That's because there are actually two Floridas. Those who live on the coast are opposed to drilling and the backwoods crackers who are right-wing, gun totin' Republicans who don't give a shait about the beaches.

Nader?! I thought I was voting for Buchanan!

Very sad.

100 miles? Can oil drift that far?

stevecody: Those who live on the coast are opposed to drilling

Damn straight!

That's going to be really really funny when all the views from the beachfront houses are ruined by oil derricks....

/Actually, it's not that big a deal; the ones off of Santa Barbara, while visible, aren't that bad.

stevecody: That's because there are actually two Floridas.

Three... you forgot Cuba.

muninsfire: /Actually, it's not that big a deal; the ones off of Santa Barbara, while visible, aren't that bad.

Really its not... and at 100 miles you cant see them. The ones you can see are usually only 1-2 miles off shore. I used to go sailing out to them and back when I lived in Texas..

Good, lets start drilling off Florida, California, any coastline we have rights to and access to oil. Suck the earth dry while oil still matters. Poor people have to suffer through the placement of garbage dumps, incinerators, and other public blights so why shouldn't rich people have to suffer with a view of an oil rig or wind farm. If public good is enough of a reason to trample on the rights of poor people it should be good enough to go against the wishes of the rich.

And before your go off saying oil isn't a public benefit, what are you smoking. Prices of goods, cost of travel, all have increased thanks to dependency of unstable foreign sources of oil and lack of supply. It is in the public interest to increase domestic production to try to lower the cost of living for all citizens.

I'd prefer to drill off our own coast than depend on sources like Nigeria and Saudi Arabia for oil, thank you.

sort of off-topic, but from looking out onto Lake Michigan from downtown Chicago you can see this about 4-5 miles out:



i ask people every time i go there but nobody seems to know what it is . . .

/Google Maps rules

kruuth 100 miles? Can oil drift that far?
Given the properties of two liquids, it could, in theory, drift across the entire globe. (Don't mind me, just being a smartass.)

DandamanFL Cuba and China are already planning on drilling out there. I'd just as soon have some US rigs out there as well
I tend to agree, and it's pretty scary that China and Cuba have any kind of alliance that would put them right on our doorstep...

/Not really trolling, I just don't have enough free time to spend posting on fark. :(

Eminent domain some of those beach front mansions to run pipelines out to the rigs. Give them something beyond "our sunset view is spoiled" to complain about.

Funny headline.

(Golf claps, while ducking the angry lynchmob)

Oil drilling 100 miles out? If there is a spill they'll be plenty of time before it hits the anus!

None of this matters anyway. The Florida Supreme Court will decide what is best for Florida, not the voters. What do voters know anyway?

loungechaircarebear:

It's the intake for the onshore water plant. You get cleaner water further offshore.

http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/timeline/tunnel1.html

loungechaircarebear, I believe that is a water intake structure to pull in clean (relatively speaking) drinking water. There are others out there in the great lakes outside of outside of other major cities. They were built early in the 20th century when traditional intake pipes for water close into the shore were pulling in the dirty water recently discharged in sewage and storm drains. By going further out and in deeper water they avoid the poluted water just discharged.

We now return you to your discussion on offshore oil drilling.

There's this nice man named Ernst who'd like to open up an oil rig near Baja California.

thanks!

2006-05-25 04:52:46 PM stevecody [TotalFark]
That's because there are actually two Floridas. Those who live on the coast are opposed to drilling and the backwoods crackers who are right-wing, gun totin' Republicans who don't give a shait about the beaches.

"Who don't give a shiat about the beaches".. how charming. I bet you couldn't wait to post that.

How about those on the coast who don't care about our disgusting reliance on foreign oil?

How about those on the coast that biatch about high gas prices?

"How about those on the coast that biatch about high gas prices? "

fark them.

Well, inrespect to Dubya's_coke_dealer 's billiant retort i say this.


I like boobies

Would we get a kickback like the Alaskans?

Close enough. I , for one, would campaign my ass off to make sure that never happens.

This thread has proven to me that Farkers do not understand the meaning of the word "within."

They can currently drill 100 miles away from the coast. That's not the problem. The problem is when they find oil just a few miles out from one of our pristine beaches that brings people to our state.

Not too long ago, maybe 9 months back, Rumsfeld said that drilling was out of question because it'd mess with the military training done in the waters and along the coast. Seems they've changed their tune lately.

Fortunately, I don't think this will happen under this president. Jeb doesn't want it, about half of the citizens don't want it. Pissing off at least 40% of the population of a swing state isn't what you want to do when your party is already sinking.

aren't the only people with a right to biatch about drilling for oil those who do not drive automobiles...

...or use power in their houses for that matter.

/but then again i might just be trolling...

7% voted for nader because... he would be neutral on this?

/dont get it.
//neither does submitter.
///stick with the basics.

look on the map. winter park, john mica's district, is in the middle of the state. oil on the beaches would just drive more dopes to disneyworld to see fake stuff. maybe people would feel ok if they made a fake beach in winter park.

I thought the recent drilling proposals were much closer. As in less than 10 miles away from each coast.

xRyanx: Fortunately, I don't think this will happen under this president. Jeb doesn't want it, about half of the citizens don't want it. Pissing off at least 40% of the population of a swing state isn't what you want to do when your party is already sinking.


I want to see how much those poll numbers swing once the debates get going. Everyone here knows that we don't have state taxes because of tourism - if they don't know that, they shall become aware. You screw up those beaches - it will deplete our revenues - that simple. If they won't go for sentiment they for damn sure will go with reality. We screw with the tourist tit, the whole state will feel it.

The Floridians in charge of tourist marketing will thank their Exxon Valdez overlords, once the oil hits the ocean that is...

Come on, this is Florida. Who cares? The coast is going to be a barren wasteland of abandoned condos within 2 years anyway.

I've spent time on the gulf coast and I just don't see why drilling closer to shore is a problem. If they're drilling 2 miles off the shore, it would take a pretty big spill to drift to land before it was contained.

Really you people are reacting reflexively to something you don't understand. Nothing is going to happen to the beaches.
Did any of you even remember Rita and Katrina? two really big hurricanes that hit the oil rigs in the Gulf head on, It put some out of commission for a while but there were NO OIL LEAKS.
Besides oil leaks don't screw things up for very long. The oil is eaten by bacteria. The thing that could really screw up a coastline for a while is a big tanker splitting open like the Valdez. But these will have nothing like that since the oil will be shipped in pipelines.

kruuth: 100 miles? Can oil drift that far?

Yes. I'm not sure of the mileage, but I would guess about 500 - 600, as the crow flies.Source (pops)

...the 1979 blowout of a Mexican oil well in the southern Gulf. The well, Ixtoc 1 in the Bay of Campeche, for a time spewed some 30,000 barrels of oil a day into the sea. Borne across the Gulf by the current, a resulting oil slick reached the Texas barriers two months later; birds sickened, beaches blackened, and tourists departed. The state braced for a major disaster, which it was spared only by a seasonal change in wind and current. Nevertheless, a two-month clean-up effort was required on the 125-mile stretch from Port Isabel to Port Aransas, and lumps of Ixtoc tar were still washing ashore years later with each springtime warming.

Fark It: It showed Floridians almost equally divided on another energy matter, favoring construction of a new nuclear power plant by 48 to 45 percent, which is within the margin of error. But they were opposed, 60 to 36 percent, to building such a plant in their hometown.

NIMBY morons. Never mind that a nuclear power plant in your hometown would create a lot of jobs which would transfer over to you (hopefully) in the form of government tax revenue.

/TMI OH NOES!!!

Very high paying jobs, as a matter of fact. Starting salary for a Nuclear Plant Operator is somewhere around $48,000, IIRC. Plus, you've got all the added income brought on whenever the plant does refueling/maintenance. As a general rule, the number of plant employees triples during such events, and most plants refuel every two years or so.

Then, there's the property taxes. Lots of property taxes. A nuclear plant can singlehandedly pull your school system out of financial emergency, while allowing you to actually lower property taxes across the board.

As far as safety issues go, coal-fired plants release three times as much radiation into the environment as nuclear facilities of similar output levels.

/One pellet of Uranium fuel, about 10mm long by 5 mm in diameter, contains the same amount of energy as 3,000 barrels of oil or one ton of coal.
//1 in 10 light bulbs in America is lit by energy generated from material that was once in a Soviet nuclear warhead

Hey folks, this poll doen't mean shiat except to show that half of Florida has their collective heads shoved up their rectums. As a native Floridian, (Don't hold it against me) drilling of each coast is totally stupid. The move to drill in the of Florida was shot down in the house anyway.

I love reading posts by Non-Floridians telling us what we should do.

No I didn't vote for Bush in 2000 or 2004.

seatown75: I've spent time on the gulf coast and I just don't see why drilling closer to shore is a problem. If they're drilling 2 miles off the shore, it would take a pretty big spill to drift to land before it was contained.


The tankers leak and cause tar and shiat to clog up the beaches. When I was younger - this used to happen in Miami a lot. Seepage from the holds of tankers would drift onto the beaches and muck it up. That's just one example - there are loads of things that could go horribly wrong from having platforms just off shore. I don't know if you saw what happened during Ivan or not. BIG farking platforms came loose and drifted right onto the bloody highway in P-cola. Several of those platforms are still missing (as far as I know) also. I have no bloody idea where they will turn up - all it takes is a sufficient tidal surge and there they are. Nice thing about it is they are supposedly easy to knock back together, then you just tow them back out again.

Impudent Domain: Did any of you even remember Rita and Katrina? two really big hurricanes that hit the oil rigs in the Gulf head on, It put some out of commission for a while but there were NO OIL LEAKS.

They do cap the wells before big storms - but the platforms still do break off and drift. Plus - there is all manner of byproduct that gets into the estuaries and farks them up - kills them. Mind - look at what has happened to the natural barrier islands off Louisiana - they are dead. There is also a NICE big spot not too far off the Lousiana coast known as the 'Dead Zone' where nothing lives, above or below the water. No one (as far as I know) is sure what has caused it, but it's only been noticed for a short while now (since the refineries and rigs have been up). I know someone who was sent out to be an observer on a rig - and also sent to patrol the dead zone. This becomes an issue I shall pull her out of storage and have her talk about it publicly - the things she saw, and what the theories are behind what caused it.

Robo Beat: Then, there's the property taxes. Lots of property taxes. A nuclear plant can singlehandedly pull your school system out of financial emergency, while allowing you to actually lower property taxes across the board.


I have no problem with nuclear power at all. A well maintained plant is clean and has little impact on the environment. I lived across from the Nuke plant in Jensen beach for years. Some of the best fishing in the Indian river was in Big Mud Creek, which ran alongside it. Huge bloody fish would also get sucked into the intakes and spawn in the cooling ponds. Once a year there was a lottery for people to get permits to fish in the cooling ponds - amazing huge tarpon, bonita - everything - and all very healthy. It was monitored by a friend of mine who is an enviro cop - we used to clam along the banks of big mud creek (samples, you understand, are vital!).

Nukes is good, and yes, provide very high paying jobs for skilled labor (and unskilled as well).

So drilling 10 miles inland on Cuba is OK with Florida?

Robo Beat: As a general rule, the number of plant employees triples during such events, and most plants refuel every two years or so.

My friend does that. It's pretty much moderately skilled labor that requires protective suits and security clearance. It translates into a 13.00/hr job turning into a 40.00/hr job plus OT.

And the fact that they now have reactors that can run on the nuclear waste of old-style reactors the decision is easy.

isn't the majority of florida old people? wait a few years until they die and pass it.