BP Oil Well Capping

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Anyone watching the live feed from BP?Capping procedure on the oil well Live stream

Yep Yep!I've been watching it on and off for about a week now.it's disturbing. I'm old enough to remember the Exxon Valdez and how devastating that was.... This event is thousand and thousands times bigger. it will be the worlds largest oil disaster....

Originally Posted By: Roc...it will be the worlds largest oil disaster.... I think it already is...in more ways than one. People need to go to jail over this one...monetary fines don't cut it.

Originally Posted By: thorPeople need to go to jail over this one...monetary fines don't cut it. I'd love to see that but I fear that oilmoney will trump the system again. All other political arguments aside, it is one of the tragedies of Capitalism. I don't know if your municipality has banned the use of household herbicides yet but mine has.I understand the sentiment but in the big picture... poor, John Q Public, like you and me, don't matter enough on the national spread sheet.I can be in shit up to my eyeballs for using KillX or Roundup in my yard but BP can poison the Gulf and Suncor can turn the northern half of Alberta into a toxic wasteland.money > votesMaybe we are already living in a totalitarian regime. It's just that our masters aren't in Washington or Ottawa but rather on Wall St and Bay St

There obviously needs to be a rigorous enquiry into all aspects of this disaster, but the desire to punish some person or persons and lay all the blame on them should be resisted at this stage, I think. It's a common desire, but it often leads to the punishment of innocent people who happen to be convenient scapegoats. Innocent people have been hanged because the public wanted revenge for some foul crime.
There are certainly very serious questions to be asked, such as why three blow-out preventers all failed to work and turned out to be completely useless. But there have been many warnings before that offshore drilling is inherently risky, warnings that have been ignored because people wanted oil. Can those who said "We accept the risk" now complain?

Originally Posted By: thor

Originally Posted By: Roc

...it will be the worlds largest oil disaster....

I think it already is...in more ways than one. People need to go to jail over this one...monetary fines don't cut it.

Do you really want to send people to prison for a mistake? Granted, it's a huge mistake with horrible consequences, but a little level-headedness is not a bad thing.

that's an interesting take on it. A mistake is a mistake but, as a parent, I had to constantly remind my son what the difference was between accident and preventable accident.letting a drunk captain the Exxon Valdez was a mistake... being a drunk captain was a mistake. Allowing the rise of the 3rd Reich was a mistake. The invasion of Iraq was a mistake. The Japanese Internment was a mistake. The Walkerton water disaster was a mistake. Residential schools were a mistake.I guess the question is, how much leeway do you give to lack of foresight (intentional or not)?And yes, as Ineligible puts forth, we can't just start throwing random executives in Jail because we're angry. But some people made decisions that were not in the best interest of those affected by the consequences of those decisions.

I'm not sure jail time is a solution either. What does it solve? I don't know that there were intentional acts of disregard that caused this.. Mistakes and oversights may be causes, and hence penalties should apply. Here are all the links to the videos direct from BP... Not all are active. It's amazing seeing the well gushing.. BP video feeds

Originally Posted By: unsupervisedthat's an interesting take on it. A mistake is a mistake but, as a parent, I had to constantly remind my son what the difference was between accident and preventable accident.Exactly. So you punish a kid for riding his bike in the road. You don't punish him for getting hit by a car. Quote:letting a drunk captain the Exxon Valdez was a mistake... being a drunk captain was a mistake.I don't think either of those things are mistakes. If I knowingly let a drunk man run a ship, that's not a mistake. That's a choice to do something bad and dangerous. Likewise, making the choice to get drunk before running a ship is a wrong, dangerous choice. Both should be punished. Quote:Allowing the rise of the 3rd Reich was a mistake.I don't know if this is that simple. It was probably a combination of evil choices, ignorance, and actual mistakes. You can't lump it all together. Quote:The invasion of Iraq was a mistake.That's certainly within the realm of possibilities. Quote:The Japanese Internment was a mistake.I agree with this statement. Quote:The Walkerton water disaster was a mistake.I have to say I don't know much about this. Quote:Residential schools were a mistake.Nor this. Quote:I guess the question is, how much leeway do you give to lack of foresight (intentional or not)?I think that's a great question.My point is that there is a large difference between a mistake and a conscious choice to do something wrong.

Originally Posted By: sdpI'm not sure jail time is a solution either. What does it solve? I don't know that there were intentional acts of disregard that caused this.. Mistakes and oversights may be causes, and hence penalties should apply. It all comes down to responsibility. Several folks (more than one) failed miserably in their responsibilities in a manner that will ultimately effect the livelyhoods and lives of thousands of people. How bad does it have to get for somebody to go to jail? I see jail as a penalty...but I also see it as sending a message. Monetary penalties come out of the company coffers, but jail-time is personal. Just have to make sure the right folks, and not scapegoats, end up in jail.

I'm not sure jail should ever be used just for "sending a message". Jail/prison terms are specific consequences for specific actions. If you want to send a message, take out an add in the op-ed page.

Originally Posted By: damien

I'm not sure jail should ever be used just for "sending a message". Jail/prison terms are specific consequences for specific actions. If you want to send a message, take out an add in the op-ed page.

damien...I wish you could try telling it to the thousands of families whose businesses are going to be (or already have been) wiped out because of this "little mistake". You might possibly see things from a different perspective (though I certainly wouldn't be holding my breath.)

The only reason it would send a message at all is because corporate idiots have been getting away with this kind of thing for so long (and not serving any jail time for it), that having to take any responsibility at all for their decisions would be a wake-up call.

I'm not sure who we should put in jail though. I think more than just a financial penalty is appropriate though. After all, when you take a million bucks from a billionaire, it a bit like having a parking ticket to deal with.I'm not one who generally supports tossing people in jail because it accomplishes little in the long run. But I can't think of a better way to punish people with unlimited wealth.Unfortunately, there is a very long history of financial control over the US (and Canadian and others) government through lobbying and influence peddling.

No-one doubts the seriousness of the consequences. The problem is, at present we don't know enough about the causes. There may very well have been negligence - and if so that should be punished, and prison would seem appropriate - but it remains to be proven. It may not be BP executives at fault, and sometimes a situation with terrible consequences occurs even though everyone acted reasonably.

I was recently at our coast and the Alabama coast. didn't see anything sat on Al coast but on ours we came across many dead animals. Now it's nothing new to see washed up dead catfish but puffers, angels and seagulls... that was unusual. There were so many. Cant remember how many catfish but there were about five puffers we saw. A dead angel (like the blue and white angel on nemo and a seagull. It was the first time I've ever seen crows looking for food on the beach too.

I stopped watching the news. It only shows me how helpless I am again. I hate seeing the animals. Tho I'd rather see them being bathed and saved than smothered and dead.

Someone or some group is defiantly at fault.we're going to drill for oil 1500m below the seaWhat if the pipe breaks?huh?

Originally Posted By: thordamien...I wish you could try telling it to the thousands of families whose businesses are going to be (or already have been) wiped out because of this "little mistake". You might possibly see things from a different perspective (though I certainly wouldn't be holding my breath.) You're thinking emotionally. I'm thinking logically. I feel bad for the folks whose livelihood have been impacted - or destroyed. So please don't act like I'm a callous, heartless bastard. And your parenthetical comment is a bit out of line. If there are people involved who committed a crime, they should be tried and convicted. But the witch hunt that you and others are condoning is not helpful. The companies involved can make restitution and "clean up the mess" without sending innocent people to jail just to make you feel better. There are so many crap statements and stories floating around the internet about BP officials that are just flat out lies and distortions. Maybe I'm more willing than you to slow the choo-choo down and look at the truth of the matter instead of getting caught up in all of the sensationalism.(By the way, you sound a lot like your friend Obama right now. Wanting to kick ass and all that. )

The possibility that the pipe could break was certainly considered. It was supposed to be dealt with by the blowout preventers, and they put in not one, not two, but three in series - and all three failed to work, and none could even be shut down manually. This clearly indicates an ineffectual design of the blowout preventers and suggests insufficient testing. Should BP have known the blowout preventers were unreliable? The answer isn't obvious, and needs serious investigation by experts. It can't be answered from an armchair.Already it seems it would be a bold company that would put in another offshore rig just now (or a company carefully designed to have no assets and untraceable directors).