[jbrovont]

A police officer sees a prostitute preparing to solicit on a corner and directs her away from the area telling her that she may not engage in that activity there. Subsequently, the prostitute decides to rob a liquor instead for her nightly take. It is the police officer's fault the store was robbed.

Equivalent:

BP can't drill in ANWR, therefore: it is the fault of environmentalists that the BP spill occurred.

[jbrovont]

Forest fires are a natural phenomenon, therefore: when an arsonist sets fire to a hillside in California that subsequently destroys a small town, the incident is a natural phenomenon and not the arsonist's responsibility.

Equivalent:

Oil spills are a natural phenomenon, therefore: the gulf spill is a natural disaster and not an industrial disaster, or BP's responsibility.

[jbrovont]

Feel free to add your own.

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jbrovont', 'A') police officer sees a prostitute preparing to solicit on a corner and directs her away from the area telling her that she may not engage in that activity there. Subsequently, the prostitute decides to rob a liquor instead for her nightly take. It is the police officer's fault the store was robbed.

Equivalent:

BP can't drill in ANWR, therefore: it is the fault of environmentalists that the BP spill occurred.

[jbrovont]

So when crime is committed in your neighborhood, it is the fault of law enforcment for running the criminals out of other neighborhoods thereby forcing criminals to prey upon you, rather than the criminal's fault for committing the crime?

I'm taking issue with this, because what I see happening is a total refusal of personal responsibility. There's an inherent logical fallacy in the idea that "BP had no choice but to drill in deep water" due to environmental regulations, just as there is inherent logical fallacy in "the criminal had to committ a crime in another area" because of law enforcement in their area of choice.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mattduke', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jbrovont', 'A') police officer sees a prostitute preparing to solicit on a corner and directs her away from the area telling her that she may not engage in that activity there. Subsequently, the prostitute decides to rob a liquor instead for her nightly take. It is the police officer's fault the store was robbed.

Equivalent:

BP can't drill in ANWR, therefore: it is the fault of environmentalists that the BP spill occurred.

[efarmer]

It is getting to be an outdated argument, Mattduke. ANWR in Alaska is estimated to be 7.7B barrels and there are large deposits untouched in the Santa Barbara, CA area and elsewhere that are off limits. At the time the argument you are citing was first getting legs, it was thought there was maybe 3B barrels (B is for billion) in the deep gulf. Until recently, the seismic imaging in the gulf was hampered by large layers of salt which scramble imaging deep layers, but imaging using large sensor arrays and computer processing developed along with the ability to drill in deep water began to change the picture dramatically. The Jack field alone is estimated at 15 billion barrels and is being joined by other truly massive discoveries to where some estimates now give the deep water GOM 3 times the total reserves of on land US remaining reserves including ANWR.

Because the GOM oil deposits underlie sand layers deeper than anyone thought could possibly exist (they started laying down before Pangea split into continents) there is oil trapped deep there that may well not be possible anywhere else on the planet. Of course as the new imaging technology gets applied that may not hold true either for long. The low hanging fruit is definitely on land, and a few big pieces are indeed left in the United States, but it does appear that the GOM is attracting the largest of the corporate oil companies on earth because of it's own promise and not because it is the consolation prize for losing access on United States land territory.

We have old tired arguments, and blowout technology for land and shallow wells, and the deep water exploration and drilling technology has run way out ahead of our stale knowledge and arguments.

My personal opinion is that our government collectively decided to go for deep GOM petroleum for national security and run the risk until the technology matured based on their reading of the global petroleum supply, but this is just my conjecture and hunches and does not convey my belief that we should segway and leave some big sweet monster fields for future generations.

[Revi]

Spin this!
Very funny vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COeKxO0wL9A

[mlit]

Lots of freeway construction (stimulus dollar?) forcing me to reroute to work through a school zone. Is it my fault that going 70 in a 20 took out a group of first graders? Should have had the freeway open.

Its funny how any problems with the lower classes comes down to personal responsibility but when the corporations / rich run into trouble they always find someone to blame.

[Pretorian]

Had Sulla chose to axe young Caesar , (something he really wished for later) an entire world history since 70-60 BC or so would be different. Perhaps, the world would have ended in nuclear war in 1736. Perhaps, we would be discovering locomotive and stuff in 2233. Conclusion: victims of all wars, conflicts, epidemies since 60 BC or so can be blamed on Sulla's benevolence. Its all his fault. Holocaust peddlers: it was Sulla's fault all the way.

Had Sulla chose to axe Caesar, (something he really wished for later ) none of you, people you love or you know, people you've heard of, ets would ever be born. Conclusion: we all owe everything to Sulla's benevolence.