Comment by mkramlich | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mkramlich | Hacker News Reader

You know you're reading a right/conservative/Repub/FoxNews-like source when the very 1st suggestion discussed for improving the clean up effort is this:

"First, the Environmental Protection Agency can relax restrictions on the amount of oil in discharged water, currently limited to 15 parts per million."

Welcome to Bizarro World. We do things backwards here.

EDIT: skushch's reply below made a good clarification. When I originally read that portion of the article I didn't realize that was the argument made. I just saw how the very 1st solution recommended was that the EPA should allow more oil in the water, which was hilarious and consistent with many other "pro-pollution/pro-greed" efforts I've seen from The Right in past years, and I reacted to that. So on this single narrow point I think the article does make sense: we should temporarily drop any rule that commits the error of letting the quest for perfection be the enemy of the good enough now. The overall article I still think is an attack piece with highly cherry-picked statements and convenient blinders on.

The point the author makes is that relaxing the filtering restrictions could help remove more oil.

Sort of like saying "the filter isn't effective enough, so we won't filter at all".

Bizarro World indeed.

I don't know enough about the chemisty and ecosystem impacts of this but from what I do know I can think of one possible reason, at least, while the EPA's position makes sense. If a certain volume of oiled water is processed by a machine that has reduced filtering standards -- essentially, only removing the bigger or easier to capture materials suspended in the water -- it may make it harder for later cleanup operations to further address the remaining pollutants that were released back into the water. Either because they become much harder to detect (harder to see/smell/taste, or react to chemical sensors) or become harder to "bind" with cleaning agents. In other words, while at a logic-only level the EPA position may appear stupid, it's possible that from a chemical & logistical standpoint it may not be.

Regardless, I think it's reasonable to expect BP to be moving heaven & earth to clean this shit up as fast as they possibly can, since they made the mess in the first place.

Your edit says it all... you assumed it was a "right wing" piece so you assumed it was terrible evil lies. Good luck with that.

Nope. I did not assume that. And I don't assume that everything said by a politically so-called right wing source is evil or a lie.

However, on the other hand, I've seen so many lies (both blatant and subtle) and so many anti-humane, pro-rich, pro-aristocratic, anti-health, anti-education, pro-superstition, anti-science, anti-environmental, anti-empathy, pro-military, anti-fairness actions supported and advocated by right wing folks that yes I do come to expect it much of the time. Are those positions "evil" in the same sense that say Hitler was evil? Hard to say, and that's a can of worms to even try to debate. But my operating principle is that it is approximately equivalent to evil, at least by quality if not by magnitude or directness.

"Are those positions "evil" in the same sense that say Hitler was evil?"

Since you seem worried about this I'll help you out a bit. Since the American right wing lacks a specific plan to exterminate millions of a certain race or religion, or conquer the world with a master race, then the answer is clearly "no".

Was that even an intellectually serious thought though? If you are an American, do you literally worry about the day when your outspoken liberal drinking buddy will be taken to a work camp, if the Republicans should take back Congress or the White House? Or was it just a cheap slur.

You're assuming things I did not say. Go look at the actual things I said I've seen them advocate (pro-rich, anti-environment, etc.) -- none of them involved race or work camps. They are more pro-superstition ('faith' is probably their agreed upon buzzword used to convey this without having to say Christianity explicitly) than say the Democratic Party -- any reasonable study of that should lead you to that conclusion. If you are pro-religion or pro-aristocracy, you should prefer the R's over the D's, that's for sure. Pro-pollution? Also better to vote R than D. Anti-gay? Vote R rather than D. The list goes on.

Calling bad/evil things bad/evil is not a cheap slur, it's like calling water wet. People just have different views on what constitutes bad/evil.

In other words, you also agree that they are not as evil as Hitler, but feel that they align with bigoted or superstitious interests. So it wasn't a cheap slur, just a fitting comparison. Much like comparing a Canadian goose to the space shuttle.

Also instead of "right wing" I should have said Republican Party. I think you can be "right" politically and not necessarily agree with everything the RP promotes. In the US they tend to get conflated however.

I'm going to shutup now in this thread area though. Way too political of a topic. Sorry, fellow HN readers. :(

> However, on the other hand, I've seen so many lies (both blatant and subtle) and so many anti-humane, pro-rich, pro-aristocratic, anti-health, anti-education, pro-superstition, anti-science, anti-environmental, anti-empathy, pro-military, anti-fairness actions supported and advocated by right wing folks that yes I do come to expect it much of the time.

Have you subjected other folks to the same scrutiny?

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