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Obama's Katrina!

AlBell said:
No need for more socialism or corporate control; the military is already available and are the one group possibly capable of effectively combating the surface spill.

They should have been placed in charge of cleanup operations at about day 2 or 3.
Operations on plugging the blowout and capturing what can be captured are a BP and relevant contractor problem.
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Ummm, you may have heard about this branch of the military called the Coast Guard? :rolleyes:
 
AlBell said:
No need for more socialism or corporate control; the military is already available and are the one group possibly capable of effectively combating the surface spill.

They should have been placed in charge of cleanup operations at about day 2 or 3.

Operations on plugging the blowout and capturing what can be captured are a BP and relevant contractor problem.
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So we throw sailors at the spill hoping to soak it all up with their uniforms?

What would they have done differently?
 
GreNME said:
A few questions:

Is the above statement genuine, or are you just shooting spitballs?

Can you explain what response by the government didn't come for a month and a half?

What response do you feel the government should have made that would have been (in your opinion) more satisfying to the public?


Oh, and when answering those questions feel free to use timelines like this or this to help explain your point.
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:confused: - someone earlier in the thread offered an explanation that I agree with. See if you can find it. My comment was in reference to the poll, not the government. Relax, stop being defensive.
 
ponderingturtle said:
So we throw sailors at the spill hoping to soak it all up with their uniforms?
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Doesn't sound effective to me. Have you emailed your congressman with your idea?

What would they have done differently?
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Hopefully improve logistics, coordination, and manpower in efforts to mediate effects of spilled oil and dispersants.

Does the current cleanup seem well coordinated and staffed to you?

headscratcher4 said:
And you know they could have controlled the spill because? Please enumerate how the military would have contained this spill in ways that BP could not? Wouldn't those methods be as useful now -- to curb the ongoing leak -- as they would have been at day 2 or 3? Yet, even though the military is now involved, they've not yet plugged the leak...so your suggesting what? That the military is purposefully witholding its leak plugging capability to create a greater disaster?
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Since I said no such thing, what are you going on about?

The leak isn't plugged because BP, Haliburton and others in the business aren't sure how to do it. The military doesn't specialize in oil leak plugging or oil rig disaster clean-up. What the military is now doing in the Gulf is a gerry-rigged operation trying to figure out how to mitigate the EFFECTS of the leak...not plug it.

Your point doesn't make any sense.
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Nor does your post.

Have you tried actually reading what I said?


MM: Yes I'm aware the Coast Guard is a small part of the military. Are you happy with Thad Allen "in charge"?
 
Your post said they (the military) should have been placed in charge on day 2 or 3. How would that have changed anything...coordinate the logistics all you want, the bottom line here is that plugging the leak is the way to avert/mitigate the disaster. The military is not equipped to do that. Nor, for that matter, are they necessarilly equipped to know about/understand oil dispersal technologies and their effects. It really isn't, it seems to me, part of what the military (or the coast gaurd) does. So, please indulge me, how would have putting the military in charge on day 2 or 3 have dramatically changed the situation we are now facing? Are you arguing that there are more efficient/effective dispersal methods that the military knew about but were not used? Would the military have done a better job coordinating BPs efforts to plug the leak? What is it that you wanted the military to coordinate better and how would that, parctically speaking, have made any difference over where we are today? Just asking.
 
MM: Yes I'm aware the Coast Guard is a small part of the military. Are you happy with Thad Allen "in charge"?

You clearly aren't. Who should be in charge? What has Allen done/not done that leads you to question his competence?
 
Based on what i know, and as an engineer, I offer the following:
Somebody made a decision based on insufficient engineering. Whether it was an engineer or a manager, I don't know. It was made, with disastrous results. This resulted in failure of the cement plug, and the exit of a whole lot of the drill string from the hole.
Everybody focuses on the BOP. The BOP is a last-ditch line of defense. This focus, to me, is like focusing on the fact the parachute didn't work when the pilot had to bail out of an airplane when the wing came off.
Whether the BOP was damaged by the blow-out, or failed to work because it was improperly installed/had a dead battery (why rely on a battery?), or was simply a boat-anchor, I don't know. The disaster resulted from the things that occurred prior to the BOP failure.
Engineers make mistakes, being human. that mistake may have come from insufficient information, bad data, incompetence, inexperience, economic pressure, or being overruled by management, among other things.
Now, there are lots of Federal regulations and guidelines for all sorts of things. But, you cannot have regulations and remedies for all things ("I want a list of all possible unforeseen difficulties on my desk by 4:00"). We go with "best known engineering practices and procedures" when in doubt.
We have licensing requirements, dictated by governments, (and designed by engineers) for engineers, just as we have for lawyers and doctors of medicine, to ensure a minimum competence. Companies have internal procedures-reviews, conferences, etc.) to supposedly put the right people in the right place, and ensure competence, supposedly. (Unfortunately, in many instances, competence is defined as "who can play the internal political game best", just as in our political leaders.)
Whatever the reason, it happened. Nobody-not BP, not Obama, not Bush, not the Military- can prevent that. I don't know if a different BOP could have stopped it once it started, and neither does anyone else here.
I have no doubt that the best minds and engineers available are working to stop things from getting worse. Let's let them work. In the meantime, we have to do the best we can with what we have to clean up. We have good minds on that, too. Let them work, and keep the politics out of it. Give 'wm what they need, and get on with it.
 
headscratcher4 said:
MM: Yes I'm aware the Coast Guard is a small part of the military. Are you happy with Thad Allen "in charge"?

You clearly aren't. Who should be in charge? What has Allen done/not done that leads you to question his competence?
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What he has "not done" is have the command (as logistics, coordination, and staffing needs dictate) of the full capabilities of the US military.

Would Chairman of Joint Chiefs be more effective? My answer: probably.

As to your continuing comments on the military being unable in any way to assist in plugging the blowout: yes I agree. Now what? As I've always said I see the military as the best available group to be tasked for cleanup operations.
 
Now the President says today he is going to "kick some ass"? It is day 50 of an oil gusher into the gulf and he is going to kick ass now? As this article mentions - sounds like the President is in charge of the Apple Dumpling Gang.

http://michellemalkin.com/2010/06/08/gulf-oil-spill/

To me it seems the President can not do much to stop the leak. Oil pumping and leak stopping is not something the government specializes in. But appearances count. And Obama looks weak and bewildered.

I wonder if it would help Obama in his sagging polls and reputation if he asked former President Bush and VP Cheney to head government efforts into stopping the oil leak and clean up aftermath. Both are high profile former oil men, and know the industry.
 
dudalb said:
Yeah, we saw how well Bush and Cheney can handle disasters with Katrina........
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Agreed; not well done. I'm sure democrats in charge would have done better; well, actually no I'm not so sure.

As to the current fiasco, I only hope Obama will "kick some ass" in Interior, EPA, MMS, Corps of Engineers, etc trying to revise drilling regs in a time frame less than 6 months.

Great idea in the middle of a major recession to put 75,000 well paid oil workers jobless for months when weeks should be adequate to revise things and get at least some drilling back in operation.

The deepwater rigs will be heading for Africa and elsewhere, so the GOM support jobs for those operations are likely gone for years.
 
Arrow said:
Now the President says today he is going to "kick some ass"? It is day 50 of an oil gusher into the gulf and he is going to kick ass now? As this article mentions - sounds like the President is in charge of the Apple Dumpling Gang.

http://michellemalkin.com/2010/06/08/gulf-oil-spill/

To me it seems the President can not do much to stop the leak. Oil pumping and leak stopping is not something the government specializes in. But appearances count. And Obama looks weak and bewildered.

I wonder if it would help Obama in his sagging polls and reputation if he asked former President Bush and VP Cheney to head government efforts into stopping the oil leak and clean up aftermath. Both are high profile former oil men, and know the industry.
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:D Good one. *high fi....* Wait. That WAS a joke right?? :confused:
 
One good reason for the greater outrage with this incident, and really with everything, today versus 1989, the time of the Valdez spill, is the nature of the media today. In this information age, everything is up-front, real time, and spun to the viewpoints of a million bloggers.

This is both a blessing and a curse, as it is good that people care about events in the world, but it necessitates a great deal more attention to evidence and skeptical evaluation in order to get to the truth than may have been required twenty-one years ago. And that's true of everything, not just this incident.
 
Arrow said:
Now the President says today he is going to "kick some ass"?
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No, he didn't.

Arrow said:
It is day 50 of an oil gusher into the gulf and he is going to kick ass now?
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Nor was that the context in which he said what you are misquoting him as saying.

But looking at the domain name from where you're pulling this story, your gross misattribution is quite expected.
 
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AlBell said:
As to the current fiasco, I only hope Obama will "kick some ass" in Interior, EPA, MMS, Corps of Engineers, etc trying to revise drilling regs in a time frame less than 6 months.

Great idea in the middle of a major recession to put 75,000 well paid oil workers jobless for months when weeks should be adequate to revise things and get at least some drilling back in operation.

The deepwater rigs will be heading for Africa and elsewhere, so the GOM support jobs for those operations are likely gone for years.
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Dear Obama:

Whatever you do, it will be wrong.
 
AlBell said:
The deepwater rigs will be heading for Africa and elsewhere, so the GOM support jobs for those operations are likely gone for years.
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That's still better than the seafood industry gone for good.

The world runs on FOOD, not oil.

The full resources (not committed to some ill-concieved mission half way around the world) are still neither adequate to nor especially applicable to this mess.

The best way to keep oil off the beaches is not to get it in the ocean. Everything that the oil maggots have done or are doing wrong now needs to be fixed and fixed BEFORE the drills start turning.
 
Tricky said:
One good reason for the greater outrage with this incident, and really with everything, today versus 1989, the time of the Valdez spill, is the nature of the media today. In this information age, everything is up-front, real time, and spun to the viewpoints of a million bloggers.

This is both a blessing and a curse, as it is good that people care about events in the world, but it necessitates a great deal more attention to evidence and skeptical evaluation in order to get to the truth than may have been required twenty-one years ago. And that's true of everything, not just this incident.
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Great point.
 
AlBell said:
the military is already available and are the one group possibly capable of effectively combating the surface spill.
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How do you propose the military deal with surface oil? Do you think they have some ultra-secret oil skimmer in some skunkworks someplace that is vastly superior to the ones BP is using?


To me this poll simply puts to bed the ridiculous idea of a “liberal media”. Katrina was a disaster the government could and should deal with, dealing with this spill requires specialized technology and techniques that only exists within the major oil companies. The only other remote possibility is turning the response over to another oil company, but they would do the exact same things BP is already doing.

Forget a liberal stance, if the media was even laying out the information in a balanced manner without a conservative slant this type of poll number would be impossible.
 
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