Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Reaction to Oil Spill

7 comments:

kerrcarto said...

NUKE THE OCEANS!!!! I try to convince myself that dumbfucks like this do not exist. But then I am reminded daily that these idiots are real.

CenTexTim said...

The sad thing is these dingbats vote and reproduce.

Dr Ralph said...

So...you're saying this is no big deal?

Does that mean you won't mind if I do my next oil change in your front yard?

Just looking for a little context here.

Hot Sam said...

Big deal? Sure.

As big a deal as 9/11?

As big a deal as The Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, the housing and financial crisis, Hurricanes Katrina or Andrew, Mt. Saint Helens, Piper Alpha, the Exxon Valdez, the Port Chicago explosion, the explosion of the SS Sultana, the Bhopal chemical leak, the Texas City disaster, Dresden bombing, the Battle of Berlin, the Battle of Stalingrad, Pearl Harbor, Omaha Beach, Andersonville, the Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut, the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, the Great Chicago Fire, Krakatoa, Gettysburg, Antietam, the Japanese internment, the Titanic, the Johnstown Flood, the Tenerife Airport disaster, JAL Flight 123, KAL flight 007, The Halifax Explosion, Church of the Company Fire, Challenger and Columbia, Apollo 1, The Edmund Fitzgerald, Andrea Gail, Chernobyl, Queen of the Sea rail disaster, the Upper Tier collapse of the Circus Maximus, the Black Plague, genocide in Rwanda, the Holocaust?

No.

Is that enough context for you or would you like additional context? I could list a few hundred more disasters if you like, both man-made and Act of God sort of stuff.

We cap it. We clean it up. We start drilling again with better safety systems.

We learn from it, we live with it, we move on.

None of the aforementioned disasters stopped mankind's progress, commerce, need for resources, spirit of exploration, or advancement of science. None of them reformed us from cruelty, oppression, injustice, stupidity, waste, or carelessness.

The clean-up will cost about $8 billion. Litigation will probably cost another $8 billion. What's $16 billion when we've got a $1.2 trillion deficit (75 times larger than BP's costs) and impending financial doom from entitlement programs?

I'd happily agree on behalf of all Americans to suffer and pay for a Deepwater Horizon disaster every year for the next 100 years if we could end Social Security and Medicare before they bankrupt our nation. I'll show up for two weeks each year on my vacation time with a case of dish washing soap to clean up the waterfowl and a car load of cloth towels to sop up the oil on the coastline.

Dr Ralph said...

Nick -- a well-reasoned response, which I've come to expect from you. No irony in my remark, sir.

NickM said...

"They drilled too deep"

I thought this was an oil spill. I was not aware a balrog had been unleashed.

But that's it isn't it? BP - Balrog Petroleum... send for Gandalf, or failing that Dumbledore!

Hot Sam said...

Ralph, I think the federal and state response has been appropriate. BP's response has been appropriate.

But there are already liberals/environmentalists calling for a ban of offshore drilling.

Here's a little more perspective:

http://www.itopf.com/information-services/data-and-statistics/statistics/

Aside from the oil which naturally seeps up from the ocean, this spill isn't large even by man-caused disaster standards.

I'm not losing any sleep over this. If I were a shrimper in Louisiana, I'd be calling my lawyer for my fair share of the settlement money.