I mean maybe some short range missile defense and boost phase systems have promise but the bulk of it has been a wash, IMO. Since '89, the year of the Exxon Valdez spill, about $10 billion a year has been spent on missile defense.

Meanwhile, oil tankers have proliferated and the oil industry boasts of drilling in deeper and deeper waters. Over 10,000 feet at this point. And ready means of dealing with oil spills is just weak.

So do we go forward with a similar level of inattention that has held sway since 1989?

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

we call that corporate welfare. wrapped up in "patriotism".

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"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

What, you mean paying for oil skimming when the industry should? If they don't do it, and they haven't, the cost is pretty great anyway.

I don't want to defend the oil industry but we are sadly dependent on the stuff in our current arrangement. It's not so much an industry that people could do without. I mean, I think we could, but the vast majority of people find the idea completely untenable.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

no, i meant the "sdi" , "star wars" thing is corporate welfare, for the military/aerospace contractors. investing in safer oil extraction methods and cleanup would be a much better way to spend money.

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"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

I'm guessing we will, how do you feel about the fact that the Department of Energy has been around since 1977 and since that time nobody over there has apparently asked the question "Hey, what do we do if a well casing fails at 5,000 feet?"

The DOE budget last year was 26 billion dollars and the EPA budget was around 8 billion dollars and apparently they just can't find any money to engineer solutions to these kind of problems and build equipment to deal with potential 'worst case failure' scenarios BEFORE they occur. I find it absolutely mind-blowing that nobody at BP or the federal government seems to have ever considered the possibility that an offshore well casing might fail.

We can't drill for oil in ANWR because we might spill some oil on the arctic tundra but we can drill in 5,000 feet of water where we apparently have NO plan or capability to deal with a failure of a well head at that depth? UH hello? Is anybody home?

But to answer your question I'm betting that if we had canceled SDI and diverted the $$$ to the DOE and/or the EPA in 1989 with explicit instructions to build infrastructure capability to deal with worse-case oil spills things wouldn't be significantly different than they are today.

I'm mad at BP and the government.

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98 Dodge-Cummins pickup (123k)
13 GLK250 (135k)
06 E320CDI (323K)
16 C300 (62K)
82 300GD Gelaendewagen (54K)

So you think we should depend on the government to do all of that? Welcome to the Democratic Party, nothing like a new convert. What caused this disaster is 20 years of Capitalism Gone Wild, appointing oversight boards with people from the industries they are supposed to regulate, and letting oil companies steamroll us while they racked up profits, which we did gladly in return for cheap gas prices and jobs. What we need is a return to the days before Reagan claimed that "government is the problem" and all admit that there needs to be a referee in the game. For years the public has been fed, and bought, the BS that "government regulation is bad". Now they get to slurp up the results of that.

I'm for things that work - if there was evidence that creating ever larger and more complex bureaucratic structures and giving them more power to operate actually fixed problems I'd be for that approach and I would be a democrat.

Last year we spent a combined 34 billion dollars funding governmental agencies that are SPECIFICALLY TASKED with protecting the environment and regulating activities associated with off-shore drilling.

We know BP hasn't done a great job anticipating problems associated with deep water activities right now I'd grade their efforts with an F. BP (and it's shareholders) will pay for their failure with billions of dollars in restitution over the next decade.

I'm curious what grade would you assign to the governmental agencies performance in their regulation/oversight role?

What price will the bureaucrats pay for their malfeasance?

Following your model I'm guessing it will be more power and more money to further expand their agencies?

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98 Dodge-Cummins pickup (123k)
13 GLK250 (135k)
06 E320CDI (323K)
16 C300 (62K)
82 300GD Gelaendewagen (54K)

I can imagine. However I can also imagine the social welfare billions that could also have been spent on oil spill mitigation.

Billions spent on SDI creates jobs, gives rise to technological spinoffs, etc etc. Even more billions spent of welfare programs give some jobs but also creates an entitlement mentality, something harmful to global competition. I think I will stick with SDI.

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01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

even tho it doesn't work? nor do the patriot missiles, by the way.

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"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

Nice "Progressive" rant.
First you want government regulation, then when something goes wrong, of course its evil capitalism's fault; never the incompetent people in the government who do not know what they are supposed to be doing.

What is the point of government regulation if they bear no responsibility when things go wrong?

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

It is becoming common knowledge that the Minerals Management Service was packed with appointees during the Bush Administration, that came from the oil industry, and were literally in bed with them, doing drugs with them, and looking the other way on everything. That's not a function of money, it's related to and caused by a blind, stupid political philosophy. Coupled with the continual election in Louisiana of a political class, elected from both parties, who specialized in kissing oil company ass, it was a disaster waiting to happen. What we need is a total change in governmental and political attitudes, and for the right wing and their Talk Radio masters to stop using the government as an automatic punching bag and start recognizing that government has an important role in maintaining a decent way of life for all of us, and that what they advocate, Anarchist Capitalism, is as bad as Nazism or Communism. The government has a job to do, and it has been just criminal, all this right wing jacking around with the rules, regulations and personnel of government agencies for the purpose of defeating governmental oversight because of their greed-motivated belief that "government regulation is bad". Just look at how the right is reacting, Limbaugh has been disgusting, Palin, nuts.

Who appointed those incompetent people, and why?

$8B spent on the EPA? That's all?

And look at all the regulatory benefit and relief we got out of that.

And we should give those clowns more?

First off, take BP's @55 to the woodshed and beat 'em to death.

Then, put some government monkey in charge of the cleanup.

Yeah, like that's going to make things better...

Let's drop something on top of that pore and quit the *****in' - what went wrong with that "dome" they supposedly put down there? Did it fall over? Did it collapse? What happened and why haven't we heard about it?

And if it's going to take "X" amount of time to drill the relief well, get the damn thing started. Now!

You're going to have to drill one anyways, right?

With all the top minds in this country and the world, no one has a viable solution?

And as far as SDI goes...big deal. You're comparing apples and oranges.

I highly doubt one committee in Congress cares what another committee is working on or doing.

We already know that the left hand doesn't know or care what the right hand is doing and vise-ah-verse-ah. Everything in Congress is tunnelvision at best...and even IF someone told them a long time ago that something like this could, or would, happen, twenty-some odd experts told our learned-leaders that the lone wolf was full of 5hit and that Congress had nothing to worry about.

Check the committees - find out who was on them and then let's see where the fingerpointing will lead...

And I'll be out back...giving a damn...not.

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M. G. Burg
'10 - Dakota SXT - Daily Ride / ≈ 172.5K
.'76 - 450SLC - 107.024.12 / < .89.20 K
..'77 - 280E - 123.033.12 / > 128.20 K
...'67 - El Camino - 283ci / > 207.00 K
....'75 - Yamaha - 650XS / < 21.00 K
.....'87 - G20 Sportvan / > 206.00 K
......'85 - 4WINNS 160 I.O. / 140hp
.......'74 - Honda CT70 / Real 125
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“I didn’t really say everything I said.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ Yogi Berra ~

It is also common knowledge that the Bush administration is out of office and has been out for how long already? Sorry, that excuse isn't going to fly.

Lets look at their sterling success? How is the budget coming along? How has tax money been spent as opposed to what they said it was for?

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01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

Yeah, whatever.