On May 3, 5:32*pm, "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. *

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 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?

On 5/3/2010 6:22 PM, Robatoy wrote:
On May 3, 6:50 pm, Morris 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?

Because I want people to be comfortable in the wintertime (same reason I
make solar panels).

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

On 2010-05-02 22:55:22 -0400, "J. Clarke" 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" 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 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

On 2010-05-03 11:02:23 -0400, Larry Jaques 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" 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

"HeyBub" wrote in
m:

Han wrote:
"J. Clarke" wrote in
:

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.


The explosion was a mile away from the BOP.

As I understood it, there was a pressure anomaly from the well that caused
the explosion. The visible part may have been above water, but I really
thought the main event was at the well head. Maybe I'm wrong.


--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

"J. Clarke" wrote in
:
Han wrote:
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.

As a child I spent time on the Dutch North Sea beaches. Dad carried a
bottle of turpentine or some such so we could was the tar of our feet
before going home. Those tarballs were probably from fuel oil from the
ships going by, but were annoying nevertheless. Never thought about them
as particularly toxic when they were tar balls. Really liquid oil, like
what floated on the Rhine were we swam, that was something else ...

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Jack Stein wrote in -
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.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On 5/3/2010 7:30 PM, Steve wrote:
On 2010-05-02 22:55:22 -0400, "J. Clarke" 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.

I've got enough engineering savvy to know that until we know what went
wrong there't no point in trying to figure out how to fix it. And
whether the designers "failed" depends on what went wrong--you can't
ever anticipate _everything_ and there are some things that it's not
possible to deal with in the design.

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

I'm not the one going on about how other people doing work that I don't
understand have "failed".

"Han" wrote in message
...
"J. Clarke" wrote in
:
Han wrote:
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.

As a child I spent time on the Dutch North Sea beaches. Dad carried a
bottle of turpentine or some such so we could was the tar of our feet
before going home. Those tarballs were probably from fuel oil from the
ships going by, but were annoying nevertheless. Never thought about them
as particularly toxic when they were tar balls. Really liquid oil, like
what floated on the Rhine were we swam, that was something else ...

The hotels in Santa Barbara have tar remover along with the shampoo and
soap.

On 5/3/2010 9:18 PM, Lobby Dosser wrote:
"Han" wrote in message
...
"J. Clarke" wrote in
:
Han wrote:
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.

As a child I spent time on the Dutch North Sea beaches. Dad carried a
bottle of turpentine or some such so we could was the tar of our feet
before going home. Those tarballs were probably from fuel oil from the
ships going by, but were annoying nevertheless. Never thought about them
as particularly toxic when they were tar balls. Really liquid oil, like
what floated on the Rhine were we swam, that was something else ...

The hotels in Santa Barbara have tar remover along with the shampoo and
soap.

However the oil in Santa Barbara is from a purely natural source.

On Mon, 3 May 2010 06:54:46 -0700, "Lobby Dosser"
wrote the following:

"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
On 5/3/2010 6:42 AM, Han wrote:
"J. wrote in
:

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/2009/05/1...ez-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 Mon, 03 May 2010 15:39:43 -0400, wrote the
following:

On Mon, 03 May 2010 15:23:48 -0400, "J. Clarke"
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

"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
On 5/3/2010 9:18 PM, Lobby Dosser wrote:
"Han" wrote in message
...
"J. Clarke" wrote in
:
Han wrote:
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.

As a child I spent time on the Dutch North Sea beaches. Dad carried a
bottle of turpentine or some such so we could was the tar of our feet
before going home. Those tarballs were probably from fuel oil from the
ships going by, but were annoying nevertheless. Never thought about them
as particularly toxic when they were tar balls. Really liquid oil, like
what floated on the Rhine were we swam, that was something else ...

The hotels in Santa Barbara have tar remover along with the shampoo and
soap.

However the oil in Santa Barbara is from a purely natural source.


So is the oil in the Gulf.

Chris Friesen wrote:
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.


Sometimes you don't have to remove the drill string.

Spindletop blew 1,139 feet of pipe right out of the well.

People screaming "Run for your lives!" and "Chicken Licken was right!" A
sight to behold.

Steve wrote:
On 2010-05-02 22:55:22 -0400, "J. Clarke"
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.

FrozenNorth wrote:

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!


Less pressure or increased flow come to mind.

Right. That's the way I would design it. But that implies some sort of
self-awareness on the part of the BOP. We don't know whether they are that
smart.

Steve wrote:
On 2010-05-03 07:30:34 -0400, "HeyBub" 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!

Yes, but as long as blame is being affixed based on BP (or whoever) ignoring
ALL possible contingencies, it's worthwhile to point out that not ALL
scenarios can be settled in advance.

Eventually, blame will be parceled out. Until then, it's imprudent to
criticize BP, the rig owner, the construction company, or any of the makers
of the thousands of pieces of equipment on the rig for the mess. It's even
more ridiculous to impute motives, such as cutting safety corners to protect
profits.

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 2010-05-03 23:01:59 -0400, Larry Jaques said:

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

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

On 5/3/2010 11:05 PM, Lobby Dosser wrote:
"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
On 5/3/2010 9:18 PM, Lobby Dosser wrote:
"Han" wrote in message
...
"J. Clarke" wrote in
:
Han wrote:
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.

As a child I spent time on the Dutch North Sea beaches. Dad carried a
bottle of turpentine or some such so we could was the tar of our feet
before going home. Those tarballs were probably from fuel oil from the
ships going by, but were annoying nevertheless. Never thought about
them
as particularly toxic when they were tar balls. Really liquid oil, like
what floated on the Rhine were we swam, that was something else ...

The hotels in Santa Barbara have tar remover along with the shampoo and
soap.

However the oil in Santa Barbara is from a purely natural source.


So is the oil in the Gulf.

The oil in Santa Barbara was there before humans, it is not the result
of drilling or industry or any other activity of humans.

"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
On 5/3/2010 11:05 PM, Lobby Dosser wrote:
"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
On 5/3/2010 9:18 PM, Lobby Dosser wrote:
"Han" wrote in message
...
"J. Clarke" wrote in
:
Han wrote:
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.

As a child I spent time on the Dutch North Sea beaches. Dad carried a
bottle of turpentine or some such so we could was the tar of our feet
before going home. Those tarballs were probably from fuel oil from the
ships going by, but were annoying nevertheless. Never thought about
them
as particularly toxic when they were tar balls. Really liquid oil,
like
what floated on the Rhine were we swam, that was something else ...

The hotels in Santa Barbara have tar remover along with the shampoo and
soap.

However the oil in Santa Barbara is from a purely natural source.


So is the oil in the Gulf.

The oil in Santa Barbara was there before humans, it is not the result of
drilling or industry or any other activity of humans.



As is the oil in the Gulf. Both sources have been drilled.

On 5/4/2010 3:15 AM, Lobby Dosser wrote:
"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
On 5/3/2010 11:05 PM, Lobby Dosser wrote:
"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
On 5/3/2010 9:18 PM, Lobby Dosser wrote:
"Han" wrote in message
...
"J. Clarke" wrote in
:
Han wrote:
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.

As a child I spent time on the Dutch North Sea beaches. Dad carried a
bottle of turpentine or some such so we could was the tar of our feet
before going home. Those tarballs were probably from fuel oil from
the
ships going by, but were annoying nevertheless. Never thought about
them
as particularly toxic when they were tar balls. Really liquid oil,
like
what floated on the Rhine were we swam, that was something else ...

The hotels in Santa Barbara have tar remover along with the shampoo
and
soap.

However the oil in Santa Barbara is from a purely natural source.


So is the oil in the Gulf.

The oil in Santa Barbara was there before humans, it is not the result
of drilling or industry or any other activity of humans.



As is the oil in the Gulf. Both sources have been drilled.

Check again. Santa Barbara has a natural oil seep.

Please, guys, it is a question of scale only. A little oil doesn't really
hurt. Drowning in oil does, whether from natural causes (seeping) or man-
made (faulty safety).


--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

"HeyBub" wrote in
news
Yes, but as long as blame is being affixed based on BP (or whoever)
ignoring ALL possible contingencies, it's worthwhile to point out that
not ALL scenarios can be settled in advance.

Eventually, blame will be parceled out. Until then, it's imprudent to
criticize BP, the rig owner, the construction company, or any of the
makers of the thousands of pieces of equipment on the rig for the
mess. It's even more ridiculous to impute motives, such as cutting
safety corners to protect profits.

BP as the owner/lessee of the rig and as owner/lessee of the fieldis
responsible for a clean harvest. ANything not clean is their
responsibility to clean up, or pay for the damages. They have acknowledged
that. Hopefully the lawyesr won't get too rich off of this. Maybe the
judges can be activist enough to declare 1/3 of proceeds as usury.

I am still hoping!
--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

"HeyBub" wrote in
m:

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.

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

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Han wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in
m:

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.

wrote:

Yeah, wonder how losing 100's of billions, and possibly the whole
company looks on their bottom line?


Trust me, and what we know from lots of history... All that matters
during planning is how it will look on this week's flash report.

Sorry, I don't trust you. Well, I don't know you, but what you say
doesn't work for me.

There is no doubt that the bottom line no longer looks so hot, but
hindsight is never a part of how these things are planned. Short term
profit is way out in front.

Right, they invest 100's of billions on some sort of short term, flash
dream...

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...

--
Jack
The Problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of Other Peoples Money!
http://jbstein.com

On May 4, 6:56*am, Han wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote innews:OJSdncaczd3ICELWnZ2dnUVZ_tKdnZ2d@earthlink. com:

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.

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 3, 11:09*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
Steve wrote:
On 2010-05-02 22:55:22 -0400, "J. Clarke"
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.

I am going with the terrorist making a freaky engineering mistake
onboard a submarine whilst chasing a human monster.

Han wrote:
Jack Stein wrote in -
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 **** happens. The fact that despite
massive government regulations **** still happens. QED.

The real incentive to consider the disaster and how to prevent it is the
massive amounts of money lost when disaster strikes. Despite the great
incentive, **** happens, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose,
sometimes due to incompetence. My guess is the most competent people on
earth to consider this event and how to prevent it did exactly that.
Eventually, we might find out what actually happened.

Right now, while Obama has his [Jack] boot on BP's neck, I'm wondering
why he didn't implement the contingency plans in place to minimize the
impact of this particular disaster?

--
Jack
Got Change: Democratic Republic ====== Banana Republic!
http://jbstein.com

J. Clarke wrote:

I've got enough engineering savvy to know that until we know what went
wrong there't no point in trying to figure out how to fix it. And
whether the designers "failed" depends on what went wrong--you can't
ever anticipate _everything_ and there are some things that it's not
possible to deal with in the design.

I think in the future, the oil companies should consult with
Rec.Woodworking before investing a few hundred billion on an oil
platform... Or at least ask the Bammer and his gang how its done....

--
Jack
Redistribute My Work Ethic!!!
http://jbstein.com

Larry Jaques wrote:

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.

Probable scenario 3: Obama and his socialists buddies (AlGore comes to
mind) sabotage in effort to get gas prices high enough that his hair
brained plans to run the world on hot air will make him rich[er].

Probable scenario 4: Bush did it, well, because he's just a big prick.

--
Jack
Please don't tell Obama what comes after a Trillion!
http://jbstein.com

wrote:

In any investigation, motive will be looked at VERY closely in
relation to all evidence gathered. S.O.P.

When a wife goes missing, the husband is always the intial "best bet",
because historically, far more often than not, the husband is
responsible.

Sounds like profiling to me...

--
Jack
Got Change: Individual Freedom ======= Government Control!
http://jbstein.com

Larry Jaques wrote:
On Mon, 03 May 2010 08:16:33 -0400, the infamous Jack Stein
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?

Our pockets is right. Whether the government, the oil companies, or
AlGore takes it from our pockets, we will pay.

--
Jack
The Problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of Other Peoples Money!
http://jbstein.com

On May 4, 6:49*am, Jack Stein wrote:
Han wrote:
Jack Stein wrote -
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 **** happens. *The fact that despite
massive government regulations **** 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 ;-)

On Tue, 04 May 2010 08:21:22 -0400, Jack Stein
wrote the following:

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 5/4/2010 9:50 AM, Neil Brooks wrote:
On May 4, 6:49 am, Jack wrote:
Han wrote:
Jack wrote -
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 **** happens. The fact that despite
massive government regulations **** 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 ;-)

Regulation is by its nature reactive. Once something has gone bust it's
easy to pass a regulation about it. And the regulators never say "we
screwed up, maybe we need to rethink this".