This is topic Massive Oil Spill in Kansas Thanks Pipeline! in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
 
But greens are just "Even from a wrongheaded, green environmentalist perspective they are completely ass-backwards and unhelpful." aren't they? For not wanting these oil pipelines built.

[Dont Know]

Basically Exxon Mobile is doing a bang up job cleaning the spill by threatening to arrest reporters and asked the FAA to institute a no fly zone until further notice; also putting oil into storm drains to pollute the water table and the local marshlands.

Free Market in action, working so well. [Big Grin]
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
ok, can I see perhaps a news account of this massive oil spill in kansas
 
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
 
Here's a article

Most of the juicy bits were on Colbert.

more

Exxon refusing to pay the costs because it "technically not crude, but something else that is more or less crude, but classified pedantically as something else so we can get off scot free while your unborn children will have disabilities and deformities hahahahahahahahahahaha, capitalism ho!"
 
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar:
But greens are just "Even from a wrongheaded, green environmentalist perspective they are completely ass-backwards and unhelpful." aren't they? For not wanting these oil pipelines built.


Yeah, definitely. I hadn't realized I'd persuaded you, though. Cool! [Smile]

quote:
Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar:
Basically Exxon Mobile is doing a bang up job cleaning the spill by threatening to arrest reporters and asked the FAA to institute a no fly zone until further notice; also putting oil into storm drains to pollute the water table and the local marshlands.

Free Market in action, working so well. [Big Grin]

One of these things is not like the other.

I don't know anything about the specifics of this instance, but... maybe reread your own post? You aren't even being consistent for a half dozen sentences at a time.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
So you mean an oil spill in Arkansas.

I was looking everywhere for news about an oil spill in Kansas. Nothing was going on there, so I had no idea what this was all about.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
Relevant important bits:

Exxon is already proof of concept for stuff we know already about when it comes to huge companies like this. Exxon will appeal any damages and fight it in court until they don't have to pay for it, like they did with the Valdez spill.

Furthermore, they're pulling a nice class act here. They will escape having to pay into the federal cleanup fund for this because it isn't an oil spill. It's a "diluted bitumen" spill. Which is heavy crude oil, excepting for some convenient regulation-escaping needs.
 
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
Why do they even bother with all these fancy loopholes? They should just get their lobbyists to write a straight up Exxon exemption into Federal law so we don't have to bother with the linguistic rigamarole every time in pretending regulations actually mean anything to the big players.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
quote:
One of these things is not like the other.

I don't know anything about the specifics of this instance, but... maybe reread your own post? You aren't even being consistent for a half dozen sentences at a time.

The specifics are basically this: when a company whose first priority is security and profit for its investors and itself has an opportunity to try and avoid costly cleanups and responsibility, it will take it unless that first priority is somehow otherwise channeled. When that company happens to be enormous and tightly connected to government, it will often succeed-both pre-emptively in favorable regulation and after the fact in huge teams of lawyers and appeals.

I'm not sure who is more naive. Hippy greensters or those who believe that a private company looking out for itself is necessarily in society's best interest.
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
There's actually a lot more to the Exxon valdez spill than Exxon being jerks. For instance, they had an actionable plan for clean up ready to go, but the government required that they submit it for review before they could start. The government sat on it for days and weeks then let them just use it because it was taking too long. The delay of course, significantly increased the cost of cleanup. Further, the punitive damages on top of clean up and compensation were record setting and beyond the pale. Of course Exxon would appeal them.
 
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
So you mean an oil spill in Arkansas.

I was looking everywhere for news about an oil spill in Kansas. Nothing was going on there, so I had no idea what this was all about.

Odd, Colbert I'm pretty sure said Kansas; then again, pretty much the same state.
 
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:
One of these things is not like the other.

I don't know anything about the specifics of this instance, but... maybe reread your own post? You aren't even being consistent for a half dozen sentences at a time.

The specifics are basically this: when a company whose first priority is security and profit for its investors and itself has an opportunity to try and avoid costly cleanups and responsibility, it will take it unless that first priority is somehow otherwise channeled. When that company happens to be enormous and tightly connected to government, it will often succeed-both pre-emptively in favorable regulation and after the fact in huge teams of lawyers and appeals.

I'm not sure who is more naive. Hippy greensters or those who believe that a private company looking out for itself is necessarily in society's best interest.

In Dan's defense, and in that of real Free Marketeers, Exxon controlling the government isn't the free market either. Free market means hands off special protections and help when things are good and when things are bad. So when Exxon buys itself some senators, that's not really a free market, and I think even the most rabid Libertarian thinks that Exxon should clean up after an oil spill. There are a lot of bad actors using "free market" in their name.
 
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar:
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
So you mean an oil spill in Arkansas.

I was looking everywhere for news about an oil spill in Kansas. Nothing was going on there, so I had no idea what this was all about.

Odd, Colbert I'm pretty sure said Kansas; then again, pretty much the same state.
Actually, Arkansas and Kansas are dramatically different.

Colbert said Arkansas. Then he put up a big picture of Arkansas.

It was Arkansas.

The Ar- matters.
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
quote:
Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar:
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
So you mean an oil spill in Arkansas.

I was looking everywhere for news about an oil spill in Kansas. Nothing was going on there, so I had no idea what this was all about.

Odd, Colbert I'm pretty sure said Kansas; then again, pretty much the same state.
Actually, Arkansas and Kansas are dramatically different.

Colbert said Arkansas. Then he put up a big picture of Arkansas.

It was Arkansas.

The Ar- matters.

Yeah, the only thing remotely similar about them is that geographically their borders are close, but not touching.

Even the traditional pronunciation is different.

Ar-can-saw

Can-zas
 
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
 
But they're both fly over states [Frown]
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar:
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
So you mean an oil spill in Arkansas.

I was looking everywhere for news about an oil spill in Kansas. Nothing was going on there, so I had no idea what this was all about.

Odd, Colbert I'm pretty sure said Kansas; then again, pretty much the same state.
Yeah, no. They're completely different states. They aren't even connected.
 
Posted by msquared (Member # 4484) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar:
But they're both fly over states [Frown]

Says a Canadian?

msquared
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
Salz, this is one of those times where we're all thinking, "He should just fess up and stop hedging." But you keep trying to diffuse the mistake with humor which just strikes people as either offensive (especially since you are a foreigner) or disingenuous.

You flubbed geography this time, we all do it. I stupidly asked where in the Carribean Tahiti was fairly recently, I felt like an idiot the second somebody looked at me and said, "Ummm, it's in the Pacific."

A response like, "They're all islanders." would probably only be funny for bad reasons, and any intelligent person would look at me and say, "You're an idiot."

Take your lashes, say your penance, and go look up Arkansas' and Kansas' Wikipedia entrees so you can not make the mistake again, and maybe even impress a denizen of those states down the road with your knowledge.
 
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
When it comes to a question like "How many terrorist deaths do we get in a year" you would perfectly understand the need to look at statistics and not go instantly for the big flashy incidents that make the news, before making policies. You would then compare terrorists to, for example, car accidents before deciding that it was necessary to write a Theatre Security Administration into the law; because in that case the numbers would favour what you want anyway.

But on a question that lies on the other side of your politics, you seem quite incapable of asking "What is the rate of problems with technology X compared to technology Y?" In particular, how much oil gets spilled if it is transported in trucks instead of pipelines?
 
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
 
BB, I don't think that he doesn't know the difference between Kansas and Arkansas. I think his error was in not doing even the tiniest bit of checking after hearing something on TV.
 
Posted by stilesbn (Member # 11809) on :
 
Kansas City has Google Fiber. That is cool.
 
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by stilesbn:
Kansas City has Google Fiber. That is cool.

Soon to be joined by Austin. I am very jealous. ATT and others are rolling out similar services, I think ATT calls their ATT VIP or something to bring superfast broadband to the urban areas. But ATT is upgrading local networks, whereas Google is actually running fiberoptic cable directly into homes to try to provide a better quality service. It's exorbitantly expensive, which is why many think it won't last. On the other hand, they have a gazillion dollars and a service ten times better than anyone else comes close to offering. That means they can afford a longterm investment with a captive consumer base. It'll be a slow rollout, but it'll keep going.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
There's actually a lot more to the Exxon valdez spill than Exxon being jerks. For instance, they had an actionable plan for clean up ready to go, but the government required that they submit it for review before they could start. The government sat on it for days and weeks then let them just use it because it was taking too long. The delay of course, significantly increased the cost of cleanup. Further, the punitive damages on top of clean up and compensation were record setting and beyond the pale. Of course Exxon would appeal them.

Yeah, that's the other half of the equation. Arkansas' government doesn't inspire for confidence in their competency in a spill situation like this, or rigorous inspection and environmental protection for things like pipelines.
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by kmbboots:
BB, I don't think that he doesn't know the difference between Kansas and Arkansas. I think his error was in not doing even the tiniest bit of checking after hearing something on TV.

I don't know how you can hear Arkansas, and think Kansas. As I noted earlier, they don't even sound the same.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
In Dan's defense, and in that of real Free Marketeers, Exxon controlling the government isn't the free market either. Free market means hands off special protections and help when things are good and when things are bad. So when Exxon buys itself some senators, that's not really a free market, and I think even the most rabid Libertarian thinks that Exxon should clean up after an oil spill. There are a lot of bad actors using "free market" in their name.

In an actual free market, as described by its advocates, the most rabid libertarian only insists that Exxon should clean up after an oil spill if it is contractually obligated to do so in some agreement it willingly came to, or if it chooses to for its own interest.

Assuming you can get pipelines to really work without any sort of eminent domain.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:
Originally posted by kmbboots:
BB, I don't think that he doesn't know the difference between Kansas and Arkansas. I think his error was in not doing even the tiniest bit of checking after hearing something on TV.

I don't know how you can hear Arkansas, and think Kansas. As I noted earlier, they don't even sound the same.
What if you think "Kansas" is pronounced "Can-Saw" after watching the report on the arkansas thing
 
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
In Dan's defense, and in that of real Free Marketeers, Exxon controlling the government isn't the free market either. Free market means hands off special protections and help when things are good and when things are bad. So when Exxon buys itself some senators, that's not really a free market, and I think even the most rabid Libertarian thinks that Exxon should clean up after an oil spill. There are a lot of bad actors using "free market" in their name.

In an actual free market, as described by its advocates, the most rabid libertarian only insists that Exxon should clean up after an oil spill if it is contractually obligated to do so in some agreement it willingly came to, or if it chooses to for its own interest.

Assuming you can get pipelines to really work without any sort of eminent domain.

That last sentence is kinda important, and you're not really thinking its ramifications through.

Screw contracts, if I spill crap on your property then even the most barebones/rabid libertarian justice system would say I am responsible for it. A contract would only save me if it said I didn't have to take responsibility for such spills do to X part of the contract.

If I spilled crap on my own land, though, then I suppose it'd be my decision whether I cleaned it up or not.

Also bear in mind, in such a made-up libertarian fairy dust system you wouldn't have such huge swathes of unowned/publicly owned land, either.
 
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:
One of these things is not like the other.

I don't know anything about the specifics of this instance, but... maybe reread your own post? You aren't even being consistent for a half dozen sentences at a time.

The specifics are basically this: when a company whose first priority is security and profit for its investors and itself has an opportunity to try and avoid costly cleanups and responsibility, it will take it unless that first priority is somehow otherwise channeled. When that company happens to be enormous and tightly connected to government, it will often succeed-both pre-emptively in favorable regulation and after the fact in huge teams of lawyers and appeals.

I'm not sure who is more naive. Hippy greensters or those who believe that a private company looking out for itself is necessarily in society's best interest.

In Dan's defense, and in that of real Free Marketeers, Exxon controlling the government isn't the free market either. Free market means hands off special protections and help when things are good and when things are bad. So when Exxon buys itself some senators, that's not really a free market, and I think even the most rabid Libertarian thinks that Exxon should clean up after an oil spill. There are a lot of bad actors using "free market" in their name.
Thanks Lyr.

Also, just to be crystal clear, Rakeesh:

quote:
. . . those who believe that a private company looking out for itself is necessarily in society's best interest.
This does not accurately describe me. I've literally never said this. I hope you can recognize that.
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:
Originally posted by kmbboots:
BB, I don't think that he doesn't know the difference between Kansas and Arkansas. I think his error was in not doing even the tiniest bit of checking after hearing something on TV.

I don't know how you can hear Arkansas, and think Kansas. As I noted earlier, they don't even sound the same.
What if you think "Kansas" is pronounced "Can-Saw" after watching the report on the arkansas thing
Did they say it that way on Colbert Report?
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:
One of these things is not like the other.

I don't know anything about the specifics of this instance, but... maybe reread your own post? You aren't even being consistent for a half dozen sentences at a time.

The specifics are basically this: when a company whose first priority is security and profit for its investors and itself has an opportunity to try and avoid costly cleanups and responsibility, it will take it unless that first priority is somehow otherwise channeled. When that company happens to be enormous and tightly connected to government, it will often succeed-both pre-emptively in favorable regulation and after the fact in huge teams of lawyers and appeals.

I'm not sure who is more naive. Hippy greensters or those who believe that a private company looking out for itself is necessarily in society's best interest.

In Dan's defense, and in that of real Free Marketeers, Exxon controlling the government isn't the free market either. Free market means hands off special protections and help when things are good and when things are bad. So when Exxon buys itself some senators, that's not really a free market, and I think even the most rabid Libertarian thinks that Exxon should clean up after an oil spill. There are a lot of bad actors using "free market" in their name.
Thanks Lyr.

Also, just to be crystal clear, Rakeesh:

quote:
. . . those who believe that a private company looking out for itself is necessarily in society's best interest.
This does not accurately describe me. I've literally never said this. I hope you can recognize that.

No, I know, and didn't intend to imply you did. It's an idea that's pretty firmly in your neighborhood, which along with your post was why I brought it up, but I didn't think you subscribe to it. I would be uncomfortable if my-neighborhood ideas were attributed to me.

Here's what I will say more directly to you, though: those naive greensters who are impeding human progress and convenience by subscribing to environmental ideals, well, they *do* have a nugget of truth on their side. It's shameful but unsurprising that they managed to work in an exemption for a substance that is basically oil, clearing them from much potential expense.

As for the free market, I've never heard a free market system described as one where companies and businesspeople can't support politicians and policies with money before. That doesn't mean I think we should do away with it, but so often what's heard is that informed self-interest is the Way to Go, period, rather than 'best system we've got'.
 
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
There used to be a lot of politicians and economists back in the day (read: before the Gilded Age and activists during the GA) who decried the intersection of government and private business. To them, "hands off" didn't mean "hands off UNLESS you're giving special privileges to private businesses." Hands off meant hands off.

There are plenty of libertarian free marketeers right now who decry "corporate welfare" as highly destructive. They're absolutely not associated with today's Conservatives, because they actually believe in both sides of the equation.
 
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
Salz, this is one of those times where we're all thinking, "He should just fess up and stop hedging." But you keep trying to diffuse the mistake with humor which just strikes people as either offensive (especially since you are a foreigner) or disingenuous.

You flubbed geography this time, we all do it. I stupidly asked where in the Carribean Tahiti was fairly recently, I felt like an idiot the second somebody looked at me and said, "Ummm, it's in the Pacific."

A response like, "They're all islanders." would probably only be funny for bad reasons, and any intelligent person would look at me and say, "You're an idiot."

Take your lashes, say your penance, and go look up Arkansas' and Kansas' Wikipedia entrees so you can not make the mistake again, and maybe even impress a denizen of those states down the road with your knowledge.

I said "Odd I thought I heard..." That's sufficient enough, its implicit.
 
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
There used to be a lot of politicians and economists back in the day (read: before the Gilded Age and activists during the GA) who decried the intersection of government and private business. To them, "hands off" didn't mean "hands off UNLESS you're giving special privileges to private businesses." Hands off meant hands off.

There are plenty of libertarian free marketeers right now who decry "corporate welfare" as highly destructive. They're absolutely not associated with today's Conservatives, because they actually believe in both sides of the equation.

The problem though is that the libertarians who truly believe that the government shouldn't be in the business of corporate welfare (After all I myself am sympathetic to the issue of regulatory capture) don't have an answer on how to prevent business from taking advantage of the regulatory clean slate to either (a) dominate electoral politics like never before or (b) commit immense immeasurable environmental and human harm in the duration before public outcry forces the government to regulate them again; there's no reason to suppose they'll ever go out of business either doing things that way.

All of the gilded age industries brought to heal to conduct themselves in a proper fashion happened generally as a result of public outcry and government intervention; have any been hoist by their own petard ever?

Ultimately prevention is better than cure.
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar:
I said "Odd I thought I heard..." That's sufficient enough, its implicit.

No, you said this,

"Odd, Colbert I'm pretty sure said Kansas; then again, pretty much the same state."

That isn't remotely close to "Odd, I thought I heard this, my mistake."

So what you really said was, "It's odd you disagree with me, I'm pretty sure you are looking at something different than what I heard on Colbert. But even if I did hear wrong, there's no meaningful difference between the two places.
 
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
 
Kansas is flat, in the dead middle of the US, and has the most tornadoes, like, in the world. Arkansas has the Ozark mountains, and it's where Bill Clinton comes from. It's culturally part of the South, whereas Kansas, while conservative, isn't quite as culturally Southern, and was never a slave state.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
So what you really said was, "It's odd you disagree with me, I'm pretty sure you are looking at something different than what I heard on Colbert. But even if I did hear wrong, there's no meaningful difference between the two places.
Yeah it's a bit crazy to hear a midwest state and a southern state get conflated so completely. In other news I hear new mexico and mexico are pretty much the same thing.
 
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:
So what you really said was, "It's odd you disagree with me, I'm pretty sure you are looking at something different than what I heard on Colbert. But even if I did hear wrong, there's no meaningful difference between the two places.
Yeah it's a bit crazy to hear a midwest state and a southern state get conflated so completely. In other news I hear new mexico and mexico are pretty much the same thing.
Also Washington state and Washington DC.

Georgia, Republic of Georgia, whatever, it's all the same.
 
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
Careful on that Mexico thing. Once they were indeed the same, and some people are still a little peeved about that.
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:
So what you really said was, "It's odd you disagree with me, I'm pretty sure you are looking at something different than what I heard on Colbert. But even if I did hear wrong, there's no meaningful difference between the two places.
Yeah it's a bit crazy to hear a midwest state and a southern state get conflated so completely. In other news I hear new mexico and mexico are pretty much the same thing.
Also Washington state and Washington DC.

Georgia, Republic of Georgia, whatever, it's all the same.

I would have granted the Carolinas are the same thing. [Wink]
 
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
I would have granted the Carolinas are the same thing. [Wink]

North Carolina has Research Triangle Park, UNC-School of the Arts, UNC-Chapel Hill, Asheville, the NC Zoo (one of the best in the country), etc., etc..

South Carolina has Myrtle Beach.
 
Posted by Tstorm (Member # 1871) on :
 
Funny that you mention the pronunciation of Kansas and Arkansas. In Kansas, the Arkansas river is pronounced AR-CAN-ZAS, at least by most people. We even have a town named Arkansas City, pronounced the same way, but most people just call it 'Ark City'.

I've heard at least one media person in Kansas refer to the AR-CAN-SAW river, only to be correcting themselves the next day. They learn quickly. [Smile]
 
Posted by Magson (Member # 2300) on :
 
That reminds me of that train derailment in IL ... long time ago. It was in Bourbonnais, which of course the national news media pronounced as though it was in France. Of course all of us IL native had no idea where they were talking about until someone properly pronounced the place as "burr-bonn-uss."
 


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