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Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Who is to Blame?

On April 20, 2010, an explosion rocked the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform, owned by Transocean LTD and leased to BP. Following the explosion, the platform collapsed into the Gulf of Mexico and oil began to leak out. Since then, despite repeated attempts by BP to contain the leak, oil has continued to flow for six weeks now, and may continue to flow out for another several months before it can finally be stopped. This is an economic and environmental catastrophe which will cost billions of dollars to contain and clean up and will cost millions of innocent lives and cause enormous if not irreparable damage to delicate coastal and oceanic ecosystems.

Who is to blame for this?

Repeat after me:

“I am responsible for the oil spill in the gulf.”

Let’s try this again. It might work better if you are looking into a mirror, directly at yourself. Look into your eyes. Now repeat after me:

“I am personally responsible for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.”

How did that feel? Honesty frequently feels good even when it’s a painful truth.

It is understandably easy to be very upset about the oil which is streaming out of the remains of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. People are outraged. People are angry. People are looking for whom to blame, and finding lots of candidates.

Some blame Barack Obama or his administration for its response, saying that Obama should have been quicker to the scene, done more early, taken direct control from BP, or had more of a contingency plan in place beforehand.

Some blame George W. Bush for limiting the ability or desire of government agencies to regulate and ensure the safety of offshore oil drilling platforms.

Some blame BP or platform owners Transocean LTD, saying that they had lapses in their safety policies, didn’t properly maintain their platform, or should have had better planning around how to plug a leak should a spill of this nature occur.

There may be some truth in some of those claims — certainly it will be worthwhile to examine the causes of the explosion which started this, and find ways to increase safety in the future. But the truth is:

The oil industry has a terrific track record at drilling for oil in both shallow and deep water with an incredibly low rate of accidents. We have been drilling in the Gulf of Mexico for five decades, give or take, with hundreds of platforms in operation at any point in time for years and years. Prior to this there was only one notable incident. One. (Ixtoc I, 1979) That is an astounding achievement which the oil industry should rightfully be proud of.

For those of you who would argue that more should have been done before the spill either in terms of preparations or in terms of maintenance or in terms of a more redundant design, post facto those sound like reasonable arguments. Prior to this disaster, though, it would have been a much more difficult argument.

It is in the nature of a corporation to maximize profits to every extent possible within existing government regulations. Anything else is uncompetitive and will generally lead to the failure of the corporation at the hands of its competitors. Any expectation of different behavior on the part of a corporation, regardless of the industry or specific situation, is irrational and unsupported by both economic principle and history.

Did the corporations fail us? In this one instance, maybe. But on a grand scale, across years and across all of the offshore platforms around our coastlines, the safety record is excellent. We as a people can not be disappointed in light of one failure with a decades long impeccable record.

Did our regulatory bodies fail us? Maybe. But again, the track record that they had to work with — the history which regulators observed for their entire working careers — was spotless. That this is a terrible event is sure, but that it is the result of lax regulations or incompetent regulators is difficult to argue.

The bottom line is this: Any venture as grand and complicated as building an offshore platform, positioning it a mile above the ocean, sinking a line to the bottom of the sea, and drilling several miles into the ocean floor will come with an error rate. There will be accidents. There will be disasters. Any other expectation is nonsensical. Any belief either prior to or after this accident that it is possible to have an oil industry and have a 100% safety record with no spills, is foolhardy. The universe simply does not work that way. Every machine, every system, every safety mechanism, every designed redundancy will fail eventually. Accidents will happen. We can not, regardless of how much we are able to learn from studying the causes of this accident in detail, expect a markedly better safety record than that which the oil industry as a whole has already delivered to us in the last half century. We should be thankful for the years of calm prior to this storm which make it seem by comparison that much more of a disaster.

And that brings me to my ultimate point. We as a nation allowed drilling in the gulf. We as a people are dependent on oil for our energy and transportation needs. We have chosen this path. If you live off the grid, ride your bike to work, and don’t buy any products which are transported, then your hands are clean. For everyone else, myself included, we share the blame for this accident. We share the blame for this environmental disaster. And we will continue to share the blame for future disasters as long as we support oil drilling either in the name of energy, or jobs, or national security. Certainly some people were vocal supporters of offshore drilling while other people argued against it, but we as a people chose this course, and to a person we benefited in some way however small from it.

Maybe today we don’t have other choices. I am going to drive to work today and burn gasoline to do it. But in the future we have plenty of choices — solar, wind, wave, geothermal, nuclear, possibly fission and other exotic forms eventually. And our resolve today, our determination today, and yes, our ability to understand that we all share the blame for the consequences of our mutual choices, will determine whether that future is near or far.

But near or far, an oil free future awaits us because there simply is not an infinite amount of oil in the ground. And until we reach that day, until we make that day arrive, we will all collectively share the blame for wildlife killed in oil spills. When you watch video of a bird covered in oil and fighting to survive, or you have to change your vacation plans to avoid an oil soaked beach, just remember — you share the blame for this accident.

Welcome

Welcome to the blog pages of Gregorivs Publishing LLC.

One these pages you will find commentary and notices about upcoming books, debates and discussions on existing books, quesiton and conversations about what books should be forthcoming in the future and more. We will also have random observations and thoughts on all manner of subjects because, what the heck.

We hope you find something interesting here, and we encourage you to participate by commenting with your views on the various posts.

Is Korean School Really the Solution?

It seems even President Obama can find time to squeeze in a quick read such as "Outliers The Story of Success" by Malcom Gladwell.

In Outliers Gladwell outlines a few theories about why people succeed and how successful traits may be passed down culturally. One essential aspect is that success is bred of ability, which in turn is directly related to the number of hours spent in study and practice.

The book is enjoyable to read and provides great insight into a number of institutions that have thus far avoided the scrutiny of modern science.

You can find it at Amazon Here: Outliers: The Story Of Success

Gladwell clearly makes the case that where success is concerned, the more effort the better. Obama reflects that message in his somewhat stoic approach towards the American education system.

"We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed for when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day. That calendar may have once made sense, but today it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. Our children — listen to this — our children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea every year. That's no way to prepare them for a 21st-century economy." - Obama

That excerpt and more can be read in his full speech here.

For those who find Obama's comment towards America's farmers a little offensive, it is a direct reference to the Gladwell book, and not a critique of their intelligence.

Before going into the actual effectiveness of the South Korean system let's take a quick look at Obama's math. He said that South Korean High School students are in school for a month longer than their U.S. counterparts. That month he's referring to would be their shorter summer vacation, which is at most 2 months long.

What he conveniently left out of his speech was mention of the length of a Korean School day. In High School students begin class at 8pm and go until 5pm. If you happen to be passing by a High School at that time you may see a couple dozen students leaving. They are not attending the extra classes provided by the High School, because they are more privileged and are going to a private academy, or Hagwon. (학원) Additionally most High Schools have classes on every other saturday.

Even without any calculations it's easy to see that the standard 8am-2pm for American High Schools, plus some time for homework, falls well short of the standard South Korean 12 hour day. Imagine adding 6 months to the American scConsidering that some Middle Schools have similarly demanding schedules it's hard to understand how the students survive, and why their parents encourage this kind of lifestyle.

For more understanding of that culture, check out a copy of Outliers.

So how effective is the Korean Education system?

Korea boasts a very high High School graduation rate. From there it's all downhill. Even the best of the best, Koreans that make it from a relatively poorer country to the Ivy League dream schools in America, students who are used to putting in endless hours of studying, drop out of school. For now let's not go into the toll their demanding schedule takes on their health. It is infuriating.

We'll save an examination of the culture that encourages this system for another time.

These recent generations of Korean High School students have been robbed of their youth and been given nothing in return. Thankfully most of Obama's ideas about education are better than his notion that the U.S. should be more like South Korea.

Obama has an opportunity

First, let me say it is amazing that Obama got BP to pledge 20 billion dollars to the spill clean-up. Given their legal cover, it is believable that BP could have been limited to millions of dollars of damages by existing laws. But, rather than try to fight liability, or limit their liability as much as possible, BP pledged 20 billion dollars to the clean-up effort, suspended dividend payments to shareholders, and explicitly did so without limiting future liability. They could easily be on the hook for another 20 billion dollars or 40 billion dollars or more. And they're paying at least 100 million dollars to out of work oil workers who are idle because of the moritorium on offshore drilling. Overall, this is a huge win for the administration, a terrific accomplishment, and something which should not be belittled.

What did BP get? They got the administration to not seek further sanctions and not berate them in public as much. This is probably worth more than $20 billion in shareholder value. But that's about all they got.

So what do I see in this?

First, the administration has pretty decent negotiating skills. This is refreshing. Something like this is not simply hammered out in a meeting, and it is not forced down the throat of a corporation like BP without long, two way conversations, almost certainly through lawyers and high level negotiators. Something like this takes time and patience behind the scenes to work out.

Second, Obama is looking for good solutions to this problem where they can be found, even if they are difficult or take time. This is also refreshing.

So where would I like Obama to go with this?

Well, we know from his campaign that he is a powerful public speaker who can engender passion in his audience. We also know that he has patience to work behind the scenes to find delicate solutions to complex problems. I would like to see him use both of these skills to coelesce the outrage the public feels at this oil spill into a meaningful, long term change in our energy strategy.

We need to end our dependance on foreign oil. Heck, we need to end our dependance on oil and fossile fuels in general, regardless of their source. That's not something that can be done in the short term, and it's not something that can be done in the medium term without lots of drive and dedication, both public and private. But in this disaster, Obama has the opportunity to create a uniting initiative around a new energy strategy the way Kennedy did around the trip to the moon. Obama could put out an audacious goal (along the lines of reduce fossile fuel consumption to 10% of current levels within 15 years) and then outline a strategy for getting there.

Now is the time to be audacious. Now is the time to inspire people. Now is the time to change the course of history.

7 New Books Released 001

Gregorivs is proud to announce this is the first release of books that will be posted in the blog. We look forward to sharing more newly released books with you frequently! Please enjoy the beautiful covers. To find more information about the book, including image attributions, please click on it anywhere.

7) Dracula - Bram Stoker

6) Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

5) The Age of Reason - Thomas Paine

4) The Vehement Flame - Margaret Deland

3) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

2) Robert Elsemere - Mrs. Humphrey Ward

1) The Memoires of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

That's all for now! We hope you enjoyed this release and look forward to more books in the future!

Is Tony Hayward Superman?

The unabashed criticism of BP's point man is insulting to the American citizens who were wronged by the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Don't imagine for a minute that they believe Tony Hayward has the power to come down from his castle in the sky and fix their problem. His $20 billion dollar package, which is an amazing deal when you consider his company is still under litigation, has been spurned by Republicans as a shakedown and sidelined by Democrats as not enough.

It's more than any other company in history has voluntarily given to help people.

Americans know that the politicians are trying to distract them from the fact that no one can successfully take responsibility for this crisis. That is, no one group can offer a game changing solution. Instead we play the endless blame game to entertain the public and fuel their anger.

It works well enough for a while. But look at this picture. It belongs to Nasa Goddard Photo and Video.

The oil spill is just massive and everyone in every market will be affected. It won't be long before anger turns to realization that this is not a problem one group can fix. Politicians just want to hold out until that happens and hope the other guy looks more guilty. The reality that no one can say is that we as a people allowed this to happen. We as people need to achieve a certain level of risk. It's not only testosterone jacked men behind the wheel. Drilling for Oil in situations beyond our control is just one expression of our desire to take risk as a people.

We know this. We just don't want to accept it, yet.

Highways In the Sky? Jetpacks are the future?

It happened again. Jetpacks made the news. There have been lots of false starts over the years with groups hyping up their hover cars only to generate massive disappointment during the development cycle.

Martin looks like they're about to change the game with their jetpack entering the commercial market later this year. http://www.martinjetpack.com/the-martin-jetpack.aspx

Costing around the price of an expensive car at market entry time makes it easy to believe that in mass production lots of people could afford to get one. And it flies for 30 minutes.

Well then let's indulge our fantasies and imaginations for a few minutes. Let's consider what it would be like if everyone was flying around on Jetpacks, to and from work, leisurely wafting across the country, and scaring the hell out of avian life.

A big question I have is: how the hell will we know where to go? A road makes it pretty obvious, signs help, street lights are good, speed limit signs are worthless, but all combined it makes a pretty effective system of transportation.

I'm pretty sure the only way I want to consider flight by jet pack being organized is by having everyone wear digital glasses that show you where you can go. Take this modified picture, originally from Paul

This is my interpretation of what that acceptable flight path will look like- while you are okay. The minute you screw up though and deviate from the path the whole world goes crazy with flashing neon lights and signs and people shouting and pointing at where you need to be.

GPS is getting a big upgrade as well. Perhaps it would be more prudent to simply extend GPS a little further to incorporate the 3d topography of a city. Then we can have our computer guided flying cars take us where we want to go -- right to the 43rd floor of our office building even -- without worrying about the dangers of piloting ourselves. (I'm sure no one reading this would be a dangerous pilot or be proned to mid-air accidents -- it's the other people flying around like maniacs who don't know what they're doing who would be a menace to the rest of us.)

Here are just some of the exciting things to think about when we consider Jet Pack Nation. (USA)

People flying around, chaos in the air, good times for all
Awesome glasses by Sony
Windblown hair, assholes who tailgate, women who do their make-up at 500 miles per hour
A slow conversion of society to flight, ultimately leading to floating continents and robot slaves who do all the work so that humans can lounge around eating grapes and flying their jet-packs
Cool personal computer upgrades -- like a jet-pack flight simulator game where you fly around and shoot things, and the simulated jet-pact & goggles that let you play the game

I'm sure schools, police stations, fire houses, and hospitals will all need JetPack fleets in case of emergencies. Imagine how safe we'll all feel when police can maintain crowd control by hovering around on JetPacks rather than sittting idly by on horseback.

The Best Book You Never Read - Robert Elsmere

There are many versions of Robert Elsmere available on the market today.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_10?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=robert+elsmere&sprefix=robert+els

Ours is the best.

http://www.gregorivs.com/products/robert-elsmere

I don’t say that lightly. There is simply not another edition of this book in print from any self respecting publishing house other than GREGORIVS.

This was a hugely successful novel in its day. It sold over a million copies in Victorian England. There were some fabulous versions printed up before the turn of the last century. But unfortunately, today this magnificent work has been largely forgotten. With this edition, we would like to bring this work to a new generation of readers.

If you take a moment to browse the other versions of this classic Victorian novel which are currently available, you will quickly find that none of the other editions are even close to this one in terms of quality and value. Many are split into multiple parts, with each part costing about the same as our complete and unabridged edition. You will find versions with ugly covers. You will find versions which were thrown together quickly by amateurs with no regard for their readers. You will find versions with errors throughout the text and non-letter characters and symbols on most pages. Those are artifacts created during a shoddily done OCR (Optical Character Recognition) process. They are not something that would appear on a carefully crafted book. They are not something that should appear on any book that you pay money for.

In our edition you will find none of that. From our tasteful, elegant cover to our carefully laid out interior, to the high quality paper that lends a pleasant feel and tells you this is more than your average paperback book. In short, our book is beautifully produced and light years ahead of any other version of this classic masterpiece on the market.

Moreover, when you open our edition you will be happy to see that we have added footnotes throughout to translate all of the foreign words and phrases. Mrs. Ward used Latin, Greek, French, German, Spanish, etc. throughout with the tacit knowledge that her intended audience would know what she was saying or would have the time and patience to look it up. Our edition, however, does not rely on the reader’s ability to understand multiple languages, and greatly values their time.

This is the only version of this historically significant novel available today which English speaking audiences can fully enjoy.

We have also updated the spelling to modern American standards. Some of you may initially react against that, and indeed it is quaint and charming to encounter the occasional “colour” or “ardour” in place of their more common and uninteresting counterparts. But perhaps you would stumble on words like “gaol” while “jail” would sail by smoothly. Perhaps you would pause on a word like “antient” wondering whether it is a new word that you didn’t know or whether it is an alternative spelling. Perhaps you would take the time to look it up. Perhaps you would move on without being sure that you fully understood. In our edition that would not be a problem because you would encounter “ancient” and wouldn’t give the word a second thought.

Our goal is to produce a book that you can read and enjoy while still appreciating its original form.

Modern audiences will find this book a pleasure to read — the story is compelling and moving, and the theme gives food for thought about the nature and practice of religion in the context of trying to be a moral, upstanding person. Moreover, this historically significant masterpiece is worthy of study today both because of its enormous popularity — a million copies in Victorian England! — and because of the statements it makes — the statement it made to the Victorians who devoured this book when it was first published, and the statement it makes to us about their time in history, their culture, and them as a people.

We are proud of our book, and hope that you will read it, enjoy it, and share your feelings with others.

The Only Trick to Overcoming Writers Block

Yep, there is only one trick you need to unleash your inner writing demon, publish 60 successful novels, and go one step further than Stephen King by taking over the world - all in a matter of weeks.

All other professional writers do what I'm about to say. They had to learn it the hard way through hours of hard labor. Some of them still don't realize how easy it is! Some of them still hate their jobs and feel the pressure of life eating away at their ragged souls!

Remember, this information is powerful. It's what successful people do without realizing they do it.

Dare Darlington helps us visualize the age old conundrum.

1) Skip the Hard Choice

Yes that's right. Skip the hard choice. Don't make it. Avoid it. Stop caring about it. Okay - I'm done. Go make your millions.

Oh you're still reading? You weren't satisifed by my gloss over of the most important key to success now known to mankind? You know it's true, what else are you looking for? Proof?

How much time do you waste on inconsequential choices?
Do you waste more time on choices where you can't see what the result will be?
Are you worried that making the wrong choice will result in something bad?
Do you find it difficult to 'get started' because you aren't sure what you want?

We know instinctively that the choice doesn't matter. Look at all the millions of people who get by without making that choice. Or by choosing either option. What slows us down is that we -want- to make the best choice.

A choice is hardest when the difference between best and worst is imperceptible

Don't forget. Best and worst are subjective. Your worst could be my best, especially if we're talking about soccer, driving, computers, dating. Etc. I'm just trying to cover the bases. *smile*

Process is important but if the process itself is causing a blockage in work flow, skip it. Free yourself from the inflexible chains of doubt.

The human process involves just getting on with it. The next time you find yourself stumbling with what to write about or how to say something - skip it. Just ignore that choice. Better yet, flip a coin, or get yourself an aide, assistant, mentor, timesuck, child. When you eliminate the time you have available for a choice you will find yourself making that choice pretty fast.

The Russian Spies: What did they do?

11 suspected Russian spies have recently been arrested for… spying.

Read the MSNBC report of a Washington Post article here.

My question is this: What did they do? They must have done something because the FBI arrested them.[1] So I want to know what they did.

Assuming the facts as they have been reported, these 11 Russians came to the US almost two decades ago in order to infiltrate US life and live as Americans. They got jobs, participated in their communities, had children together, and essentially looked like quintessential upstanding Americans. Clearly this must be a front for a devious plot. After all life is just like a blockbuster movie. And we are talking about the successor to the KGB. They have got to be the most sophisticated espionage artists around, trained for years in secret military camps in the far reaches of cold cold Russia, making our own FBI and CIA spies look like blundering school boys in comparison.

From the article linked above:

"Unlike famous spies such as Aldrich H. Ames and Robert P. Hanssen, who did incalculable damage to U.S. national security, those charged this week were ordered not to seek classified data, some federal officials said."

I’ll repeat: “ordered not to seek classified data.” So… these folks were to live as upstanding Americans, and report back to their Russian sponsors on… public information?

Spying for another country is a serious problem, unless the spies are American or James Bond, and is a capital offense per the constitution. But… living like a model citizen, raising children (who are American citizens any way you cut it), and reporting back to Russia on things their friends say and on other public information… that just doesn’t sound so bad. It sounds like a big international gossip network. Someone should have suggested to Russia to scrap their spy program and just wait around for 10 years until someone invents Facebook and Twitter and Myspace and www.Showallyourpersonalinfo.com. Maybe then they could have friended the real power elite.

Hopefully something egregious will come out shortly on how nefarious and dark hearted these people were. Otherwise I’ll just end up feeling sorry for them. And I’ll end up feeling more sorry for their kids who are now tossed into some sort of horrible oblivion. Imagine: You live your entire life in a posh enclave thinking that your parents are American, grow up in a good life in a good school with friends who play at your house and you play at their houses, and then one day the FBI busts down your door and takes your parents away and sends you to foster care. You can't believe what they are telling you. Your parents are SPIES? Impossible. Holy PTSD Batman!

Here’s another telling piece of evidence: Both the Russian and American governments have tried to downplay the incident to ensure that it does not harm relations between the two nations. If it were really a serious issue of national security, we would say “to hell with the relationship, this is important.” The state department shunned the Justice department's accusations that it is a problem of great magnitude and called it simply a police action of enforcing laws. Laws like not breaking the speed limit, not urinating in public, not sending information back to Russia that they could get on the internet, etc.

Ridiculous. Here is a real solution that a confident, secure country would do, to show how noble it is:

Amnesty.

The 11 accused individuals pledge:

Complete and full accounting of all activities since they entered this country
Complete allegiance to the USA without any remaining ties or loyalty to Russia
To fully assume the lives that they had pretended to have.[2]

In exchange, we grant conditional amnesty and allow them to raise their children, who will have the right to stay here and vote before too long. The condition of the amnesty would be that we would continue to watch them for as long as we want to in order to ensure that they do not continue “spying.” If they don’t feel like pledging full allegiance to the USA, or if there are actually some extremely malevolent things that they have done or were planning to do, then for all means, let those things come out before proceeding to amnesty.

Plus look at things from a Russian citizen's perspective.

Their silly, ineffective spies were caught.
Their spies were caught even though they weren't really spying.
The spies preferred to be Americans.

Think about it. If their amateur poseur spies were allowed to, and chose to, continue to be Americans, it would be the ultimate PR for America to the Russian people. Unless this turns out to be a lot more evil than it appears to date, it simply wouldn’t make sense for a grand nation such as ours to think of these people as spies in the ordinary sense.

[1] Don’t get me started on how callously, how frequently, and how egregiously the FBI oversteps its bounds and terrorized citizens without justification. For those of you who have not seen it, you would not believe it. For those of you who have, it is just another example of how people who are overly confident in their beliefs are the most dangerous people on earth.

[2] This may prove impossible now that they are known to the world as spies, so we'll have to let them take jobs as radio talk show hosts.