Damn those researchers and scientists. If you can't trust your government, can you trust researchers and scientists? Yeah, probably.Researchers are claiming that the Gulf oil spill is bigger than the government claimed, and that at least 80 percent of the oil is still remaining in the waters. Wow, who'd-a-thunk? Me and you, I'd guess. Consider this:
"The oil is not gone, that's for sure," University of South Florida's David Hollander said Tuesday. "There is oil and we need to deal with it."
University of Georgia's Samantha Joye said: "It's a tremendous amount of oil that's in the system. ... It's very difficult for me to imagine that 50 percent of it has been degraded."
Marine scientist Chuck Hopkinson, also with the University of Georgia, raised the obvious question: "Where has all the oil gone? It hasn't gone anywhere. It still lurks in the deep."
They say most of it is lurking underneath the surface and is settling in a crucial undersea plateau off the Florida panhandle. Maybe that's why President Obama decided to swim in the Louisiana offshore area last week? He proclaimed the beaches "open for business," which is great, since business is the most important thing, right? Why bother to check if the oil is gone, let's just get the tourist trade back, because we're all about making money in America. Oil, schmoil. Ask yourself why he would "risk" his children in oil-infested waters, if in fact, he was actually swimming in oil-infested waters. Maybe the oil was deeper than 4 feet?
Some even say the swim was fake. Go figure.The oil stopped gushing (so they say) a couple of weeks ago. Why then, were we told that most of it evaporated, was consumed by undersea bacteria or otherwise "disappeared" into the eco-system? Because maybe they didn't want us to know how horrible it really was - as if we didn't already know that.
Government and industry rely on our short attention span and short memories. Something that happened a few weeks ago could easily be eclipsed in our memory by the latest Snookie scandal or whomever is being laid, shot or fired over some stupid indiscretion that seems important until the next one comes along. All of it is made better because the oil has stopped. We're relieved and we can move onto the next big thing. But wait, there's more.
It hasn't miraculously disappeared, and the people at BP who are in damage control - witness the TV commercials featuring the slow-talking Southerner supposedly in charge of the oll who tells us that those waters mean something to him, blah blah blah. It's so staged, replete with a guy hand-picked by BP to be in charge of the spill who happens to speak with a drawl. What are the chances that the guy was in the accounting department three weeks ago?
It's wonderful, because they told us it was gone (mostly) and now we can get on with our mundane lives, rich with made-for-TV drama and junk that clutters our lives because we are told it is important. That's why a lot of government's bad news is released on Friday, so that it makes the Saturday newspaper - and almost nobody reads the Saturday paper. Our weekends are sacred, and we don't want them clogged with nonsense like ... facts and life-altering decisions.
What is really important, however, is the stuff that gets swept under the rug. Or under the water. Keep your eye on the ball.
It hasn't miraculously disappeared, and the people at BP who are in damage control - witness the TV commercials featuring the slow-talking Southerner supposedly in charge of the oll who tells us that those waters mean something to him, blah blah blah. It's so staged, replete with a guy hand-picked by BP to be in charge of the spill who happens to speak with a drawl. What are the chances that the guy was in the accounting department three weeks ago?
It's wonderful, because they told us it was gone (mostly) and now we can get on with our mundane lives, rich with made-for-TV drama and junk that clutters our lives because we are told it is important. That's why a lot of government's bad news is released on Friday, so that it makes the Saturday newspaper - and almost nobody reads the Saturday paper. Our weekends are sacred, and we don't want them clogged with nonsense like ... facts and life-altering decisions.
What is really important, however, is the stuff that gets swept under the rug. Or under the water. Keep your eye on the ball.
6 comments:
kinda reminds me of that scene from Jaws, with the mayor running around telling anyone that would listen, that they had indeed caught the rogue shark and that the beaches were again "safe".....yea right!
This is reminiscent of after the 9-11 terrorist attack when Bush told everyone to “Go Shopping!” Here we have a supposedly world changing event and the war drums were being pounded with the thirst for terrorist blood, a truly sneaky and dangerous group were told, and our president tells us to go shopping. Even worse they do nothing to secure the borders but show force at the airports where most main street America and the press will see it. I guess they figure that a terrorist would not consider entering our country through Mexico or Canada and blow up a bridge…leads me to believe thy were not really concerned about terrorist entering our country at all.
Of coarse the oil is not gone, nor did it mysteriously evaporate. It is there in massive amounts broken down into smaller particles and the effect will be felt for years, probably turning the Gulf into a dead zone. We have fish in our rivers here in Illinois but you can’t eat them, unless one wants to get a heavy dose of mercury. All from the days in the 50’s and 60’s when industry could dump their waste into our rivers and streams with reckless abandonment.
Watch them back down on paying the loss of business money they promised as well, they will drag the cases out in court for half of century and end up paying 10% on the $1, if at all since many claimants will simply die off…part of their plan.
What truly should be done is to boycott BP and let them fail, they will be absorbed by other companies with a new appreciation of we the people and what we are capable of. Something like that would reverberate through-out the corporate world and force them to play by the rules or they will risk their demise as well…I have yet to by fuel from a BP station since their blunder, and I don’t want to hear I’m hurting a local business, let them get with the program and franchise through someone else.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100818/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill
What I like about all this is that SUPPOSEDLY this administration is all about the science of things. Not at all like the former administration who collectively ignored science (and often common sense) in order to advance its agenda.
I have been singing this since the election that promised "change": Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
One more thought - Kcoz opined that we should boycott BP and let them fail. I would offer up that they are too big to fail and hence would qualify for tax dollars!
"Change" was a nice campaign slogan. Especially when you consider that most of us had countdowns to the end of the Bush presidency.
But change is only on its face a good thing. What people find out is that government (whether local, state or national) is bigger than the people running it.
Reagan used to ask us if we were "better off" now than before. The answer is almost always "no" for the masses.
Nothing changes but the faces.
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