The BrumBlog

So I wanted to blog about the spill, but there’s not a lot that can said.

Yeah, it’s really bad, and there is a lot of blame going around.  I think that everyone wants the leak to be stopped ASAP. I think that until the leak is stopped and major operations for cleanup are started, then placing blame is just a waste of time right now. There will be plenty of time for that in the future, and it’s not like the evidence is going away any time soon either.

That doesn’t stop some people from placing blame. The dumbest that I’ve heard is Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin blaming the environmentalist for this. He thinks that the environmentalists have pushed the oil companies of the land and shallow waters so that the only place that they can drill for oil is deep water. Yep…bat shit crazy.

Do they (and the people who agree with them) think that you can drill anywhere and get oil? Were they taught in school that the earth’s composition going down is crust, then oil, then mantle, then core? Why don’t they just drill in their backyard? I mean there’s got to be oil there too? Are they so rich that they don’t need all that oil?

The fact is that oil is localized and finite.  There’s a reason why a bunch of research is done before you drill. Drilling is expensive. You don’t just drill without knowing that oil is there. But they seems to think that there are all these sweet sweet oil fields that those crazy environmentalists have prevented the oil companies from drilling on. Those poor companies had to go out to deep water…just to make a living.

Bullshit.

Yeah there are places that are protected like ANWR, but those places are rare and small. The world is 75% covered with water. To have large oil fields on the remaining 25% is already statistically rare.

Oil companies do things like every other capitalist driven entity. They do what’s profitable, and they try to make more profit than the previous year. They weren’t kicked out of the mainland, they went were they can make the most money. Sure drilling out in deep water is hard and expensive, but it’s VERY profitable. They wanted to go out there, they weren’t pushed out there.

On to a different subject, I’m wondering if this will kill new oil rig operations. I mean 30 years ago 3 mile island had a near meltdown, no casualties. Yet that event caused a total ban on new nuclear power plants in this country since then. This oil spill should do the same right? Nope. Some politicians are doing the same “drill baby drill” crap that Palin championed during her VP bid. The issue that I have with that is the follow up statement of, “We need to get ourselves off foreign oil. We can’t be buying oil from our enemies! This is a national security issue!”

Who do you think we get the most oil from? Saudi Arabia? (not an enemy btw) Nope. CANADA. Check out this site. The top 3 countries that we import from are Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico. No only are none of the countries on this list our enemies, but two of the top three are our neighbors!

But hey, what the hell do I know. Politicians and companies clearly know what’s best.

If you haven’t read the first part, just scroll down or click on opinion tab above.

Aaron responded to my email in a way that I didn’t expect. Perhaps it’s because I cc’d the president of the company.

He’s totally right when he says, “I’m sure not everyone likes every commercial they hear, or see, and we can live with that. You are entitled to your opinion, and we value yours along with everyone else’s.”

That’s what I expected him to say the first time. I know that you can’t make everyone happy, and I don’t expect them to try. I will not be responding back to his email because I don’t think that there is anything else to say.

Well, except one little thing.

If he thinks that writing emails, and posting them on the web is “dwelling on the issue”, then he doesn’t realize how much time it actually takes to do this stuff. I’ve spent about 45 min in writing emails, replying, posting on the web, proofreading, passing this onto friends, etc. Even all that was while I was watching TV and generally doing nothing. I wouldn’t have spent hardly any time if he just responded like he did above in the first place.