Oil Means More Arsenic In Seawater 168
oxi writes "Besides the oil already spilling into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of up to 60,000 barrels daily, a group of British scientists says one can expect to see elevated levels of arsenic as well. The research, published in the journal Water Research, showed that oil prevents naturally-occurring arsenic from being filtered out of the water by the sediment on the ocean floor."
OMG! (Score:3, Informative)
This is about as valuable insight as a story above without any meaningful interpretation of what the rising level of arsenic means. How much more arsenic will there be? Will the entire ocean die? Will just a few patches of the Gulf die? Or more likely will it not make the tiniest bit of difference?
Re:OMG! (Score:5, Interesting)
I found these [wiley.com] two [sciencedirect.com] abstracts that may help. Langmuir [wikipedia.org] adsorption model [thuisexperimenteren.nl] is used to determine the effects.
I was trying to put some perspective on the BP oil spill for myself and found it's roughly an Exxon Valdez (E.V) disaster every week (based on approx 50,000 bbls per day), so it's 6 E.V's so far. Considering the amount of damage that was done there, local fisheries are now supported by hatcheries so the overall toxicity of the oil spill has pretty much destroyed the ecosystem. Twenty years later not much seems to have improved and Huffington Post [huffingtonpost.com] reports not only the human health implications but the same-old same-old response we get from these companies as data collection efforts are simply stopped. Ignorance really is bliss and when it's not possible to do any science and politicians in the future can honestly say "The health implications cannot be determined".
That arsenic is a carcinogen that bio-accumulates in the environment means that even if this catastrophe was to stop right now the human health implications are something that will continue to unfold well into the next generation. Airborne pollutants like Hydrogen Sulfide, which took a week to dissipate from E.V just continue.
Bottom line: No-one knows (A metric ass load?). EPA says you can't harvest fish from seawater with a greater concentration of 0.0175 micrograms of Arsenic. Seawater is more capable of containing As than fresh water and there are many other factors (temperature, organic/inorganic As) that determine toxicity. Pressure from the depth of water is also a factor. I think what is being said here is that the Gulf of Mexico's days as a fishery are pretty much over and it's time to drill the shit out of that oil reserve and empty it as soon as possible.
Lets be realistic No-one is going to take the risk of being the "Oh but you made it worse" person that everyone points fingers at so NO-ONE will do ANYTHING. Right now you are seeing the people standing around the dying person bleeding wondering when someone is going to call the ambulance. I blame the greenies, if they'd have protested more none of this would have ever happened and we could have lived our apathetic little lives without an oil spill of this magnitude. As it so happens now we have to live our apathetic little live without the luxury of ignorance going, tsk tsk that oil spill - so bad tsk tsk.
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A good start would be looking towards Nigeria, where foreign oil companies (including Exxon) have been leaking at very least an Exxon Valdez (the new official unit of measurement for oil spills ;)) each year for about 50 years.
I'd imagine the level of toxicity there would give you a good starting point, although of course it's a different dynamic, because it's multiple smaller leaks over a long time, rather than a single big leak over a relatively short time.
I'm not sure if there are increased levels of can
Re:OMG! (Score:4, Funny)
What's the concentration? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is probably some parts-per-billion phenomenon.
Arsenic is naturally found in some fish [nifes.no], and the concentrations approach regulatory limits. It's not clear in what compounds the arsenic appears; if it's locked into a compound that doesn't metabolize, it's probably not a problem.
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Has somebody informed the fish that the levels of arsenic in their bodies are approaching regulatory limits? Maybe throw in some dialysis machines or pills that absorb arsenic mixed in with fish food into the oceans?
Why aren't we helping the fish help themselves?
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Why aren't we helping the fish help themselves?
Because Western Society is still too busy thinking of the children?
Re:What's the concentration? (Score:5, Funny)
Why aren't we helping the fish help themselves?
Give a fish a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a fish to fish, you have invented the shark.
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Give a fish a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a fish to fish, you have invented the shark.
But strap a laser to that very same shark and they call you mad... MUHAHAHA I'LL SHOW THEM!!
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Fixed that for you.
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It's not clear in what compounds the arsenic appears; if it's locked into a compound that doesn't metabolize, it's probably not a problem.
I think it largely ends up in the form of arsenic-substituted pyrrole compounds [wikipedia.org], which seem to undergo biomagnification [wikipedia.org] as one proceeds up the food^H^H^H^Hmanagement chain -- there's no other way to explain [wikipedia.org] some of the rather toxic mismanagement messes generated by large companies.
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Arsenic doesn't metabolize easily, at all. Finding soluble arsenic is not too easy, especially in a non-toxic form that we could possibly use. The agent for chelation, dithiol dihydrolipoic acid, is more common but still rather uncommon in a natural state.
I've had arsenic poisoning twice now, to add to silicosis of the lungs, mercury poisoning, lead poisoning, and aluminum poisoning. To top it off, I'm anemic (iron-deficient) even though I eat tons of iron-loaded food.
I'm a walking labrat. Have been since t
Where does parts per billion come from? (Score:2)
Your referenced article talks about mg/kilogram in the fish, which is parts per million. The article doesn't reference any concentration of arsenic. Where does your quoted figure of ppb come from?
Good news everybody! (Score:3, Funny)
Oh dear.
naturally-occurring arsenic (Score:4, Insightful)
is there any other kind?
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Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Some time ago someone was to play Arsenic and Old Lace. Not wanting to mispronounce the name, he contacted Alice Longworth. She said that there were two branches of the family, and they pronounced the name differently.
T.R. was Roo-za-velt and F.D.R. was Rosa-velt.
One of the news articles on Litvinenko claimed that the Polonium used to kill him cost a megabuck.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko [wikipedia.org]
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/News/PoloniumPoison.html [nuclearweaponarchive.org]
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Save the Gulf: Send the Enterprise (Score:4, Interesting)
I am of the opinion that the best way to clean up the Gulf of Mexico is to Send the Enterprise [teslabox.com] (no, not that Enterprise, silly rabbits!). The complete proposal is given at the link.
Tell everyone you know.
(kuro5hin.org [kuro5hin.org] has two options for voting for a story: "Front Page" and "Section Page". 93% of the people who voted for my story voted FP, so I have reason to believe that my proposal has merit.)
Send Wonder Woman instead perhaps - or aquaman? (Score:5, Insightful)
Massive fuckups that can not be solved quickly with all the experts on earth happen - and this is one of them. We're just going to have to cope with it being fixed slowly.
It makes a good story to send a "ship of heroes" but unfortunately magic does not exist in this world so they won't be able to fix it any more quickly.
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It makes a good Tom Clancy story for the guy that has never been to school to come and put the experts to shame but I don't think it's going to stop an oil leak in reality.
310 MW is a drop in the ocean compared with the power of a hurricane.
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but I don't think it's going to stop an oil leak in reality.
Nothing in the proposal is about stopping the leak. It's about mitigating the impact that the oil is having on the gulf of Mexico.
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Does that not make sending the Enterprise worth doing anyways?
It makes about much sense as "cleaning beaches". It would be a PR campaign and nothing else. And a pretty expensive campaign at that. If you think an aircraft carrier is expensive in Dock. Just wait till its seaside.
310 Megawatts of power could "turn over" a lot of ocean water.
No it couldn't. In fact it could "turn over" hardly any at all. The ocean is not a swimming pool. Run the numbers... How much of just the gulf region can 310 MW "clean" after ruining for a century. Its nothing compared to how much is there.
Sometimes experts know too much...
And you are ignorant of basic facts, and are too lazy to
It's not just BP down there is it? (Score:2)
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As I said before and even in the subject heading where people should be able to see it easily - it's not just the people from BP doing this. If you or I were world class experts in that field with an idea to help then nobody would be chasing us away.
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If you know why haven't you sent their names to the Government so they can do more than just worry about why it's taking so long?
Also is it really a "news blackout" is is there really just nothing else to report?
How on earth would BP enforce a news blackout anyway?
Those are the sort of questions you should consider. This is far from the sort of situation where you can "send in a gunboat" and have a problem fixed quickly. The military do not have any expertise in this are
Re:It's not just BP down there is it? (Score:4, Interesting)
So who then are the right people?
If you know why haven't you sent their names to the Government so they can do more than just worry about why it's taking so long?
Also is it really a "news blackout" is is there really just nothing else to report?
How on earth would BP enforce a news blackout anyway?
Are you astroturfing or something?
The right people would have been the Dutch [financialpost.com].
Sending their names to the government woudn't help; they've already refused the help.
There is a kind-of blackout, ie here is CNN's take on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpJBsjKhRTo [youtube.com]
BP doesn't enforce the blackout, the government does.
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BP doesn't enforce the blackout, the government does.
Upon BP's request... All those campaign "contributions" are paying off very nicely. The corruption on display here goes far beyond the pale. They're making Cheney look like a saint.
Keeping the worlds media from the biggest story? (Score:2)
What's with the "us or them, you don't agree with me so must be astroturfing" bullshit? It's not a very mature way to look at the world.
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Jeeze! Do you watch the news at all? The government stated that there will be $40,000 fines and possible felony charges to "violators". They are enforcing the blackout with police and private security, and the coast guard. Yes, you do sound like you're defending the crooks(BP) here. They should not be calling the shots. Doesn't really matter. Nobody gives a shit. So there they are, covering up as best they can. You are defending the indefensible.
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Surely you can do better than just telling me to watch CNN? Just about every newspaper on earth is on the net now, and there's the BBC etc.
Where's the reports of people getting charged and fined? What day are they in court? Is
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You are also misinterpreting my point of view so I'll state it more simply. IMHO it's best to have oil experts fix oil problems first and then it's time to go looking for heads to kick when it's all over. I don't why people keep pretending I mean BP by that - all I really mean is it's stupid to call in the navy to do it when they don't have any oil experts. The guys on the ground that can actually fix it are the important thing and not whoever signs the pa
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It really does raise the question as to who can be brought in instantly to do it better and I can't answer that and I doubt anyone else here can either, so we're stuck with them or we lose by trying to change horses mid-race. I do know that the navy and a "ship of heroes" is not the answer, that should be blatantly obvious.
Maybe that's a lesson for the future, some sort of team spanning the entire indu
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I do know that the navy and a "ship of heroes" is not the answer, that should be blatantly obvious.
dude, the comment in the opening paragraph of my piece was solely a reference to the fictional Enterprise that most people think of first when they hear the proto-meme, "Send the Enterprise".
I want to get a nuclear-powered ship into the hands of gulf researchers and scientists, so they can see what can be done with hundreds of megawatts of thermal power. Seeing as I don't have any kind of platform to make that possible, I have to promote the idea somehow.
The stats say I've gotten more than 800 clicks in the
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I really cannot see the remotest chance of that happening.
That is probably close to what is going to happen. I think at some point BP will be presented with a bill and then the courts will be busy for a decade or two until it's given up as unpaid, or some tiny token amount will be paid.
The call for the military was from the fanciful article linked to in the first post.
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"(stopping a hurricane - OMFG)"
Sorry, we can do this. We just aim a laser at the center of the system cell and destabilize it.
Riiiiight. And all the energy stored in this big vortex magically disappears.
I think you underestimate the technology we actually possess.
I think you seriously underestimate the scale of things that happen in nature.
The eye of a hurricane ranges from tens to hundreds of square kilometers. Where do you aim?
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The eye of a hurricane ranges from tens to hundreds of square kilometers. Where do you aim?
You aim at the hidden weak spot for MASSIVE DAMAGE.
Re:Send Wonder Woman instead perhaps - or aquaman? (Score:4, Funny)
It reminds me of a quote from a congressional review from the 1960s where a scientist said the output of a laser was ten to the six watts and they needed ten to the twelve watts for an application. "Wonderful" said a Senator, "We're halfway there!".
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Since when do we have a powerful enough LASER to even think about this? I could believe you could do it with HAARP since once of the applications of the patent on which it is based is intense localized heating of the atmosphere, but if you want to sell this LASER thing you'll need some citation(s).
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Have you managed to slashdot your own site or is it just me experiencing problems connecting to www.teslabox.com ?
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Have you managed to slashdot your own site?
Apparently... I suspected that this would happen. I'm hosting on a small vps that I've been playing with for a year. I recently asked my host to increase the memory, but I haven't heard back from him yet. You can read the same proposal at the kuro5hin.org [kuro5hin.org] link - you just won't get the three small pictures. :)
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I especially love this bit:
After licensing the design, the U.S. Navy’s engineers can refine the pump for their purposes and the military-industrial complex can quickly establish a production line.
It seems clear to me that the author has never tried sourcing a custom made pump before. Redesigning equipment designed to operate at speed and pressure, and getting it produced takes a phen
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It seems clear to me that the author has never tried sourcing a custom made pump before. Redesigning equipment designed to operate at speed and pressure, and getting it produced takes a phenomenal amount of time. The up-front engineering hours alone would amount to months of work before the pump would be ready to run through a production line.
The MYT pump is simple. It has 22 parts, while a conventional piston pump/engine has thousands.
Furthermore, a geothermal energy company is looking to use the pump on one of their wells.
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Ok so you have the urgency of an environmental disaster backing your purchase, but even that may only half the production time if you're lucky (and quadruple the cost). The waste and lost time in industrial enginerring processes should never be underestimated.
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You have a very good point here - Maybe I should have known that the "military-industrial complex" is incapable of doing anything "quickly". But thanks for pointing it out!
And you're right - I underestimate timetables all the time. :)
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I expect you are underestimating the sheer vastness of the ocean
Dr. Joye suggests that some of the oil is concentrated in plumes [sciencemag.org]. I'd send the Enterprise to float over one of those first.
and how many gigatons of O_2 would be required.
This is why the Enterprise's six nuclear reactors are needed - there just aren't any other 310 Megawatt floating power plants, that I know of... The Mighty (MYT) pump design will efficiently convert the reactors' steam into rotational motion. Furthermore, the same pump will be able to move 3x as much air as old compressor designs.
At this point try anything and the place is so fuct that messing with the chemistry a bit more can't make it any worse
Epic disasters call for epic interventions, do they not?
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310MW is not epic on any scale. I suggest you look up how much power your city consumes at peak power.
310 MW may not be epic, but it's still 310 MW that could be put to productive use. The Enterprise isn't doing anything right now, so why not see what can be done?
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The Enterprise isn't doing anything right now
[citation needed]. Unless you have internal sources, you would never know what exactly Enterprise is tasked for (or for what reason it was constructed at all, for the matter)
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Anyway, my point was "nido" could never be sure that Enterprise is just idling and has no current military objectives/tasks. If you have any "real connections" that support/contradict his view, please feel free to post here. (I, personally, seriously doubt such a capable warship is idling). Otherwise STFU.
Re:Save the Gulf: Send the Enterprise (Score:5, Funny)
You're still not getting it. With the scales we are talking about, you'd be better off zipping out into the middle of the gulf yourself on a zodiac and blowing bubbles in the water with a drinking straw. It'd be a hell of a lot cheaper, and it'd accomplish about as much.
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It'd be a hell of a lot cheaper,
They're going to be spending money on maintenance and operations of the aircraft carrier anyways. Do you think it'd be more productive to spend it on bombs, jet fuel, pay for 8,000 sailors to fight forever wars on blowback [merriam-webster.com] ("terrorism")?
Au contraire, I think it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper to send the Enterprise to the gulf with a skeleton crew.
Epic at any scale (Score:2)
It is epic compared to the amount of power you generate for the rest of us. It lasts far longer and is generated over far longer periods of time.
You misunderstand the definition of 'epic.'
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In related news: Not much hope of making it stop (Score:3, Interesting)
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-461896 [cnn.com]
"According to Sagalevich’s report, the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico is not just coming from the 22 inch well bore site being shown on American television, but from at least 18 other sites on the “fractured seafloor” with the largest being nearly 11 kilometers (7 miles) from where the Deepwater Horizon sank and is spewing into these precious waters an estimated 2 million gallons of oil a day."
"As a prominent oil-industry insider, and one of the World's leading experts on peak oil, Simmons further warns that the US has only two options, “let the well run dry (taking 30 years, and probably ruining the Atlantic ocean) or nuking the well.” "
"On top of the environmental catastrophe currently unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico the situation may about to get even worse as new reports from the US are confirming the grim predictions of Russian scientists regarding the oil dispersement poisons being used by BP which are being swept up into the clouds and falling as toxic rain destroying every living plant it touches"
Re:In related news: Not much hope of making it sto (Score:4, Insightful)
On top of the environmental catastrophe currently unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico the situation may about to get even worse as new reports from the US are confirming the grim predictions of Russian scientists regarding the oil dispersement poisons being used by BP which are being swept up into the clouds and falling as toxic rain destroying every living plant it touches
Bullshit. Florida (as well as the rest of the Gulf coast) isn't some mysterious location about which little is known. If there was toxic rain "destroying every living plant it touches", we'd have a zillion people on the internet complaining about their messed up lawns. We'd probably have riots in Tallahassee (the capitol of Florida). This stuff would get in the news too. And Obama would have photo-ops all over the place. Because an evil oil corporation destroying voters' lawns, especially lawns in a critical swing state, is a crisis that Obama could use.
Keep in mind that the relief wells come in below most of that fracturing. It's also possible that the fracturing and oil leaks were already there. Just because oil leaks out of the Gulf seafloor, doesn't mean it came from a BP oil well.
Re:In related news: Not much hope of making it sto (Score:5, Funny)
1) His father designed the Harpoon radar guidance system
2) He worked at HP repair line right next to Dell help line
3) He has immense knowledge about pH and chemistry
4) and what do we have here... He has worked on oil platforms and his solution is
i) relief wells... mmm why didnt BP think of this... not wait... they started working on two relief wells long long ago and they have been trying (or pretending to do something in the meanwhile) to temporary stop the flow till the relief wells are operational.
ii) C-4s, ahh how innovative. When the GP talked about nuking it, did you somehow think it is the radiation from the nuke that would stop the leak? The GP effectively meant blow it up (he said with nukes, and you say with C-4s). And I would leave it as excersie to the reader, whether nuking it easier or C-4s are easier at this depth. PS: before someone flames me, I am neither in favor nor in opposition to blowing it up
Re:In related news: Not much hope of making it sto (Score:4, Funny)
I can seal that bitch with half a million dollars worth of focused C-4 charges from 50 feet down to 500 feet of well-breach.
It's a trick to get us to do exactly that, triggering the fault line and bringing a volcanic island to the surface that Cobra can use as their headquarters. We're not going to fall for that ploy.
welp... (Score:2)
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Drill, baby! Drill!
Palin / Haliburton 2012!!
Don't blame the regulation when a company fucks up (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh come on, that wouldn't be the fault of the regulation. Let's assume that what you said really would be the case.
If the company is told "You are only allowed to drill this many wells." and the company decided "Oh, okay. Then we'll skip the relief wells!" it is the company that fucks up. Okay, regulators have also erred when they didn't say "And this many of the wells need to be relief wells" and assumed that the company would realize to take the responsibility. But the regulators wouldn't have forced the
Food (Score:2)
Mmmm mmmmmmmmmm mmmm (Score:2)
Sweet Delicious Arsenic, most poisonous of the heavy non metal elements.
arsenic and children - personal story (Score:2)
high levels of arsenic : my boy is still being evaluated, he came down with something ... best way to describe it is autism with a 6 week onset at 6 years old, but it's not autism, more ASD, it's hard to describe, but suffice to say horrible, and a very good team of doctors (Dr House style) keep ordering more tests, eliminating things, showing nothing. so far the best lead is he has elevated levels of arsenic. He was in Chile over Christmas, there are copper mines there creating high levels of arsenic and c
Re:A little arsenic.... (Score:4, Insightful)
have you tried looking it up on the internet?
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http://www.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream3&hpt=T2 [cnn.com]
I think that should answer the question. But seriously, why not click to a new tab and google the question?
This whole mess rather pisses me off -- someone should "accidentally" dump raw sewage all over the homes of the BP executives. "It's an accident right?"
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You still don't understand the situation. The USA has oil on land that it's not pumping. We're devastating the oceans for the sake of maintaining our reserves.
Re:A little arsenic.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't blame the masses for what the masses will always do. You have to place the blame where it starts. Yes, people bought the SUVs. They were told they needed to buy them because they were the biggest and the best and so they did. The masses are mindless drones as Apple can plainly attest. It's the marketing and fashion people who really drive the masses... for better or for worse. And what drove the marketers? Well, the people who want to sell bigger and more expensive things, of course. There's a lot more profit in the big machines than there is in the little ones so naturally they want to sell the big ones. These same auto makers also managed to convince the people (AKA the government) to stop building railroads and to build freeways instead.
The demand for SUVs didn't happen until the SUVs happened... well that's not entirely true either -- I can remember when the Suburban was essentially a worker's vehicle until someone put leather interiors and other features in it, jacked up the price to more than twice what it was and now it's "for rich people." They polished a turd and sold it as a diamond. So when figuring out where the blame belongs, you need to follow the greed, not the masses. The masses don't think for themselves and I pretty much thought everyone knew that already... you knew that already right?
If you knew the masses don't think for themselves, how can you blame them? Maybe it's just easier to "blame the Americans" for being born on their particular plot of concrete and soil and living the lives that were handed down to them from their parents and know of no other way to live? Going down that road, you are essentially blaming people for being born and inheriting their culture. How much sense does THAT make?! Should I also blame you for where and when you were born?
No. It's better to blame those who actually have the influence to make changes and fail to do so to the benefit of the planet and mankind.
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As you pointed out, it's rich people buying the damned SUVs.
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Actually, it's more than the rich... it's also those who would want to appear to or aspire to be so. Those are not the same people who are actually in a position to control or influence the masses. Those people number in the few hundreds or even in the tens. These people are often carefully concealed but are seen in the company of people such as Dick Cheney and the like. Look to big oil, big auto, big pharma, big energy and big agriculture to see who is actually at the steering wheel directing the mass
Mod parent up! (Score:2)
Amen. I wish I had mod points.
SUVs were and are the vehicles that make the highest profits for the manufacturers, most being primitive truck chassis with a trimmed-up cabin. Combine with a primitive inefficient engine whose design cost was recouped twenty years ago and you have the modern SUV. A polished turd indeed. A gas guzzler with bad performance and bad handling but of course the American consumer will take it if you spend enough on advertising.
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"Apple can plainly attest" ?
You mean I didn't buy my Macbook Pro because it had more memory, a faster processor and video card than contemporary notebooks in its price range/size. Also a gorgeous screen, a backlit keyboard, an accelerometer protecting my data by parking my hard drive's heads in the event of a fall, a magnetic breakaway power cord, awesome battery life, and a aluminum unibody holding it all together weighing in at only 5.5Lbs? Don't forget a UNIX-based OS with a largely consistent, beautifu
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Apple makes, on the whole, the best of the breed when it comes to personal computers and you need to compare the complete package (OS, build quality, tech specs, weight, battery life, etc) if you are to compare apples to Apples. Pun intended.
Dude, you're making me wish there was a '-1, bad pun'. I have mod points right now, but that mod doesn't exist and I'm not gonna give you something inappropriate. Better watch yourself, though.
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So you basically forgive the masses for being the masses and place the blame on the people who simply act upon that very same knowledge. Responsibility isn't a burden for a handful of people, but rather one for us all to bear. The uneducated masses are fully responsible for not thinking their actions out.
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People buy what they're sold. The US automakers want to sell gas guzzlers because they can mark them up more; if x amount of power and size is good, then x+y amount is better! They were going to be forced to sell more fuel-efficient vehicles by the demand of the state of California, by the will of the voters, but they lobbied the federal government which threatened lawsuit if our state proceeded with the stricter emissions standards, for which foreign automakers were completely prepared. You can say what yo
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I sir refuse to accept that society is inherently ignorant, however stupid it may seem, and we must accept that conclusion.
I refuse to accept that an oil company or a car manufacturer is solely to blame, blame cannot ever be shifted.
The fact is, when you are referring to our lifestyles, is that everyone screwed up. erroneus, I do applaud your ability to see that other are to blame, but the masses are not mindless drones as we would be taught to believe. The truth is, as put by my next door neighbor, age
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not angry, just has gas.
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Funny)
Everything that is possibly sensational about this story (as if the spill wasn't sensational enough) will be reported.
This spill is a reporters wet dream and they will milk it for everything they can.
Did you see the "will it rain oil" stories they were running now that we started hurricane season?
It is 1:30 AM CST and I am willling to bet good money that if I go into the break room at my job, Anderson Cooper is on with more oil spill coverage. I don't think the guy reports on anything else and he seems to be all that is on for CNN at night
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Well, there needs to always be some vaguely disaster-ish background story to report on when other stuff runs low. The Afghanistan war, frankly, just ain't cutting it. Oh, we're still in Afghanistan, great. And the economy/joblessness/whatever is getting old. At least the oil is still somewhat fresh!
Re:And yet... (Score:4, Insightful)
While CNN is the butt of all media jokes (Hello? Is anyone out there?! TWEET US SOME NEWS PLEASE!), I'll give Anderson Cooper props for talking about the 65ft exclusion zone they're enforcing around response vessels and oil booms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXsmLMV1CrM [youtube.com]
Call it milking but if the Coast Guard is doing this and BP is hiring police to run off reporters and anyone curious (link [motherjones.com]), I certainly hope they don't stop talking about it.
I disagree, glad he has the courage to cover it. (Score:2, Interesting)
I think you've forgotten that for the first 30 - 40 days or so, there was a complete media blackout on the oil spill. They were afraid to even report about it on any news network, including CNN. I think that BP and Obama were telling them not to report on it, that they had things under control and not to blow it out of proportion to the public. That's the only thing that could explain why it took so long for the media to jump on this story 24/7. The first reporter to really get angry about what was happenin
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And yet... (Score:4, Interesting)
Some have turned out not all that catastrophically [wikipedia.org], though.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
3.3 million barrels over 8 months is 275,000 barrels a month. The Deepwater Horizon spill is spewing more than that every 2 months.
60k barrels * 30 days = 1.8 million barrels
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
interesting, so when the relief wells shut down the flow in august, it'll be larger than Ixtoc, but still in the same order of magnitude.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Within the same order of magnitude, sure. So is .08 BAC and .35 BAC but the difference in effects [brad21.org] is quite pronounced.
But, then again, going from .01 to .05 would mean you're not partying hard enough and going from .5 to 2 means you're still probably dead.
What I mean is that just because there's no apparent effects from the previous spill doesn't mean there will be no apparent effects from one that is gushing over four times the rate.
BTW, as pointed out by another commenter, I math bad. Still not sure how
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
3.3 million barrels over 8 months is 412,500* barrels a month. The Deepwater Horizon spill is spewing more than that every 2 months.
60k barrels * 30 days = 1.8 million barrels
Adjusted that for you in case someone was going to use the math.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, how did I fuck that up? You are correct.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
From the first reference in that section ([11]):
"So you can probably say that within two to three years the beach fauna or beach populations were back to where they were before the spill. I think that's probably a pretty standard thing. Fine-grain, sandy beaches can be cleaned up pretty easily," Tunnell explained.
I just want to point out that sandy beaches are a far different matter than the swampy coastline environments conservationists are most concerned about.
Extrapolating from Ixtoc to this doesn't see
Re: (Score:2)
Nature took care of it JUST FINE.
Darwin smiled upon those with the proper tools.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And yet... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah but nature taking care of it may very well not include life going on.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. The Earth will survive. That doesn't mean that humans will.
Re: (Score:2)
And even if it does go on, it may not the kind of life we like and have gotten used to. Bacteria and jellyfish are not particularly profitable for fishermen.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmmm, I wonder how extensive your background research on that is. My 30 seconds research tells me that the dental products in the bathroom contain 1100, 1000, 225 and 250 ppm fluoride. Now, I can also tell you two other significant data : I don't shop for dental products based on their fluoride content, and I'm very likely to be the most fluoride-aware dental-product buyer in the house.
Given those figures, I