O/T: "Drill Baby Drill"

On May 4, 6:49=A0am, Jack Stein <[email protected]> wrote:
> Han wrote:
> > Jack Stein <[email protected]> wrote innews:[email protected]=
l-
> > september.org:
>
> >> The people that know best how to prevent disaster is
> >> the people doing the drilling.
> > They have to be pressed to consider the disasters and how to prevent th=
em,
> > otherwise they will always be late. =A0Quod erat demonstrandum.
>
> Nope! =A0This only demonstrates that shit happens. =A0The fact that despi=
te
> massive government regulations shit still happens. QED.


You should consider a course in Logic, Jack -- TAKING one; not
TEACHING one.

The salient question, of course, is: would these problems be MORE or
LESS common if regulation were reduced ?

QED, yourself ;-)

In article
<9e51b09b-df25-4367-a836-c3b215349d51@r11g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>,
<"[email protected]"> wrote:

> On May 5, 10:30 am, Larry Jaques <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Wed, 05 May 2010 09:15:22 -0400, Jack Stein <[email protected]>
> > wrote the following:
> >
> > >Max wrote:
> >
> > >> Scenario 3:  Driller takes shortcuts to save money.  
> >
> > >The amount of money spent by "drillers" to minimize risk would boggle
> > >your mind.
> >
> > >> Doesn't install excess flow valve.  Uses a faulty safety shut-off. Uses
> > >> crewmen who
> > >> speak several different languages confounding
> > >> instructions..............and safety measures.
> >
> > >Yeah, I can see them using a faulty shut off valve to save some money on
> > >a multi-BILLION $ oil platform.  We are talking private business, not
> > >government.  Only government would knowingly do something so stupid.
> >
> > Please, Jack.  They're insured.  While the ruination of an oil
> > platform wrecks the bidness for a couple weeks, it also causes the
> > price of all oil they sell to go up, so they're sitting much prettier
> > right now than they were a few weeks ago. Prices raise quickly and
> > drop slowly, so by the time it returns to normal, they'll have 50x
> > their investment in fines and replacement platforms. No worries.
> >
> Hmm, haven't noticed the price go up significantly in the last week or
> two.

Gasoline rose 6 cents a litre here a few days ago.

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:d197688e-5148-4973-b46d-73091aa6a746@b18g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
On May 4, 11:33 am, "Leon" <[email protected]> wrote:
> "Jack Stein" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
> news:[email protected]...
>
>
>
> > Who gives a damn? The people that know best how to prevent disaster is
> > the people doing the drilling.
>
> Actually in this case the people doing the drilling are the most likely to
> create a disaster, they have a terrible track record.

Actually, I think their track record is pretty amazing.

Amazingly bad? BP has always had a bad reputation in Houston as being
riddled with fines for safety violations and that was before their
refineries started blowing up in the Houston area.

On May 3, 7:27=A0pm, Morris Dovey <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 5/3/2010 6:22 PM, Robatoy wrote:
>
> > On May 3, 6:50 pm, Morris Dovey<[email protected]> =A0wrote:
> >> On 5/3/2010 12:30 PM, DGDevin wrote:
>
> >>> Wait until the price of gas starts to climb again.
>
> >> It probably will, and the prices of NG and diesel will rise
> >> proportionately - not a good thing for folks wanting to keep warm in t=
he
> >> wintertime...
>
> > Now why would that interest you?
>
> Because I want people to be comfortable in the wintertime (same reason I
> make solar panels).
>


So you're competing with global warming?

*smirk*

[email protected] wrote:
> On Mon, 03 May 2010 15:23:48 -0400, "J. Clarke"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On 5/3/2010 1:56 PM, Chris Friesen wrote:
>>> On 05/03/2010 05:30 AM, HeyBub wrote:
>>>
>>>> BP is probably the culprit here, but it's far to early to assign
>>>> blame. For all we know, a Taliban militant could have set the rig
>>>> on fire.
>>>
>>> Conceivable, but that's no excuse for the blowout preventer to fail.
>>
>> For all we know he could have dropped a hundred pounds of C4 down the
>> pipe while he was about it.
>>
>
> Pretty hard to drop anything "down the pipe" with all that oil coming
> up under considerable pressure.
>
> And planting explosives at 5000 foot depth? Without a support ship on
> the surface for the robotic sub? Yeah, that's likely, too!
>
> Bwhahahahaha!

A hack-saw could have easily cut the communication wires to the BOP. I don't
think BOPs are autonomous devices (like a sprinkler system). How could a BOP
know the rig above it has caught fire or been blown away?

Bwhahahahaha!

Chris Friesen wrote:
> On 05/06/2010 02:37 PM, HeyBub wrote:
>> Jack Stein wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Please, Jack. They're insured.
>>>
>>> Please Larry, BP is self-insured, meaning, no, they are NOT insured.
>>
>> Huh? "Self insured" IS insured.
>
> Think about that for a second. The whole point of insurance is to pay
> someone else to assume the risk on the behalf of the insured entity.
> Generally it's done because the entity buying the insurance cannot or
> doesn't want to incur all the risk themselves.
>
> If BP is "self-insured" it means that they're not actually insured,
> but rather that they've chosen to assume the risk themselves.
>

"Self-insured" and "Assumed risk" are the same thing. How much is this Gulf
business gonna cost BP? A billion dollars? Ten billion? A hundred billion?

BP total assests, 31 Dec 2009: $235,968,000,000.00.*

They can afford the liability, whatever it is.

You may be interested to know that over half the employer-provided health
insurance in Maine is "self-insured." That is, the employer pays the claim.

-----------

*
http://finapps.forbes.com/finapps/jsp/finance/compinfo/FinancialIndustrial.jsp?tkr=bp&period=qtr

On May 2, 7:20=A0pm, "Lew Hodgett" <[email protected]> wrote:
> The silence if deafening from the "Drill Baby Drill" crowd.
> e..
> At least there is one small bright spot in this man made tragedy.
>
> Lew

Ok..I'll take the bite....I love a good oil leak....that make you
happy? ..give me a break.

On May 3, 5:32=A0pm, "DGDevin" <[email protected]> wrote:

>
> My folks lived through the Great Depression, and I inherited the attitude
> that you scrape the peanut butter jar clean, not because you can't afford
> another one but just because waste is a bad idea. =A0So when I see a lone
> driver using an Escalade or Suburban to go pick up a carton of milk it ma=
kes
> me shake my head. =A0

What about flying Al Gore's fat ass in a Gulfstream to a meeting on
environmental responsibility?

> And then there is the issue of why every year we send
> umpteen gazillion dollars to countries with governments that don't like u=
s
> too much. =A0Why are we paying oil money to Hugo Chavez =A0to buy Russki =
fighter
> jets, or for the Saudis to fund fundamentalist jihadi preachers? =A0Surel=
y
> burning a dirty, increasingly expensive fuel that enriches hostile regime=
s
> is not a smart long-term policy, is it?

On May 4, 7:03=A0pm, "Leon" <[email protected]> wrote:
> <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
> news:d197688e-5148-4973-b46d-73091aa6a746@b18g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
> On May 4, 11:33 am, "Leon" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > "Jack Stein" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
> >news:[email protected]...
>
> > > Who gives a damn? The people that know best how to prevent disaster i=
s
> > > the people doing the drilling.
>
> > Actually in this case the people doing the drilling are the most likely=
to
> > create a disaster, they have a terrible track record.
>
> Actually, I think their track record is pretty amazing.
>
> Amazingly bad? =A0BP has always had a bad reputation in Houston as being
> riddled with fines for safety violations and that was before their
> refineries started blowing up in the Houston area.

Considering the quantities of quite flammable products sold (at
amazingly low prices), no, it's amazing there aren't more problems.

On 5/4/2010 4:25 PM, Chris Friesen wrote:
> On 05/04/2010 03:09 PM, HeyBub wrote:
>
>> That is, governments should exist to enforce freely-entered contracts, not
>> write them or establish clauses. And enforce the contracts with an iron
>> hand. In the instant case there is an implied contract that the drillers of
>> oil will not cause harm to anyone due to the company's negligence.
>
> An interesting concept. I take it you think the free market would
> provide competition enough to ensure that the contract terms are reasonable?
>
> What if there isn't any competition in your area for whatever service
> you desire? The single provider can set whatever terms they desire?
> This might work for businesses with low barrier of entry, but for things
> that require a large capital investment it doesn't work so well.
>
> Taking the example of the 'net...what if nobody wants to offer you high
> speed internet service because you live in a new subdivision and there
> aren't enough people there to make it immediately profitable? Or what
> if the phone and cable companies collude to offer similar jacked-up
> rates for reduced service?
>
> Chris

You'd either have to live with it or move OR (if you thought a market
existed) offer a better service. The underlying principle is the
same: Never use government force unless it is necessary to protect
freedom.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On 05/03/2010 12:39 PM, Morris Dovey wrote:
> On 5/3/2010 12:55 PM, Chris Friesen wrote:

>> Unless the blowout preventer itself was blown up by a bomb, it should
>> have been designed to fail safe.
>
> "When a failsafe system fails, it fails by failing to fail safe." :)

True enough...but I still think it should have been able to handle the
loss of the rig above.

Chris

On May 3, 6:50=A0pm, Morris Dovey <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 5/3/2010 12:30 PM, DGDevin wrote:
>
> > Wait until the price of gas starts to climb again.
>
> It probably will, and the prices of NG and diesel will rise
> proportionately - not a good thing for folks wanting to keep warm in the
> wintertime...
>

Now why would that interest you?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
;-)

On 5/6/2010 8:44 PM, HeyBub wrote:
> Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>> On 5/6/2010 3:37 PM, HeyBub wrote:
>>> Jack Stein wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Please, Jack. They're insured.
>>>>
>>>> Please Larry, BP is self-insured, meaning, no, they are NOT insured.
>>>
>>> Huh? "Self insured" IS insured. You can't lie about the sufficiency
>>> of your ability to cover potential liabilities to contractors,
>>> employees, or, more importantly, the government who grants the lease.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Really? Do you seriously believe the government does anything remotely
>> like regular due diligence to ensure that the insurance escrow (or
>> whatever they use) remains consistent with the risk as the project is
>> ongoing? Note that this was also the belief when AIG was insuring CDOs
>> via CDSs and we saw how well that worked out. Trusting the government
>> to be a responsible overseer is a demonstrably bad bet.
>>
>> I remain firmly in the camp that regulation should be minimized
>> because it actually doesn't work very well, BUT that tort remedies in
>> these sorts of cases should be almost limitless and painful. I know it
>> is a conservative mantra that we need 'tort reform' and some common
>> sense boundaries probably do make sense. But the reality here is that
>> the only thing that will cause needed behavioral change is a sharp
>> financial feedback mechanism. i.e., BP should have to pay for the mess
>> they created. Letting them hide behind limits on their self-insurance
>> (which I'm told do exist) is ridiculous. All that's going to happen is
>> that they'll continue to enjoy the upside of their investments (which
>> I heartily approve of) but lay off the downside to the public (which
>> is profoundly dishonest). BP peed in the pond, they should go clean it
>> up and make things right with the people affected.
>>
>> I don't think BP did this intentionally or even negligently. It sure
>> looks like an accident. But that doesn't vitiate their culpability.
>> They are a $240B -ish revenue company. Think of how their behavior
>> might change if cleaning this mess up cost them $5-$10B. They'd
>> probably reconsider their safety and engineering practices, not to
>> mention their drilling strategy.
>>
>> (Bear in mind that I am way, way, way, a pro-business, free market
>> guy,
>> I just hate stealing in all its forms.)
>
> And how much contributory negligence is due the shrimp fishermen for plying
> their trade in an area where such a contingency was possible? Would it be
> your position that in the absence of insurance for the shrip-catchers - or
> at the least income protection insurance - is their tough luck?
>
> There is a defensible view that the fishermen took their chances and lost.
>
>

Maybe. But I have to tell you that this is a kind of inverted logic when
the victim of negligence/accident/poor judgment is somehow made culpable.
We're not talking about a rudder that got sheared because it ran afoul
of some flotsam when a shrimper got too close to an oil rig. We're talking
about an entire fishery being neutered. By this line of reasoning, I'm
responsible for the drunk driver that hits me, the unbalanced psycho that
illegally uses a weapon to shoot me, or the guy that cuts me off in traffic
and causes me to roll my truck over on the highway. Your dog doesn't hunt.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On May 3, 10:02=A0am, Larry Jaques <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, 03 May 2010 08:16:33 -0400, the infamous Jack Stein
> <[email protected]> scrawled the following:
>
> >Han wrote:
>
> >> I'm with Lew. =A0I think Obama and his administration were a tad late,=
but
> >> have properly stated that BP will need to pay, and I hope that all dam=
age
> >> will fall under that.
>
> >Yeah BP will pay, but guess where they get all their money?
>
> Yet another Obama Bailout, i.e. our pockets, right?

Depends on how much money BP gives the Demonicrats this year.

dpb wrote:

> What ya' want...I see no reason for shutting anything down...any venture
> w/ reward has risk. Once the event analysis is done, whatever is
> learned will be extended.
>
Problem is that those who reap the rewards aren't the ones who pay for
the "risk" when things go wrong. And if Murphy has taught us anything
it's that things WILL go wrong.

When the actions of one small group of people can have a significant
negative impact on the lives and the economies of at least three
states, and a neighboring country, they better have a LOT of liability
insurance and we're not talking about millions - but billions.

Would be interesting to see what Lloyds of London would want to provide
such insurance. Folks that put themselves on the hook to pay for fixing
things when they go wrong are probably much better at estimating the
risk that are oils companies, or regulatory agencies - especially those
gutted by "deregulation" (read "here's the hen house. Fox - keep an eye
on the place")

On 2010-05-02 20:17:06 -0400, dpb <[email protected]> said:

> What ya' want...I see no reason for shutting anything down...any
> venture w/ reward has risk. Once the event analysis is done, whatever
> is learned will be extended.

Yeah, but wouldn't it be great if some of theis high-priced "talent"
could think this shit through before hand? Or maybe we just misheard it
all -- and it was "Spill, baby, spill!"

"Han" wrote:

> I'm a cynic. As long as the BOP gadgets are mechanical, a large
> enough
> explosion will render them useless. Redundancy can only be carried
> to the
> nth degree.
--------------------------------------------
One of Murphy's laws:

"If it can fuck up, it will".

Lew

"DGDevin" wrote:

> Wait until the price of gas starts to climb again.
-----------------------------------------
Personally I'd like to see $10.00/gallon.

Would certainly encourage getting off oil.

Lew

On 2010-05-03 16:03:40 -0400, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> said:

> Perhaps the BOP was not "self aware" and depended upon instructions
> from the surface?
>
> If so, maybe the instructions never got to the BOP.

One report I heard today is that the function of the BOP -- which
staunchs the flow by crushing the pipe -- was blocked by drill pieces
inside the pipe.

On 2010-05-02 22:55:22 -0400, "J. Clarke" <[email protected]> said:

> So why don't you apply for a job showing these people you consider to
> be incompetent how it's done?
>
> Engineering is always trivially easy to people who don't actually have
> to do it.

Listen, butthead -- I didn't say I had answers, but I did say the
talent charged with having the answers failed. So, yes, my summation is
easy, but not particularly trivial.

If you've got the engineering savvy, use it.

Otherwise, you're trivial, and so is your challenge.

On 2010-05-03 07:30:34 -0400, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> said:

> BP is probably the culprit here, but it's far to early to assign blame.
> For all we know, a Taliban militant could have set the rig on fire.

That's reaching!

On 2010-05-03 11:02:23 -0400, Larry Jaques <[email protected]> said:

> Yet another Obama Bailout, i.e. our pockets, right?

Exxon Valdez spilled 10.8 million gallons of crude* on March 24, 1989.
In 1994, a jury awarded 287 million USD in compensatory damages and 5
billion USD in punitive damages. Exxon's first appeal halved the
punitive damages. A second appeal (to the Supreme Court) capped the
punitive damages at just over a half-billion. That was June, 2008. In
June, 2009, in reaction to the delayed payment of the punitive damages,
a Fed ruling tacked on 480 million USD in interest charges.

Has any of this been paid?

BTW, the Exxon Valdez, now owned by Hong Bloom Shipping, Ltd. (based in
Hong Kong), has been refitted as an ore carrier and sails under the
name "Dong Fang Ocean" (Panamanian registry).

*Human error, dontcha know?

Scorecard:
1989 -- Reagan
1994 -- Clinton
2008 -- Bush, the Lesser
2009 -- Obama

On 2010-05-03 16:08:21 -0400, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> said:

>> Wait until the price of gas starts to climb again.
>
> Some (the environmentalists) would say that IS the bright spot.
> Different strokes... and all that.

Somewhat a propos, though not strictly on-topic:

"I know of no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so
effective as their stringent execution."
-- U. S. Grant

On 2010-05-03 23:01:59 -0400, Larry Jaques <[email protected]> said:

> Why hasn't every car company licensed Toyota's Hybrid system?

Why hasn't every saw manufacturer licensed SawStop's technology?

Somebody wrote:

> to move goods and people we require a lot of oil.
-------------------------------
Bullshit.

CNG comes to mind as a short term solution.
===========================
"Robatoy" wrote:

I have been going on about this for the last 40 years. Two of my three
daughters work at nuclear power stations, one even teaches operational
safety procedures. But as long as the NIMBY's keep their heads up
their asses and refuse to look at the whole potential objectively, it
will be an uphill battle. Somehow, they think it involves little
Nagasaki's in bottles.
------------------------------------------
When the industry resolves the waste issues, I'm all ears.

BTW, Yucca mountain doesn't cut it.

Lew

"Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote

> On 5/4/2010 10:04 AM, Morris Dovey wrote:

>> Here's my weird thought for the day:
>>
>> The drum major doesn't choose the parade route.
>
> Here's mine:
>
> 7-11s are open 24 x 7 x 365 - why do they have door locks?
>
>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
> PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

So the clerk can go pee?

"Morris Dovey" wrote:
>
> Fair enough, but I remember Railway Express moving packages around
> the country without cumbersome delays - and that was before there
> were computers to help optimize loading manifests and help train
> masters make up trains.
------------------------------------------
I remember REA as a pathetic mess in the early '60s.

All of my PO's carried a paragraph:

Ship: United Parcel Service

Any shipment made via REA will be refused.

Lew

"Morris Dovey" wrote:
>
> Interesting - I remember boxes of fresh fruit from an uncle in
> California being delivered to our home in Indiana - in the mid- and
> late-1940's. Perhaps the timeline is significant...
----------------------------------------
Without question.

UPS was just coming up to speed after WWII while REA was not
considered a growth industry by the railroads.

By the early 60's, UPS was the big winner.

Lew

> Somebody wrote:

> Try again. Energy is required to "move" anything (please
> see a high school physics text to explain why). The majority
> of energy in the US today is produced from some kind of fossil
> fuel. It may not literally require oil, but it definitely
> comes down to dead dinos somehow.
--------------------------------------
CNG is available on USA soil, no need to import it thus a few
megabucks are not sent to the Middle East to buy crude.

CNG provides a short term solution, in the order of 20 years while
alternate renewable sources are developed for the transportation
segment.
----------------------------------------------
> The waste problem has long ago been solved, and, sorry, but
> Yucca is an excellent solution to the problem.
----------------------------------------
A single fuck up in the nuclear business is three too many, thus Yucca
doesn't pass muster.

Same applies to off shore drilling as we are seeing right now in the
Gulf Of Mexico.

Lew

"Robatoy" wrote:

The waste issues are relative. One pound of nasty stuff vs 100,000
pounds of not quite as nasty stuff. The shit that coal plants toss in
the air is just amazing. Not just fly-ash and sulpher compounds, but
many metals, some quite nasty. And of course the oxides of carbon,
nitrogen, vanadium, etc.
I would rather deal with one rattle snake than a million locusts.
-----------------------------------------------
Whether people want to willingly get on board or be pulled by the
scruff of the neck, the renewable energy train is getting ready to
leave the station.

The end of the use of fossil fuels will happen during this century,
the question will be who is going to lead the transition.

Last week a Chinese vehicle manufacturer opened their USA headquarters
here in Los Angeles.

Their product line includes electric vehicles, batteries and solar
panels.

Warren Buffet has invested $300K in this company which didn't even
exist 15 years ago.

Is this 40 years ago being repeated again only by the Chinese rather
than the Japanese?

I hope not but the train won't wait.

Lew

"Morris Dovey" wrote:

> In large part due to federal intrusion into the management process
> (which appeared to be the result of some really effective lobbying
> by Detroit interests) and featherbedding, by the 1960's the
> railroads weren't exactly a growth industry by any standard.
>
> The /real/ winner produced the trucks that replaced the trains.
-------------------------------------------
The interstate highway system provided major assistance to UPS
becoming what it is.

Should read about the systematic destruction of the trolley system
here in SoCal back in the 20's.

GMC, FoMoCo and Firestone were major players.

Should see the "Unit" trains leaving the port of L/A headed east
across the California desert.

200 car trains are not uncommon.

Lew

"Larry Jaques" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Mon, 03 May 2010 15:39:43 -0400, [email protected] wrote the
> following:
>
>>On Mon, 03 May 2010 15:23:48 -0400, "J. Clarke"
>><[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>On 5/3/2010 1:56 PM, Chris Friesen wrote:
>>>> On 05/03/2010 05:30 AM, HeyBub wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> BP is probably the culprit here, but it's far to early to assign
>>>>> blame. For
>>>>> all we know, a Taliban militant could have set the rig on fire.
>>>>
>>>> Conceivable, but that's no excuse for the blowout preventer to fail.
>>>
>>>For all we know he could have dropped a hundred pounds of C4 down the
>>>pipe while he was about it.
>>>
>>
>>Pretty hard to drop anything "down the pipe" with all that oil coming
>>up under considerable pressure.
>>
>>And planting explosives at 5000 foot depth? Without a support ship on
>>the surface for the robotic sub? Yeah, that's likely, too!
>>
>>Bwhahahahaha!
>
> Possible scenario: Perp "parks" his boat a mile off, scubas to the
> downpipe. He runs a cable around the pipe with the explosive pack on
> it, sets it, and lets it go. He uses his electric torpedo to get back
> to the boat and takes off. Meanwhile, the explosive pack is weighted
> so it follows the pipe to the ocean floor where it explodes.
>
> Probable scenario 1: GS bets big, hires oil driller to sabotage the
> unit for a percentage.
>
> Probable scenario 2: Oil companies decide this is the best way today
> to increase their profits. Money filters down and it's done.
>
> --
> Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.
> -- Raymond Lindquist


Scenario 3: Driller takes shortcuts to save money. Doesn't install excess
flow valve. Uses a faulty safety shut-off. Uses crewmen who speak several
different languages confounding instructions..............and safety
measures.

Max

"HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Steve wrote:
>> On 2010-05-02 22:55:22 -0400, "J. Clarke" <[email protected]>
>> said:
>>> So why don't you apply for a job showing these people you consider to
>>> be incompetent how it's done?
>>>
>>> Engineering is always trivially easy to people who don't actually
>>> have to do it.
>>
>> Listen, butthead -- I didn't say I had answers, but I did say the
>> talent charged with having the answers failed. So, yes, my summation
>> is easy, but not particularly trivial.
>>
>> If you've got the engineering savvy, use it.
>>
>> Otherwise, you're trivial, and so is your challenge.
>
> But you don't know what went wrong. You don't even know what you don't
> know. The problem may have been an engineering failure, a human mistake, a
> terrorist attack, a rogue submarine, a freak wave, or even a
> previously-unknown monster from the deep.
>


Or even a reaction from the giant asteroid that hit the region awhile ago.
(ok, *quite* awhile)
Or a deep sea vent bent the pipe.
Or Pelosi and Reed hired the job done.

Max (whenever you all get thru "drilling" put the project together and let's
move on)

Tim Daneliuk wrote

> Speaking of which, it seems that "This is the worst spill ever" is
> baloney (shocking news, the media isn't doing their homework):
>
>
> http://www.redstate.com/neokong/2010/05/01/its-time-to-put-a-stop-to-the-lie-the-gulf-spill-is-not-the-worst-spill-ever/
>
> Could it be that there is political agenda afoot? Shocking, just
> shocking.
>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> [email protected]
> PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
>


My best guess is that *this* spill isn't over yet.
Yogi once said, "It ain't over 'til its over."

"Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On 5/4/2010 4:29 PM, Max wrote:
>> "Larry Jaques" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]...
>>> On Mon, 03 May 2010 15:39:43 -0400, [email protected] wrote the
>>> following:
>>>
>>>> On Mon, 03 May 2010 15:23:48 -0400, "J. Clarke"
>>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 5/3/2010 1:56 PM, Chris Friesen wrote:
>>>>>> On 05/03/2010 05:30 AM, HeyBub wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> BP is probably the culprit here, but it's far to early to assign
>>>>>>> blame. For
>>>>>>> all we know, a Taliban militant could have set the rig on fire.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Conceivable, but that's no excuse for the blowout preventer to fail.
>>>>>
>>>>> For all we know he could have dropped a hundred pounds of C4 down the
>>>>> pipe while he was about it.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Pretty hard to drop anything "down the pipe" with all that oil coming
>>>> up under considerable pressure.
>>>>
>>>> And planting explosives at 5000 foot depth? Without a support ship on
>>>> the surface for the robotic sub? Yeah, that's likely, too!
>>>>
>>>> Bwhahahahaha!
>>>
>>> Possible scenario: Perp "parks" his boat a mile off, scubas to the
>>> downpipe. He runs a cable around the pipe with the explosive pack on
>>> it, sets it, and lets it go. He uses his electric torpedo to get back
>>> to the boat and takes off. Meanwhile, the explosive pack is weighted
>>> so it follows the pipe to the ocean floor where it explodes.
>>>
>>> Probable scenario 1: GS bets big, hires oil driller to sabotage the
>>> unit for a percentage.
>>>
>>> Probable scenario 2: Oil companies decide this is the best way today
>>> to increase their profits. Money filters down and it's done.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.
>>> -- Raymond Lindquist
>>
>>
>> Scenario 3: Driller takes shortcuts to save money. Doesn't install
>> excess flow valve. Uses a faulty safety shut-off. Uses crewmen who
>> speak several different languages confounding
>> instructions..............and safety measures.
>>
>> Max
>
> Per William Of Occam:
>
> Senario 4: It was simply an unanticipated accident having never before
> happened quite this way.
>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
> PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
>


One of those once in 500 year floods? {:-)

J. Clarke wrote:

> Yes, it's difficult technically. If the Chinese are so smart though
> they should be able to figure out a way to do it. If they can't,
> then they aren't any smarter than anybody else.
--------------------------------------------
If the country is willing to make the same commitment to solving the
alternate energy problems it made to putting a man on the moon in the
60's, 10 years will find remarkable progress towards resolving the
issues, IMHO.

All that is necessary is the commitment.

Lew

"Jack Stein" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Max wrote:
>
>> Scenario 3: Driller takes shortcuts to save money.
>
> The amount of money spent by "drillers" to minimize risk would boggle your
> mind.
>
>> Doesn't install excess flow valve. Uses a faulty safety shut-off. Uses
>> crewmen who speak several different languages confounding
>> instructions..............and safety measures.
>
> Yeah, I can see them using a faulty shut off valve to save some money on a
> multi-BILLION $ oil platform. We are talking private business, not
> government. Only government would knowingly do something so stupid.
>
> --
> Jack
> Got Change: More Unemployment! More Debt! More Fraud! Less Freedom!
> http://jbstein.com



Hmm. Do I detect a little confirmational bias there? {:-)

Max (somewhat familiar with BPs "shortcuts")

"Morris Dovey" wrote ...

> On 5/5/2010 8:15 AM, Jack Stein wrote:
>
>> Yeah, I can see them using a faulty shut off valve to save some money on
>> a multi-BILLION $ oil platform. We are talking private business, not
>> government. Only government would knowingly do something so stupid.
>
> Ford Pinto, Lockheed Electra, exploding laptop batteries, Chinese
> drywall,...
>
> ...and just for giggles, I did searches on 'design defects' and got
> 3,480,000 web hits and 2,110,000 image hits.
>
> Stupidity appears to be evenly distributed.
>
Who was it who said (paraphrased), " If you have trouble understanding the
concept of infinity, just look at human stupidity"?

J. Clarke wrote:

> We knew how to put a man on the moon. No fundamental breakthroughs
> needed. Turn the crank engineering.
>
> We don't know how to make a battery several orders of magnitude
> better than anything that is currently in existence. That needs a
> fundamental breakthrough in battery chemistry, which can't be
> achieved by throwing money at the problem.
>
> We do know how to make fuel cells but throwing money at the problem
> won't make hydrogen cheap.
---------------------------------------------
The voice of the eternal optimist.

Lew

Somebody wrote:
>> When wholesale prices increase, the station has to increase their
>> retail
>> price to cover replacement.

Chris Friesen wrote:
> Why? Aren't they usually operating on a 30 or 60 day billing cycle?
---------------------------------------
Ever hear of LIFO?

Talk to the accounting gurus.

Lew

On 2010-05-05 22:07:55 -0400, "fallen.morgan (at) gmail.com"
<[email protected]> said:

> Ok..I'll take the bite....I love a good oil leak....that make you
> happy? ..give me a break.

Drive a Studebaker -- they don't leak ONLY if there's no oil in 'em!

On 2010-05-05 17:28:30 -0400, "DGDevin" <[email protected]> said:

> Irrelevant, long-haul trucking has taken away a lot of inter-city
> freight from rail in part because America's rail system sucks. China
> has recently built 19,000 miles of new high-speed track, they have
> linked 52 cities with ultra-high-speed trains (faster than anything in
> Japan or Europe)--and they've done it with our money. But in America
> it's easier to just throw it on a truck and charge the customer more
> for freight, investing in new track etc.--too much trouble.

Except -- China offloads goods on the US West Coast, trans-ships them
via rail to the East Coasts, then loads them onto ships bound for
Europe. Cheaper than shipping westward, apparently.

Your point about infrastructure investment is well-taken. What was it -
late '60s --when the rail system collapsed financially? We got ConRail
then, just to preserve something of the rail system... Was the collapse
the direct result of the Interstate (National Defense) Highway system?
Interstates sped the decay of inner cities, certainly, and fueled our
thirst for petroleum. Wonder if Eisenhower, could he have seen into the
future, still have pushed for the American version of the Autobahns?

It would be nice to have high-speed rail for travel... Not so
coincidentally, I live in a small town that celebrates its ties to the
past with a brick swath down the middle of Main Street echoing the path
of the long-disappeared* Interurban, electric commuter trains that once
carried passengers from one end of Indiana to the other.

*1890-1941, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Railroad;
http://www.davesrailpix.com/odds/in/htm/itt06.htm

On 2010-05-05 01:18:44 -0400, Larry Jaques <[email protected]> said:

> (Chernobyl's 60 don't count as "massive". 9/11 alone
> killed far more.)

Latest studies indicate the real impact was a million deaths. Obviously, YMMV.

On 2010-05-05 13:55:48 -0400, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> said:

> Strange, it's been hanging around $2.60 - $2.70 for a month or so here
> (up a couple of cents, then back down).

Stock up -- gas has gone up 10-15 cents/gal here in the last week.

On 2010-05-05 22:39:06 -0400, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> said:

> Of course a lot of stuff moves by rail: coal, automobiles, lumber, raw
> materials, etc.
>
> I just received a new battery for my cell phone. It would be foolish to
> move it by rail. Later this week, I'm expecting a set of ink cartridges
> for my printer. Same thing.

It would also be foolish for HP to ship a user manual inside several
large boxes strapped to a pallet, but that has been documented.

On 2010-05-05 22:50:53 -0400, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> said:

> #3 needs expansion. If we can fuel our vehicles for ten cents per mile
> using gasoline, it is stupid in the extreme to use natural gas that
> costs fifteen cents per mile. If we get the cost of natural gas down to
> nine cents a mile, more gasoline becomes available on the world's
> market, driving its cost down to eight cents a mile. And so on.

If you liked the petroleum, you'll love the t-shirt:
http://despair.com/bp.html

On 2010-05-06 00:05:49 -0400, Larry Jaques <[email protected]> said:

> And a 9x16x1/8" poly shield (which I installed as a Ford tech at the
> time) fixed the problem Pintos had when they were so rudely rear-ended
> at freeway speeds. I sure wish the engineers had foreseen that
> horribly blatant "defect", don't you? <thud>

They did, but the bean counters decided cost of the number of 51-cent
shields required would outweigh the payouts from the inevitable
wrongful death lawsuits. Razzehfratchin' MBAs! (And I are one...)

On 2010-05-06 21:41:34 -0400, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> said:

> "Self-insured" and "Assumed risk" are the same thing. How much is this
> Gulf business gonna cost BP? A billion dollars? Ten billion? A hundred
> billion?
>
> BP total assests, 31 Dec 2009: $235,968,000,000.00.*
>
> They can afford the liability, whatever it is.

How's Halliburton fixed? The fingers are being pointed -- they finshed
cementing the shaft about 20 hours before things went south. This
wasn't the first time one of their cementing jobs failed
catstrophically.

BTW, the latest conspiracy theories claim a North Korean suicide sub
caused the destruction, hoping to force America into detonating a
tactical nulear device to fuse the leaks, thereby compromising the US
position in upcoming non-proliforation talks. (We haven't heard this on
the news because, of course, the government has ordered a blackout on
the conspiracy.* And the US has gone to "Cocked Pistol Alert Status".
) Rush is merely blaming "enviromental whackos." Mark Levin says Obama
dispatched swat teams as a "presursor" to nationalizing the oil
industry!

*Hey -- I don't write 'em, I just report 'em.
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1367.htm
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1368.htm

On 2010-05-07 23:11:24 -0400, "Ed Pawlowski" <[email protected]> said:

> You've seen the Smart crash tests on You Tube right?

And you've seen the Chery (sic) crash tests as well?

On 2010-05-07 21:19:23 -0400, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> said:

> In one whistle-stop tour, Tuck hired four VERY pregnant women to stand
> on the rope-line carrying signs that said "Nixon's the One!"

But, of course, Dick didn't smear Helen Gahagen Douglas...

On 2010-05-08 22:41:27 -0400, "Ed Pawlowski" <[email protected]> said:

> I was not killed, not even injured. Your opinion does not coincide
> with my real life experience. Handled well too. In spite of Nader, I
> could whip it around corners faster than any other car I ever owned --
> safely. Never got stuck in the snow either. Yes, I'd buy another if
> they started making them tomorrow.
>

By the time Nader's book was published, the Corvair's rear suspension
had been re-engineered to what it SHOULD have been to begin. That was a
fun car to scoot though corners.

Nader's always been a spoiler, not a crusader.

On 2010-05-09 06:40:36 -0400, "J. Clarke" <[email protected]> said:

> Nadir did not win one single lawsuit but he managed to convince people
> that they were deadly anyway.

Enjoyed your misspelling -- it may be more accurate than intended!

On 5/4/2010 10:04 AM, Morris Dovey wrote:
> On 5/4/2010 8:10 AM, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>> On 5/4/2010 7:42 AM, Robatoy wrote:
>>> On May 3, 9:48 pm, Tim Daneliuk<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> On 5/3/2010 7:19 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, 3 May 2010 16:27:27 -0700 (PDT), Robatoy
>>>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> On May 3, 5:32 pm, "DGDevin"<[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>> My folks lived through the Great Depression, and I inherited the
>>>>>>> attitude
>>>>>>> that you scrape the peanut butter jar clean, not because you
>>>>>>> can't afford
>>>>>>> another one but just because waste is a bad idea. So when I see
>>>>>>> a lone
>>>>>>> driver using an Escalade or Suburban to go pick up a carton of
>>>>>>> milk it makes
>>>>>>> me shake my head.
>>>>
>>>>>> What about flying Al Gore's fat ass in a Gulfstream to a meeting on
>>>>>> environmental responsibility?
>>>>
>>>>> You "anti-environmental responsibility" folks aren't looking too
>>>>> bright at present.
>>>>
>>>> Not even close.
>>>>
>>>> I spent several years in the 1980s in the nuclear power consulting
>>>> business. It was the bozo environmentalists (aka "Those that flunked
>>>> Chemistry") that put us in the mess we're in today. They virulently
>>>> opposed further nuke generation and development. Had they been
>>>> properly ignored (nevermind the stench), we'd be generating massive
>>>> amounts of electricity today and innovating new/old technologies
>>>> like Pebble Beds, thereby making things like gas/electric hybrids
>>>> and full electric short-range vehicles viable. Instead, we remain
>>>> dependent upon oil ... because of the phony environmentalists and
>>>> their chowderheaded earth worshiping pantheism. So here's to
>>>> all of 'em, take a good look at who's been setting environmental
>>>> policy:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElJFYwRtrH4
>>>
>>> It always worries me when I find myself agreeing with you.
>>
>> Make that two of us ... but we'll just have to both learn to live with
>> it...
>
> Learn to live with failure to make good decisions? Somehow that doesn't
> strike me as a very good strategy...

I think you misunderstood. Robo and I are going to have to learn to
live with the fact that we're occasionally in agreement ;)

>
> Here's my weird thought for the day:
>
> The drum major doesn't choose the parade route.

Here's mine:

7-11s are open 24 x 7 x 365 - why do they have door locks?


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On May 7, 8:53=A0am, "J. Clarke" <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 5/7/2010 8:26 AM, HeyBub wrote:
>
> > Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>
> >> Maybe. =A0But I have to tell you that this is a kind of inverted logic
> >> when the victim of negligence/accident/poor judgment is somehow made
> >> culpable. We're not talking about a rudder that got sheared because
> >> it ran afoul
> >> of some flotsam when a shrimper got too close to an oil rig. =A0We're
> >> talking about an entire fishery being neutered. =A0By this line of
> >> reasoning, I'm responsible for the drunk driver that hits me, the
> >> unbalanced psycho that illegally uses a weapon to shoot me, or the
> >> guy that cuts me off in traffic and causes me to roll my truck over
> >> on the highway. =A0Your dog doesn't hunt.
>
> > Harrumph. You probably think that women who wear short skirts aren't
> > inviting rape.
>
> So you would favor legislation that says that any woman raped while not
> dressed in accordance with the hijab is at fault and the man who did it
> should not be punished for accepting her obvious invitation?
>
> You do realize that what you're saying is the straight Islamic party
> line do you not?

Whooooosh!

On Tue, 04 May 2010 08:21:22 -0400, Jack Stein <[email protected]>
wrote the following:

>[email protected] wrote:
>
>> Oh, the recent spike in gasoline prices? Nothing to do with supply and
>> demand, and everything to do with unregulated market speculators.
>
>I'm still stuck on the fact the government makes more profit on a gallon
>of gas than the people that invested 100's of billions to get the gas to
>the pumps...

Why do you think they don't try to reduce prices on oil? They make a
percentage, so the higher that is, the more money they rake in.

I'd be happy if the courts ruled out non-physical trading. One source
said that oil had been traded up to 100 times on paper, each with
profits, before it actually moved from one point to another, source to
purchaser. That's a lot of useless markup.

--
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian,
or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up
to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
--Thomas Paine

On Mon, 03 May 2010 08:09:12 -0400, Jack Stein <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Matt wrote:
>> I recall reading in early news articles of this incident, that BP had
>> considered an event of this scale and nature in their risk analysis to
>> create a response plan, but discarded it as they considered it extremely
>> unlikely to occur - their high priced talent crossed it off the list of
>> possible occurrences.
>
>Last I heard no one has figured out what "it" is, so how could they
>cross "it" off their list?
>
>> When a company puts an oil rig in place to exercise its American rights
>> license, do they file a disaster / reaction plan with some US Agency ?
>> And if so, does that Agency review the plan and respond with an acceptance
>> or denial of permission to proceed with drilling?
>
>Who gives a damn? The people that know best how to prevent disaster is
>the people doing the drilling.
>

But their plans will be dictated first and foremost by PROFIT MOTIVES,
not what is absolutely safest or best practice. The head engineer is
guided by "how will this look to stockholders on our bottom line THIS
WEEK.

It is already known that additional capabilities for remote shutoff
which have been used on some wells, were not on this well due to the
extra cost.

On Mon, 03 May 2010 08:16:33 -0400, the infamous Jack Stein
<[email protected]> scrawled the following:

>Han wrote:
>
>> I'm with Lew. I think Obama and his administration were a tad late, but
>> have properly stated that BP will need to pay, and I hope that all damage
>> will fall under that.
>
>Yeah BP will pay, but guess where they get all their money?

Yet another Obama Bailout, i.e. our pockets, right?

--
Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.
-- Raymond Lindquist

On May 4, 6:56=A0am, Han <[email protected]> wrote:
> "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote innews:OJSdncaczd3ICELWnZ2dnUVZ_t=
[email protected]:
>
> > to move goods and people we require a lot of oil. Then, too, we do
> > so because we can. Like medical care, we can afford it, so we do it.
>
> If we had a better, more efficient rail road system, we could move goods =
by
> rail. =A0Electrified, nuclear powered rail. =A0It's a human choice we mad=
e to
> put roads in, and as so many choices, some were right, and some were wron=
g.
>
> Maybe now we can go back and put in really safe nuclear reactors ...
>
> --
> Best regards
> Han
> email address is invalid

I have been going on about this for the last 40 years. Two of my three
daughters work at nuclear power stations, one even teaches operational
safety procedures. But as long as the NIMBY's keep their heads up
their asses and refuse to look at the whole potential objectively, it
will be an uphill battle. Somehow, they think it involves little
Nagasaki's in bottles.
It is the most endurable, safe methods we know of. That is, in base-
load applications. Peak generation still needs to be addressed and so
far I ike the advances in cogens. Natural Gas that is.
Other sources such as wind and solar are great solutions, again
cyclic, but the NIMBY's are already bitching because some windmill
knocked a spotted owl out of the sky.... but they will drive their
Prius chemical petrie dishes along God's highway.
Nuclear for base load generation in part for a new railway network,
and nuclear for making hydrogen for automotive fuel cells.

On May 5, 11:27=A0am, Chris Friesen <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 05/05/2010 10:12 AM, HeyBub wrote:
>
> > When wholesale prices increase, the station has to increase their retai=
l
> > price to cover replacement.
>
> Why? =A0Aren't they usually operating on a 30 or 60 day billing cycle?

Billing cycle? What's that got to do with what "they" pay.
"They" (whoever "they" is) pay for the fuel, as delivered. Of course
"they" could trade on the futures market, but that has it's costs (and
profits), too. Why don't you ask "them" to sell you gasoline at the
same price for a month at a time (it's called a futures
contract).

> If so, they could continue to sell at the current prices until they had
> to replace it at the higher rates. =A0Alternately, they could increase th=
e
> rates slightly, undercut the competition, and still make more profit.

"They" have to replace whatever is sold.

> Presumably either of these scenarios would lead to them selling more gas
> and thus making more money. =A0Once they reorder then they're making as
> much as everyone else, but they've had a short-term spike in sales.
>
> Basically, gas prices at the pump don't seem to follow the normal
> supply-and-demand curves that would lead to the highest profits for the
> individual stations...there seems to be some organization at work at a
> higher level.

"They" are called "distributors". "They" have the same problem that
you do.

On Mon, 3 May 2010 16:27:27 -0700 (PDT), Robatoy
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On May 3, 5:32 pm, "DGDevin" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>
>> My folks lived through the Great Depression, and I inherited the attitude
>> that you scrape the peanut butter jar clean, not because you can't afford
>> another one but just because waste is a bad idea.  So when I see a lone
>> driver using an Escalade or Suburban to go pick up a carton of milk it makes
>> me shake my head.  
>
>What about flying Al Gore's fat ass in a Gulfstream to a meeting on
>environmental responsibility?
>

You "anti-environmental responsibility" folks aren't looking too
bright at present.

Steve wrote:
> On 2010-05-02 22:55:22 -0400, "J. Clarke" <[email protected]>
> said:
>> So why don't you apply for a job showing these people you consider to
>> be incompetent how it's done?
>>
>> Engineering is always trivially easy to people who don't actually
>> have to do it.
>
> Listen, butthead -- I didn't say I had answers, but I did say the
> talent charged with having the answers failed. So, yes, my summation
> is easy, but not particularly trivial.
>
> If you've got the engineering savvy, use it.
>
> Otherwise, you're trivial, and so is your challenge.

But you don't know what went wrong. You don't even know what you don't know.
The problem may have been an engineering failure, a human mistake, a
terrorist attack, a rogue submarine, a freak wave, or even a
previously-unknown monster from the deep.

On May 5, 8:15=A0am, Jack Stein <[email protected]> wrote:
> Max wrote:
> > Scenario 3: =A0Driller takes shortcuts to save money. =A0
>
> The amount of money spent by "drillers" to minimize risk would boggle
> your mind.
>
> > Doesn't install excess flow valve. =A0Uses a faulty safety shut-off. Us=
es crewmen who
> > speak several different languages confounding
> > instructions..............and safety measures.
>
> Yeah, I can see them using a faulty shut off valve to save some money on
> a multi-BILLION $ oil platform. =A0We are talking private business, not
> government. =A0Only government would knowingly do something so stupid.

No, government would pay *more* for the faulty valve. They would get
more in campaign contributions, though.

On May 5, 11:00=A0pm, Steve <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 2010-05-05 22:39:06 -0400, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> said:
>
> > Of course a lot of stuff moves by rail: coal, automobiles, lumber, raw
> > materials, etc.
>
> > I just received a new battery for my cell phone. It would be foolish to
> > move it by rail. Later this week, I'm expecting a set of ink cartridges
> > for my printer. Same thing.
>
> It would also be foolish for HP to ship a user manual inside several
> large boxes strapped to a pallet, but that has been documented.

It would be even more foolish to put any relevant information in said
user manual. Of course there will be warnings that the printer is not
for internal consumption or that safety glasses must be worn when
operating the computer.

On May 4, 11:41=A0am, "Lew Hodgett" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Somebody wrote:
> > to move goods and people we require a lot of oil.
>
> -------------------------------
> Bullshit.
>
> CNG comes to mind as a short term solution.
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D
>
> "Robatoy" wrote:
>
> I have been going on about this for the last 40 years. Two of my three
> daughters work at nuclear power stations, one even teaches operational
> safety procedures. But as long as the NIMBY's keep their heads up
> their asses and refuse to look at the whole potential objectively, it
> will be an uphill battle. Somehow, they think it involves little
> Nagasaki's in bottles.
> ------------------------------------------
> When the industry resolves the waste issues, I'm all ears.
>
> BTW, Yucca mountain doesn't cut it.
>
> Lew

The waste issues are relative. One pound of nasty stuff vs 100,000
pounds of not quite as nasty stuff. The shit that coal plants toss in
the air is just amazing. Not just fly-ash and sulpher compounds, but
many metals, some quite nasty. And of course the oxides of carbon,
nitrogen, vanadium, etc.
I would rather deal with one rattle snake than a million locusts.

On May 5, 11:39=A0am, Chris Friesen <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 05/05/2010 09:33 AM, [email protected] wrote:
>
> > Hmm, haven't noticed the price go up significantly in the last week or
> > two.
>
> Just went up about 7% here a couple days ago.

Strange, it's been hanging around $2.60 - $2.70 for a month or so here
(up a couple of cents, then back down).

On May 4, 2:40=A0pm, Morris Dovey <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 5/4/2010 1:19 PM, Lew Hodgett wrote:
>
> > =A0 "Morris Dovey" wrote:
>
> >> Interesting - I remember boxes of fresh fruit from an uncle in
> >> California being delivered to our home in Indiana - in the mid- and
> >> late-1940's. Perhaps the timeline is significant...
> > ----------------------------------------
> > Without question.
>
> > UPS was just coming up to speed after WWII while REA was not
> > considered a growth industry by the railroads.
>
> > By the early 60's, UPS was the big winner.
>
> In large part due to federal intrusion into the management process
> (which appeared to be the result of some really effective lobbying by
> Detroit interests) and featherbedding, by the 1960's the railroads
> weren't exactly a growth industry by any standard.
>
> The /real/ winner produced the trucks that replaced the trains.
>
Don't forget Firestone's role in that.

On Wed, 05 May 2010 09:15:22 -0400, Jack Stein <[email protected]>
wrote the following:

>Max wrote:
>
>> Scenario 3: Driller takes shortcuts to save money.
>
>The amount of money spent by "drillers" to minimize risk would boggle
>your mind.
>
>> Doesn't install excess flow valve. Uses a faulty safety shut-off. Uses crewmen who
>> speak several different languages confounding
>> instructions..............and safety measures.
>
>Yeah, I can see them using a faulty shut off valve to save some money on
>a multi-BILLION $ oil platform. We are talking private business, not
>government. Only government would knowingly do something so stupid.

Please, Jack. They're insured. While the ruination of an oil
platform wrecks the bidness for a couple weeks, it also causes the
price of all oil they sell to go up, so they're sitting much prettier
right now than they were a few weeks ago. Prices raise quickly and
drop slowly, so by the time it returns to normal, they'll have 50x
their investment in fines and replacement platforms. No worries.

--
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian,
or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up
to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
--Thomas Paine

On 5/4/2010 7:42 AM, Robatoy wrote:
> On May 3, 9:48 pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On 5/3/2010 7:19 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Mon, 3 May 2010 16:27:27 -0700 (PDT), Robatoy
>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>> On May 3, 5:32 pm, "DGDevin" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>>> My folks lived through the Great Depression, and I inherited the attitude
>>>>> that you scrape the peanut butter jar clean, not because you can't afford
>>>>> another one but just because waste is a bad idea. So when I see a lone
>>>>> driver using an Escalade or Suburban to go pick up a carton of milk it makes
>>>>> me shake my head.
>>
>>>> What about flying Al Gore's fat ass in a Gulfstream to a meeting on
>>>> environmental responsibility?
>>
>>> You "anti-environmental responsibility" folks aren't looking too
>>> bright at present.
>>
>> Not even close.
>>
>> I spent several years in the 1980s in the nuclear power consulting
>> business. It was the bozo environmentalists (aka "Those that flunked
>> Chemistry") that put us in the mess we're in today. They virulently
>> opposed further nuke generation and development. Had they been
>> properly ignored (nevermind the stench), we'd be generating massive
>> amounts of electricity today and innovating new/old technologies
>> like Pebble Beds, thereby making things like gas/electric hybrids
>> and full electric short-range vehicles viable. Instead, we remain
>> dependent upon oil ... because of the phony environmentalists and
>> their chowderheaded earth worshiping pantheism. So here's to
>> all of 'em, take a good look at who's been setting environmental
>> policy:
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElJFYwRtrH4
>>
>> --
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -
>> Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
>> PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
>
> It always worries me when I find myself agreeing with you.

Make that two of us ... but we'll just have to both learn to live with it...


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On Sun, 2 May 2010 16:20:13 -0700, "Lew Hodgett"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>The silence if deafening from the "Drill Baby Drill" crowd.
>
>At least there is one small bright spot in this man made tragedy.
>
>Lew
>

You think so? Check out what the fool in the White House did.

He finally did something for the U.S. instead of TO the U.S.

Gordon Shumway

Our Constitution needs to be used less as a shield
for the guilty and more as a sword for the victim.

On May 3, 9:48=A0pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 5/3/2010 7:19 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Mon, 3 May 2010 16:27:27 -0700 (PDT), Robatoy
> > <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >> On May 3, 5:32 pm, "DGDevin" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >>> My folks lived through the Great Depression, and I inherited the atti=
tude
> >>> that you scrape the peanut butter jar clean, not because you can't af=
ford
> >>> another one but just because waste is a bad idea. =A0So when I see a =
lone
> >>> driver using an Escalade or Suburban to go pick up a carton of milk i=
t makes
> >>> me shake my head. =A0
>
> >> What about flying Al Gore's fat ass in a Gulfstream to a meeting on
> >> environmental responsibility?
>
> > You "anti-environmental responsibility" folks aren't looking too
> > bright at present.
>
> Not even close. =A0
>
> I spent several years in the 1980s in the nuclear power consulting
> business. =A0It was the bozo environmentalists (aka "Those that flunked
> Chemistry") that put us in the mess we're in today. =A0They virulently
> opposed further nuke generation and development. Had they been
> properly ignored (nevermind the stench), we'd be generating massive
> amounts of electricity today and innovating new/old technologies
> like Pebble Beds, thereby making things like gas/electric hybrids
> and full electric short-range vehicles viable. =A0Instead, we remain
> dependent upon oil ... because of the phony environmentalists and
> their chowderheaded earth worshiping pantheism. =A0So here's to
> all of 'em, take a good look at who's been setting environmental
> policy:
>
> =A0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DElJFYwRtrH4
>
> --
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
-- -
> Tim Daneliuk =A0 =A0 [email protected]
> PGP Key: =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

It always worries me when I find myself agreeing with you.

On Mon, 3 May 2010 06:54:46 -0700, "Lobby Dosser" <[email protected]>
wrote the following:

>"J. Clarke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>> On 5/3/2010 6:42 AM, Han wrote:
>>> "J. Clarke"<[email protected]> wrote in
>>> news:[email protected]:
>>>
>>>> Or maybe calmer heads will prevail and instead of looking for excuses to
>>>> create new boondoggles or axe the blameless, they'll figure out what
>>>> went wrong and fix the design of the BOP so that it doesn't happen
>>>> again.
>>>
>>> I'm a cynic. As long as the BOP gadgets are mechanical, a large enough
>>> explosion will render them useless. Redundancy can only be carried to
>>> the
>>> nth degree.
>>
>> Bingo. There is no machine that cannot be broken. Never has been and
>> never will be.
>>
>> But what went bust this time can be allowed for in future designs. Which
>> means that next time it will go bust in some other way.
>>
>>> I'd venture to guess that when the real causes of the disaster have been
>>> pinpointed, more redundancy and remedial actions will be taken. I'm
>>> neither in favor nor totally against drilling, but this disaster
>>> shouldn't
>>> happen again.
>>
>> Not sure how you can do redundancy though--have two BOPs stacked? Bring a
>> second manufacturer into the game so that they are completely different
>> designs with different points of failure? What will happen then is that
>> one will break in an unanticipated way that blocks the operation of the
>> other.
>>
>> And then there's the possibility of deliberate sabotage.
>>
>>> One good thing may be that in the armer Gulf more of the sticky and toxic
>>> components will evaporate before getting into the ecosystems. (I can
>>> hope,
>>> can't I?).
>>
>> Nahh, when the volatiles evaporate, that's when the sticky stuff gets
>> _real_ sticky. And if you've lived in that area you'll have experienced
>> slowly sinking into a paved road if you stand still too long.
>
>When Drake sailed up the west coast, he reputedly mentioned an oil slick
>more than a hundred miles long off what is now Santa Barbara. Nature will do
>quite well on its own:
>
>http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/15/natural-petroleum-seeps-release-equivalent-of-eight-to-80-exxon-valdez-oil-spills/

"Why aren't enviros out there sucking it all up?" I wonder.

I remember getting tar on my feet in Oceanside, CA from the 1969 Santa
Barbara oil spill. It was a nuisance for over a year.

--
Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.
-- Raymond Lindquist

On May 5, 10:30=A0am, Larry Jaques <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, 05 May 2010 09:15:22 -0400, Jack Stein <[email protected]>
> wrote the following:
>
> >Max wrote:
>
> >> Scenario 3: =A0Driller takes shortcuts to save money. =A0
>
> >The amount of money spent by "drillers" to minimize risk would boggle
> >your mind.
>
> >> Doesn't install excess flow valve. =A0Uses a faulty safety shut-off. U=
ses crewmen who
> >> speak several different languages confounding
> >> instructions..............and safety measures.
>
> >Yeah, I can see them using a faulty shut off valve to save some money on
> >a multi-BILLION $ oil platform. =A0We are talking private business, not
> >government. =A0Only government would knowingly do something so stupid.
>
> Please, Jack. =A0They're insured. =A0While the ruination of an oil
> platform wrecks the bidness for a couple weeks, it also causes the
> price of all oil they sell to go up, so they're sitting much prettier
> right now than they were a few weeks ago. Prices raise quickly and
> drop slowly, so by the time it returns to normal, they'll have 50x
> their investment in fines and replacement platforms. No worries.
>
Hmm, haven't noticed the price go up significantly in the last week or
two.

On Sun, 2 May 2010 16:20:13 -0700, "Lew Hodgett"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>The silence if deafening from the "Drill Baby Drill" crowd.
>
>At least there is one small bright spot in this man made tragedy.
>
>Lew
>

Not only are you a pathetic bigot you are a troll too.

Gordon Shumway

Our Constitution needs to be used less as a shield
for the guilty and more as a sword for the victim.

"Jack Stein" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

>
> Who gives a damn? The people that know best how to prevent disaster is
> the people doing the drilling.


Actually in this case the people doing the drilling are the most likely to
create a disaster, they have a terrible track record.

"Chris Friesen" <[email protected]> wrote
>
> Conceivable, but that would be a pretty crappy design for a failsafe.
> It should have a deadman switch such that if it gets no handshake from
> the surface it shuts the valve.
>
> Chris

Probably did, but that does not mean it will work. Watch "Seconds from
Disaster" on the Nat Geo channel and they will give you examples of how fail
safe situations can fail.

"Lew Hodgett" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> The silence if deafening from the "Drill Baby Drill" crowd.
>
> At least there is one small bright spot in this man made tragedy.
>
> Lew

Wait until the price of gas starts to climb again.

On 05/04/2010 02:41 PM, J. Clarke wrote:

> Uh, the BYD is nothing special. If they were selling an electric that
> can be charged in under 5 minutes...

This is very difficult technically--it would require huge current flows
or very high voltages.

A quick-change battery "sled" would make more sense, but then it becomes
tricky unless all the various manufacturers standardize on a small
number of designs to allow service stations to stock them all.

Chris

On 05/04/2010 03:04 PM, HeyBub wrote:
> Larry Jaques wrote:
>>
>> Why do you think they don't try to reduce prices on oil? They make a
>> percentage, so the higher that is, the more money they rake in.
>
> Who makes a percentage? Certainly not the gas station owner. He makes a few
> cents per gallon irrespective of the price. In fact, the more the price
> increases, the lesser percentage he makes.

Huh? Around here the prices across the city increase within half an
hour of each other. Decreases are less uniform.

If a station owner filled his tanks at price X and then raises his
prices a few percent when everyone else does, he's making that much more
profit.

Prices at the pump go up whenever there is the slightest hint of an
upcoming increase in the price of crude, and don't come down until crude
has been down for ages already.

Chris

"Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On 5/3/2010 7:19 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>> On Mon, 3 May 2010 16:27:27 -0700 (PDT), Robatoy
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> On May 3, 5:32 pm, "DGDevin" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> My folks lived through the Great Depression, and I inherited the
>>>> attitude
>>>> that you scrape the peanut butter jar clean, not because you can't
>>>> afford
>>>> another one but just because waste is a bad idea. So when I see a lone
>>>> driver using an Escalade or Suburban to go pick up a carton of milk it
>>>> makes
>>>> me shake my head.
>>>
>>> What about flying Al Gore's fat ass in a Gulfstream to a meeting on
>>> environmental responsibility?
>>>
>>
>> You "anti-environmental responsibility" folks aren't looking too
>> bright at present.
>>
>
>
> Not even close.
>
> I spent several years in the 1980s in the nuclear power consulting
> business. It was the bozo environmentalists (aka "Those that flunked
> Chemistry") that put us in the mess we're in today. They virulently
> opposed further nuke generation and development. Had they been
> properly ignored (nevermind the stench), we'd be generating massive
> amounts of electricity today and innovating new/old technologies
> like Pebble Beds, thereby making things like gas/electric hybrids
> and full electric short-range vehicles viable. Instead, we remain
> dependent upon oil ... because of the phony environmentalists and
> their chowderheaded earth worshiping pantheism. So here's to
> all of 'em, take a good look at who's been setting environmental
> policy:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElJFYwRtrH4
>
Mental Illness.

basilisk

[email protected] wrote:

> On May 7, 8:53 am, "J. Clarke" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On 5/7/2010 8:26 AM, HeyBub wrote:
>>
>> > Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>>
>> >> Maybe.  But I have to tell you that this is a kind of inverted logic
>> >> when the victim of negligence/accident/poor judgment is somehow made
>> >> culpable. We're not talking about a rudder that got sheared because
>> >> it ran afoul
>> >> of some flotsam when a shrimper got too close to an oil rig.  We're
>> >> talking about an entire fishery being neutered.  By this line of
>> >> reasoning, I'm responsible for the drunk driver that hits me, the
>> >> unbalanced psycho that illegally uses a weapon to shoot me, or the
>> >> guy that cuts me off in traffic and causes me to roll my truck over
>> >> on the highway.  Your dog doesn't hunt.
>>
>> > Harrumph. You probably think that women who wear short skirts aren't
>> > inviting rape.
>>
>> So you would favor legislation that says that any woman raped while not
>> dressed in accordance with the hijab is at fault and the man who did it
>> should not be punished for accepting her obvious invitation?
>>
>> You do realize that what you're saying is the straight Islamic party
>> line do you not?
>
> Whooooosh!

Yeah, some people don't catch sarcasm very well, do they?

[Hint to the clueless -- HeyBub's comment did not in any way imply *he*
thinks that women wearing short skirts invite rape]
--

There is never a situation where having more rounds is a disadvantage

Rob Leatham

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> On 5/6/2010 3:37 PM, HeyBub wrote:
>> Jack Stein wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Please, Jack. They're insured.
>>>
>>> Please Larry, BP is self-insured, meaning, no, they are NOT insured.
>>
>> Huh? "Self insured" IS insured. You can't lie about the sufficiency
>> of your ability to cover potential liabilities to contractors,
>> employees, or, more importantly, the government who grants the lease.
>>
>>
>
> Really? Do you seriously believe the government does anything remotely
> like regular due diligence to ensure that the insurance escrow (or
> whatever they use) remains consistent with the risk as the project is
> ongoing? Note that this was also the belief when AIG was insuring CDOs
> via CDSs and we saw how well that worked out. Trusting the government
> to be a responsible overseer is a demonstrably bad bet.
>
> I remain firmly in the camp that regulation should be minimized
> because it actually doesn't work very well, BUT that tort remedies in
> these sorts of cases should be almost limitless and painful. I know it
> is a conservative mantra that we need 'tort reform' and some common
> sense boundaries probably do make sense. But the reality here is that
> the only thing that will cause needed behavioral change is a sharp
> financial feedback mechanism. i.e., BP should have to pay for the mess
> they created. Letting them hide behind limits on their self-insurance
> (which I'm told do exist) is ridiculous. All that's going to happen is
> that they'll continue to enjoy the upside of their investments (which
> I heartily approve of) but lay off the downside to the public (which
> is profoundly dishonest). BP peed in the pond, they should go clean it
> up and make things right with the people affected.
>
> I don't think BP did this intentionally or even negligently. It sure
> looks like an accident. But that doesn't vitiate their culpability.
> They are a $240B -ish revenue company. Think of how their behavior
> might change if cleaning this mess up cost them $5-$10B. They'd
> probably reconsider their safety and engineering practices, not to
> mention their drilling strategy.
>
> (Bear in mind that I am way, way, way, a pro-business, free market
> guy,
> I just hate stealing in all its forms.)

And how much contributory negligence is due the shrimp fishermen for plying
their trade in an area where such a contingency was possible? Would it be
your position that in the absence of insurance for the shrip-catchers - or
at the least income protection insurance - is their tough luck?

There is a defensible view that the fishermen took their chances and lost.

Chris Friesen wrote:
> On 05/04/2010 03:09 PM, HeyBub wrote:
>
>> That is, governments should exist to enforce freely-entered
>> contracts, not write them or establish clauses. And enforce the
>> contracts with an iron hand. In the instant case there is an implied
>> contract that the drillers of oil will not cause harm to anyone due
>> to the company's negligence.
>
> An interesting concept. I take it you think the free market would
> provide competition enough to ensure that the contract terms are
> reasonable?
>
> What if there isn't any competition in your area for whatever service
> you desire? The single provider can set whatever terms they desire?
> This might work for businesses with low barrier of entry, but for
> things that require a large capital investment it doesn't work so
> well.

Yep. People are always ragging on what MIGHT happen with single-source
providers. They fail to consider what actually DOES happen.

A better example than your hypothetical: Consider Standard Oil, the
poster/whipping boy for monopoly control. In three years, Standard Oil
reduced the price of Kerosene from $3.00/gallon to less than five cents. Of
course this put the whale oil people out of business, but it allowed the
night to come alive for millions.

Fact is, in almost every non-government controlled monopoly, monopolies have
been GOOD for the consumer.

The biggest mistake that anti-monopoly people make is assuming monopolies
have not competitors. They do: themselves. If Microsoft didn't come out with
"improved" products each year, they'd eventually saturate the market and
their revenue stream would stop. By finding ways to make Kerosene more
cheaply, Standard Oil got more customers.

>
> Taking the example of the 'net...what if nobody wants to offer you
> high speed internet service because you live in a new subdivision and
> there aren't enough people there to make it immediately profitable?
> Or what
> if the phone and cable companies collude to offer similar jacked-up
> rates for reduced service?
>

You make my point. Most internet service is a government-regulated utility
(cable, telephone, etc.). There are even provisions snunk into the pending
Wall Street regulation bill to add FTC oversight provisions to the internet.
The government's GOT to get it's hand in.
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1054304/pg1

"Lew Hodgett" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> The silence if deafening from the "Drill Baby Drill" crowd.
>
> At least there is one small bright spot in this man made tragedy.
>
> Lew
>
>

It is a BP made tragity... I believe that BP should change its businedss
model.... Perhaps go into demolition...

When a refinery blows in the Houston metro area, it has something to do with
BP.

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>
> Maybe. But I have to tell you that this is a kind of inverted logic
> when the victim of negligence/accident/poor judgment is somehow made
> culpable. We're not talking about a rudder that got sheared because
> it ran afoul
> of some flotsam when a shrimper got too close to an oil rig. We're
> talking about an entire fishery being neutered. By this line of
> reasoning, I'm responsible for the drunk driver that hits me, the
> unbalanced psycho that illegally uses a weapon to shoot me, or the
> guy that cuts me off in traffic and causes me to roll my truck over
> on the highway. Your dog doesn't hunt.

Harrumph. You probably think that women who wear short skirts aren't
inviting rape.

On 05/04/2010 03:22 PM, HeyBub wrote:

> You are correct that we don't have a solution to nuclear waste.
>
> We have LOTS of solutions.
>
> * We can encase the waste in molten glass and dump it in the Marianna's
> Trench
> * We can liquify it an inject it into a salt dome
> * We can concentrate it and rocket it into the sun
>
> and so on. There are probably a hundred viable solutions.


Actually we're probably better off re-using it. Most current "nuclear
waste" is actually still a pretty good fuel source and can be
reprocessed. It's currently cheaper to just use freshly-mined uranium,
which is why we're not doing it.

Also, new reactor designs like the "travelling wave" reactor are
expected to produce far less waste since they basically breed their own
fuel from depleted uranium right before they react it. This allows them
to operate much more efficiently. They're also in theory capable of
re-using their own fuel and the waste from current light-water reactors.

Chris

DGDevin wrote:
>
> My folks lived through the Great Depression, and I inherited the
> attitude that you scrape the peanut butter jar clean, not because you
> can't afford another one but just because waste is a bad idea. So
> when I see a lone driver using an Escalade or Suburban to go pick up
> a carton of milk it makes me shake my head. And then there is the
> issue of why every year we send umpteen gazillion dollars to
> countries with governments that don't like us too much. Why are we
> paying oil money to Hugo Chavez to buy Russki fighter jets, or for
> the Saudis to fund fundamentalist jihadi preachers? Surely burning a
> dirty, increasingly expensive fuel that enriches hostile regimes is
> not a smart long-term policy, is it?

We get very little oil from Saudi Arabia. As for trading with the enemy,
there are a couple of very good reasons to do so:

1. We get something at a price cheaper than it could be had otherwise.
That's to our advantage.

2. With trade, we draw a hostile regime into the core. That is, interconnect
nations so that it is in THEIR best interests to mute their belligerency.
China is a perfect example. As they interact more with the rest of the
world, their insistence that their's is the only way diminishes.

We burn a dirty, increasingly expensive fuel because we have to do so. The
United States is a HUGE country. Texas is as large as France and the United
Kingdom. Combined. Germany covers 138,000 square miles. The U.S. is
twenty-seven times bigger! (at 3,718,000 sq miles). Only Russia and Canada
(and maybe China) are larger, but they have vast areas that are almost
uninhabitable (due to weather).

So, then, to move goods and people we require a lot of oil. Then, too, we do
so because we can. Like medical care, we can afford it, so we do it.

On 05/03/2010 05:26 PM, Steve wrote:

> One report I heard today is that the function of the BOP -- which
> staunchs the flow by crushing the pipe -- was blocked by drill pieces
> inside the pipe.

So the BOP only works once the well is drilled and the drill string is
removed? That's quite the time window for catastrophic failure.

Chris

Han wrote:
> "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote in
> news:[email protected]:
>
>> to move goods and people we require a lot of oil. Then, too, we do
>> so because we can. Like medical care, we can afford it, so we do it.
>
> If we had a better, more efficient rail road system, we could move
> goods by rail. Electrified, nuclear powered rail. It's a human
> choice we made to put roads in, and as so many choices, some were
> right, and some were wrong.

You're correct in thinking that nothing is more efficient that steel wheels
on a steel rail. The problem is, however, that there are very few railroads
that go to WalMart, the bodega down the street, and none at all that come to
my house.

In fact, I'd be surprised if more than 10% of the towns in this country
actually HAVE rail service. Also, rail cars are not like the UPS truck. Each
car's contents go entirely to one destination. Then, too, the efficiency of
railroads is built on scale. It takes time to load 200 rail cars, get them
all lined up and ready to go. Several days at least. I don't want to wait
that long for my donuts.

>
> Maybe now we can go back and put in really safe nuclear reactors ...

Never happen - too many deaths directly attributable to the prospect of
nuclear power.

That is, the environmentalists would self-immolate or get so exercised over
the thought that they'd begin stabbing each other - berserker fashion.

Neil Brooks wrote:
> On May 4, 6:49 am, Jack Stein <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Han wrote:
>>> Jack Stein <[email protected]> wrote
>>> innews:[email protected] september.org:
>>
>>>> The people that know best how to prevent disaster is
>>>> the people doing the drilling.
>>> They have to be pressed to consider the disasters and how to
>>> prevent them, otherwise they will always be late. Quod erat
>>> demonstrandum.
>>
>> Nope! This only demonstrates that shit happens. The fact that despite
>> massive government regulations shit still happens. QED.
>
>
> You should consider a course in Logic, Jack -- TAKING one; not
> TEACHING one.
>
> The salient question, of course, is: would these problems be MORE or
> LESS common if regulation were reduced ?
>
> QED, yourself ;-)

In a perfect world, there would be very little regulation but massive and
swift intervention when something goes wrong.

That is, governments should exist to enforce freely-entered contracts, not
write them or establish clauses. And enforce the contracts with an iron
hand. In the instant case there is an implied contract that the drillers of
oil will not cause harm to anyone due to the company's negligence.

Jack Stein wrote:
>>
>> Please, Jack. They're insured.
>
> Please Larry, BP is self-insured, meaning, no, they are NOT insured.

Huh? "Self insured" IS insured. You can't lie about the sufficiency of your
ability to cover potential liabilities to contractors, employees, or, more
importantly, the government who grants the lease.