Over on Watt's up with that there is something very special. Harrison Schmitt of Apollo 17 made a guest post on the difference between the Gulf Oil spill and Apollo 13. It is an interesting read written by one of my favorite astronauts. If you would like to read it you can find it here.

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Dena says:
June 1, 2010 at 9:20 pm
I have been learning about the progressive movement and our brainwashing started around 1870.

Dena, you could learn about astrology too, but that doesn't mean astrology is anything more than pablum for the simple minded.

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I do not fight fascists because I think I can win.
I fight them because they are fascists.
Chris Hedges

A riot is the language of the unheard. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

And, all the women who have won the right to vote in America owe tribute to Susan B. Anthony, a socialist, with all those American citizens, both men and women, of the socialist and communist parties fighting for civil rights, and champions of the suffrage movement. (Woman and American Socialism 1870-1920 Books.Google.com)


Seems I've found the source of your 1870 theory

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I do not fight fascists because I think I can win.
I fight them because they are fascists.
Chris Hedges

A riot is the language of the unheard. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Susan B. Anthony, a socialist

Not exactly. Socialism exist within Progressivism and that is where the problem is. Socialism stops gaining power when it reaches communism or fascism. Progressivism contains Socialism, Communism and Fascism when you are talking about the amount of control the government has over your life. You believe in a safety valve, Progressives don't.

The Progressive movement found we would never accept that much control by government if we were told at the start that was what they were after so they decided to turn up the heat slowly. Expanding the number of people who followed the Progressives started in the end of the 18th century and then the Progressive movement started getting people elected 1901 with the election of Theodore Roosevelt. We have not been under Progressive control all the time, but the real movers and shakers in the Progressive movement are Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon B Jonson and currently Obama. All have given us a very large push away from the Republic that we should be.

Don't bother searching the web for information about the Progressive movement because the Progressives have had control of our history books in schools and have removed many of the evil things they have done. Did you know that Wilson imprisoned thousands of people for speaking out against World War I. This is a violation of our constitutional rights. FDR by executive order imprisoned Japanese American CITIZENS by executive order. This is a violation of due process, a right given to us by our constitution. Obama is currently trying to find a way to take away constitutional rights of citizens if they are suspected of being involved in a act of Terror. Constitutional rights are not an option, they must apply to all citizens!

We are playing with something far more dangerous that Socialism and you should be very fearful for us because Progressivism also includes the idea that their ideas for government are better than all others and they have the responsibility to take over inferior people. Are you on the list? I don't know but I personally don't want to expand the United States boarders unless the people who would be joining us clearly want to join us. The Progressive currently want to make Porto Rico our 51 state by using a variation on The Tennessee Plan and by not giving the people the option of remain a territory.

I have been living in a socialist like country all my life and while it hasn't treated me all that bad, I fear very much what we are becoming because it could become very evil. To understand what we are dealing with you should read Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism. This book will put you in the head of of the Progressive movement and you will find by Wilson's own words that the end goal is form of government very much like what Russia had before 1990.

You should be careful about commenting on our country till you understand that Progressivism is mistaken for Socialism in this country but they are in no way equal forms of government.

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back to comparing the apollo 13 accident to the current oil well crisis.

NASA didnt round up all the worker at the Cape and force them to stay away from phones and family for 15 hours while they rounded up lawyers to get the workers to involutarily sign off on disclaimers that they had in no part seem nor knew any reason for the accident from happening. BP did.

NASA took emergency measure to Insure the safety of its crew. Using multiple redundancy technology to insure that if one part of the equipment failed the remaining equipment could still operate. NASA practiced emergency drills but did not even dream of the catastrophe occurring on any Apollo mission. they now drill for such circumstances.
BP cut corners to maximize profit. they failed to adequately train personel on emergency situations because again they were maximizing profit. BP having decades of experience at digging all types of well continues to flail about and blame everyone but itself. Instead of thinking of and creating multiple missions to stop the leak BP puts its eggs in 1 basket and hope that it works. Please note that every failure forces them to go back and make anotehr plan and take another 7-14 days to implement the plan.

Lets also not forget that NASA is Gov't run BP not so much.
Let's not forget that several safeguard completely failed on the Rig that exploded. It's also been reported that the BP official was "in a hurry" to get the well producing. So they once again cut corners to get production rolling.

I do have a solution to the problem. Arrest every single BP executive you can find and force them to live off the land along the coast of Louisiana. I bet they fix that rig real quick after that

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Yes, and whilst we're at it we can arrest every US Officer in WW2 and make them scrape a living at either Nagasaki or Hiroshima. That'll fix nuclear proliferation.

Hey, they must be all guilty, by association. That's your analogy skildude.

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Afterall, doesn't everyone here seem to think that a people/organisation/government has to be accountable for their actions, and consequences?

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not Exxon BP. the final tally for their responsiblity on the Prince Edward sound spill hardly covered about a years lost wages for each person affected by the spill. It didnt come close to covering the cleanup cost. BTW the fisheries 20 years later are still dead in the Prince Edward Sound. So extrapolate that mess into the mess in the gulf. Also note that the gulf spill is much larger now than the Exxon valdez accident

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

back to comparing the apollo 13 accident to the current oil well crisis.

NASA didnt round up all the worker at the Cape and force them to stay away from phones and family for 15 hours while they rounded up lawyers to get the workers to involutarily sign off on disclaimers that they had in no part seem nor knew any reason for the accident from happening. BP did.

NASA took emergency measure to Insure the safety of its crew. Using multiple redundancy technology to insure that if one part of the equipment failed the remaining equipment could still operate. NASA practiced emergency drills but did not even dream of the catastrophe occurring on any Apollo mission. they now drill for such circumstances.
BP cut corners to maximize profit. they failed to adequately train personel on emergency situations because again they were maximizing profit. BP having decades of experience at digging all types of well continues to flail about and blame everyone but itself. Instead of thinking of and creating multiple missions to stop the leak BP puts its eggs in 1 basket and hope that it works. Please note that every failure forces them to go back and make anotehr plan and take another 7-14 days to implement the plan.

Lets also not forget that NASA is Gov't run BP not so much.
Let's not forget that several safeguard completely failed on the Rig that exploded. It's also been reported that the BP official was "in a hurry" to get the well producing. So they once again cut corners to get production rolling.

I do have a solution to the problem. Arrest every single BP executive you can find and force them to live off the land along the coast of Louisiana. I bet they fix that rig real quick after that

Let us also not forget that while what BP did was not legal under US law, that platform was so far beyond the US shores that the rule of the sea apply. Once they reached shore, US laws apply. I agree that they were wrong, but I question how this will hold up in court and if the judgement will be made on emotions and not the law. On the other hand, my roommate worked for TWA and one day they wouldn't let her past the security gate. She ask the guards for a phone and when they ask why, she said I want to call the police and tell them I am being held against my will. Problem over.

Also let us not forget that Obama has been in office for a year and a half. and the woman in charge of running the oil drilling was appointed by Obama and has just been fired by Obama with no reason given. Could it be terminal embarrassment?

Obama has said every move BP is making to correct the problem is being run by his office and must be approved before BP can do it. I don't think arresting the BP people would make any difference. I do think getting the White house of the loop could speed things up.

The government has a law that the government should have solutions to contain and clean up oil spill on hand ready to use. The didn't even have the booms on hand to contain this spill. This law dates back to the Clinton Administration. In over 10 years, both parties have not enforced a federal requirement.

Also let us not forget what NASA did to Apollo 1 and two space shuttles. They don't exactly have a spotless record. Also consider that some of the problems NASA had were do to budget restriction very early in the shuttle program that caused them to skip the safer approach and go with a cheaper solution,

Last but not least, we still have a large amount of oil that can be recovered with far less risk. However the environmentalist and the government have put it off limits so oil recovery is taking place in high risk areas with new untested technology.

Please tell me how a government that has such a poor track record to date will become a miracle worker. I don't see it but I would like to know.

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It's been mentioned on NPR and elsewhere that the career officials in that office have become good bedfellows with the coal gas and oil industries. Yes she needed to be fired. She didn't do due diligence. She should have seen the collusion with the office and enegry producers. She did not but I assume that her successor will have heads rolling

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

It's been mentioned on NPR and elsewhere that the career officials in that office have become good bedfellows with the coal gas and oil industries. Yes she needed to be fired. She didn't do due diligence. She should have seen the collusion with the office and enegry producers. She did not but I assume that her successor will have heads rolling

But with an open and transparent administration, why did she leave by the back door and not the front? Enquiring minds want to know.

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Because truth is often stranger than fiction. When has politics ever been open and transparent?

The elected governments no longer serve the people, nor are they answerable to the people. They serve what they believe is in the nations interest, due to the unseen agendas that we theorize about.

We only get 1/3rd of the truth, and even that's mixed with a whole lot of cattle manure.

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Because truth is often stranger than fiction. When has politics ever been open and transparent?

The elected governments no longer serve the people, nor are they answerable to the people. They serve what they believe is in the nations interest, due to the unseen agendas that we theorize about.

We only get 1/3rd of the truth, and even that's mixed with a whole lot of cattle manure.

I agree with you but we were promised a transparent government. It was going to be something new and different. Instead we have Chicago style politics which is some of the worst government this county has to offer.

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About Harrison Schmitt on the Gulf Oil Spill. I would say the following. In our tenure of this planet, we humans have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. But we humans have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soaring passionate intelligence the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity. I think that If we humans do not destroy ourselves, that one day we humans will evolve into a Global form of government.

About Harrison Schmitt on the Gulf Oil Spill. I would say the following. In our tenure of this planet, we humans have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. But we humans have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soaring passionate intelligence the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity. I think that If we humans do not destroy ourselves, that one day we humans will evolve into a Global form of government.

The big problem with Compassion is that there is some crook out there that lacks Compassion who will take advantage of those who have it. That is the problem we need to solve.

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Sorry Byron, but i'm going to be really harsh here.

In our tenure of this planet, we humans have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. But we humans have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soaring passionate intelligence the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity.

I'm a Darwin fanatic. Those traits up until the word 'compassion' are what got us to be the dominant species on earth. Not our 'compassion'. Our hostile attitudes allowed us to let the weak amongst us die, and the strongest survive to pass on those genes. The law of nature, survival of the fittest.

Compassion is a weakness, that allows us today to foster a weakness in our culture. Those with genetic diseases, that normally would not survive, do today and dilute our gene pool, making us less resiliant as a species.

In the human culture today, it isn't the strongest passing on the best genetic material, the weakest that would normally die off are being allowed through 'compassion' to pass on genetic flaws.

I liken our evolution to a battle zone. Triage aka 'compassion', is given to those who have the most chance of survival, and those of most value. We practice it in wartime, and our whole evolution has been a war. Of survival. The weak die.

Compassion doesn't set us apart from animals. They exhibit it also. Just like sadness, love, joy. Lots of animals show that.

But when it comes to the crunch, they leave the weakest behind, for the good of the whole.

That's what humans seem to have forgotten. We aren't growing stronger as a species, we just keep inbreeding genetic flaws that should be left to die out. In nature, they would have been.

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Looking to the future, when our populations grow out of hand, and food becomes a true scarce commodity, we'll see how far our compassion goes then. The choice of feeding your own family enough to sustain them, or sending it off to somewhere else where inevitably, they have no chance of survival.

That is our true nature, individual survival.

What's happening with antibiotics atm? So many people with immuno defficiency diseases, that antibiotics are becoming useless. Yet those diseases get passed on, more generations need antibiotics where the healthy don't.

When the strong "healthy" get sick, the antibiotics are useless, because the disease that should have died out generations ago has been allowed to survive in the weak.

It's cold, but it's the truth. A truth not many will agree with or like. But hey, facts are facts.

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I would say that Greed is the most important trait that drives humans. You may think I am wrong, but consider that greed is not always about money. It could be making sure your family is taken care of. It could be having the time to do charity work. It could be about power. It's being able to get what's most important to you. People may think they are filling a need to help other, but it's a way of taking care of their greed to feel good about what they do.

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I would say that Greed is the most important trait that drives humans. You may think I am wrong, but consider that greed is not always about money. It could be making sure your family is taken care of. It could be having the time to do charity work. It could be about power. It's being able to get what's most important to you. People may think they are filling a need to help other, but it's a way of taking care of their greed to feel good about what they do.

Dena, that is the worst argument I've ever seen.
The super rich elites, having no way of justifying their own greed, simply thrust the word greed onto their critics.

If the pampered elites are driven by greed, so must be the person spooning out the soup in a breadline.

Even a child could tear that argument down.

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I do not fight fascists because I think I can win.
I fight them because they are fascists.
Chris Hedges

A riot is the language of the unheard. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

I would say that Greed is the most important trait that drives humans. You may think I am wrong, but consider that greed is not always about money. It could be making sure your family is taken care of. It could be having the time to do charity work. It could be about power. It's being able to get what's most important to you. People may think they are filling a need to help other, but it's a way of taking care of their greed to feel good about what they do.

Dena, that is the worst argument I've ever seen.
The super rich elites, having no way of justifying their own greed, simply thrust the word greed onto their critics.

If the pampered elites are driven by greed, so must be the person spooning out the soup in a breadline.

Even a child could tear that argument down.

However, you have not so far.
Would you go to work if you didn't need the pay check? That's greed. On the other had if you love your work, that is a form of greed as well. We take a very narrow meaning of the word greed but consider life before money. We were greedy for what ever berries we could gather, the wood for the fire and the animal skins we used to keep warm. The creation of money didn't cause greed, it existed long before money was around. For a long time our greed was limited to what we could carry with us but once we settled down our greed could be greater.

If you know what is important to a person, you know if you will be able to make a deal with them or if their greed will cost you more than you are willing to part with. Sometime try talking to someone and try to figure out what the most important thing is that they want.

Greed has some very bad public relations because nobody wants to admit they are greedy but we all are. If anything it makes us more human instead of less.

By the way, that guy in the soup line may value his time and freedom from responsibility as far more important than money. In this country we have may people willing to help people get off the street but their help is refused because the street people don't want to play by the rules of society. That was how most of them got on the street in the first place. It's like a drug addict or an alcoholic where the most important thing is life is avoiding it.

If you disagree with this argument, then suggest another driving force in life that is more powerful than greed.

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