Not Obama's Katrina, Bush's second Katrina

[skookerasbil]

How many people would buy this crock?????

Id say a good 174 or so............

 

[skookerasbil]

Sex, Lies and Oil Spills

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A common spin in the right wing coverage of BP's oil spill is a gleeful suggestion that the gulf blowout is Obama's Katrina.

In truth, culpability for the disaster can more accurately be laid at the Bush Administration's doorstep. For eight years, George Bush's presidency infected the oil industry's oversight agency, the Minerals Management Service, with a septic culture of corruption from which it has yet to recover. Oil patch alumnae in the White House encouraged agency personnel to engineer weakened safeguards that directly contributed to the gulf catastrophe.

The absence of an acoustical regulator -- a remotely triggered dead man's switch that might have closed off BP's gushing pipe at its sea floor wellhead when the manual switch failed (the fire and explosion on the drilling platform may have prevented the dying workers from pushing the button) -- was directly attributable to industry pandering by the Bush team. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. BP uses the device voluntarily in Britain's North Sea and elsewhere in the world as do other big players like Holland's Shell and France's Total. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs.

Then, between January and March of 2001, incoming Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration. Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry toadies including a cabal of his Wyoming carbon cronies. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service genuflected to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches. The Minerals Management Service's 2003 study concluded that "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly."

The acoustic trigger costs about $500,000. Estimated costs of the oil spill to Gulf Coast residents are now upward of $14 billion to gulf state communities. Bush's 2005 energy bill officially dropped the requirement for the acoustic switch off devices explaining that the industry's existing practices are "failsafe."

Bending over for Big Oil became the ideological posture of the Bush White House...

Whole article...


"My hero is St. Francis of Assisi because he understood the connection between spirituality and the environment. He understood the way God communicates to us most forcefully is through the fish, the birds and the trees and that it is a sin to destroy those things."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

And the meanderings of the SON of a far better man means what exactly?

Seriously what did you expect from a liberal poster boy? Its like getting advice on buying a used car from the cars seller....

Of course it bush's fault... Somehow it has to be, the Messiah couldn't possibly have made a mistake......

So, the Minerals Management Service scandal never happened. And the proposal to mandate acoustical regulators on all gulf rigs was not circumvented by Cheney's re-staffing of the Minerals Management Service?

Sounds like the only 'meandering' is being done by you Bush apologists

You fcukking dummy.............nobody cares about George Bush anymore except the 21%ers

 

[gslack]

Sex, Lies and Oil Spills

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A common spin in the right wing coverage of BP's oil spill is a gleeful suggestion that the gulf blowout is Obama's Katrina.

In truth, culpability for the disaster can more accurately be laid at the Bush Administration's doorstep. For eight years, George Bush's presidency infected the oil industry's oversight agency, the Minerals Management Service, with a septic culture of corruption from which it has yet to recover. Oil patch alumnae in the White House encouraged agency personnel to engineer weakened safeguards that directly contributed to the gulf catastrophe.

The absence of an acoustical regulator -- a remotely triggered dead man's switch that might have closed off BP's gushing pipe at its sea floor wellhead when the manual switch failed (the fire and explosion on the drilling platform may have prevented the dying workers from pushing the button) -- was directly attributable to industry pandering by the Bush team. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. BP uses the device voluntarily in Britain's North Sea and elsewhere in the world as do other big players like Holland's Shell and France's Total. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs.

Then, between January and March of 2001, incoming Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration. Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry toadies including a cabal of his Wyoming carbon cronies. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service genuflected to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches. The Minerals Management Service's 2003 study concluded that "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly."

The acoustic trigger costs about $500,000. Estimated costs of the oil spill to Gulf Coast residents are now upward of $14 billion to gulf state communities. Bush's 2005 energy bill officially dropped the requirement for the acoustic switch off devices explaining that the industry's existing practices are "failsafe."

Bending over for Big Oil became the ideological posture of the Bush White House...

Whole article...


"My hero is St. Francis of Assisi because he understood the connection between spirituality and the environment. He understood the way God communicates to us most forcefully is through the fish, the birds and the trees and that it is a sin to destroy those things."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

And the meanderings of the SON of a far better man means what exactly?

Seriously what did you expect from a liberal poster boy? Its like getting advice on buying a used car from the cars seller....

Of course it bush's fault... Somehow it has to be, the Messiah couldn't possibly have made a mistake......

So, the Minerals Management Service scandal never happened. And the proposal to mandate acoustical regulators on all gulf rigs was not circumvented by Cheney's re-staffing of the Minerals Management Service?

Sounds like the only 'meandering' is being done by you Bush apologists

Acoustical regulators? I was under the impression they wouldn't have mattered given type of explosion and it happening BELOW the valves... All your article does is make some claim, no evidence other than the word of a liberal with a vested interest in right wing bashing...

And btw, I am no bush fan... I just happen to know blaming him now is bullshit politics... Just as it would be to blame Obama for the economy before he came into office....

Its called responsibility and character... look into it sometime..

 

[Bfgrn]

And the meanderings of the SON of a far better man means what exactly?

Seriously what did you expect from a liberal poster boy? Its like getting advice on buying a used car from the cars seller....

Of course it bush's fault... Somehow it has to be, the Messiah couldn't possibly have made a mistake......

So, the Minerals Management Service scandal never happened. And the proposal to mandate acoustical regulators on all gulf rigs was not circumvented by Cheney's re-staffing of the Minerals Management Service?

Sounds like the only 'meandering' is being done by you Bush apologists

Acoustical regulators? I was under the impression they wouldn't have mattered given type of explosion and it happening BELOW the valves... All your article does is make some claim, no evidence other than the word of a liberal with a vested interest in right wing bashing...

And btw, I am no bush fan... I just happen to know blaming him now is bullshit politics... Just as it would be to blame Obama for the economy before he came into office....

Its called responsibility and character... look into it sometime..

Character... look into it sometime? You mean like people that use the term 'under the impression' when they have no evidence?

Everything in RFK Jr's article is found in numerous other articles and public domain information.

Blathering 'I am no bush fan' doesn't change FACTS...Bush had the worst environmental record of any modern president. And Cheney's activities were likely criminal.

Bush was the very antithesis of what a president should be...

"Harry Truman once said, 'There are 14 or 15 million Americans who have the resources to have representatives in Washington to protect their interests, and that the interests of the great mass of the other people - the 150 or 160 million - is the responsibility of the president of the United States, and I propose to fulfill it.'"
President John F. Kennedy


Leaking Oil Well Lacked Safeguard Device - WSJ.com

 

[gslack]

So, the Minerals Management Service scandal never happened. And the proposal to mandate acoustical regulators on all gulf rigs was not circumvented by Cheney's re-staffing of the Minerals Management Service?

Sounds like the only 'meandering' is being done by you Bush apologists

Acoustical regulators? I was under the impression they wouldn't have mattered given type of explosion and it happening BELOW the valves... All your article does is make some claim, no evidence other than the word of a liberal with a vested interest in right wing bashing...

And btw, I am no bush fan... I just happen to know blaming him now is bullshit politics... Just as it would be to blame Obama for the economy before he came into office....

Its called responsibility and character... look into it sometime..

Character... look into it sometime? You mean like people that use the term 'under the impression' when they have no evidence?

Everything in RFK Jr's article is found in numerous other articles and public domain information.

Blathering 'I am no bush fan' doesn't change FACTS...Bush had the worst environmental record of any modern president. And Cheney's activities were likely criminal.

Bush was the very antithesis of what a president should be...

"Harry Truman once said, 'There are 14 or 15 million Americans who have the resources to have representatives in Washington to protect their interests, and that the interests of the great mass of the other people - the 150 or 160 million - is the responsibility of the president of the United States, and I propose to fulfill it.'"
President John F. Kennedy


Leaking Oil Well Lacked Safeguard Device - WSJ.com

Okay then point to the EVIDENCE in the article I am afraid I missed it.... All I saw was Jr doing his liberal us vs them bullshit song and dance....

As for the WSJ article you just tried to weasel into the conversation.. First we were talking about your first article lacking anything other than Jr's ramblings about the previous administration being at fault... That was the point..

But I will play your game for a bit.... In the WSJ article they have a pic showing where the device they mentioned would have been and how it would have worked...

now the information we have currently tells us there were other safety devices on the rig even a "deadman switch" which would have served the same purpose as well as other safeguards. These safeguards did not help because the explosion was so vast they couldn't deploy. now looking at the diagram, and knowing what we know about this particular explosion, and the fact the device mentioned in the article and the graphic is similar in concept to the deadman switch they already had on it... What difference would it have made? In reality None. All this is a company with a $500,000 dollar switch they want to sell. Its not a guaranteed anymore than the dead man switch was.

it was an accident, it wasn't Obama's fault despite clearing more areas for off-shore drilling, and despite his getting a great deal of campaign money from BP. And by that same token it isn't Bush's fault either...

Now try and act like an adult and realize this was an accident that no one could have foreseen or planned enough for. These things happen especially in complex and highly technical or technological undertakings. Nothing is ever 100% not in life anyway. That only happens in ideological rhetoric.

P.S. character? how much good character does it take to act like a child and demand someone to blame for everything that goes wrong?

 

[California Girl]

So, the Minerals Management Service scandal never happened. And the proposal to mandate acoustical regulators on all gulf rigs was not circumvented by Cheney's re-staffing of the Minerals Management Service?

Sounds like the only 'meandering' is being done by you Bush apologists

Acoustical regulators? I was under the impression they wouldn't have mattered given type of explosion and it happening BELOW the valves... All your article does is make some claim, no evidence other than the word of a liberal with a vested interest in right wing bashing...

And btw, I am no bush fan... I just happen to know blaming him now is bullshit politics... Just as it would be to blame Obama for the economy before he came into office....

Its called responsibility and character... look into it sometime..

Character... look into it sometime? You mean like people that use the term 'under the impression' when they have no evidence?

Everything in RFK Jr's article is found in numerous other articles and public domain information.

Blathering 'I am no bush fan' doesn't change FACTS...Bush had the worst environmental record of any modern president. And Cheney's activities were likely criminal.

Bush was the very antithesis of what a president should be...

"Harry Truman once said, 'There are 14 or 15 million Americans who have the resources to have representatives in Washington to protect their interests, and that the interests of the great mass of the other people - the 150 or 160 million - is the responsibility of the president of the United States, and I propose to fulfill it.'"
President John F. Kennedy


Leaking Oil Well Lacked Safeguard Device - WSJ.com

So, another poster claims 'under the impression' and you state 'no evidence'.

Then, in the exact same post as you whine about the other poster's lack of evidence, you say that Cheney's activities were "...LIKELY criminal".... Where's YOUR evidence?

Bitching about someone else having an opinion not based on evidence and then doing the exact same thing in the same post makes you look pretty damned stupid.

 

[Samson]

Acoustical regulators? I was under the impression they wouldn't have mattered given type of explosion and it happening BELOW the valves... All your article does is make some claim, no evidence other than the word of a liberal with a vested interest in right wing bashing...

And btw, I am no bush fan... I just happen to know blaming him now is bullshit politics... Just as it would be to blame Obama for the economy before he came into office....

Its called responsibility and character... look into it sometime..

Character... look into it sometime? You mean like people that use the term 'under the impression' when they have no evidence?

Everything in RFK Jr's article is found in numerous other articles and public domain information.

Blathering 'I am no bush fan' doesn't change FACTS...Bush had the worst environmental record of any modern president. And Cheney's activities were likely criminal.

Bush was the very antithesis of what a president should be...

"Harry Truman once said, 'There are 14 or 15 million Americans who have the resources to have representatives in Washington to protect their interests, and that the interests of the great mass of the other people - the 150 or 160 million - is the responsibility of the president of the United States, and I propose to fulfill it.'"
President John F. Kennedy


Leaking Oil Well Lacked Safeguard Device - WSJ.com

So, another poster claims 'under the impression' and you state 'no evidence'.

Then, in the exact same post as you whine about the other poster's lack of evidence, you say that Cheney's activities were "...LIKELY criminal".... Where's YOUR evidence?

Bitching about someone else having an opinion not based on evidence and then doing the exact same thing in the same post makes you look pretty damned stupid.

Indeed, its more than duplicious to demand evidence from anyone, and then make generalized comments without evidence of your own: its simply trollish, or as you say, "pretty damn stupid."

FACTS...Bush had the worst environmental record of any modern president

.

Of course "modern president" is the distinguishing qualifier here, since there is no more modern president than Bush, then having the "worst environmental record" is fate acompli.

Or we could mean G. H. W. Bush, who had been in office two scant months when the Exxon Valdez created the worst environmental disaster in US History.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill ocurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, when the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California, hit Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef and spilled an estimated minimum 10.8 million US gallons (40.9 million litres, or 250,000 barrels) of crude oil.