Comment by Shine on July 28, 2010 at 11:18pm

I'm getting really sick of the supposed victimization of BP. I understand that corporations possess many of the rights of human beings, but do we really have to muster up empathy for them as well?

Comment by Joe Edwards on July 29, 2010 at 3:24pm

Someone needs to take ole Rush out to spend a few days floating in the oil and dispersant tainted water before he opens his trap yet again.

Comment by willailla on July 29, 2010 at 10:29pm

It's amazing how much resilience the earth has to clean itself up, but mankind may not be so resilient. All the toxins we spew into the air and ocean may kill us eventually. Yet the powers that be seem hell bent on squeezing every last ounce of profit out of the environment, no matter what. Eventually we may luck out and find clean renewable resources to replace fossil fuels, but basing our survival on 'lucking out' is not a sane policy. What, for example, would have happened if the spill could not have been stopped--ever? Not to worry, huh, Rush? God will save us.

DRILL, BABY, DRILL!


“When we fool with Mother Nature, sometimes she fools us back. Experts say up to 50
percent of spilled oil — the most volatile, toxic part — can evaporate within a week as the
oil slick floats toward shore. Another portion can be eaten by naturally occurring microbes,
especially in warm Gulf waters. "Oil is a natural product. It's inherently biodegradable," said
Terry Hazen, microbial ecologist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California.
Even hurricanes can help. After the massive 1979 Ixtoc spill in Mexico's Bay of Campeche,
Hurricane Frederic was credited with scouring tar balls off the Texas coast. Experts say a
hurricane's egg-beater effect on the water might break up oil sheens into small oily particles
more easily digested by microbes.
Even water's-edge marshes, crucial to sheltering juvenile shrimp and dampening the surge of
hurricanes, have some self-healing abilities. Environmentalists visiting Louisiana's
oil-soaked marshes already have spotted new green sprouts thrusting up through the black
goo.”

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/28/98297/oil-spill-reaches-100-d...
v5h6yNyl


Up to 4 million barrels (167 million gallons), the vast majority of the spill, remains
unaccounted for in government statistics. Some of it has, most likely, been cleaned up by
nature. Other amounts may be gone from the water, but they could have taken on a second
life as contaminants in the air, or in landfills around the Gulf Coast.
And some oil is still out there -- probably mixed with chemical dispersants. Some scientists
have described it floating in underwater clouds, which one compared to a toxic fog.
"That stuff's somewhere," said James H. Cowan Jr., a professor at Louisiana State
University. His research has shown concentrations of oil still floating miles from the
wellhead. "It's going to be with us for a while. I'm worried about some habitats being
exposed chronically to low concentrations of toxins. . . . If the water's contaminated, the
animals are going to be contaminated."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/28/AR2...
.html

Comment by Joe Edwards on July 29, 2010 at 10:55pm

I guess we could really look at this in perspective. We have had, what, 3 major extinctions in the Earth's history? Life finds a way to continue on. Even the amount of toxins we have poured out into the environment are nothing compared to what our planet's own geological activity can and has produced. I have no fear that the planet and some form of life will continue if we don't change our ways, BUT there could be a very good chance that we will not be included in the survivors, no matter how resilient we make ourselves out to be.

This does make me happy, in a way, because the Earth still has billions of years left before it is cooked by our sun's inevitable expansion...billions of years to continue to give life (and potentially other intelligent life) a way to express itself...whether we are part of it or not.

Comment by willailla on July 29, 2010 at 11:15pm

Yeah, Joe, I agree. You bring up an interesting thought. With billions of years remaining other intelligent life forms may evolve and be totally unaware that we even existed. And if that's possible, perhaps other intelligent life form have come and gone before us.

It would be a shame if we wipe ourselves out--but we are replaceable. And the universe couldn't care less if we do anymore than an oak tree cares if any of its seeds survive.

"Lost time is never found again, and there are no good wizards to rescue us from our follies." -- Sprague de Camp

Comment by O Alem on July 30, 2010 at 11:12am

Do we have the memory span of a goldfish or what? Doesn´t anybody remember the Exxon Valdez?
That was in 1989 and you can still find oil there today. You can go to basically any random beach in the Prince William Sound, turn over a rock and it will be soaked in oil that is 21 years old. And that was a tiny trickle compared with what we have in the Gulf. Can´t find the oil? Bold faced lie. You can see it from space!
On top of that, Exxon hasn´t paid a single red cent to the fishermen wiped out. In fact, a lawyer famously said that they could just drag out the litigation till they all died, which they have been doing.

Comment by willailla on July 30, 2010 at 2:12pm

O Alem, exactly right.

President Obama supposedly ordered BP to put up 20 billion to pay for the damage it has done, but BP hasn't put one cent in escrow--nor will it ever in my opinion. As always the American taxpayer will foot the bill. Almost one trillion dols for an illegal Iraq-Afghan war allotted this year. How much for health, education and the environment?

Comment by NoSacredCow on August 21, 2010 at 9:08am

Well now that some of the latest gulf oil surveys have come back it makes the post and Limbaugh's comments funnier. (in a black humor sort of way) The oil hasn't dissipated, it's below the surface still in a huge plume.

Sorry Rush, "god" didn't clean it up. "god" just hid it, like a child with dirty dishes in its room.

I really wish instead of constantly sticking his foot in his mouth Limboaugh would use a gun. Maybe a shotgun, that way he could pull the trigger with his toe and the connection would still be there.

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