1 Maybe he should try getting his advice from a Nobel winning poet or something.  It would be just as relevant.

2 You rang, she sang, fuckin' cracker-ass Balrog ?

3 Your suggestion that "Barack" Obama was not fully informed is, clearly, a direct appeal to racism. RACISM! We cannot win back the Houses and Senates with RACISTS calling the shots. Let's give the more complacent voices a chance to be heard. I, for one, have had enough of the vague threats from Ace of Spades HQ. There is no "win" in "Godwin".

4 You rang, she sang, fuckin' cracker-ass Balrog ?

You're no longer needed here.

5 6 minutes to spam. I guess this thread is not absolutely safe from it.

6 More gooder than a riff ...  hey?

7 Hey, F.F. so spam is ok naw?

8 Ace, seriously, swampy with all that NYC poopy, ... seriously? Whoa!

9 -->I like York's suggestion that it might have been Nobel Prize winning scientist Stepehen Chu who told Obama that offshore drilling was "absolutely safe."

But Chu told them that the rigs had to be painted white.  Otherwise there was a 78% chance of catastrophic failure.

That rig wasn't white.

10 Ace,  do you know Jesse Joyce?

11 You're not Jesse Joyce, no poop there, but srlsy?

12 C'mon, Ace. Really?

13 Somewhat along this same story line, this blowout took place while some big honchos were on the rig to celebrate 7 years without a lost time incident.  You rarely hear about that, which is a bit odd.

14 Wasn't Obamo in Full Metal Jacket and he said, ' I like you. You can come to my home and fuck my sister.'?

15 Only a politician could give a speech and seriously say that he was "assured that it was absolutely safe".  Nobody who has knowledge of large industrial processes will call them absolutely safe.  This is one of the things that the luddites and eco-anarchists have used against engineers for decades, they exploit the fact that an engineer will never give 100% assurances.

The problem with our society is what we consider "safe" and what we consider "risk" and what we are willing to do with regard to "risk".

We think nothing of getting in the car and driving down the road to get a cheeseburger and fry at the nearest Mickey-D. But the probability of getting into an accident while doing that is 1 in 16 during your lifetime or 6.25 x 10^-2 in 83 years.  People are more than willing to perform the action.  Contrast that to the government regulations when they were forcing the nuclear industry to incorporate probabilistic risk into their design rather than "deterministic" (don't ask it gets too complicated). If the probability of a core damaging accident was calculated to be greater than 1 in 2500 years (10^-4)  the plant was required to perform a modification that would alleviate that threat. (i.e. spend anywhere from a few hundred thousand to millions).

This is where it all breaks down. We say you were much more likely to have an auto accident but people had no qualms.  Mathematically, risk is defined as consequences time probability. If probability is high and consequences are low, then the risk is low. This is why people are willing to get in that car. The overwhelming number of auto accidents have low consequences other than financial and insurance helps with that.

What is evident here in this event is that gas pressure causes blowouts are rather common in oil wells, i.e. high probability. The addition of a blowout device and controller is supposed to minimize the risk by limiting the consequences of the blowout. For what ever the reason, it appears that the proper blowout device was not installed, therefore the risk was high; very high because as we see, the consequences are very high.

I know that no root cause evaluation has been done on this event yet and all of the above is based on what the press has been saying on and off for a while. But if it is true, this well should never have been allowed to operate in this condition. The risk should have been judged unacceptable.

16 Hey, Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize*. Of course he'll give 100% trust to a fellow Nobelist! *that still seems like a bad joke.

17 Be sure to vote for your GOBP candidate at the november elections

18 Its all good...until it goes bad.

19 "assured that it was absolutely safe"

Huh? You're supposed to be this super-duper smart "sort of a God" President, and you have no common sense?

You're admitting you know absolutely nothing about: engineering, science, oil exploration, and admit you're an all around dupe?

And, that's ok?

20 He was talking to the liberal children- not the consevative adults.

21

Ace..this should be a must-read as complement to the article you linked

York's article says that Obama was told, when it suited his purposes, the drilling was completely safe. The one I link from Jonah Goldberg has Obama pretty saying the opposite..and in fact is shown to be lying about it. He said that the Society of Engineers said that off-shore drilling should be stopped..

..they said nothing of the sort"

“The recommendations contained in this report,” declared the document, “have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering.”

Except that was untrue. In fact, it was such a glaring lie that the seven engineers who peer-reviewed an earlier version of the document felt obliged to come forward to clear the air. ..

(snip)

One of the experts, Benton Baugh, president of Radoil, told the Wall Street Journal that if the draft had said to halt drilling, “we’d have said ‘that’s craziness

22

More from the Goldberg article

(whoops..it's not the Society of Enginners, its's the National Academy of same)

“The Secretary (Salazaar) should be free to recommend whatever he thinks is correct,” wrote the scientists, “but he should not be free to use our names to justify his political decisions.”

23

Chu was the brain stormer who suggested that we should paint all of our rooves white, to help with global warming.

Any possible suggestions or recommendations Chu had about the oil spill would  be absolutely safe to trust.

This whole thing makes me feel warm and fuzzy, knowing that our president has surrounded himself with this kind of genius.

24
The democrat's pointless lockstep anti-Anwr stance sure looks stupid right about now..


and now...


and NOW.

25

You know what I'm sick of?  Obama's words.  It's all WORDS with this man:  Rhetorical flourishes, false promises, soaring rhetoric.  His words, which helped him gain the most powerful position in the world, are meaningless.

There's nothing there.  Just empty soaring rhetoric for the blind faithful.

26

You're admitting you know absolutely nothing about: engineering, science, oil exploration, and admit you're an all around dupe?

He's also admitting that his advisers are 'all around dupes'.  As AvengingAngel points out,  Chu's advice about painting roofs white fits into that category.  The entire administration is comprised of juvenile egotists and old hippies.  What could go wrong?

27 Everyone in the Gulf is pretty much screwed. Contrary to what Teh Won and his super intelligent prize winning staff of liberal scientists might say. In fact, they might wanna ask some who actually works in the industry. From what I hear, the engineers in the Gulf are in total freak out mode. This might not be repairable.

FYI... when they start talking about using nukes, that is the time to flee.

/"absolutely safe" = "you will be able to keep your insurance"

28 I do know one thing that's "absolutely safe".  It's a sure bet that the Bamster is a lying, clueless schmuck.  

29

You know what I'm sick of?  Obama's words.  It's all WORDS with this man:  Rhetorical flourishes, false promises, soaring rhetoric.  His words, which helped him gain the most powerful position in the world, are meaningless.

There's nothing there.  Just empty soaring rhetoric for the blind faithful.

Obama should have gone into advertising, made a mint and gained a great reputation.  His election campaign was brilliant in its timing and appeal to people's inner conflict and insecurities.  During the 2008 European tour he struck a pose near some landmark with his jacket casually over his shoulder that he looked just like a male model selling Rolex watches, Aston Martins or some expensive and exclusive liquor.

He does not know himself and is easily persuaded by flattery to aim for more than he can cope with.  Instead of heading for Hollywood or Madison Avenue he wanted to be the king of the world and so you get a reincarnation of King George III.

30 Next thing you know they'll be telling us condoms aren't "absolutely safe" too.

31 Barack Isuzu strikes again.

32 Isn't it about time for another review of those evil lefty movies where the villain is some giant corporation ?

33

People, People,

You're too stupid to understand what Obama meant!  He meant that HE would make off-shore drilling  "absolutely safe" and he did so!

He stopped all drilling...   that's the only way to be "absolutely sure".

34 OT: Here is a video with the entirety of what Barton actually said. Stronger condemnation of BP than what was given in some partial transcripts.

35 How many Nobel prize winners does it take to changed a light bulb? 



No... really. 

36 That well might have been "perfectly safe" had they followed Haliburton's engineering recommendation in the course of capping it.

37 This is especially rich considering these assclowns are always hectoring everyone on the absence of moral absolutes. They seem a hell of a lot firmer than any heavy machinery proclamation to me. But then, the only Nobel Prize I have is for "ass-kicking." I gave it to myself after June 4, 1942.

38 What kind of  #%^& MORON would think that anything, let alone offshore drilling, was absolutely -

Oh.

Never mind.