Gulf Oil Spill

"Obama has kept the country safe almost TWICE as long as Bush did"

I know a few people at Ft Hood who will disagree strongly.

haliburton who makes money off of them I think I might be wrong but its cheney ummm the fraud in the two wars we now have umm haliburton was there to right. But in the end its Bp's fault not any Prez's

"So you're equating the "military and intellegence departments [sic]" with Mineral Management Service inspectors? Yes. That's exactly what you just did."

Quit deflecting Monger, I was equating your assurtion that Obama is not responsible for problems and he has had only 17 months to fix them and it takes time, Yet you then say Bush should have been able to fix something as important and complex as the military and intellegence in 9 months. I was basically saying your statement was BS. So I guess your telling me that replacing Mineral Management Inspectors is more difficult than repairing a dismantled military and Intellegence agencies. If you believe that fixing the MMI is more complex (SIC) then I would surely like to know why,

"I'll just quickly mention that I used the word 'mostly' because I believe there is plenty of blame to go around. Most of it goes on Bush's shoulders. The lack of good intelligence was his problem, in a personal sense."

Again I ask you to tell me how he was suppose to fix military and Intellegence in 9 months and Obama cant fix the MMI in 17 months. Which is exactly what your comment was.

"As you just pointed out, Obama has kept the country safe almost TWICE as long as Bush did before there was a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Your argument requires that you admit Obama is 100% responsible for that success, and that he's not just better but TWICE as good as Bush."

Again, you have obviously stopped taking your adoral and Thorizen. Lets see, the O stopped what, The Attack in Ark by Isamic militants, the attack on Fort Hood, Islamic militant, the Christmas day attempted bombing good thing it would not go off, and the Times Square smoking van, not stopped by the US or any agency, stopped by the stupidity of the idiot who built it, got to use the right MOO MOO to make it go bang.

"Or are you going to credit Bush for Obama's success. I know you want to but you can't. LOL"

Well if there has been success, I would really like to see it pointed out. So I cant assign blame or praise.

Lets face it Monger in your zest to promote the O you mispook, just man up and admit it.
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Please have a sense of humor. Thank you.

Some nuclear weapons have extremely brief half-lives, some measured in seconds. Originally Posted by john_galt

No. 100% dead wrong. Every nuclear weapon in our arsenal starts with either U-235 or Pu-239. When they undergo fission, they produce a large number of daughter nucleotides, many with fairly long half lives. You don't have a lot of choice in what nucleotides they produce, although you can add some extra things if you want to create extra radioactivity. They also produce a large number of neutrons, which will transmute nearby materials producing radioisotopes.

We have NO direct fusion bombs, only fission or fission fusion bombs that start with U-235 or Pu-239. Nasty byproducts are inherent in the fission process. Every bomb we have starts with a Hiroshima or Nagasaki style fission blast.

This is getting kind of tedious having to explain what was apparent in the original post.

Nuclear weapons have ALREADY been used by the Soviet Union to close wells. You would have to ask them what they inherited because of that decision, but it has been done already.
Originally Posted by john_galt

The Russians did a LOT of stupid things with nuclear technology in the past, including detonating nuclear weapons above ground. (We did this, too.)

In this case, they used the weapons on gas wells on dry land. With an underwater oil well, anything that spews out of the well floats to the surface and washes up on beaches all over the Gulf. With the gas wells, anything that comes out will presumably spew out over a smaller area. Was this in an area where they didn't really care that much if they contaminated a few square miles of tundra for a while? Does the rock strata under the Gulf have the same plastic mechanical characteristics and structure that allowed the Russian bombs to work?

Even if none of the nuclear material leaks out, how do we know that the explosion will close off the well rather than fracturing rock and making the leak even worse? And leave you with a damaged well bore that you can no longer plug with relief wells? Remember that not all of the Russian bomb attempts were successful.

Why cant we get that dude from Holland to just stick his finger in the hole?

everybody left or right lets just stick with the prezs who says he's going to kick their ass

Getting back to the original thread topic: Who's fault?

Ours.

We are all dependent upon and are wishing for Cheap Oil. We would not be dependent on foreign oil if it wasn't the cheapest and most abundant oil available. Even better if we could find cheap domestic oil.

BP would not have risked millions in a DEEP offshore well unless they thought they could profit from it. We (US consumers) are the guarantee of profit from a extremely risky and dangerous deep-water Gulf well.

Did BP (Horizon) have the required expertise and experience to accomplish their goal? Apparently not. But if they had succeeded, the next step probably would have been an undersea pipeline directly to Louisiana oil refineries, with high praise from government and public alike.

As it is, the unanticipated extremely high pressure forcing crude oil out of the (now broken) well head has stymied all conventional methods of controlling or stopping the flow. The pressure was greater than the design criteria of the safety valves, too high to overcome by mud pumping, and probably was the major contributor to the original well failure that caused the explosion and fire and collapsed the rig.

It is difficult to believe that the proposed relief wells won't have the same risks and a similar potential for ecological disaster. Maybe that is part of the reason they are taking so long to drill them. All of this other visible "repair" action may be simply misdirection from the reality that there may not be a way to close this hole until enough oil escapes to relieve the pressure.

BP DOES have one of the worst records for drilling and refining safety in the world, but no corporate leadership would ever sponsor actions that could risk the shareholders to the point that ownership would be lost. That is the probable outcome of this debacle.


Back to the original point. No one would risk these losses without demand for cheaper domestic oil compelling this level of risk and investment.

Until we (Oil consumers) demand alternatives that dramatically reduce the consumption of energy (Oil, Coal, natural gas); we will remain shackled to energy and economic policies that guarantee the inevitability of the next oil crisis.

I think any talk of extraordinarily high pressures is just a BP diversion. The pressures were fine, the mud was holding the oil down just fine...but they replaced the mud with seawater much earlier than they should have. There is a web-site called "The Oil Drum", and they have alot of people in the industry giving good information.

This looks like good old fashioned human error - and ignoring obvious signs to STOP.

Okay, bubble yum is very sticky, what if every american chewed a piece of bubble yum and it was collected and shoved into the end of the pipe?

i vote for the gum option

I was just watching Dick Morris talking about how we got here. He and Clinton supported a bill back in 1996 that give oil companies a tax break for drilling in the deep water. If an oil company went out to the deep water they could throw away the tax form, the safety manual, and the "in the event of" procedures. It was international waters and the White House didn't want to get involved. Morris blames Clinton for signing the bill, Bush for changing the rules, and Obama for giving mixed messages on where he stands.
Morris also said that after the bill was signed the amount of deep rigs increased by 1000 % or ten times. We now get 14% of our oil from the deep rigs.

Dick Morris has had it in for the Clintons for a good 10 years. Not sure if I would believe everything he says as being the truth.

Companies who only do the minimum requirements as stated by law are only hurting themselves and their employees. Sounds like BP didn't even do the minimum safety procedures which lead to the explosion and deaths of 11 people.

I was talking to an attorney who makes his living sueing auto manufacturers. He said the minimum requirement for car seats is comparable to aluminum lawn chairs. the only reason manufacturers put better quality seats is to stave off lawsuits. Without the fear of lawsuits, manufacturers would only do the minimum safety requirements. Of course he was justifying his profession, but the point is, companies who only do the minimum required when it comes to safety or anything else, don't really care about employees or enviroment or the consumers who buy their products.

Quite a few companies I've worked with, safety is stressed as the most important thing in the workplace and those employees who circumvent safety rules and procedures are subject to immediate termination.

I can't get the memory of Dick Morris having his toes sucked or was he the one sucking the toes of Washington.D.C. Escort out of my head.

Call me silly but it makes me wonder about him and most commentary that he makes.

Its like a contractor that only builds a home to minimum code, eventually your going to have a problem. BP only maintained minimum code, however, although I think they should pay for everything, I am not sure punishing them is a good idea, since many of our 401 K's and other retirement funds are going to include BP in them, being punitive is only once again punishing those who had nothing to do with it.

John Boehner seems to think the taxpayer is also responsible.

In response to a question from TPMDC, House Minority Leader John Boehner said he believes taxpayers should help pick up the tab for the clean up.

"I think the people responsible in the oil spill--BP and the federal government--should take full responsibility for what's happening there," Boehner said at his weekly press conference this morning.