December 27, 2006: Nigerian gas explosion outcome [very graphic]

[xoxoxoBruce]

Seems to me, it would be better for the world if we did GuyNamedGuy's suggestions for ourselves.

[BobT]

[quote=wolf]Second degree burn injuries are painful. Third degree are more likely to be fatal, but typically the victim feels no pain as all the nerve endings get burned off.

fortunately, long before these victims received the burns you see they died. the inhalation of the superheated gasses, very quickly killed them, then their bodies burned.

btw....my coment on us being fuel was not intended as a coment on this picture. it is more of a comment on our place in the universe.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by DanaC

True Spuck. But in developing countries the standard mo of companies is not to bury any of it.

I suppose the people trying to steal gasoline bear no responsibility for their fate...and survivors of those electrocuted trying to steal electricity should be suing the power company for negligence in not burying the power lines to protect theives from temptation.

Obviously the solution to kids killed by joyriding in stolen cars must to bury all autos when not in use.

[Sundae]

In this time and in this place I am a liberal. Probably even a bleeding heart by other people's definition. But I do have a right-wing family history to draw upon which makes me generally unsympathetic to those who break the law.

BUT.

This is not the US, or the UK. I doubt the people stealing this fuel had the means to obtain it in any way other than to risk their lives. And if they did, and were simply lazy, lazy people who couldn't be arsed to get a job, you can bet they weren't on the government tit which allowed them to opt out of the ratrace.

There are a small percentage of people in every society who will take what is given with both hands, and won't understand the words Hard Work or Self-Esteem if they were tattooed in mirror language on their forehead.

But in countries with no safety net there are also intelligent, hardworking, desperate people who perhaps would benefit the world more if million dollar companies considered people as an investment as well as pipes and tubes. I doubt children in the US or the UK starve to death these days, or die for want of simple healthcare. Until that can be said worldwide, who are we to judge?

[xoxoxoBruce]

From National Geographic website...

Emergency workers were held back from the epicenter of the carnage until the early afternoon by intense heat, melted cars and electrical lines, and crowds of grieving people. Crews battled the blaze for more than 12 hours before getting the flames under control.

Thousands of residents, such as this man washing soot from his face, wandered across the charred landscape searching for missing loved ones.

Although officials say they are not sure what ignited the blaze, locals told the Associated Press (AP) that thieves had originally ruptured the pipeline and had been tapping it for months. On Monday night the thieves left without fully sealing their opening, and people from the neighborhood rushed in with bags and buckets to collect whatever they could from the leaking pipe.

note - The picture of the man washing soot from his face is chrisinhouston's second picture.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by GuyNamedGuy

I've been saying for 20+ years that one of the best things the USA could do for the world (and make a few export $$ at it, too) is develop safe, cheap alternate energy technology for developing countries. This is a good argument WHY. It'd let us manufacture something (a novel idea in itself these days), would lower pressure on non-renewable oil, and would be waaaaaay safer than this sort of thing. Were people going to power cars with what they stole, or cook with it, or what? If it's cooking, there must be a solar or alcohol technology or SOMEthing better than, literally in this case, "cooking with gas".

You mean like these guys?

Actually, Nigeria is a very rich country. It's just that all of the money being made from natural resources seems to be concentrating in the hands of the wealthiest and most corrupt individuals.

[GuyNamedGuy]

Yes - I just bookmarked cellar.org/iotd when I originally found the site, looking for pictures of the "purple polar bear" a few years ago. So when I look at it I get the image right off the bat. Sometimes it can be a jolt. I'm using a laptop - do you have any idea how hard it is to clean barf out of a laptop keyboard?!?

Yeah, from a very quick glance, self.org has sort of the right idea. I don't know anything about them or what their agenda is. I'm older, so I lok at it from a 1970's Mother Earth News angle. But the technology exists to wean a lot of the world demand of oil. I just hope the USA can switch away in time, before the press of events forces it on us in a painful and possibly fatal way to our nation and our characteristic culture. SF writers such as Lester Del Rey and Robert Heinlein have been predicting this sort of thing since about 1940 - and 67 years later we're still sliding towards oblivion. As Heinlein himself put it, we're "Too fat, dumb and happy", like the Romans watching the Visigoths (or whoever it was that sacked the city) approach the city in 410 AD and doing nothing. We've been sitting back doing basically nothing since 1973 - 34 years now!! - while our hard-earned treasure gets shipped overseas to enrich regimes which do not like us or are actively hostile to us. Now look at the mess we're in, basically over oil. How much longer can we go on?

Heinlein makes a very very good point in his short story THE ROADS MUST ROLL (1940). Every tank, jeep, airplane and every ship except subs and aircraft carriers run on oil. If a big war breaks out, oil will be a military priority, just as it was in WW2. The difference is, most folks live in suburbs now, not in the towns themselves as most of them did in 1941. Commute distances are many times what they were in 1941. Streetcar lines, interurban trolley lines and passenger trains are basically extinct now. If we can't get gas, how do we get to work? If we can't get to work, where does our country end up?

Now, we're going to be competing with China and India, the awakening economic giants, for Middle East oil. Great - just what we need. That'll be what kicks off the next big war, I suspect about 2020 or so. Time to get out of importing oil while the getting out's good.


Setting a good example for the world is supposed to be the USA's *JOB*, for heaven's sake. Cutting CO2 emissions can't hurt anything. And we can still make some nice low and medium-tech jobs manufacturing and selling alternate energy technology, and making some export bucks would be really nice these days!

And I do like Thomas Freidman's term for countries, like Nigeria, Saudi arabia, etc. that are rich in natural resources and yet the money never ends up enriching the majority of people - "Kleptocracies".

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

But in countries with no safety net there are also intelligent, hardworking, desperate people who perhaps would benefit the world more if million dollar companies considered people as an investment as well as pipes and tubes.

Well, that does certainly sound wonderful, noble and high-minded. "...considered people as an investment...".

What does it mean?

That "million dollar companies" (it doesn't take much to make a "million dollar company" these days, by the way) should give people money in the hopes that they will "perhaps benefit the world" in some unspecified way?

That's not what the word "investment" usually means. It sounds rather more like "charity", or "casting bread upon the waters".

If that's what you actually mean, you should say so.

[Sundae]

It depends how you define charity.

Cut price fuel programmes in poor areas that the supply lines run through would probably save them money in the long run. Same with sponsoring schools or training.

They are commerical enterprises set up solely to make a profit and I do accept that. But they can probably spend to save in some of the areas they run through - in the same way burying or reinforcing the pipes is a spend to save measure. Only in this case it would mean less corpses, which has to be a good thing surely?

[CaliforniaMama]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

Well, that does certainly sound wonderful, noble and high-minded. "...considered people as an investment...".

What does it mean?

I tend to take that to mean a more wholistic approach by a corporation, making their presence a part of the fabric of a community rather than just running a pipeline through. For instance, employing local labor, developing good will, giving back to the community in some form.

When we improve a community in general, providing jobs, beautifying or making a community safer and more livable, people will tend to have a bit more loyalty to the company.

Paternalistic, yes, we could look at it that way: the grand poobah of the U.S., but it can also be seen as a hand-up and not a hand-out.

[CaliforniaMama]

Originally Posted by GuyNamedGuy

SF writers such as Lester Del Rey and Robert Heinlein have been predicting this sort of thing since about 1940 - and 67 years later we're still sliding towards oblivion. As Heinlein himself put it, we're "Too fat, dumb and happy", like the Romans watching the Visigoths (or whoever it was that sacked the city) approach the city in 410 AD and doing nothing.

Really? And here I thought it was all about politics!

No, seriously. I have always that the major roadblock in progressive development of this sort was because of fights between corporations and politicians who struggle to maintain a balance of power. There doesn't seem to be enough incentive to tip the scale one way or the other, so no one ever seems to do anything dramatic enough to make a difference.

Maybe the laziness is on our part for not pushing more, but from what I see in the press, there is a whole lot of pushing going on from the activist realm, but still no progress.

It amazes me that no major corporation has really invested in being the first out there with some cutting edge technology. Are they looking into it at all? Or do they really just not care?

I know that some of the issues with solar is about cost effectiveness. I think of software programmers and how there are beta testers that have a go at things and work out the kinks. I wonder if the big guys can think in that small of a way to make it all worthwhile?

Or is it still because the power companies don't want to reinvent themselves?

I mean, cars and highways is becoming so old-fashioned in a way, but people don't want to give up their cars and some of us can't. Not because of miles, but because of ability. I am physically incapable of riding a bike, especially with three little kids. So, where are the radical ideas of creating a transport that really works instead of continuing to rely on the same old, same old. Obviously, no one likes mass transit. So come up with something new.

There are hundreds of thousands of brilliant minds out there. Look at the software that is created, the books that are written, the medical advances, the wonderfully creative science fiction that is written!!

So where are the brilliant ideas that are going to save us from mediocrity!!!!!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by GuyNamedGuy

Setting a good example for the world is supposed to be the USA's *JOB*, for heaven's sake.

I don't remember seeing that in the Constitution or hearing it in school. Who determined that is our *JOB*?

Cutting CO2 emissions can't hurt anything. And we can still make some nice low and medium-tech jobs manufacturing and selling alternate energy technology, and making some export bucks would be really nice these days!

Lovely thought, but get real. How long do you think it would be before those "nice low and medium-tech jobs" were exported too? 30days?
And how many of these miracle cures would the third world buy? One, that's all they need to copy or contract a cheaper source.
The problem with the Mother Jones/Whole Earth view, is that it harkens back to a time when the capitalists cared about the country. Long gone, I'm afraid. Now it's the Buck, the whole Buck and nothing but the Buck.

[SPUCK]

I think we saw evolution in action.. The stupid dying and preventing more stupids from occurring.

(with the notable exception of the poor immolated children)

1) This gasoline lake was around long enough for anyone in the area to leave. (say because their house was there)

2) Every single person there was getting the gasoline specifically because it was flammable ! They can't be putting it in cars as how far will any car go on a large baggy of dirt filled gasoline?!

3) They likely wanted it to start cooking fires more easily. (because it is flammable!!) So we have people who are standing in a flammable puddle/s so they can collect something specifically because it lights easily.

4) Not one of those people had to have it. You can't tell me they would've died or starved or ? because they failed to have a pail of gasoline..

They were "stupid" they got culled..

[CaliforniaMama]

sad, but true

[GuyNamedGuy]

As long as the USA wants to claim to be the world leader, to be the example everyone else should follow, then that's when it becomes our *job* to live up to the standards we preach to the world, and set a good example for everyone. Otherwise, we're basically just a bunch of rich thugs with guns, and deserve to get treated as such.

The Constitution is a wonderful document - the Do-It-Yourself Government manual - but it obviously is not the be-all end-all of our government; that's why federal, state and local laws exist to supplement it, and what the Constitution clearly states can still be overridden by local laws. (For example, the Second Amendment clearly states "the right to bear firearms shall not be infringed"..... but any police officer will disagree that that phrase can be interpreted to mean that a criminal waving a firearm around cannot be disarmed while being arrested, or that schools, banks, businesses et al cannot ask people not to bring firearms into their offices. And I agree with the spirit of the Second Amendment! I own guns. I like guns. I think they're fun. But I don't think the Second Amendment gives me unlimited rights in regards to owning and using them, either. Laws in all fifty states uphold that view, contrary to the simple world of the Second Amendment.)

We're doing lots of things nowadays which are not defined in the Constitution, but which become necessary once a nation

a) changes over to a modern technological society and
b) wants (or is forced to be) a world leader.

To give an analogy: there is no law which says parents have to set a good example for their children. Yet everyone wants parents to do so. Everyone complains loudly when parents fail to do so.

Whether we like it or not, we're sort of a parent or older sibling (I hated to say "big brother") to the world. In return for helping out folks, we want/expect the world to sell us unlimited amounts of cheap natural resources - something they're not obligated to do at all. Our "pal"
the Shah of Iran started the whole oil price rise/embargo in 1973, right after the Yom Kippur war. Our good old buddy, the Shah.

Now, we could easily go back to being an isolationist country. We tried this during the 1920s and got World War 2 partially as a result. We tried it during the period from Jan 20 2001 to about 8:50 AM Sep 11 2001 and gee, that didn't work out too well, either, last I checked. With so many dependencies on foreign resources, we're stuck with being

As for the technology, yeah, I guess the jobs will eventually get offshored, but it would sure be nice to at least *try* to bring some manufacturing back into the country. Or at least own some patents for the technology. And there are jobs that would need to stay in the USA - such as washing solar panels, maintaining windmills, and so forth, which would be no doubt undercut by cheap foreign and/or illegal immigrant labor. But at least tens of billions of dollars would not be going overseas to hostile regimes, and we'd cut environmental damage costs which add up in quiet, hidden ways. We forget that $3,000 of a new car is for the platinum in the catalytic converter, for example.

Or we can go down the tubes. It's our choice. This country is no longer really willing to pledge its lives or its fortunes to defend itselfand its interests; when those are gone, the "sacred honor" is a meaningless phrase, a bag of hot air. I want this country to rise to the occasion, to save itself while it still has time, to show it can still work and sacrifice to keep its most precious resources - its independence and freedom. To show the world how it's done, and why the restof the world ought to respedt us. And hey, let's make money while we're at it - I got no problem with that. But there are days where I think I'm the only one left who feels we should sacrifice, or work, or do any-damn-thing, to save ourselves.