(06-23-2014 10:28 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  It's amazing how many of these I hadn't even heard of.

"CenturyLink" - an $18 billion dollar per year conglomerate built on a foundation of $35 billion in debt, headquartered in a southern backwater town. It's like WorldCom II.

(06-23-2014 11:12 PM)Fatalisk Wrote:  Sooo. What's the deal with WV?

(06-23-2014 11:12 PM)Fatalisk Wrote:  Sooo. What's the deal with WV?

(06-23-2014 11:41 PM)Surbadger Wrote:  

(06-23-2014 11:12 PM)Fatalisk Wrote:  Sooo. What's the deal with WV?

Not to sound ignorant, but our national government has killed the coal industry in WV.

(06-23-2014 11:41 PM)Surbadger Wrote:  

(06-23-2014 11:12 PM)Fatalisk Wrote:  Sooo. What's the deal with WV?

Not to sound ignorant, but our national government has killed the coal industry in WV.

(06-24-2014 11:22 AM)MWC Tex Wrote:  Costco has more revenue than Microsoft? Interesting.

(06-24-2014 10:40 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  I can't wait for the federal government to go down into Louisiana, do its job, and kill the oil industry.

I have limited sympathy for the people who are affected. If you barely finished high school, and live in Hattiesburg, but make $82,000 per year (the figure one rig worker shared with my date and me repeatedly one evening at a bar), then you ought to realize that something's out-of-line and will eventually get corrected.

What's "out-of-line" is the fact that the oil companies aren't adequately paying for the ecological damage they cause, and they pass the resultant profits on to their employees... who are thus damned sure to pull the right levers in the voting booth.

Of course, the vast majority of us don't work as pelican-lubricators, and the inevitable result of the electoral process is that the ill-gotten gains will, over time, dry up. The truly worthy adapt. Those who don't get exactly what they deserve, maybe more. If it were up to me, a lot of those people would face criminal charges for the pervasive disregard for environmental regulations they exhibit in their work.

(06-24-2014 10:40 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  I can't wait for the federal government to go down into Louisiana, do its job, and kill the oil industry.

I have limited sympathy for the people who are affected. If you barely finished high school, and live in Hattiesburg, but make $82,000 per year (the figure one rig worker shared with my date and me repeatedly one evening at a bar), then you ought to realize that something's out-of-line and will eventually get corrected.

What's "out-of-line" is the fact that the oil companies aren't adequately paying for the ecological damage they cause, and they pass the resultant profits on to their employees... who are thus damned sure to pull the right levers in the voting booth.

Of course, the vast majority of us don't work as pelican-lubricators, and the inevitable result of the electoral process is that the ill-gotten gains will, over time, dry up. The truly worthy adapt. Those who don't get exactly what they deserve, maybe more. If it were up to me, a lot of those people would face criminal charges for the pervasive disregard for environmental regulations they exhibit in their work.

(06-24-2014 11:51 AM)Nugget49er Wrote:  

(06-24-2014 10:40 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  I can't wait for the federal government to go down into Louisiana, do its job, and kill the oil industry.

I have limited sympathy for the people who are affected. If you barely finished high school, and live in Hattiesburg, but make $82,000 per year (the figure one rig worker shared with my date and me repeatedly one evening at a bar), then you ought to realize that something's out-of-line and will eventually get corrected.

What's "out-of-line" is the fact that the oil companies aren't adequately paying for the ecological damage they cause, and they pass the resultant profits on to their employees... who are thus damned sure to pull the right levers in the voting booth.

Of course, the vast majority of us don't work as pelican-lubricators, and the inevitable result of the electoral process is that the ill-gotten gains will, over time, dry up. The truly worthy adapt. Those who don't get exactly what they deserve, maybe more. If it were up to me, a lot of those people would face criminal charges for the pervasive disregard for environmental regulations they exhibit in their work.

I don't want to argue the merits of ecology vs energy production, but your position is weakened because you are probably using electricity produced by burning coal so you can surf the web.

(06-24-2014 11:59 AM)Niner National Wrote:  

(06-24-2014 11:51 AM)Nugget49er Wrote:  

(06-24-2014 10:40 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  I can't wait for the federal government to go down into Louisiana, do its job, and kill the oil industry.

I have limited sympathy for the people who are affected. If you barely finished high school, and live in Hattiesburg, but make $82,000 per year (the figure one rig worker shared with my date and me repeatedly one evening at a bar), then you ought to realize that something's out-of-line and will eventually get corrected.

What's "out-of-line" is the fact that the oil companies aren't adequately paying for the ecological damage they cause, and they pass the resultant profits on to their employees... who are thus damned sure to pull the right levers in the voting booth.

Of course, the vast majority of us don't work as pelican-lubricators, and the inevitable result of the electoral process is that the ill-gotten gains will, over time, dry up. The truly worthy adapt. Those who don't get exactly what they deserve, maybe more. If it were up to me, a lot of those people would face criminal charges for the pervasive disregard for environmental regulations they exhibit in their work.

I don't want to argue the merits of ecology vs energy production, but your position is weakened because you are probably using electricity produced by burning coal so you can surf the web.

I don't know where he lives, but if it is in Mississippi, probably not. Less than 1/4 of Miss electricity is produced by coal and nuclear combined. Most of it comes from natural gas.

That's a bad argument anyway. Just because someone doesn't really have any option doesn't mean they have to be happy with things are. If everyone applied that logic to everything in life, nothing would ever change.

That's like telling someone if they're complaining about traffic while contributing to that traffic they can't want better infrastructure to alleviate the traffic.

(06-24-2014 08:28 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(06-24-2014 11:59 AM)Niner National Wrote:  

(06-24-2014 11:51 AM)Nugget49er Wrote:  

(06-24-2014 10:40 AM)AndreWhere Wrote:  I can't wait for the federal government to go down into Louisiana, do its job, and kill the oil industry.

I have limited sympathy for the people who are affected. If you barely finished high school, and live in Hattiesburg, but make $82,000 per year (the figure one rig worker shared with my date and me repeatedly one evening at a bar), then you ought to realize that something's out-of-line and will eventually get corrected.

What's "out-of-line" is the fact that the oil companies aren't adequately paying for the ecological damage they cause, and they pass the resultant profits on to their employees... who are thus damned sure to pull the right levers in the voting booth.

Of course, the vast majority of us don't work as pelican-lubricators, and the inevitable result of the electoral process is that the ill-gotten gains will, over time, dry up. The truly worthy adapt. Those who don't get exactly what they deserve, maybe more. If it were up to me, a lot of those people would face criminal charges for the pervasive disregard for environmental regulations they exhibit in their work.

I don't want to argue the merits of ecology vs energy production, but your position is weakened because you are probably using electricity produced by burning coal so you can surf the web.

I don't know where he lives, but if it is in Mississippi, probably not. Less than 1/4 of Miss electricity is produced by coal and nuclear combined. Most of it comes from natural gas.

That's a bad argument anyway. Just because someone doesn't really have any option doesn't mean they have to be happy with things are. If everyone applied that logic to everything in life, nothing would ever change.

That's like telling someone if they're complaining about traffic while contributing to that traffic they can't want better infrastructure to alleviate the traffic.

Mississippi has a big coal-fired power plant in Gulfport. I worked there, many years ago. The same company that owns that plant is currently building a massive (multi-billion-dollar) "coal gasification" facility in some place called "Kemper, MS".

And I really don't have a problem with any of that... those plants are some of the biggest capital investments ever made in Mississippi, private or public. Coal is just another energy source. It has its pros and its cons. We also have a lot of coal in the USA.

The important thing is that coal (or oil, or whatever) be used responsibly, and that's what didn't happen with offshore oil in Louisiana. The true costs associated with extracting and using that energy source were never paid by the people who profited from those activities. They cut broad channels through the swamp, spilled oil everywhere, etc. and still haven't contributed significantly to coastal restoration.

Yeah, BP paid damages for their spill. A lot of that money (all of it?) has gone to plugging operating deficits run by the State of Louisiana- not to coastal remediation projects). And yet the Governor of Louisiana actually just signed legislation retroactively outlawing certain suits against the oil companies that were filed in an effort to recover for coastal damage. That's why I sympathize a whole lot more with the (very gentle) federal efforts to slow offshore drilling a lot more than the "drill, baby, drill" local politicians, who ought to know better.