actually ... yes... you can smell it too
like theres one part when a t rex roars in your face and you get in the face with water and a blast of air that smells like bad breath. also the chairs vibrate and roll around and you can feel wind and breath and stuff. so yeah, you're occupying space while watching a 3D movie.. but in a 4D movie there are phsycial effects that cause the movie to also occupy your space. it'd be cool if that film thing wasn't just propaganda invading my science museum.
In reply to this comment by pavel_one:
Aren't all 3D movies actually 4D? I just don't see how you can leave that 4th D out.
Are you really saying that it's a 3D movie with smell-o-vision? The awesome of shale gas in a 3D movie with stench is mind-boggling.

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
yeah yeah ok... sure
but the oil and natural gas barons who fund this tea bagging nonsense publicly acknowledge science and the fossil origins of fossil fuels.

example: i live in on top of a previously impossible to tap natural gas shale. they just discovered how to tap the shit out of that gas. the shale is a huge deal here and has brought a lot development and growth to my adorable little cowtown in the last 3 years or so. so much so in fact, that the natural gas companies funded massive renovations to our science museum. so a room in the museum is now dedicated to the science of natural gas. one of the attractions is a 10 minute long 4D movie about how natural gas got underneath fort worth, and how these genius's are getting it out. the movie takes you back in time all the way to the big bang and fast forwards to different periods, clearly acknowledging that the earth is far far far far older than 6,000 years and that god didn't necessarily have anything to do with it.

soooo, i understand that shaping and funding a movement that denies climate change is good for them, but a wonderful justification for denying the science is the godly origins of the earth... but at the same time they're spending thousands to educate an entire city on the ancientness and godlessness of fossil fuels.....

so nothing about this fits. i've never met a teabagger (and i'm probably more inclined to meet more teabaggers than most of the sift because of my geography) that 1. didn't deny the scientific origins of the universe 2. didn't deny climate change and when hard pressed with facts, didn't resort to "jesus is coming back" and 3. didn't looooooove the shit out of some fossil fuels ...... are they really really just too stupid to notice that the circle doesn't close? this makes me sad.

or is it just a cultural thing?? like, texas has been an oil rich state for over a century now. oil is just kind of embedded in our culture and is just accepted as something positive and a point of pride. and the discussion doesn't go much further than that. i grew up in a city who's football mascot was a fucking oil rig. when i think of symbols that mean texas to me, i see an oil rig. oil=texas. texas=home. home=good. done. thought circle complete. i hope that's it. and it's not just outrageous stupidity and a short few years of brain washing alone. i'm sad.

>> ^RFlagg:

Because Jesus is coming again soon to rapture them away so they don't care what they do to the earth, besides god gave them dominion over the Earth to rape and pillage it as they please. They don't believe in anthropological global warming anyhow since they don't believe in science, though some of them believe in peak oil which is why they think we need to drill "our own oil" by international companies selling it on the international market... Also he put the oil in the earth already made along with fossils, and accelerated light so that a galaxy 12 billion light years away can be seen now even though the universe is only 6,500 years old, and all that other prof that he had nothing to do with the creation of the universe. It is that whole god chose the foolish things to confound the wise... and he hid things from the wise and learned and revealed them to children... and all the other excuses they have for explaining such things.
>> ^peggedbea:
i'm super fascinated with how evolution denying teabaggers justify their raging boner for fossil fuels.

Aren't all 3D movies actually 4D? I just don't see how you can leave that 4th D out.
Are you really saying that it's a 3D movie with smell-o-vision? The awesome of shale gas in a 3D movie with stench is mind-boggling.

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
yeah yeah ok... sure
but the oil and natural gas barons who fund this tea bagging nonsense publicly acknowledge science and the fossil origins of fossil fuels.

example: i live in on top of a previously impossible to tap natural gas shale. they just discovered how to tap the shit out of that gas. the shale is a huge deal here and has brought a lot development and growth to my adorable little cowtown in the last 3 years or so. so much so in fact, that the natural gas companies funded massive renovations to our science museum. so a room in the museum is now dedicated to the science of natural gas. one of the attractions is a 10 minute long 4D movie about how natural gas got underneath fort worth, and how these genius's are getting it out. the movie takes you back in time all the way to the big bang and fast forwards to different periods, clearly acknowledging that the earth is far far far far older than 6,000 years and that god didn't necessarily have anything to do with it.

soooo, i understand that shaping and funding a movement that denies climate change is good for them, but a wonderful justification for denying the science is the godly origins of the earth... but at the same time they're spending thousands to educate an entire city on the ancientness and godlessness of fossil fuels.....

so nothing about this fits. i've never met a teabagger (and i'm probably more inclined to meet more teabaggers than most of the sift because of my geography) that 1. didn't deny the scientific origins of the universe 2. didn't deny climate change and when hard pressed with facts, didn't resort to "jesus is coming back" and 3. didn't looooooove the shit out of some fossil fuels ...... are they really really just too stupid to notice that the circle doesn't close? this makes me sad.

or is it just a cultural thing?? like, texas has been an oil rich state for over a century now. oil is just kind of embedded in our culture and is just accepted as something positive and a point of pride. and the discussion doesn't go much further than that. i grew up in a city who's football mascot was a fucking oil rig. when i think of symbols that mean texas to me, i see an oil rig. oil=texas. texas=home. home=good. done. thought circle complete. i hope that's it. and it's not just outrageous stupidity and a short few years of brain washing alone. i'm sad.

>> ^RFlagg:

Because Jesus is coming again soon to rapture them away so they don't care what they do to the earth, besides god gave them dominion over the Earth to rape and pillage it as they please. They don't believe in anthropological global warming anyhow since they don't believe in science, though some of them believe in peak oil which is why they think we need to drill "our own oil" by international companies selling it on the international market... Also he put the oil in the earth already made along with fossils, and accelerated light so that a galaxy 12 billion light years away can be seen now even though the universe is only 6,500 years old, and all that other prof that he had nothing to do with the creation of the universe. It is that whole god chose the foolish things to confound the wise... and he hid things from the wise and learned and revealed them to children... and all the other excuses they have for explaining such things.
>> ^peggedbea:
i'm super fascinated with how evolution denying teabaggers justify their raging boner for fossil fuels.

It might be just the local tea baggers here.
To be fair they haven't used the Jesus is coming soon as an excuse to do as they will, but it is something the locals seem to believe. After the election of Obama they actually thought that perhaps that will make Jesus come back sooner...I didn't realize god was so weak that his planned time for sending his son back could be altered by the actions of man, then again they seem to think god is to weak to do his job of convicting people of sins and punishing them for them, so they have to do that work for him... Anyhow, Jesus coming back soon seems to be a common thought, so I extended that to them as an excuse for using fossil fuels.
Very few of the tea baggers I know will acknowledge that global warming has anything to do with human activity. Those that do seem to think it is a very small nearly unmeasurable part of it, with cow farts having far more effect.
None of the tea baggers I know acknowledge the scientific origins of the universe, they may not be young Earth creationist, but they all are of the "design speaks of a designer" mentality. Of the old Earth creationist locally, some go with the gap theory, but most go with a day to god is as a thousand years or more to us. I personally don't know anyone who is a geocentrist.
None of the tea baggers here, home to people have a "MASTERS DEGREE IN COMMUNICATION" run for Stark County Treasurer would seem to believe that the movement is funded by any big companies, and that it is purely a grass roots movement.
Nothing I've seen of the tea baggers on the sift or news makes sense though. I just can't work out their thought process without resorting to religious dogma, and the firm belief that the far right Republican's are the only true Christians and the only ones who should be elected.
I was never a tea bagger, but I used to drink deep of the same sort of kool-aid and glad I am out of that movement now. So it may be indeed a cultural issue... We may just have more idiots incapable of independent thought here. I have been a sad panda for them for some time.

>> ^peggedbea:

yeah yeah ok... sure
but the oil and natural gas barons who fund this tea bagging nonsense publicly acknowledge science and the fossil origins of fossil fuels.
example: i live in on top of a previously impossible to tap natural gas shale. they just discovered how to tap the shit out of that gas. the shale is a huge deal here and has brought a lot development and growth to my adorable little cowtown in the last 3 years or so. so much so in fact, that the natural gas companies funded massive renovations to our science museum. so a room in the museum is now dedicated to the science of natural gas. one of the attractions is a 10 minute long 4D movie about how natural gas got underneath fort worth, and how these genius's are getting it out. the movie takes you back in time all the way to the big bang and fast forwards to different periods, clearly acknowledging that the earth is far far far far older than 6,000 years and that god didn't necessarily have anything to do with it.
soooo, i understand that shaping and funding a movement that denies climate change is good for them, but a wonderful justification for denying the science is the godly origins of the earth... but at the same time they're spending thousands to educate an entire city on the ancientness and godlessness of fossil fuels.....
so nothing about this fits. i've never met a teabagger (and i'm probably more inclined to meet more teabaggers than most of the sift because of my geography) that 1. didn't deny the scientific origins of the universe 2. didn't deny climate change and when hard pressed with facts, didn't resort to "jesus is coming back" and 3. didn't looooooove the shit out of some fossil fuels ...... are they really really just too stupid to notice that the circle doesn't close? this makes me sad.
or is it just a cultural thing?? like, texas has been an oil rich state for over a century now. oil is just kind of embedded in our culture and is just accepted as something positive and a point of pride. and the discussion doesn't go much further than that. i grew up in a city who's football mascot was a fucking oil rig. when i think of symbols that mean texas to me, i see an oil rig. oil=texas. texas=home. home=good. done. thought circle complete. i hope that's it. and it's not just outrageous stupidity and a short few years of brain washing alone. i'm sad.
>> ^RFlagg:
Because Jesus is coming again soon to rapture them away so they don't care what they do to the earth, besides god gave them dominion over the Earth to rape and pillage it as they please. They don't believe in anthropological global warming anyhow since they don't believe in science, though some of them believe in peak oil which is why they think we need to drill "our own oil" by international companies selling it on the international market... Also he put the oil in the earth already made along with fossils, and accelerated light so that a galaxy 12 billion light years away can be seen now even though the universe is only 6,500 years old, and all that other prof that he had nothing to do with the creation of the universe. It is that whole god chose the foolish things to confound the wise... and he hid things from the wise and learned and revealed them to children... and all the other excuses they have for explaining such things.
>> ^peggedbea:
i'm super fascinated with how evolution denying teabaggers justify their raging boner for fossil fuels.

yeah yeah ok... sure
but the oil and natural gas barons who fund this tea bagging nonsense publicly acknowledge science and the fossil origins of fossil fuels.

example: i live in on top of a previously impossible to tap natural gas shale. they just discovered how to tap the shit out of that gas. the shale is a huge deal here and has brought a lot development and growth to my adorable little cowtown in the last 3 years or so. so much so in fact, that the natural gas companies funded massive renovations to our science museum. so a room in the museum is now dedicated to the science of natural gas. one of the attractions is a 10 minute long 4D movie about how natural gas got underneath fort worth, and how these genius's are getting it out. the movie takes you back in time all the way to the big bang and fast forwards to different periods, clearly acknowledging that the earth is far far far far older than 6,000 years and that god didn't necessarily have anything to do with it.

soooo, i understand that shaping and funding a movement that denies climate change is good for them, but a wonderful justification for denying the science is the godly origins of the earth... but at the same time they're spending thousands to educate an entire city on the ancientness and godlessness of fossil fuels.....

so nothing about this fits. i've never met a teabagger (and i'm probably more inclined to meet more teabaggers than most of the sift because of my geography) that 1. didn't deny the scientific origins of the universe 2. didn't deny climate change and when hard pressed with facts, didn't resort to "jesus is coming back" and 3. didn't looooooove the shit out of some fossil fuels ...... are they really really just too stupid to notice that the circle doesn't close? this makes me sad.

or is it just a cultural thing?? like, texas has been an oil rich state for over a century now. oil is just kind of embedded in our culture and is just accepted as something positive and a point of pride. and the discussion doesn't go much further than that. i grew up in a city who's football mascot was a fucking oil rig. when i think of symbols that mean texas to me, i see an oil rig. oil=texas. texas=home. home=good. done. thought circle complete. i hope that's it. and it's not just outrageous stupidity and a short few years of brain washing alone. i'm sad.

>> ^RFlagg:

Because Jesus is coming again soon to rapture them away so they don't care what they do to the earth, besides god gave them dominion over the Earth to rape and pillage it as they please. They don't believe in anthropological global warming anyhow since they don't believe in science, though some of them believe in peak oil which is why they think we need to drill "our own oil" by international companies selling it on the international market... Also he put the oil in the earth already made along with fossils, and accelerated light so that a galaxy 12 billion light years away can be seen now even though the universe is only 6,500 years old, and all that other prof that he had nothing to do with the creation of the universe. It is that whole god chose the foolish things to confound the wise... and he hid things from the wise and learned and revealed them to children... and all the other excuses they have for explaining such things.
>> ^peggedbea:
i'm super fascinated with how evolution denying teabaggers justify their raging boner for fossil fuels.

Who needs solar?

They always said natural gas was the way to heat water.

Re. the account on the other video.

"In the 50's, the Soviets were prospecting for natural gas in Turkmenistan, and accidentally lit this 60m-diameter crater on fire. It's been burning ever since."

It was actually 1971 and lit on purpose to keep the gasses from killing everything around according to Wikipedia.

"In the 50's, the Soviets were prospecting for natural gas in Turkmenistan, and accidentally lit this 60m-diameter crater on fire. It's been burning ever since."

1970s and lit on purpose to keep the gasses from killing everything around.

Spot on. Energy independence means no more oil. Which means more domestic electricity. Electric cars. Natural gas, maybe. It means growing up.

Ah yes--The Oil Pollution Act-- that's it.

here is some of the transcript from the above link:

Steve Yerrid is a trial lawyer who was appointed as a special counselor to the state of Florida last week by Governor Charlie Crist. He will advise the governor about legal issues related to the spill. And Daniel Farber is director of the environmental law program at the University of California, Berkeley's Law School.

Steve Yerrid, let me start with you. Can the government, under current law, compel BP to start an escrow fund?

STEVE YERRID, special counsel, State of Florida: Well, Ray, we're clearly on new land right now, a frontier that was created after the Valdez oil spell -- spill -- excuse me.

And what I think they're going to do is premise it upon the -- the responsible party connotation and the Oil Pollution Act, which was packed -- passed in 1990, which makes a responsible party liable for all the damages and the cleanup.

What they want to do now is front-end that and put it in a trust fund to get away from BP looking like an oversight entity and put it on the government, a government we can trust a lot better than we can trust an oil company..................

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^longde:
Congress passed a law in the early 90s giving the President the authority to do what he has, with respect to oil companies in this situation. I can't remember the name of that legislation, but what Obama did is perfectly legal.

Dunno about that, it seems to fall squarely on the shoulders of the MMS regulatory body, and then the courts...but I could be completely mistaken. linky.
It seems the MMS actually encourages people to get deep sea leases (all deep water is owned by the federal government). The MMS and the federal government get huge sums of money from these leases. This seems like an institutional failure in addition to all the other aspects. The MMS encouraged leases of offshore drilling. It now accounts for over a quarter of all domestic natural gas and crude oil. At this point, saying "lets shut it all down" would basically destroy us.
Interesting side note, the department of energy was founded in 1977 by Carter to try and purse an end to reliance of foreign oil. However, MMS falls under the department of the interior, not energy. Which is doubly insulting in their dubious leasing habits, as the DPI chief concern is the conservation of natural icons of the US. The fact that they get money, and encourage risky practices and glide over regulation points them out to be a blaring failure of a regulation body.
The legislation you are talking about is the President's role in moratorium. He has the ability to susped activities and such. He does not have direct arbiter, nor enforcer of penalties. Both he and congress have an annual moratoria responsibility. States also hold a veto power to a certain extent over the activities of off shore drilling. No where does there seem to be a piece of legislation that says the president can do what he has done. And as such, there is also no way in which to appeal to a different power, there simply isn't a system setup to handle this action.
The president has taken an unprecedented action at present (zing!)
(o and by the by, I could be completely wrong about this and the president may have some obscure power to do it, and while that is "good" in a certain way, it also seems bad to me to have the president involved with affairs that should be left to the courts...that is why we have them! We may trust this president with that power, but what happens when our "Nero" comes to power?)

Pretty cool relevant link: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/jan-june10/oil2_06-14.html

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/js/pap/embed.js?news01n408dqee7"></script>

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^longde:
Congress passed a law in the early 90s giving the President the authority to do what he has, with respect to oil companies in this situation. I can't remember the name of that legislation, but what Obama did is perfectly legal.

Dunno about that, it seems to fall squarely on the shoulders of the MMS regulatory body, and then the courts...but I could be completely mistaken. linky.
It seems the MMS actually encourages people to get deep sea leases (all deep water is owned by the federal government). The MMS and the federal government get huge sums of money from these leases. This seems like an institutional failure in addition to all the other aspects. The MMS encouraged leases of offshore drilling. It now accounts for over a quarter of all domestic natural gas and crude oil. At this point, saying "lets shut it all down" would basically destroy us.
Interesting side note, the department of energy was founded in 1977 by Carter to try and purse an end to reliance of foreign oil. However, MMS falls under the department of the interior, not energy. Which is doubly insulting in their dubious leasing habits, as the DPI chief concern is the conservation of natural icons of the US. The fact that they get money, and encourage risky practices and glide over regulation points them out to be a blaring failure of a regulation body.
The legislation you are talking about is the President's role in moratorium. He has the ability to susped activities and such. He does not have direct arbiter, nor enforcer of penalties. Both he and congress have an annual moratoria responsibility. States also hold a veto power to a certain extent over the activities of off shore drilling. No where does there seem to be a piece of legislation that says the president can do what he has done. And as such, there is also no way in which to appeal to a different power, there simply isn't a system setup to handle this action.
The president has taken an unprecedented action at present (zing!)
(o and by the by, I could be completely wrong about this and the president may have some obscure power to do it, and while that is "good" in a certain way, it also seems bad to me to have the president involved with affairs that should be left to the courts...that is why we have them! We may trust this president with that power, but what happens when our "Nero" comes to power?)

>> ^longde:

Congress passed a law in the early 90s giving the President the authority to do what he has, with respect to oil companies in this situation. I can't remember the name of that legislation, but what Obama did is perfectly legal.


Dunno about that, it seems to fall squarely on the shoulders of the MMS regulatory body, and then the courts...but I could be completely mistaken. linky.

It seems the MMS actually encourages people to get deep sea leases (all deep water is owned by the federal government). The MMS and the federal government get huge sums of money from these leases. This seems like an institutional failure in addition to all the other aspects. The MMS encouraged leases of offshore drilling. It now accounts for over a quarter of all domestic natural gas and crude oil. At this point, saying "lets shut it all down" would basically destroy us.

Interesting side note, the department of energy was founded in 1977 by Carter to try and purse an end to reliance of foreign oil. However, MMS falls under the department of the interior, not energy. Which is doubly insulting in their dubious leasing habits, as the DPI chief concern is the conservation of natural icons of the US. The fact that they get money, and encourage risky practices and glide over regulation points them out to be a blaring failure of a regulation body.

The legislation you are talking about is the President's role in moratorium. He has the ability to susped activities and such. He does not have direct arbiter, nor enforcer of penalties. Both he and congress have an annual moratoria responsibility. States also hold a veto power to a certain extent over the activities of off shore drilling. No where does there seem to be a piece of legislation that says the president can do what he has done. And as such, there is also no way in which to appeal to a different power, there simply isn't a system setup to handle this action.

The president has taken an unprecedented action at present (zing!)

(o and by the by, I could be completely wrong about this and the president may have some obscure power to do it, and while that is "good" in a certain way, it also seems bad to me to have the president involved with affairs that should be left to the courts...that is why we have them! We may trust this president with that power, but what happens when our "Nero" comes to power?)

Frankly, I don't even see a need to move to nuclear - let alone solar/wind/tidal. The U.S. has enough oil and coal to supply its own energy needs for the next 40 to 60 years. We've got the technology to use fossil fuels cleanly and make very little mess when getting them. And it is far cheaper than any other form of energy. Why deny ourselves the use of this cheap, efficient, effective resource?

Nuclear is fine - but the environmental lobby doesn't want nuclear power plants and litigates the pants off anyone who tries to build one. Well - the same environuts don't want wind farms either. They don't want solar farms. They don't want tidal farms. They don't want anything at all. You name it. They oppose it.

Frankly it is time we stopped giving any degree of credibility or attention to environmentalist groups who object to energy policy. Their demands are unreasonable and unrealistic. Let's work on Solar/Wind/Tidal - but let's not go there until it is ready. And all objective analysis indicates that these 'green' energy forms are NOT ready to do squat. We need fossil, and we're going to need it big time for the next 50 years so let's go get it and stop listening to the dummies who don't like it.

Sadly - one of those dummies is Obama and he's shamelessly using the spill to try and shut down oil and coal right now. Hope you like $10 a gallon gas, 45% increases in your electrical bill, and 100% increases in your natural gas costs - because that's what Obama has planned for you with his dumb@$$ 'energy policy'. And get ready for business to pass the cost on to you for the increases in all their costs. Hooray for Democrat policy. "No taxes for the poor..." Yeah, right...

>> ^blankfist:

Do you mind citing?


I did some figurin' using ANWR's numbers, back when the Right was making a big stink about it, since it's the favorite one to get trotted out. At peak output (which it wouldn't reach for more than a decade if we opened it now), it would account for less than a million barrels a day -- ~0.5 to 1.0% of total global oil production (which is ~85 million barrels a day) and <5% of (current) US oil consumption (~20 million barrels a day).

If it were possible to exhume all of ANWR's estimated oil (7 billion barrels) in one go, it would last the United States one year.

So that's just ANWR--but what about all of the other off-limits places? Here's the EIA's report. In short: If the outer continental shelf were opened now, nothing much would change through 2030. There's an estimated (undiscovered) total of 50 billion barrels of oil that are currently off limits to drilling. Total US production would be 1.6% higher than the reference (no OCS drilling) projection for 2017-2030, and 3% in 2030. Finally,

Although a significant volume of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and natural gas resources is added in the OCS access case, conversion of those resources to production would require both time and money. In addition, the average field size in the Pacific and Atlantic regions tends to be smaller than the average in the Gulf of Mexico, implying that a significant portion of the additional resource would not be economically attractive to develop at the reference case prices.

More numbers: In 2008 the entire world produced ~26 billion barrels of oil and the US produced about 1.8 billion--which will stay essentially flat through 2030 even if we opened ANWR and the OCS to drilling.

The US's total proven oil reserves are about 21 billion barrels--maybe a total of ~120 if you go with estimated undiscovered oil--compared to 1200 billion (proven) for the entire world.

Sorry for some inconsistent numbers: Figures are from 2007, 2008, and 2009, so there are some inconsistencies there. I think I properly kept barrels per day lumped together and barrels per year lumped together.

But anyway: The US has a total of less than two percent of the world's proven oil reserves. We currently produce around 5-6% of oil. Oil is a commodity and gets sold on the world market; more than a fifth of US oil is exported even while we're using 4x as much as we produce. Opening protected areas to drilling would have a marginal impact on total US oil production and an even more marginal impact on world oil production.

Oil reserves.
ANWR oil reserves. Sorry for Wikipedia links--you can follow their citations.

Edit: I used this page too.

I'm pretty sure the CEO can't take the brunt of the blame for this.

The rig itself is owned by a contracting company called Transocean, who admitted anomalies in the pressure readings and the valve for shutting off the well - Transocean also owns all the equipment for the rig.

Another contracted firm, Halliburton, had done work on cementing drilling areas to prevent natural gas from escaping just hours before the blast, Halliburton were also responsible for cementing the well to secure it after it had been drilled.

Most of the workers on the rig/BP are contracted in from other firms, this was on a recommendation from ex-prime minister Gordon Brown.

Very few of the core workers or people involved on the rig appear to be actual BP staff, the majority being workers from Transocean and other firms. Yet it seems people are more angry at the sticker on the product than the actual components.

Yes, we get it, you're pissed. But try and be pissed at the collective failure rather than just one scapegoat figurehead pencil pushing numbers man.

>> ^Trancecoach:

Of course, Haliburton is in the top three of the most heinous corporations in the world and they are behind this nightmare.


Same themes, same players, over and over and over again. Reminds me of a documentary I saw last month called Gasland.

http://videosift.com/video/Gasland-An-Expos-of-US-Natural-Gas-Drilling-Practices