Gulf Oil Spill

Well I guess an argument can be made that its the American people's love of large auto's, big houses and the love of the freedom of the open road which drives oil companies to produce more and more, mind you this is not my argument but it is one that can be made.

Same argument could be said about Americans funding terroism.

I agree, like I said, I am not a supporter of either position.

I think in the near future, BP will be unable to spend any more on cleanup, and the federal government will take over. Imagine if a much smaller company caused an environmental catastrophe...the feds would take over on clean-up right away. I really don't understand why the feds haven't taken the attitude of clean it up themselves, and send BP the bill, complete with liens on its assets. The current plan of letting BP handle it is a little strange. The 1973 Clean Water Act, which I spend alot of time complying with at my job, mandates that the executive branch is responsible for the containment...so I am even more at a loss as to why more federal assets haven't been used...has it even been declared a disaster area where the fishing is banned?

Well I guess an argument can be made that its the American people's love of large auto's, big houses and the love of the freedom of the open road which drives oil companies to produce more and more, mind you this is not my argument but it is one that can be made. Originally Posted by dirty dog

Very true and I think it's a valid point- we have to seek alternative energy options very fast. I don't know how true it is but I believe I read a blog that even if the U.S were to drill in all the available territory that we believe has oil that it will only be a drop in the bucket perhaps 10% at the most of the oil we consume and we would still have to import Oil. i believe CNN reported that out of the oil the oil that spilled or rather that still leaking in the Gulf that it equals to about 2 days of the total U.S consumption- so basically 2 days of oil that we consume has spilled in the Gulf and in return has caused damage that will last for more years both economically and ecologically- very sad.

We have a decision to make: Do we use the cheapest most plentiful source of energy...or are the environmental risks too great?

Ditching oil and using other energy sources would cost more...and hurt the poor the hardest....which should be kept in mind.

My attitude goes something like this: Whererever we drill for oil, or store oil on land, we have containment...usually earth berms. No matter how much the shit hits the fan, even if all the oil leaks out of a tank for example, it won't go anywhere, and only contaminates a limited area.

In order to continue drilling off-shore, it is reasonable to require containment - some sort of boom 'fence' around a rig...and those booms have alot of room for improvement, to deal with rough seas. I think that would be a reasonable requirement.

I don't think we'll quit using oil in my lifetime...so it does bring up other questions. Is it more environmentally friendly to pump oil in some armpit of the world, and ship it halfway across the world to us...or to simply drill for it here, with a little more oversight? Of course, at least any accidents in Saudi wouldn't pollute our shores.

There will be some who want to use this accident to push us away from oil use...but there really are no large scale alternatives right now...and we use petroleum for alot more than just gasoline too. Entire industries based on plastics rely on oil, just as much as we do to drive our cars.

Why cant we get that dude from Holland to just stick his finger in the hole? Originally Posted by dirty dog

I don't think they'll extradite him for that...but you can ask.

Its a neat trick. Obama takes the high road, and takes responsibility, while his henchmen blame Cheney, Bush, etc. Its a tired cynical political play. When did I get promoted to henchman? Sweet! Obama used it successfully throughout his campaign, and the media pretended like it didn't even happen....its not working for the big O on this one though.

Please note, I don't for a minute think the spill is Obama's fault...but its not Cheney's either. Yes it is.

Deregulation...I've seen this movie before, and I know the ending. If BP had followed existing regulations, if the MMS had followed existing regulations, none of this would have happened. Well now its happened, and suddenly it becomes an opportunity for 'more regulation'. Why not enforce the existing regulations? (Obama might have a million an$wers for this )

Please be very specific: What regulation was in place before Bush/Cheney, which was subsequently removed by Bush/Cheney, and led to this disaster? I already went over this with JG. When I use the word 'regulation' it means 'enforcing existing regulations', not adding more rules. As DD said, deep sea oil rigs increased 1000% but the number of inspectors only increased 13%. Oilmen Bush and Cheney were responsible for exactly 8 years of that trend.

Also you mentioned the financial industry. You're damned right, derugulation sunk us all. Glass-Steagall should have never been repealled...but that was a bipartisan mistake, almost unanimous (and there wasn't a Bush in the WH).

Obama signed an order to close Gitmo on day two of his presidency. He could just as easily revoked the phantom derugulation you speak of, if he cared to do so. Get it? He's in charge now. I didn't even really care for Bush, but holy cow, he can't be responsibly for everything....COG and Obama should get some of the credit. Originally Posted by lacrew_2000

We mostly agree.

"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. Originally Posted by lacrew_2000

Nov. 5th, Sept. 11th. It would still be longer, but not by much. But can you really 'count' an Army major going on a shooting rampage on an Army base? If Hasan was a civilian, then sure...but he was an Army officer. You've got to admit that it was very different in nature from 9/11. Not really the same thing at all.

<sigh> Weeding out the bad MMI inspectors and hiring good new ones is important, but it is a MUCH lower priority job for the President than protecting U.S. citizens from attack in the U.S. That's the number one job of every President. You seem to want to argue that the entire intelligence system of the U.S. Government had been completely dismantled when Bush took office. I say prove it. If you're going to blame the CIA and blame the military instead of blaming the neocon chickenhawks in the White House then offer up some proof.

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. Originally Posted by dirty dog

I zestily mispook? Is that even possible?

"I zestily mispook? Is that even possible?"

Yep, cause you have skillz

It would be foolish to blame the spill on Obama.

Now please tell me everybody read that the Bush admin fined this very rig six times....before blindly blaming him for this.

Please don't use the word "neocon". It's anti-semetic and it makes you look bad.

"Weeding out the bad MMI inspectors and hiring good new ones is important, but it is a MUCH lower priority job for the President than protecting U.S. citizens from attack in the U.S"

Well I am sure there are some people in the South who might think weeding out bad MMI inspectors is pretty important. I know you like to bend the comments to fit your needs but the comment you made was that Obama is not to blame for the problem in the gulf because he only had 17 months to fix the problem. You then turn around and blame Bush for 9/11 when he had been in office less than 9 months. Which is the more daunting task I ask. You indicated Nov 5, until Sept 10 but I reject that because months ago when there was complaining about Obama you made a big point of pointing out that he did not take office until Jan 20. So you are going to have to use the same logic for when Bush took office.

"You seem to want to argue that the entire intelligence system of the U.S. Government had been completely dismantled when Bush took office. I say prove it."

"Tenet also said in April, 2004:

By the mid-1990s the Intelligence Community was operating with significant erosion in resources and people and was unable to keep pace with technological change. When I became DCI, I found a Community and a CIA whose dollars were declining and whose expertise was ebbing.

• We lost close to 25 percent of our people and billions of dollars in capital investment.
• The pace of technological change and a $3 trillion telecommunications revolution challenged the National Security Agency’s ability to keep up with the increasing volume and velocity of modern communications.
• The infrastructure to recruit, train, and sustain officers for our clandestine services—the nation’s human intelligence capability—was in disarray.
• We were not hiring new analysts, emphasizing the importance of expertise, or giving analysts the tools they needed."

As most of the information contained in the intellegence section of the budget is classified I have to go by what President Clinton promised on the campaign trail and once he was in office. "During the 1992 presidential campaign, Clinton promised that if elected he would slash the intelligence budget by $1.5 billion every year for 5 years from 1993-1997. That represented something like an annual cut of 5% for 5 years, or 25% total. Ouch."

"When discussing the budget for FY1994, Clinton said:

It is clear that the intelligence community must do more with limited resources. As I promised during the campaign, we will save a total of $7 billion over the years 1993-1997 from the previous administration's request for
national and tactical intelligence programs."

"In addition to these funding cuts, Congress levied an across-the-board 17.5-percent reduction in personnel in all intelligence agencies, including the CIA, by 1997. So, there should be no mistake, Mr. President, intelligence has been cut and cut severely over the last 5 years."

"For FY1995, it was noted that Clinton's goal of cutting intelligence by $7.5 billion in 5 years had been realized in only 3!"

Now it can be noted that during the last two years of his Presidency intellegence spending increased because of a Republican held congress, the damage had already been done, the loss of personel, infrastructure was too much to over come in a short period of time.

In addition to cuts in intellegence the department of defense was cut as indicated:

$453 billion – the average annual defense budget for the nine years before Clinton took office.

$377 billion – the average annual defense budget during Clinton’s time in office, a 16.7% decrease.

"It would be foolish to blame the spill on Obama."

No one is blaming Obama, this debate with LM is over his comment that he did not have time to reform the MMI in 17 months, then claimed Bush dropped the ball by not stopping 9/11 when he had been in office only 9 months when that happened. Read his post you will understand.