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Thomas Paine

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

11 December - Morning Notes

Protesting against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at ColumbiaImage via WikipediaAhmadinejad: Holocaust Needs Further 'Studies'

( Although many of the same propositions are thrown as accusations as in the Williams 'interview', the sense of what he means to say seems evident...where the other successfully prevented dialogue )

Your Toxic Tap Water

Sketch map of Macondo ProspectImage by ke9tv via Flickr Dr. Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry at St. Lawrence University in New York, gives a damning interview on the history of water fluoridation, the collusion of major industries to put certified toxic waste into your drinking water, and why government health authorities refuse to conduct scientific studies into the dangers of fluoridation. After watching this video, you will never look at tap water the same way again.

Connett describes how he initially thought people who opposed fluoridation were “a bunch of whackos,” before conducting his own research which found that sodium fluoride was a toxic substance that contributed to a wide array of health defects. Heavy industry is barred from dumping this toxic waste into the sea by international law, but being able to sell it enables them to remove its hazardous characteristic and it becomes a product

3d overview of the Gulf of Mexico, with some p...Image via Wikipedia Truthout

Disaster on the Horizon: High Stakes, High Risks, and the Story Behind the Deepwater Well Blowout

Very early on in my career, I learned that the industry I had chosen, though I loved it, was dominated by the macho myth of big iron, big rigs, wild wells, and wild men.

A common saying of the day was that if the representative for oil purchas­ers didn't steal his own salary from the producer by underreport­ing oil on location, he wasn't doing his job. Producers underpaid royalties to landowners by applying adjustments and excessive charges. Deception was everywhere. Rules were made to be broken, and money was A-1. It was common practice for well-servicing companies to overcharge customers and use inferior products to increase margins. 

In my early career, I witnessed practices that endangered lives as well as polluting our air, water, and the very ground where we live, work, and raise our children. I've also watched my industry deny that its activities have any effect on our environment, fight every effort to reduce those dangerous activities, yet take credit when improvements were forced upon it and worked.Gulf of MexicoImage via Wikipedia

Which brings us to the subject of this book: the deadly blow­out of BP's Mississippi Canyon Block 252 well, which caused the largest environmental catastrophe in the history of the United States. This is a tragedy that simply did not have to happen. It was caused by bad design, bad judgment, hurried operations, and a convoluted management structure. Add in silenced alarms and disabled safety systems, and the result was inevitable. But what were they doing out there to begin with? Why are we drilling in mile-deep water 50 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico? What has driven us to look for oil in such extreme environments, pushing on the edge of technology?

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