Posted on 05/30/2010 6:07:17 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
A big part of the problem is that BP is NOT American, it is British and Brown actually supported this “one world government” idea. That’s the whole reason that BP has been able to snooker the self-centered, elitist progressives. All BP had to do was brown nose the Democrat politicians and regulators, talk up their Progressive creds and they could get away with anything.
My husband went through this with BP in the eighties. He was the environmental advisor for ARCO Marine. He wrote the only oil spill contingency plan which was approved by the state of Alaska and in force at the time of the Valdez spill. The problem was that Alyeska had nothing to back up the plan, no booms, nothing. He tried to get BP to agree to preparing for a major spill. He told BP execs that their oil spill plans were nothing but a paper tiger and that statistics indicated that they were over due for a human error caused spill in Alaska. The BP exec sat in the meeting with a newspaper in front of his face and then answered that BP had no intention of spending money on oil spill protection in Alaska until the government forced them to do so. He said that BP had already spent more money than they wanted to on oil spill in the North Sea and unless the state of Alaska forced the issue, they had no intention of spending more money. So, my husband ran an oil spill drill with a scenario that closely approximated the actual Valdez spill which happened six months later. It made no difference to BP.
Well, for starters, WWII was a hugely successful effort, and so we tend to forget, or minimize, our own many setbacks and failures.
For another, of course it's highly risky to attempt predicting the future, especially from the perspective on 1940 (!), but perhaps I can go out on a limb and suggest we have not yet begun to hear the whole story on this Gulf oil rig accident. We don't know what caused it, we don't know why all the "fail-safes" failed, we don't know why none of the various attempted fixes have worked.
In short, it's still to soon to say (especially here in June of 1940), what may turn out to be all the lessons learned from some future oil disaster. ;-)
Can we even say for sure it will turn out to be a case of massively arrogant stupidity, or were there other as yet unexplained factors involved?
Of course here in June 1940, all this is impossible to predict. But I'm absolutely certain, once our descendents reach June 2010, in their hi-tech age it'll all be simple and straightfordward stuff... ;-)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 273 May 30, 1940
Evacuation of Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo). British Admiralty orders all modern H, I, J class destroyers out of Dunkirk due to yesterday’s intensive German bombing, leaving only 18 old destroyers to continue the evacuation. Despite this, 24,311 Allied troops embark from Dunkirk harbour & 29,512 from the beaches, including the first French soldiers to be evacuated. Small craft from Britain ferry troops out to waiting warships or even back to England.
Although Luftwaffe attacks are reduced by poor weather, destroyers HMS Anthony & Sabre, minesweeper HMS Kellet, armed boarding vessel HMS King Orry and steamers St. Julien & Normannia are damaged by German bombs. French destroyer Bourrasque hits a mine & is sunk by German artillery off Ostend (about 660 crew and troops evacuated from Dunkirk are killed or swim to shore and are captured by the Germans). 100 survivors are rescued by French torpedo boat Branlebas and 200 more by other ships.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Memoriale_Dunkerque.jpg “To the glorious memory of the Pilots, Sailors and Soldiers of the French and Allied armies who sacrificed themselves in the Battle of Dunkirk May June 1940”.
Norway. After capturing Narvik, Allied forces begin pushing General Dietl’s mountain troops and sailors back to the Swedish border, only 18 miles East. Dietl, isolated in Narvik since April 10, has been sporadically resupplied and reinforced by airdrops. However, his only real hope of survival is 2nd Gebirgsjäger Division which has been marching North from Trondheim since May 4. Naturally, Hitler does not give Dietl the option to surrender or cross into Sweden to be interned, instructing him instead to fight on.
As part of Operation Fish (the shipment to Canada of British gold and negotiable securities, for storage in the Bank of Canada vault in Ottawa) battleship HMS Revenge (carrying £40 million in gold) and troopships Antonia & Duchess of Richmond (£10 million in gold each) leave Britain. They will arrive in Halifax, Nova Scotia in June. http://rightclickhome.com/Numis/micc/11nov2009/MICC.HTM
U-101 sinks British SS Stanhall carrying sugar and onions 10 miles North of Quessant (1 life lost). 36 survivors are picked up by another British steamer Temple Moat and landed at Weymouth. http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/331.html
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