The Oil

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DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Krisken mentioned this poem in IRC. I happened to have a copy of it on the Totally MAD collection.

By Frank Jacobs after "The Bells" by Edgar Allen Poe.

See the derricks pumping oil --
Foreign oil!
Gobs of gallons gushing from beneath the desert soil!
Huge monopolies are drilling,
Which for them is mighty nice,
When their pockets they are filling
And it's they who make the killing
And it's we who pay the price!
Hear them gloat, gloat, gloat
'Cause they've got us by the throat,
And each dollar, yen, and kopek
Feeds the greedy bunch at OPEC
For the oil, oil, oil, oil,
Oil, oil, oil --
For the money-grubbing moguls with the oil!

See the pipeline full of oil --
U.S. oil!
Built to last a lifetime after years of sweat and toil!
Many millions we were spending,
And although the cost was great,
Soon our problems would be ending
'Cause we wouldn't be depending
On the Saudis or Kuwait!
See it last, last, last --
Oops! I guess we spoke too fast!
Leaks are springing up all through it;
Seems the builders kind of blew it
With the oil, oil, oil, oil,
Oil, oil, oil --
Just another major screw up with the oil!

See the tanker dumping oil --
Exxon oil!
Blackening our shores and bringing tempers to a boil!
Hear the companies suppressing
How their hulls are made of mush:
"Yes the spill is most distressing,
"But we had no way of guessing
"That the captain was a lush!"
Hear them claim, claim, claim
That they're really not to blame!
After all, they're only human;
Best to pin it on some crewman
For the oil, oil, oil, oil,
Oil, oil, oil --
for the leaking and the reeking of the oil!

See the seagulls drenched with oil --
Deadly oil!
Grounded on the beaches that men ravage and despoil!
Smell the fishes putrefying;
Count the corpses of the seals;
See the scores of eagles dying,
Giving up all dreams of flying
As the greasy goo congeals!
Leaders swear, swear, swear
That they really, truly care!
Words to banish ev'ry sorrow
Till that bigger spill tomorrow
When another giant tanker
Winds up punctured by it's anchor,
With our shores obliterated
And the planet decimated
By the oil, oil, oil, oil,
Oil, oil, oil --
By the deadly devastation of the oil!
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
How about this one

"Down with oil" they cry
Placard's cutting the sky
With their knowledge from schools
with computers
what tools!
Built from plastics and oil alike.

"Down with Oil!" they crow
as they head to their fane
boarding modern airplanes
resolute in their knowledge and right

ah fuck it. Too lazy to keep this up. Point is this is just another argument made by people that are either too lazy, or stupid to work on fixing the problem themselves. Almost every anti-oil person I have ever met has ~ a high school education in science. How dare they talk about how this is the world's greatest evil and then spend no effort trying to understand 1) its values, and 2) legitimate ways to deal with the problem.

All of this is just juvenile intellectual masturbation and armchair quarterbacking unless you get off your bean bag chair of a brain and try to fix the problem. And that's not done by making flowery speeches. Its done by actually educating yourself on the problems.

Also, don't take my response too personally. Its not like you're in the minority, like I said almost every environmental activist I have ever met couldn't even draw CO2.
 
Troll

Troll

Necronic said:
How about this one

"Down with oil" they cry
Placard's cutting the sky
With their knowledge from schools
with computers
what tools!
Built from plastics and oil alike.

"Down with Oil!" they crow
as they head to their fane
boarding modern airplanes
resolute in their knowledge and right

ah fuck it. Too lazy to keep this up. Point is this is just another argument made by people that are either too lazy, or stupid to work on fixing the problem themselves. Almost every anti-oil person I have ever met has ~ a high school education in science. How dare they talk about how this is the world's greatest evil and then spend no effort trying to understand 1) its values, and 2) legitimate ways to deal with the problem.

All of this is just juvenile intellectual masturbation and armchair quarterbacking unless you get off your bean bag chair of a brain and try to fix the problem. And that's not done by making flowery speeches. Its done by actually educating yourself on the problems.

Also, don't take my response too personally. Its not like you're in the minority, like I said almost every environmental activist I have ever met couldn't even draw CO2.
Click to expand...
:pud:
 
J

JONJONAUG

Necronic said:
How about this one

"Down with oil" they cry
Placard's cutting the sky
With their knowledge from schools
with computers
what tools!
Built from plastics and oil alike.

"Down with Oil!" they crow
as they head to their fane
boarding modern airplanes
resolute in their knowledge and right

ah fuck it. Too lazy to keep this up. Point is this is just another argument made by people that are either too lazy, or stupid to work on fixing the problem themselves. Almost every anti-oil person I have ever met has ~ a high school education in science. How dare they talk about how this is the world's greatest evil and then spend no effort trying to understand 1) its values, and 2) legitimate ways to deal with the problem.

All of this is just juvenile intellectual masturbation and armchair quarterbacking unless you get off your bean bag chair of a brain and try to fix the problem. And that's not done by making flowery speeches. Its done by actually educating yourself on the problems.

Also, don't take my response too personally. Its not like you're in the minority, like I said almost every environmental activist I have ever met couldn't even draw CO2.
Click to expand...
Cross posting.





 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Are you really that stupid, Necronic? The oil companies have trillions of dollars to make sure the problems don't *ever* get fixed.
 
C

Chazwozel

Necronic is 100% correct.

Although I am an environmental activist, you can't deny that we need that EARL!
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
Chazwozel said:
Necronic is 100% correct.

Although I am an environmental activist, you can't deny that we need that EARL!
Click to expand...
We really do. I defy most people to even comprehend what their day would be like without just a single part of the oil issue:

no plastics/polymers - this is simply too invasive to mention, pretty much everything you see around you has a petroleum based polymer of some kind in it. But if you want 2 specific examples
a) No medical plastics - Hopefully you can understand the significance of a lack of plastics to medicine.
b) No synthetic rubber/teflon - This would put our industrial capabilities back ~60 years due to 0-rings/gaskets/hosing

Yes, people are now developing organic/bio plastics, which I think is fucking awesome, but its still a ways off, and guess what they need to get us the rest of the way there? Plastics. They will use HPLC's, GC-MS's, GPCs, SEM/TEMs, and I doubt anyone could build one of those without a plastic.

To understand the real danger of something you have to first understand why it's there. Oil isn't just a handgun pointed at your face, its a handgun pointed at your face that also feeds your family. In a way that makese it even more fucked up. Also, looking at oil exec's like they are evil men wearing cloaks rubbing their hands while they talk about greed standing over Captain Planet's body saying "he died like a pig" is just as ridiculous.

Yes, oil companies have fucked up. Some have fucked up royally. The question is what do they do afterwards. After the Valdeez Exxon became one of the most tight assed companies about environmental and safety standards in the world. After the Texas City incident BP passed the blame as fast as possible and made no changes to its practices, and did the same thing again.

BP are dangerous jackasses, but don't take that to indicate that all of the oil industry is.
 
Espy

Espy

But oil is evil Necronic, and I wrote a rhyme about it that proves my point:
Oil is evil
Like a big slimy weevil
it stole my baby
and turned him into gravy
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
I think that it's this kind of thing that will finally wake people the fuck up and start working towards VIABLE alternatives. It's like getting violently ill before you finally go to the doctor. You know you've needed preventive medicine but it was just so much bother!
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Necronic said:
looking at oil exec's like they are evil men wearing cloaks rubbing their hands while they talk about greed standing over Captain Planet's body saying "he died like a pig"
Click to expand...
That's for coal execs. Don Blankenship in particular. He is evil, pure and simple. And that's just the way he wants it.

Pity that so many on both sides of the aisle are so blatantly in his pocket.
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
Yeah....actually i can't defend that dude or most of the coal mining industry, they make BP look like Greenpeach/OSHA.
 
Krisken

Krisken

We were talking about the poem DarkAudit had posted and I remembered the one he posted above from my youth.

I know we need oil to make petroleum products. These plastic products are great. I'm not advocating to completely abolish oil drilling. I do think part of the problem is how lax we have been as a nation to ensure oil companies follow strict safety regulations and require some research into better ways to prevent and stop these catastrophes from occurring again.

Oh, and I'm glad I don't like seafood.
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
To a degree yes (referencing the "drill baby drill" comment). I truly believe that oil is involved in one of the greatest threats to the modern world we have ever had, but not because of its existence, but because of its disappearance. Capitalism has done a very good job in pushing our efficiency levels in its development and exploitation to incredible places, and we are also starting to increase our efficiency in its usage as well, but its not enough and it never was.

One of the most serious issues is that only a handful of countries have really been using oil for the last couple centuries, and other countries are finally getting their industry/economies built up to the point that they are using it too. So while supply is shrinking (or at least plateuing) demand is independantly skyrocketing. This is really the nightmare scenario. Just as you start running out of beer another 100 guests arrive.

Here's a disturbing set of pictures:

Oil consumption per capita:


Population Density per km2


Notice the inversion. If these countries start using oil like we do, which they have every right to do in an open market, then we are more fucked than Ben Bernanke on his first night in prison.

This is part of the reason I get so frustrated with these blanket and juvenile attacks on Oil. The oil crisis is a terrifying thing, but to deal with it you have to understand the entire picture. Treating it so simplisticly like so many people on the left do only diminishes the reality of the threat itself, and moreover the ridiculously poor level of education in science that so many people have only reinforces my concern. Its like people are arguing about the best way to stop the plague, and some people are arguing that we should sacrifice goats while the others are saying we should build a golden idol to stop it.

Then you have the talking heads saying that we could power the entire planet on wind or solar, who, if asked, couldn't tell you the historical trends in efficiency rates for these items or the chemicals required to make them or the potential effects on the environment or bird migration of stealing that much energy from the weather patterns or the economics of scale. But they can tell you that its OBVIOUSLY the best solution.
 
Troll

Troll

Chazwozel;389538][QUOTE=The Lovely Boner said:
Drill baby drill, am I right?
Click to expand...

I don't think that's what he's saying at all in that sort of context.

You do realize without oil, society wouldn't be able to function, right?[/QUOTE]

The problem in this thread is that the 2 sides aren't talking about the same thing. People criticizing oil are not saying it should be abolished and we should abondon it altogether. People are just saying oil and the oil industry are causing some major problems, and we need to do something about that. No one here thinks oil isn't important, and no one was forgetting vital products like plastic. You and Necronic act as though no one can criticize the oil industry for anything because some of what they provide is good.
 
C

Chazwozel

Troll;389550][QUOTE=Chazwozel;389538][QUOTE=The Lovely Boner said:
Drill baby drill, am I right?
Click to expand...

I don't think that's what he's saying at all in that sort of context.

You do realize without oil, society wouldn't be able to function, right?[/QUOTE]

The problem in this thread is that the 2 sides aren't talking about the same thing. People criticizing oil are not saying it should be abolished and we should abondon it altogether. People are just saying oil and the oil industry are causing some major problems, and we need to do something about that. No one here thinks oil isn't important, and no one was forgetting vital products like plastic. You and Necronic act as though no one can criticize the oil industry for anything because some of what they provide is good.[/QUOTE]

I'm pretty sure Necronic (and I agree with his sentiment) was full on board in saying that BP is a bunch of slackjawed morons. I'm pretty sure the problem with this thread and the oil industry is that people jump the gun and deem everyone in that industry as a greedy bastard with money on his mind, when the truth in this situation is that specific people (and a specific company) are to blame for not adhering to set oil industry standards that prevent this sort of thing from happening.
 
Krisken

Krisken

I think we're all agreeing with each other. Our language just came off like we were disagreeing. There really is no reason for contention over agreement ;)
 
S

Soliloquy

Hmmm... looks like we need some genuine disagreement in this thread.

*ahem*

WE NEED TO GET RID OF ALL THE OIL BY DUMPING IT IN THE OCEAN!
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
Troll;389550][QUOTE=Chazwozel;389538][QUOTE=The Lovely Boner said:
Drill baby drill, am I right?
Click to expand...

I don't think that's what he's saying at all in that sort of context.

You do realize without oil, society wouldn't be able to function, right?[/QUOTE]

The problem in this thread is that the 2 sides aren't talking about the same thing. People criticizing oil are not saying it should be abolished and we should abondon it altogether. People are just saying oil and the oil industry are causing some major problems, and we need to do something about that. No one here thinks oil isn't important, and no one was forgetting vital products like plastic. You and Necronic act as though no one can criticize the oil industry for anything because some of what they provide is good.[/QUOTE]

I think people can totally criticize the oil industry, I am totally for it. However, I am wholeheartedly against rhetoric like that poem. No specific arguments are made in it that can be refuted, yet the general tone of it is "Oil BAD!" (q frankenstein voice) which is a completely worthless statement. Actually its beyond worthless, it is self defeating because it makes the people saying it look like they are incapable of making a real argument which discredits them when they reall do.

So while we may in some ways be in agreement, I can say that we really aren't. However at this point its more of a meta argument, which to be honest are the ones I focus on the most when it comes to politics and world issues. With issues that serious and complicated the argument itself must be handled very carefully, by not doing so you make it so that no one is even capable of ever finding a higher truth even if they wanted to.

Yet again I'm going to bring it back to science. When scientists test a theory the way they decide to design the experiment is as important as how they run the experiment which is just as important as how they analyze the data which isn't any less important than how they report it. By not showing dilligence in any of those steps their entire argument is meaningless.

Which is why stuff like this gets me so frustrated. Clearly people are interested in making the world a better place, which really is great, yet so few of them focus their political energies in such a way as to be anything but self defeating.

Edit: Also take into account the fact that I am an angry hateful person.
 
S

Soliloquy

Clearly, you guys aren't thinking about the potential benefits of dumping all the world's oil into the ocean.


1) The economic collapse would keep terrorists from caring about our country any more.

2) Totalitarian powers in the middle east will no longer have international influence.

3) The absence of life-prolonging medical technology will save social security.

4) The lack of convenient transportation will keep people from going to the court and filing frivolous lawsuits.

5) All problems with traffic congestion will be immediately fixed.

6) Everyone who joined the boy scouts will find their skills much more applicable to everyday life.

7) People with massive seafood allergies need no longer worry.

8) Killer Whales in captivity will decide they don't have it that bad.

9) No more sharks.

10) Everyone will get a lot more exercise.

11) No more jellyfish.

12) The Amish will rise to power, bringing back those cool side beards.

13) No more of that friggin' kelp that scratches your legs at the beach.
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
I was wondering about that. That excuses it. Is that the same place as that other jackass poem came from?
 
C

Chazwozel

Soliloquy said:
Clearly, you guys aren't thinking about the potential benefits of dumping all the world's oil into the ocean.


1) The economic collapse would keep terrorists from caring about our country any more.

2) Totalitarian powers in the middle east will no longer have international influence.

3) The absence of life-prolonging medical technology will save social security.

4) The lack of convenient transportation will keep people from going to the court and filing frivolous lawsuits.

5) All problems with traffic congestion will be immediately fixed.

6) Everyone who joined the boy scouts will find their skills much more applicable to everyday life.

7) People with massive seafood allergies need no longer worry.

8) Killer Whales in captivity will decide they don't have it that bad.

9) No more sharks.

10) Everyone will get a lot more exercise.

11) No more jellyfish.

12) The Amish will rise to power, bringing back those cool side beards.

13) No more of that friggin' kelp that scratches your legs at the beach.
Click to expand...

Fuck you!
 
S

Soliloquy

Chazwozel;390206][QUOTE=Soliloquy said:
Clearly, you guys aren't thinking about the potential benefits of dumping all the world's oil into the ocean.


1) The economic collapse would keep terrorists from caring about our country any more.

2) Totalitarian powers in the middle east will no longer have international influence.

3) The absence of life-prolonging medical technology will save social security.

4) The lack of convenient transportation will keep people from going to the court and filing frivolous lawsuits.

5) All problems with traffic congestion will be immediately fixed.

6) Everyone who joined the boy scouts will find their skills much more applicable to everyday life.

7) People with massive seafood allergies need no longer worry.

8) Killer Whales in captivity will decide they don't have it that bad.

9) No more sharks.

10) Everyone will get a lot more exercise.

11) No more jellyfish.

12) The Amish will rise to power, bringing back those cool side beards.

13) No more of that friggin' kelp that scratches your legs at the beach.
Click to expand...

Fuck you![/QUOTE]

See? sharks are aggressive, and must be destroyed.
 
C

Chazwozel

FUCK YOU MRRRPPHHPRPPR OIL MRRRPRRRRFFFFPFPRPRRRRRRR BLLEECCH.......


 
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