Insipid commercial constructions, poorly designed office buildings, gaudy homes and the like and all in the name of so called progress and so called innovation. The so called building experts are no better than charlatans, incompitents one and all, and perverse exploiters of their helpless clients. Once we had Rabirius, Apollodorus of Damascus, Isodorus of Miletus, Bramante, Borromini and Eifel, nowadays only ruthless meglomaniacs who are bent on nothing less than messing up and destroying the surface of the earth. Once we had beautiful cities and villiages, to say nothing of the countless billions upon billions of acres in the countryside that have been uterly debased by today's professional builders and their minions who do nothing but wreck and ruin the face of the earth, every new building they put up is another crime they commit, a building crime against humanity: every building put up by builders these days is a crime! All in the name of developing the economy within the buidling sector, which covers just about everything: as if it were no longer important, or even relevant, to make a more beautiful world, a better world, just developing the economy. And all these crimes can thus for this economic mandate be committed with the greatest of ease, in fact these criminal builders are actually being challanged and encouraged by the governements and by their administrators, helpless as they are to the will of the corporations and to the economy at large, to cover the earth with their perverse cultural filth and to do it with a manner and with a speed that will have the whole surface of the globe choked with these building abominations and building crimes. Then, when the whole world has been most horribly and tastelessly and criminally cluttered up by them, it will be too late, the face of the earth will be dead. We are helpless against the destruction of our global surface by the architects! Just as we have been enslaved by the economic forces which govern every facet of our lives, such that even government no longer really governs these days, isn't made up any more of real political minds, but simply of puppet executors of economic policy following the interests of the economic overloards of the State and an insane logic of eternal growth no matter at what costs to our existence and to our environment and, therefore, to the future of civilization itself.

And this is because we have become enslaved by the economy as I have said before, and so aren't natural human beings anymore, just economic creatures. Once we were homo sapiens, now we should be properly called homo economicus, for which all human existence has been reduced to an economic problem. We have superceeded any benifits which our new-found wealth, created by this economy, has given us; so that what was once a benifit has now become too much of a good thing as they say, Hugh J., and is killing us. The developed world and the developed economies are litterally choking on their richness, while the rest of the world starves. We have as a whole become richer financially, but are culturally wasted as all the evidence between past and present has demonstrated. We have more money, but less aesthetic sense, the only sense that matters. Whereas the corporate and financial worlds have been leading all of us upon a crash course with disaster, because everybody was in great rush to make large profits, without reflecting upon the harmful financial practices practiced and, blinded by greed, even when based upon a phantom wealth and not a real wealth, Hugh J., all under the aegis of government. So much so that there has developed this unfortunate tendency to force things and rush things, as if we need to get it all done right now before the carpet is pulled out from under our feet. And this is why our aesthetic sense and taste for a beautiful world, not the world the architects, governments and corporations and the economy have given us today, has diminished to the extent of practically being non-existant. Once we were poorer but were surrounded by beauty, now we are richer but are circumscribed by base ugliness. Everything in the world is done in great haste nowadays, in the name of economic growth, everything is rushed, too rushed, every time, nothing is allowed to develop at its own natural pace, it's all done in a mad precipitate brainless rush wherever we look to make profit, people simply rush into action and the results are sheerest chaos. The universal chaos in the world today, especially in recent times, is chiefly the result of every kind of preciptate action. Wherever we turn there's chaos, in the finacial markets, in the war striken zones, in our governments, in the corporate world, in our cities just as in our countrysides. Because everything is being done precipitately, in a rush.

All we can do to keep that which remains of our sanity, is to dare to stand up to this chaos caused by this economy and to try and accomplish the very difficult task of not becoming a homo economicus and return to being a homo sapiens. But this is one of the most difficult tasks we face in our times, because basically the whole world is against us, is bent on undermining our plans to preseve within us all that remains of our human dignity. And if we achieve our goal of going against the mainstream way of existence, even at the risk of great peril to our beings, we will have arrived at a truly remarkable performance and have really lived an artistic life the only life worth living.

 

[Anonymous]

Scott SoCal consumes himself in what he considers pathbreaking work and in the end only succeeds in making himself ridiculous, while always focusing on the specific, or what more acurately must be termed the wrong specifics, while not seeing the forest through the trees. And this only makes himself out to be even more ridiculous, though he surly claims himself to be a real intellect whether he's called Schopenhauer or Nietzsche, it doesn't matter, even if he's Kleist or Voltaire we still see a pitiful being who has misused his head and finally driven himself into nonesense. Who's been rolled over and passed over by history and should be put in solitary confinement in our libraries. Our libraries are so to speak prisons where we've locked up our intellectual giants like Kant and Pascal, like Voltaire and Montaigne and so too should Scott So Cal join these others in mass confinement.

But people don't understand what Scott So Cal means, as usual, it's all Greek to us when he has said something we don't understand I've thought, for what he says doesn't mean that we said what we said, he said, I thought. We say something, he said, I thought, and we're saying something completely different, thus we've spent our entire lives in misunderstandings, in nothing but misunderstandings, he said, I thought. We are, to put it precisely, born into misunderstanding and never escape this condition of misunderstanding as long as we live, we can squirm and twist as much as we like, it doesn't help. But everyone can realize this, he said, I thought, for everyone says something repeatedly and is misunderstood, this is the only point where everybody understands everybody else, I thought. One misunderstanding casts us into a world of misunderstanding and which we depart from with a single great misunderstanding, for death is the greatest misunderstanding of all.

Awesome post.

 

[rhubroma]

Awesome post.

I'm beginning to like you.

 

[Anonymous]

Most of the time, Hugh J., we have to deal with human filth, we're forced to wade through it and when we've made our way through one heap of filth, we must get through the next, on and on, each time faster, more radically than the last, because we've caught on that there's nothing but this human filth, which we have to get through. To reach our aim, Hugh J., we must traverse this human filth in the form of common filth in the head, the sole purpose of which is to do us in.

Take the so called world of architecture, once we built marvelous buildings, emotional works of art like the Pantheon and Hagia Sophia. Even the proletariate dwellings were once sound and pleasing. Now its all filth. Insipid commercial constructions, poorly designed office buildings, gaudy homes and the like and all in the name of so called progress and so called innovation. The so called building experts are no better than charlatans, incompitents one and all, and perverse exploiters of their helpless clients. Once we had Rabirius, Apollodorus of Damascus, Isodorus of Miletus, Bramante, Borromini and Eifel, nowadays only ruthless meglomaniacs who are bent on nothing less than messing up and destroying the surface of the earth. Once we had beautiful cities and villiages, to say nothing of the countless billions upon billions of acres in the countryside that have been uterly debased by today's professional builders and their minions who do nothing but wreck and ruin the face of the earth, every new building they put up is another crime they commit, a building crime against humanity: every building put up by builders these days is a crime! All in the name of developing the economy within the buidling sector, which covers just about everything: as if it were no longer important, or even relevant, to make a more beautiful world, a better world, just developing the economy. And all these crimes can thus for this economic mandate be committed with the greatest of ease, in fact these criminal builders are actually being challanged and encouraged by the governements and by their administrators, helpless as they are to the will of the corporations and to the economy at large, to cover the earth with their perverse cultural filth and to do it with a manner and with a speed that will have the whole surface of the globe choked with these building abominations and building crimes. Then, when the whole world has been most horribly and tastelessly and criminally cluttered up by them, it will be too late, the face of the earth will be dead. We are helpless against the destruction of our global surface by the architects! Just as we have been enslaved by the economic forces which govern every facet of our lives, such that even government no longer really governs these days, isn't made up any more of real political minds, but simply of puppet executors of economic policy following the interests of the economic overloards of the State and an insane logic of eternal growth no matter at what costs to our existence and to our environment and, therefore, to the future of civilization itself.

And this is because we have become enslaved by the economy as I have said before, and so aren't natural human beings anymore, just economic creatures. Once we were homo sapiens, now we should be properly called homo economicus, for which all human existence has been reduced to an economic problem. We have superceeded any benifits which our new-found wealth, created by this economy, has given us; so that what was once a benifit has now become too much of a good thing as they say, Hugh J., and is killing us. The developed world and the developed economies are litterally choking on their richness, while the rest of the world starves. We have as a whole become richer financially, but are culturally wasted as all the evidence between past and present has demonstrated. We have more money, but less aesthetic sense, the only sense that matters. Whereas the corporate and financial worlds have been leading all of us upon a crash course with disaster, because everybody was in great rush to make large profits, without reflecting upon the harmful financial practices practiced and, blinded by greed, even when based upon a phantom wealth and not a real wealth, Hugh J., all under the aegis of government. So much so that there has developed this unfortunate tendency to force things and rush things, as if we need to get it all done right now before the carpet is pulled out from under our feet. And this is why our aesthetic sense and taste for a beautiful world, not the world the architects, governments and corporations and the economy have given us today, has diminished to the extent of practically being non-existant. Once we were poorer but were surrounded by beauty, now we are richer but are circumscribed by base ugliness. Everything in the world is done in great haste nowadays, in the name of economic growth, everything is rushed, too rushed, every time, nothing is allowed to develop at its own natural pace, it's all done in a mad precipitate brainless rush wherever we look to make profit, people simply rush into action and the results are sheerest chaos. The universal chaos in the world today, especially in recent times, is chiefly the result of every kind of preciptate action. Wherever we turn there's chaos, in the finacial markets, in the war striken zones, in our governments, in the corporate world, in our cities just as in our countrysides. Because everything is being done precipitately, in a rush.

All we can do to keep that which remains of our sanity, is to dare to stand up to this chaos caused by this economy and to try and accomplish the very difficult task of not becoming a homo economicus and return to being a homo sapiens. But this is one of the most difficult tasks we face in our times, because basically the whole world is against us, is bent on undermining our plans to preseve within us all that remains of our human dignity. And if we achieve our goal of going against the mainstream way of existence, even at the risk of great peril to our beings, we will have arrived at a truly remarkable performance and have really lived an artistic life the only life worth living.

Unreadable Sophomoric Drivel. Reality is something you need to grasp.

I like you too.

 

[rhubroma]

Unreadable Sophomoric Drivel. Reality is something you need to grasp.

I've gone back to disliking you as before. I think that's a record.

 

[Anonymous]

I've gone back to disliking you as before. I think that's a record.

I just call them as I see them. I still like you though.

 

[patricknd]

Most of the time, Hugh J., we have to deal with human filth, we're forced to wade through it and when we've made our way through one heap of filth, we must get through the next, on and on, each time faster, more radically than the last, because we've caught on that there's nothing but this human filth, which we have to get through. To reach our aim, Hugh J., we must traverse this human filth in the form of common filth in the head, the sole purpose of which is to do us in.

Take the so called world of architecture, once we built marvelous buildings, emotional works of art like the Pantheon and Hagia Sophia. Even the proletariate dwellings were once sound and pleasing. Now its all filth. Insipid commercial constructions, poorly designed office buildings, gaudy homes and the like and all in the name of so called progress and so called innovation. The so called building experts are no better than charlatans, incompitents one and all, and perverse exploiters of their helpless clients. Once we had Rabirius, Apollodorus of Damascus, Isodorus of Miletus, Bramante, Borromini and Eifel, nowadays only ruthless meglomaniacs who are bent on nothing less than messing up and destroying the surface of the earth. Once we had beautiful cities and villiages, to say nothing of the countless billions upon billions of acres in the countryside that have been uterly debased by today's professional builders and their minions who do nothing but wreck and ruin the face of the earth, every new building they put up is another crime they commit, a building crime against humanity: every building put up by builders these days is a crime! All in the name of developing the economy within the buidling sector, which covers just about everything: as if it were no longer important, or even relevant, to make a more beautiful world, a better world, just developing the economy. And all these crimes can thus for this economic mandate be committed with the greatest of ease, in fact these criminal builders are actually being challanged and encouraged by the governements and by their administrators, helpless as they are to the will of the corporations and to the economy at large, to cover the earth with their perverse cultural filth and to do it with a manner and with a speed that will have the whole surface of the globe choked with these building abominations and building crimes. Then, when the whole world has been most horribly and tastelessly and criminally cluttered up by them, it will be too late, the face of the earth will be dead. We are helpless against the destruction of our global surface by the architects! Just as we have been enslaved by the economic forces which govern every facet of our lives, such that even government no longer really governs these days, isn't made up any more of real political minds, but simply of puppet executors of economic policy following the interests of the economic overloards of the State and an insane logic of eternal growth no matter at what costs to our existence and to our environment and, therefore, to the future of civilization itself.

And this is because we have become enslaved by the economy as I have said before, and so aren't natural human beings anymore, just economic creatures. Once we were homo sapiens, now we should be properly called homo economicus, for which all human existence has been reduced to an economic problem. We have superceeded any benifits which our new-found wealth, created by this economy, has given us; so that what was once a benifit has now become too much of a good thing as they say, Hugh J., and is killing us. The developed world and the developed economies are litterally choking on their richness, while the rest of the world starves. We have as a whole become richer financially, but are culturally wasted as all the evidence between past and present has demonstrated. We have more money, but less aesthetic sense, the only sense that matters. Whereas the corporate and financial worlds have been leading all of us upon a crash course with disaster, because everybody was in great rush to make large profits, without reflecting upon the harmful financial practices practiced and, blinded by greed, even when based upon a phantom wealth and not a real wealth, Hugh J., all under the aegis of government. So much so that there has developed this unfortunate tendency to force things and rush things, as if we need to get it all done right now before the carpet is pulled out from under our feet. And this is why our aesthetic sense and taste for a beautiful world, not the world the architects, governments and corporations and the economy have given us today, has diminished to the extent of practically being non-existant. Once we were poorer but were surrounded by beauty, now we are richer but are circumscribed by base ugliness. Everything in the world is done in great haste nowadays, in the name of economic growth, everything is rushed, too rushed, every time, nothing is allowed to develop at its own natural pace, it's all done in a mad precipitate brainless rush wherever we look to make profit, people simply rush into action and the results are sheerest chaos. The universal chaos in the world today, especially in recent times, is chiefly the result of every kind of preciptate action. Wherever we turn there's chaos, in the finacial markets, in the war striken zones, in our governments, in the corporate world, in our cities just as in our countrysides. Because everything is being done precipitately, in a rush.

All we can do to keep that which remains of our sanity, is to dare to stand up to this chaos caused by this economy and to try and accomplish the very difficult task of not becoming a homo economicus and return to being a homo sapiens. But this is one of the most difficult tasks we face in our times, because basically the whole world is against us, is bent on undermining our plans to preseve within us all that remains of our human dignity. And if we achieve our goal of going against the mainstream way of existence, even at the risk of great peril to our beings, we will have arrived at a truly remarkable performance and have really lived an artistic life the only life worth living.

it's a sad fact that less than 14% of my customers listed aesthetic sensibility as a criteria they value when choosing an overhead crane service company.
pigs, all pigs.

i'm going to assume that you're chuckling to yourself right now, wondering if anyone reading this actually thinks you believe your own words.

 

[ChrisE]

i'm going to assume that you're chuckling to yourself right now, wondering if anyone reading this actually thinks you believe your own words.

Reading it?

I can't find a "BS gibberish to English" option on Babelfish. Do you have another program to put his writing into some type of readable form?

 

[patricknd]

Reading it?

I can't find a "BS gibberish to English" option on Babelfish. Do you have another program to put his writing into some type of readable form?

look at your screen in a mirror, then it all makes sense.

 

[rhubroma]

I just call them as I see them. I still like you though.

There are times after I wrote something, I say to myself how could you have written something so outlandish! Such insane and useless crap!

 

[rhubroma]

it's a sad fact that less than 14% of my customers listed aesthetic sensibility as a criteria they value when choosing an overhead crane service company.
pigs, all pigs.

i'm going to assume that you're chuckling to yourself right now, wondering if anyone reading this actually thinks you believe your own words.

Everything is metaphor, patricknd, all is symbol...like the pigs who are the customers and viceversa. Everything is a simile, pigs like customers and customers like pigs.

 

[Hugh Januss]

Wow, I'm almost sorry I didn't stay up drinking with you guys last night. I missed a.....well I'm not really sure what it was but I missed it..........I think.
At the risk of being labled a forum nazi (although I'm pretty sure r.avens has that title locked up), doesn't this whole thing really need to be in the 'Free Form- Kaos' thread?

 

[rhubroma]

Reality is something you need to grasp.

A man's reality, so called, is his failure to comprehend how things have actually taken place, of what really happened, and thus of the true state of things. Reality is a self-perpetuating eternal state of mis-conception, of mis-understanding everything. The sooner we realize how wrong we were about all of our thoughts and the conclusions we have drawn from them, the nearer we are to percieving reality, and hence the actual nature of causes and their effects causarum cognitio though always imperfectly and with limited results.

 

[L'arriviste]

A man's reality, so called, is his failure to comprehend how things have actually taken place, of what really happened, and thus of the true state of things. Reality is a self-perpetuating eternal state of mis-conception, of mis-understanding everything. The sooner we realize how wrong we were about all of our thoughts and the conclusions we have drawn from them, the nearer we are to percieving reality, and hence the actual nature of causes and their effects causarum cognitio though always imperfectly and with limited results.

Actually I found the architecture bit very interesting. I read somewhere that credit should perhaps have gone to Isidorus of Miletus' cousin rather than the man himself. Unusual to find that sort of thing on this forum though. I'd encourage more of it. Sort of like finding Pomerol in a 7-Eleven.

 

[buckwheat]

I've gone back to disliking you as before. I think that's a record.

Great stuff, bravura performance, tour de force, something that Boris Pasternak would gladly take credit for.

Don't edit yourself under pressure from shortsighted fools.

I really can't emphasize enough how good that was. Thanks.

 

[buckwheat]

Hey.

My mother loves me. So there.

She has the face only a son could love!

Seriously, good post and I'm tossing up the white flag to buckwheat. Hopefully he feels the same.

I thought it was clear that I unconditionally surrendered when you showed the picuture of your moms? Knockout blow there.

Your opinion is noble, but the problem is that the extremes of each party are polarizing and having a cohesive meaningful combo of necessary oversight and free market is difficult. We get what we have here by default, and economic policy is difficult to grasp for those hung up on sound bites and social issues. Thinking about this stuff is "hard", vs the emotional issues alot of people base their votes upon.

I was eating breakfast in a old diner yesterday morning, and while reading about this spill in the paper a couple of guys struck up a conversation with me. Their opinion of course was anti-Obama, and mocked him sending in the troops to oversee any review of current drilling safety operations. Then they go on to savage the greedy oil companies hurting the environment. I didn't say much because there was no point.

How do you rationalize with something like that? For sure they were not democrats, but yet they vote for the GOP while complaining about what they are actually voting for, ie deregulation. There are examples about this throughout the political landscape in this country, and those examples are mainly on the right. Racism, tribalism, religious bigotry, homophobia are all tools the right uses to get votes for what is really important, which in reality is against the best interests of those same voters.

I don't believe Scot votes GOP because of these issues, but a large portion of his fellow reps do. I actually agree with Scot in a perfect world, but it is not perfect and rules must be in place to protect the majority from the minority in business that break those rules and endanger society. I think he believes that too, this discussion just went downhill and since this is hitting close to home; maybe I wasn't using the best possible interpersonal skills in this thread....

What gets a little frustrating is when this is happening in your backyard, and the useful idiots that enable lack of necessary oversight in certain industries because of emotional issues are the ones that complain about it.

It sounds like you're an expert somewhere in the oil business.

I'm not. Anyway, the proof of what you say is in the pudding, and that pudding seems like it's going to be served up for quite some time.

Scott has accused me of Monday morning quarterbacking but he's a very illogical person. As a non expert in this field the risks to human life and to the environment seem pretty widely known. 1) People dying and 2) Environmental devastation.

Dear Scott, have these risks not come to fruition before?

Do you believe that there are people in this world who have more awareness of the possibilities of these risks being realized than you?

A couple of those people are here on this thread telling you that comparitively inexpensive things could have been done that would either have prevented this catastrophe or minimized it by many orders of magnitude.

If private companies aren't willing to take it upon themselves to implement widely known safety measures, do you think it's a bad thing for a government to compel them to do so or face civil and/or criminal penalties?

To say that these grave dangers have been known for decades is not an overstatement.

Where does this unfounded Monday morning quarterbacking accusation arise from because I can find no logical point of origin?

Hey, are the dangers known in the mining industry, or the nuclear industry and if I criticize the lack of regs in those areas are you going to accuse me of MMQ?

 

[rhubroma]

Actually I found the architecture bit very interesting. I read somewhere that credit should perhaps have gone to Isidorus of Miletus' cousin rather than the man himself....

Do you mean Anselmus of Tralles? No Anselmus of Tralles is a mere two-bit plagerizer of Isidorus of Miletus, as anyone who has ever properly considered the genius of Isidorus of Miletus knows, by the incredible architectural example he has left the world for all posterity at Hagia Sophia, which, after the Pantheon, has to be considered the most spectacular building ever realized, not only for its most original spacial conception, but above all for its divine, if I may use such a word, use of natural light. As if it emits a radiant glow from within, although the light source naturally penatraits from the outside, in what can only be termed a hallucinatory effect.

 

[buckwheat]

You seem to have the Monday morning quaterbacking down to a science. Please enlighten us as to the next catastrophe so the politicians can hurry up with regs that will keep it from happening, or lessen the impact?

It's interesting to me how you just write stuff as if it's true. My position has not changed regarding regs. But I don't really care if you think that they have. The way you view stuff isn't the same as the way I view stuff and there really is no point in debating with you as we have already established no common ground.

Monday Morning Quarterbacking?

Uh, that we've known about the risks of this sort of thing for DECADES is not an overstatement. That there are preventative measures that could have been taken and should have been taken is known by experts (at least two) you associate with on this forum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_spill

I don't think ChrisE is a licensed Psychiatrist but I have to agree with him that you have some cognitive difficulties to say the least and I'm 100% serious.

You wanna bet that there are going to be future industrial accidents that were both predicted by industry insiders and largely preventable?

It's a bet I'd love to lose.

Newsflash, most of us operate in the reality based world.

 

[Hugh Januss]

Great stuff, bravura performance, tour de force, something that Boris Pasternak would gladly take credit for.

Don't edit yourself under pressure from shortsighted fools.

I really can't emphasize enough how good that was. Thanks.

Shhh, you'll only encourage him.

 

[buckwheat]

Shhh, you'll only encourage him.

Much better than to listen to scott's. take on oil spills.

"Damn, I didn't know that could happen, who'da thunk it?"

 

[ChrisE]

For clarity, I don't think we should look at this under the impression of "blame BP/Transocean". OAR will know better than me and as soon as he gets over his hangover hopefully he will chime in. But there is apparently manual backup mechanisms on the BOP in case the pneumatic, electronic, or whatever controls it normally has do not work.

I am sure these were considered "enough" within the industry, and safety regulations were not in place to incur more. BP did not want this to happen....they are losing millions and apparently they are just self insured, ie this is coming out their sole pocket (at least until they fight it in court in a few years, which I am sure will be to the surprise of Scot). FYI self insurance is normal in the industry....

I am sure BP will recover but they will be severely crippled after this, and nobody should want that to happen. BP does not have malice towards society, obviously. They are just providing what society asks for in terms of cheap oil sources, while trying to make a maximum profit within the parameters imposed on them by law. I don't have a problem with that. Until the US shifts politically in terms of industry oversight the US should look in their collective mirror.

I hope in here we can separate whether we think offshore drilling should be allowed, or renewable energy should be pushed, vs BP operating within the regulations imposed on them at the time while providing supply for a demand. They have that right and this captitalistic concept is something I am fully in favor of.

Oil companies fight regulation all the time, and they get their way alot of times due to their "influence". Don't blame BP; we all try to get the best deal we can. Capitalistic nature is notoriously short-sighted, full of best case scenarios. If you bring these things up in this industry you are a "tree hugger", when in reality retrofitting plants for lower emissions and requiring extra measures in terms of safety are pennies on the dollar, and would have nearly zero impact on a bottom line. All the while creating jobs within the industry due to new emission measures to be designed/constructed, etc. as well as resulting in good for society. There is no free lunch.

I just hope this well gets plugged soon with a relief well. My estimates a few days ago I'm afraid may be on the lighter side. I have heard a relief well would be used to intercept the existing well and plug it, but I have also read relief wells would be used to remove oil from the existing UG oil reservoir thus lessening the pressure/outflow of the broken well. That makes sense but that is a hydraulics problem, and one that is not very complex IF you know the set of parameters for your basis. They must.

I have googled this alot, and have read of a 7" casing being intercepted and plugged down to 10k feet, but this was on land. It would seem to me that trying to do this here would be like trying to hit a needle from the top of a building with a bunch of straws stuck together. If intercepting is what is being done, there must be a way to control the direction of the drilling.

I am holding my breath for the media and the GOVT to dig into exactly WTF BP is planning to do in detail, and report the possible problems with any plan to the people they supposedly serve. Those idiots Salazar and Nopolitano imploring BP to do more is embarrassing, like the govt. is along for the ride. Understand what you are allowing before allowing it, idiots.

I know that is asking alot of our watchdog media stenographers and our "elected" officials. It's much easier to show oily birds and interview people losing their livelihood instead of doing real journalism and informing the public of the most important issue here. The effect is much easier to report on than the cause.