printOff-shore oil driller and acclaimed scientist and inventor James Cameron, who “has worked extensively with robot submarines,” is annoyed that the film directors running BP have not used his know-how to plug the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Reverse that; Cameron is the filmer; BP the explorer. But you get how ridiculous Cameron’s puff is; how inflated Hollywood’s sense of itself is.
What matters is that the public get an idea of how crucial to life itself are the hard sciences, although a whole lot will have to change before the youth, streaming into law, health care and finance for the obvious reason (it begins with a “g”) change course, and those with the aptitude do hard science.
UPDATE (June 4): The images of immobilized pelicans weighed down by oil are heartbreaking. In the animal rescue and clean-up efforts we ought to begin to see the strength of private initiative.
The political Idiocracy continues to make hay of this environmental nightmare. Insisting Big Daddy O was supposed to clean up, show more rage, froth at the mouth more.
The fact that the POTUS and the FLOTUS like to live it up is perhpas unseemly. But the idea that if Obama were not so self-absorbed, or more unhinged emotionally, he’d do what’s right to save our ravaged coast—this is misguided.
This is so sad. (Here are my birdies.)
In “Regulation Encourages Recklessness” I spoke to what I think is at the root of environmental despoliation:
• Regulations, which are the culmination of agreements between the regulated and the regulators, to the detriment of those left out the loop: wild life and the rest of us.
• The tragedy of the commons, i.e., the absence of property rights: “Government-controlled resources go to seed because there is no private ownership of the means of production. Entrusted with the management of assets you don’t own, have no stake in; on behalf of millions of people you don’t know, don’t care about, are unaccountable to, and who have no real recourse against your mismanagement except to whine like wimps—how long before your performance plummets?”
• The modern corporate colossus resembles government in many ways.
My smart readers can think over the last point—have at it. I’ll be back to mark your pixelated papers.
Don’t be so hard on James Cameron, Ilana. I am sure his plan includes that liquid metal robot from Terminator2: Judgment Day*. There’s no way such a plan could fail.
*Let’s hope it doesn’t include anything from Avatar.
So capping the flow of oil gushing out of the floor of the Gulf is proving to be difficult; but I can’t be convinced we haven’t the technology to stanch the pinguid drips coming out of Hollywood.
Hollywood: The insanity of their views is not a joke:huhe reason for anti usa sentiment in third world for various confused reasons.
The way that they are SHAMELESS
Is bizarre!!
In which other country could they be so lucky as in america?
They must be uneducated and not well read and only check with others “in fashion”
Honestly:how to stop them? Boycotts…
I wonder if oprah is beginning to wonder about “The One”: at least the fiscal balance sheet !! [Good point; she is a good business woman, at least.]
He didn’t get the Oscar he wanted, so he’s going for a Nobel…
Naturally the experts in ‘alternate reality’ are ready to take on ‘hard science’ they have so much experience in extrapolating history, life and world events that naturally they can edit a oil well problem better than the real world engineers.
Hard science, math, and engineering none of them is easy but, if you have the aptitude and intestinal fortitude the rewards can be more than just job satisfaction… The water pressure at 5000 ft below the earth surface is roughly 2200 pounds per square inch or 150 atomspheres. The oil pressure must be much higher to get the kind of flow we see on the internet camera. All I can say is wow what a problem!
One thing I did NOT blame Bush for was Hurricane Katrina — as if Presidents are responsible for “acts of God”. Yes, blame him that some of the state militia were away in Iraq instead of being available to help. However, blaming Bush because New Orleans police and firefighters abandoned their city and 300 abandoned buses flooded rather than evacuating old age homes is ludicrous. But somehow, someone living 2000 miles away is supposed to control events via magic omnipotence (why not the head of the UN or the Intergalactic Council, for example??). Now, it is Messiah Obama who can magically plug up oil leaks with his golden tongue and teleprompter.
The variant on the “President is God” theme is that even if the [XYZ] hurricane/earthquake/spill occurred, the President can at least make everyone feel good and confident through the magic of good public relations. After all, didn’t FDR end the Depression the minute he announced, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. Say the magic word and the seas part, the skies clear, and a chorus of angels descend from heaven to comfort the sick and raise the dead. Hallelujah!
Offshore drilling is by nature extraordinarily dangerous and I wouldn’t complain if it came to an end. That being said, I fear this fiasco will be held up as a reason to cease all drilling, both for crude and natural gas. Time will tell.
“The modern corporate colossus resembles government in many ways.”
Pretty much in line with one of my favorite sayings, “The bigger a company/corporation is, the more like the federal government they become.”
Dan
Bad Eagle references a oil spill in the 1970’s and Saddam’s on purpose oil spill at this site “http://news.discovery.com/earth/gulf-oil-spill-ixtoc.html” where this oil spill is a problem, it’s not the biggest we’ve had to contend with. Just the most publicized.
In regard to corporations and government, both are ‘middle management’ positions, run by people with no personal stake or love for what they are doing, make baby food this week, make autos next week, be appointed head of national security in a month, interchangeable puppets.
A while back, you used a phrase in one of your posts that spoke volumes. It was, “the State and its corporate donors.” In that one little phrase, I saw, for example, the enormous influence on policy wielded by corporation men such as Bill Gates, who can claim we need more H1-Bs to do the jobs Americans are (supposedly) not qualified for, despite the plethora of American software engineers out of work. It seems that both government and corporations work to diminish free market forces.