source
The Travel Channel producers, fashionably greenish in their views... read... a book titled The Helldiver's Rodeo. The book described an undersea panorama that (if true) could make an interesting show for the network, they concluded, while still scoffing.
They scoffed as we rode in from the airport. They scoffed over raw oysters, grilled redfish and seafood gumbo that night. More scoffing through the Hurricanes at Pat O'Brien's. They scoffed even while suiting up in dive gear and checking the cameras as we tied up to an oil platform 20 miles in the Gulf.
But they came out of the water bug-eyed and indeed produced and broadcast a program showcasing a panorama that turned on its head every environmental superstition against offshore oil drilling....
The panorama of marine life around an offshore oil platform staggers anyone who puts on goggles and takes a peek, even (especially!) the most worldly scuba divers. Here's a video peek at this seafood bonanza.... (You'll have to click on the link in the story, similar to the video above) Read the full story here Stuff you never hear.
Rigs to Reefs Programs
It isn't news that marine life loves structures on which to build. We have known that for a long time. The problem with drilling for oil in the ocean is that accidents, storms and tsunamis happen and marine life doesn't love oil.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful video isn't it?
ReplyDeleteRose, I grew up in Santa Barbara. We used to watch the oil drillers drill their test holes in fascination as kids, not understanding what was coming which was, the horrible mutilation of our views off shore with these incredibly ugly oil platforms.
ReplyDeleteRose, you ever think God has oil deposits in the ground as shock absorbers for earth movement? You ever think that pulling that oil out creates dry surfaces that won't slide in earthquakes?
Then there is the oil spills that happen with far too much frequency.
Rose, we have to get off oil addiction. Form a Republican self-help group of former oil drilling promoters and find peace of mind in knowing you're doing the right thing for your grandchildren.
Or become a Democrat, same thing.
Exquisite. Sad that you only see it as a seafood bonanza though.
ReplyDeleteRose, why did you ban me again?
ReplyDeleteIT'S A JOKE! Rose, honest.
You don't have to become a Democrat.
only vote that way..
Eh, well, in Wordpress you can ban people - and you can edit comments as you see fit.
ReplyDeleteIn Blogger, you cannot block people, unless you just block all comments from everyone. And you cannot edit people's comments.
So I haven't blocked or banned anyone.
And, Stephen, I don't vote along ANY party lines.
And Stephen, I agree that we have to get off the oil addiction - isn't that what I said in the thread below? Dedicate our national will to doing just that, just like we did to put a man on the moon, only more so.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't think that will cause our enemies to snap to, if you don't think it will improve things all over the place, you're crazy, and every elected official ought to be proposing just that.
They're not, Even Saint Obama.
NONE of the Dems have come out with that kind of proposal. Oh, we get bills to ban incandescent lightbulbs and require mercury laden replacements, but no big vision, no sweeping proposals, nothing of any value, just the continuous hangnail picking sloths. OF ALL PARTIES.
You should know, Rose, a coal-fired power plant will emit 13.6 milligrams of mercury to produce the electricity required to use an incandescent light bulb, compared to 3.3 milligrams for a compact fluorescent.
ReplyDelete11:35 AM, Yep, that's right. The difference is that the mercury is extracted in the stack scrubbers of the power plant whereas the mercury is sent out to your home in a fluorescent bulb.
ReplyDeleteStephen, doesn't the presence of the oil in the ground create lubrication for the earthquake faults? You really should consider getting help.
Anon 9:55 AM: "The problem with drilling for oil in the ocean is that accidents, storms and tsunamis happen and marine life doesn't love oil."
ReplyDeleteYes, and we've known for some time that meteorites impact Earth and life forms do not like to be struck by them. Can you cite any instances of tsunamis or storms resulting in oil spills? Please do not include Desert Storm where your fascist friend Saddam diverted crude oil to the Persian Gulf.
Aeov---, wouldn't it be a change if people like you didn't resort to stupid smears. If you don't like my opinion, why not address the reasons why instead of using cheap slander for your "argument"? School kids call names but adults should be beyond it, huh? Which are you?
ReplyDeleteSigh, 10;%$ - you didn't read the linked story. I'm not the one who refers to it as a seafood bonanza.
ReplyDeleteStephen,
ReplyDeleteIt is not a "stupid smear" or "cheap slander" (you should really look up the definitions of those terms) to ridicule a concept such as oil formations acting as "shock absorbers". If you have any empirical evidence of such nonsense please present it. You may have grown up in Santa Barbara but unless you were on shipboard you could not have watched the oil drillers drilling their "test holes". There are no oil platforms close enough inshore to be clearly visible from the city of Santa Barbara and you must go north to Isla Vista or Goleta or south to Carpenteria to view any from shore.
As for oil being an "addiction", that is a regurgitation of the cheap shot greenie propaganda so common in the media. If you wish to be freed of the "addiction" to petroleum products, the plastic of your toothbrush, the fiberglass in the hulls of boats, your computer's plastic parts or the indian's nylon gill nets in the rivers or for that matter any product brought to you by a motor vehicle you are welcome to live in one of the sweat lodges on the reservation. But please do not be so arrogant a greenie as to insist that the rest of us must do so.
I was born into an oil industry family and am proud to have earned my bread in the oil fields, sometimes with the black stuff running down the crack of my a** while doing an honest hard days work from Huntington Beach to Santa Maria and yes, even on an offshore platform. And neither I nor any of my family have EVER solicited or whined about not receiving a government (taxpayer) grant.
The oil industry is heavily subsidized by taxpayers which means that you, yes YOU, benefited from those subsidies as well.
ReplyDeleteWe would be grateful for an enumeration and description of those oil industry "subsidies". Sorry, cheap sound bites won't cut it.
ReplyDeleteAnd utter oil stupidity doesn't cut it either, Aeov. I mean what does it take for an oil addict to recover?
ReplyDeleteSending you to work as long as you were in the oil fields as an oil cleanup person taking the oil off of dying birds?
Also, I was born in Santa Barbara and lived several places in S.B. including Summerland, the site of America's first offshore oil drilling. We used to swim in between old oil rig pilings that were left from the '20's, '30'(?). There were underwater pilings with jagged edges and you had to be extra careful. There were places in the sand on the beach where you could stick your finger in and oil would come out. Tar all over the beaches all the time. We ate tar as kids like gum. I actually miss the oily water smell..
But not the oil platforms, thank you very much. You have no idea of what it did to all the coastline views that stretched to the Channel Islands and to China. Ugly eyesores that only people whose sensitivities were bought off long ago by dangling high wages in from of workers, ones who won't stoop to take any welfare money but will bend over to get a ream job by the oil profiteers.
And as for the oil as lubricant idea, I'm not alone in wondering if oil deposits taken out lead to more severe earthquakes because the ground movement isn't absorbed by pockets of oil that occur around many active tectonic plate movement areas, e.g. California, Middle East, Malaysia.
ReplyDeleteKeep "wondering" Stephen. A ream job is what we are all getting now that the wonderful politicians have said NO to domestic petroleum production.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, what are we to do with a "sentence" such as this: "Sending you to work as long as you were in the oil fields as an oil cleanup person taking the oil off of dying birds?"?
Segue: I worked on the abandonment of one of those wells in Summerland. It was in the back yard of the first two story house built in California. Most of the wells were on the beach though. None were "offshore".
As an aside, I read somewhere that 25% of the crude oil that ends up floating to the surface of the ocean is seepage from the floor of the ocean. That's stuff man hasn't touched yet.
ReplyDeleteAnd speaking of crude oil: Better that, than gasoline, in our oceans. There are bacteria that oil companies sometimes use to eat crude oil from spills. That can't be said of gasoline, if it ends up in the water.
BTW, Rose. I guess you must hit lewrockwell.com now and then? I read that article earlier and was going to send it to you after reading your comment on Leo's blog. I got lazy and didn't, but guess there wasn't a need to, anyway.
9:55 wrote, "and marine life doesn't love oil.".
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned above, crude oil is better for nature to deal with than processed oil. Marine life is quite resilient, too. I've been to Prince William Sound, in Alaska, site of the Exxon Valdez spill. It came back quite well. Not a drop of crude oil that I could see.
Alaska and oil get along quite well together.
Aeov, now I'm wondering if you were part of the asshole oil people who blew up the remaining pilings and oil casings that I and and my friends swam around? You oil jerks left sharp pieces of metal in the shore area, on the beach, even some pieces landing in town. And irony of irony here, an Alaskan family of Inuit were camping on the beach afterwards and one of them cut his foot. I remember them distinctly because they were complaining to us about the heat in winter in Summerland..
ReplyDeleteAeov, you and your oil ideology would be hung in effigy in many places around Santa Barbara County.
He who controls the spice controls Arrakis.
ReplyDeleteOil is the spice. I think you will see the tunes changing as oil prices climb. $5 a gallon. And it's affecting the price of all the food you buy, and everything you see on the shelves at every store you visit. It's affecting those on fixed incomes first, but it is affecting everyone, and the effects are magnifying.
Any solutions are years down the road. So let's just sit on our hands, or twitch our nose and hope that, magically, it all just goes away.
It's going to be an interesting test. To see how we respond.
America should have listened to Jimmy Carter, Rose, and maybe we wouldn't be in this pickle. Sometimes some people do think ahead but it won't be conservatives doing it--wrong mindset for solving problems.
ReplyDeleteOil Industry Subsidies For Dummies
ReplyDeletehttp://media.cleantech.com/node/554
In summary, the subsidies are:
* Construction bonds at low interest rates or tax-free
* Research-and-development programs at low or no cost
* Assuming the legal risks of exploration and development in a company's stead
* Below-cost loans with lenient repayment conditions
* Income tax breaks, especially featuring obscure provisions in tax laws designed to receive little congressional oversight when they expire
* Sales tax breaks - taxes on petroleum products are lower than average sales tax rates for other goods
* Giving money to international financial institutions (the U.S. has given tens of billions of dollars to the World Bank and U.S. Export-Import Bank to encourage oil production internationally, according to Friends of the Earth)
* The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve
* Construction and protection of the nation's highway system
* Allowing the industry to pollute - what would oil cost if the industry had to pay to protect its shipments, and clean up its spills? If the environmental impact of burning petroleum were considered a cost? Or if it were held responsible for the particulate matter in people's lungs, in liability similar to that being asserted in the tobacco industry?
*Relaxing the amount of royalties to be paid
Subsidies have made oil artificially cheaper than alternative energy sources and have, in effect, helped keep us dependent on oil rather than investing in renewable energy.
ReplyDeleteClose but no cigar. Subsidies have also allowed incentive for investment in dangerous and needed exploration and research. If you only look at at 1/2 of an equation you get a "dumb" conclusion. Example; Bike trails and lanes are heavily subsidised and are currently very popular with a tiny minority of the traveling public. They are a good thing in the total equation but if looked at only in one way bike lanes & trails can never pay for themselves so are a bad thing. We will always need oil and the products it supplies. We also will move into a better future with newer types of transportation. With out oil though you will not have the products to make those groovy bikes function for very long. By- the -by, it takes quite a bit of energy to produce the aluminiun for those bikes.
ReplyDeleteAll the more reason to conserve oil for things we need that require oil in their production. You didn't read the article did you.
ReplyDeleteAnon 7:37 AM,
ReplyDeleteYour listing of cleantech's (Dallas Krachan's) "subsidies" is specious for several reasons:
The items listed do not qualify as subsidies in most instances. For example, funds contributed to the IMF are used for a variety of "public" purposes (including graft and corruption) by nation states. Highway construction? Get real. To categorize them as a "subsidy" of the oil industry is absurd. Citing his source as "Friends of the Earth" gives Krachan's game away. Even Krachan prefaces his attack article of January last year with the following phrase: "...how they've ["subsidies"] worked until recently, and what greentech industries might expect in America soon if the newly-Democratic U.S. Congress gets its way." By revealing his partisan agenda he does not appear to disagree per se with what he chooses to call subsidies. He would simply increase them and transfer them to his "good guys". He needs to return to his "sandwich shop in Iowa". Nice try.
Anon 7:41 AM, The current price of about $.12/KwH for power on the grid vs $.52/KwH for my solar array in Weitchpec was due to "subsidies of oil" is beyond belief. Or should I say ludicrous?
Who is charging you for sunshine? How many years are you prorating your solar grid? How much would it have cost if everyone had one? What cheaper and longer lasting alternatives would we have if we had been spending the billions on alternative sources rather than on security for the oil supply? I can supply you with unlimited sources regarding oil subsidies. That one just seemed appropriate due to its title.
ReplyDeleteIf that is a representative sample of your "unlimited sources" I suggest you further mine your progressive google sites with more discretion. But before you do, you need to come up with a definition of the term subsidy. Uncle Sam buying computer software from Bill Gates for use by bureaucrats is not by my definition a "subsidy" of Microsoft.
ReplyDeleteAs for the cost analysis of my off grid power system you will have to accept my figures or provide me with a better identity than "anonymous".
Giving Microsoft preferential tax breaks would be a subsidy, would it not?
ReplyDeleteGiving Microsoft the results of government funded research would be a subsidy, would it not?
Giving Microsoft military protection of their overseas interests would be a subsidy, would it not?
Buying Microsoft computers to prop up their price would be a subsidy, would it not?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete3:49PM, No No and No!
ReplyDelete3:50PM, No!
Your 4 examples are called POLITICAL CORRUPTION.
A subsidy is a legislatively created transfer of public treasure to a designated individual or group.
Let me help you out here. The 27.5% depletion allowance tax exemption given to domestic oil producers until 1960 WAS a SUBSIDY.
WE have plenty of oil. The fact that liberal lies and oil speculators have driven the price per barrel out of reason is fuel for more liberal stupidity like cap and trade, anti-nuke,no new refineries,and ethanol subsidies(a real enviro mess). Drill,enovate,think for yourself,stand up for reality. Vote for John McCain.
ReplyDeleteJoin the Bushes and drill drill drill for more oil company profiteering! Don't listen to common sense which Democrat Jimmy Carter and environmentalists told us decades ago to get off the oil teat. Never let go! Fuck up the environment up the yin yang if we have to to get that oil!
ReplyDeleteGet bikes, convert your gas-guzzlers cars to bio-diesel or junk 'em and get motorcycles and ride the awful bus system and improve it.
Giving special tax breaks to an industry is a subsidy. The taxes they DON'T pay are a subsidy. Using our tax funded military to defend their overseas resources is a subsidy. Buying their product to prop up the price is a subsidy. Externalizing business expenses onto the taxpayers is subsidy. Yes, it is corrupt but legal, your hair-splitting to avoid admitting you were wrong is amusing.
ReplyDeleteThere is an article floating around the web about McCain and PNAC. He is Bush's replacement as the PNAC dummy. Find the article and read it. Another 4 years of neocon policies is more than this country can take.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteBuying Microsoft computers to prop up their price would be a subsidy, would it not?
6/18/2008 3:50 PM
Microsoft doesn't build computers, they do however make software and some computer hardware (like the mouse you use)
You don't have to go off shore to see that these "ugly" companies do more for animals and the Earth. Korbel has one of the nicest deer herds around, and all other kinds of wildlife live and play at the mill.
You're such a cute little pimple when you're angry 6:57. I get it that you are proud that you can read. Only problem is you can't comperhend.
ReplyDeleteThat's it, I can't comprehend what I read. That's why all of the warnings the left, myself included, was sounding about what a disaster Bush would be, how devastating his war and economic policies would be, how damaging his neocon agenda would be for our civil rights, and that Bush was wiretapping citizens illegally were all true and you conservatives were wrong about everything and ignored the warnings. We were just lucky guessers. Keep telling yourself that, it's worked out quite well for you hasn't it.
ReplyDeleteYou 20% are irrelevant now. You had more than enough rope and hung yourselves with your failed policies and willingness to surrender your liberty for the promise of a few bucks which hasn't materialized. The majority can see what you are now. Ignorant cowards who care more about their safety than their freedom.
ReplyDeleteYou're upset about wiretapping?
ReplyDeleteHow do you feel about surveillance closer to home?
1. Cameras on the stoplights in Arcata?
2. The webcam above the Plaza?
3. The close-the beach advocates who stand on the bluffs above the beach with high powered binoculars to look for 'violators' and turn them in to the cops?
Do you think,
A. It is ok because it is for the better good, safety is an issue and redlight running is a problem therefore it is justified?
B. If I'm not doing anything wrong, I don't have anything to worry about so why should I care?
or C. Yes, that is just as important a violation of human rights as the Patriot Act and I will add that to my rant from now on?
Just curious.
We don't have a constitutional right to privacy out in public. We do have a constitutional right to privacy in our homes and communications. Your equating video cams in public with warrantless wiretapping sounds like you have a defect in your ability to discriminate and a lack of perspective.
ReplyDeletesure, add that to your rant and let people know right off the bat that you are an idiot.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteYou 20% are irrelevant now. You had more than enough rope and hung yourselves with your failed policies and willingness to surrender your liberty for the promise of a few bucks which hasn't materialized. The majority can see what you are now. Ignorant cowards who care more about their safety than their freedom.
6/19/2008 4:20 PM
Let's talk about the "greater good" and "safety" then. The Pruis gets middle of the road fuel mileage when compared to 1993 Model cars.
Why is that?
Is it because:
A) America, Fuck Yeah!
B) Hybrids are people too
C) Fucking GWB
D) LOL NADER
F) Cars and trucks are heavier than they have ever been for their size because of safety and smog equipment mandates.
So while you bitch about losing rights over "safety" you don't bitch about losing MPG and using more foreign oil over safety.
You must be getting ready to argue with Rose because I didn't say anything about the greater good or that we should lose anything for safety. I'll leave you 2 alone, your idiocy might be contagious.
ReplyDeleteDon't conservatives buy big gas hogs like Hummers for safety over MPG? You might be ranting at the wrong crowd.
ReplyDeleteMy 84 CRX got 55 MPG on trips and 38 around town.
ReplyDeleteBut back to the privacy issue - so you think it is ok for self appointed gestapo type to ooggle people from the cliff and make up his own reports and turn them in with no oversight, no training no license, and no means of knowing who in the hell they are or why they are there - because what they are doing is cool with you, but you hate cops and scream and yell about them doing anything despite the fact that they are trained and have oversight...
You don't mind the spying from the cliff because that is cool, but you love to rant about Bush and the Patriot Act.
MMmmm. Ok.
I also get that you'd rather whine about Bush than deal with real corruption right here - like the DA. That's all cool with you because, well, he isn't Bush and Bush is the only problem we have.
Yeah I get it. Totally.
Again, being watched by someone in public with binoculars who reports illegal activities isn't in the same ballpark as having your phone tapped without a warrant. You have no expectation of privacy on the beach.
ReplyDeleteFuck it. You are too idiotic to understand the difference.
What you don't get is that the people who listen in on foreign telephone calls (ever see Days of the Condor?) are exactly like that person above the beach - except that they are ruled by law, and have training and oversight.
ReplyDeleteYou're saying that if you do something wrong you can expect to be caught by the gestapo type, but you won't extend that same reasoning because you are blinded by Bush derangement syndrome.
You cannot even look back and see that there is nothing new in that. It was done during Clinton, during Kennedy and Carter.
No, Anon.R, they are only for public safety when it is anti-Bush.
ReplyDeleteFor example, their response to the pot growers burning down the landlord's house is that the landlord is to blame for not spying on the tenant more.
There's no rational thought with these guys.
If you got your information from a real news source like Truth Out rather than infotainment like Fox you would know that the Bush administration was wiretapping not just foreign calls but American citizen's as well without a warrant. The senate is debating now on whether to give immunity to the phone companies who allowed them to do so. Not that you would understand the difference since you can't see the difference between expectation of privacy in your home versus on the beach.
ReplyDeleteI don't THINK Rush or Savage or Fox News knows about anything locally. Not about the beach issue, and not about the cameras. Not even about Gallegos - yet. But hey, the New York Times and the LA Times came because of the growhouses. All it is going to take is a big fuck up by Paul and he'll finally get the scrutiny he sop richly deserves.
ReplyDeleteBill O'Reilly will ask, how does a guy like this get to be DA? What were you people thinking? Usually it is judges. Not this time.
You never know. It could turn out to be CNN or even MSNBC. Things like ignoring CAST cross over idealogical lines, you know. In fact, "liberals" used to care about child and spousal abuse.
That's why we have programs like CAST and the DV and Victim Witness Programs.
Funny how they've turned their backs on these issues in favor of pot and hating corporations. The fad du jour.
Maybe they'll interview you and give you your 5 minutes in the spotlight. You could debate Gallegos on Hannity and Colmes! You could take your show on the road and become the next Coulter! The voice of the ignorant hicks.
ReplyDeleteThe left is who fought for all those programs while the right was fighting against them and the corporations were consolidating and taking over the media and government. Sorry but it's a matter of triage at this point.
ReplyDeleteThe corporations took over the media AND government? Horrors!
ReplyDeleteyeah well some people are alarmed when their country goes fascist but the right always cheer it on so much money to be made
ReplyDeleteOUR Country is fascist? **chortle*** Geeeeezussss, does it keep you up at night?
ReplyDeleteDo you have any examples?
Do you have any idea what your life would be like if you were actually right?
You don't even know the meaning of fascism. It doesn't always happen suddenly with an overthrow of the government you stupid cow. It is one step at a time. What did you study in college? Basket weaving?
ReplyDeleteDo you have any idea what life would be like if Bush got everything he is trying to take? Suspension of habeas corpus, unitary president, unlimited searches and wiretapping, wars without end, privatization of everything. Now look up fascism and read its tenets. Wake the fuck up.
Ask yourself what powers a dictator possesses that Bush hasn't claimed as his?
ReplyDeleteYou really are insane. The sad thing is there are so many like you.
ReplyDeleteYou must be confusing Bush with Chavez. Now there's a real problem and you can't even see it.
You really are a half wit. The good thing is only about 20% of the people are like you.
ReplyDeleteGood Morning, Everbodies!! My, the tempers are flaring. This whole, "Blame Bush, Blood for Oil, Bush lied, People Died" thing is becoming so tiring.
ReplyDeleteLet me, if you will, preface with the fact that I....definitely a Conservative, am not very pleased with our current POTUS....but, that being said,
He...as in Bush...is "just" the President. He can push for his agenda, he has the right of Veto....but it is the Congress and Senate that are truly responsible for the 'Good" or "Bad" that results from Policy. (It's what we learned in Government class.
If we were as eeevil as you proclaim to the rooftops, we would take the oil.....we have the power, but we don't. Gas prices would drop, and all those eeevil corporations would truly get "rich".....who could stop us? The U.N.? Oooh, the nasty letter we would receive....
Lied?.....a lie is intentional. The proof of bad Intel is there....you wish to belive your version....fine. No one can change a mind that is made up. (I know, I just divorced one).
Wiretapping? They have done it for years....really...at least now it's in the open. Listen in on my calls anytime you want.....what are you going to hear? But then, the most I might do is get a bit racy once in a while.
Stop being so afraid. It's bad for you.
Oh, and Jimmy Carter? *douche*
Have a lovely day.....