OK, Emily.

Just going off the title.... I'm concerned that we are going to cut off our nose to spite our faces here. I did hear they was some back peddling to limit it to new drilling (also not ideal). Considering the potential, the oil industry has been relatively trouble free up until this incident. Learn from the mistakes and press on. I wonder where space expiration would be today if there were a moratorium every time a rocket blew up on the launch pad?

There was, last time a shuttle exploded, you remember?

And when a rocket blow up, it doesn't destroy a whole ecosystem or a fishing industry, and doesn't cost billions of dollars in fixing.

Trying to pull comparison between the two is quite offensive.

No, just on the method used that blew up.  Arianne and Soyuz continued to fly.  The equivalency here is that Obama grounded every spaceship.

And the comparison is apt.  A doctor just botched a hernia operation, so Obama banned all operations.  Stupid, but accurate.  The damage being caused is through malfeasance, both on the part of BP and BO.  But you do not stop Dr Y from operating because Dr X can't sew up a patient.

Right. I am sorry if you need remembering this, but the US government do not control the rest of the world.

The U.S. government set a moratorium on its own Shuttle flight because of a danger of repeated incident, until they figure out a way to make sure it won't happen. European and Russian governments were welcomed to do the same, but they didn't. I hardly see how it's relevant.

You just bringing up stupid analogies. This isn't a heart operation, it's an oil spill that caused billions in collateral damages. And it's not just one random doctor that did the dead, but a whole company and sub-contractors that are part of an institutionalised process that proved flawed. It's not merely a case of an incompetent doctor.

If a hospital is proven to have Antihygienic procedures and that a patient dies because of it, it's normal to stop operation at the hospital and empty it to have a clean house in order to 1) change the hospital administrative culture that allowed such problem to occur in the first place and 2) Proceed at the examination of the rest of the hospital so that there are no other accidents.

The oil industry need to do clean house after that one. In the meanwhile, we certainly need to clean the gulf before we see the last of many species.

Apparently they don't get the History Channel in Canada. Rockets failed regularly throughout the decade. Even the Apollo program had fatalities in 1967. NASA fixed the problem and the rest is history.

Thin skin? There should be a ban on that. Get a life.

Now imagine Obama closed every hospital to "fix" the issue. Nobody is suggesting the oil spill isn't terrible, just that it is stupid to blame the entire industry for one issue. You want group punishment, fine. Next time a Canadian commits a murder, lock everyone up. You have the same problem this administration does, it doesn't think its actions or the implications of it through. Most Americans are tired of it.

Every once in a while I do.   However, the comparison is still apt as BP is not an American company.  Nor is Exxon responsible for the spill.  Nor have the other 31 platforms leaked (the ones in American waters). 

Yes, but they did not shut down the Titan program because of the shuttle accident.  Granted the Titan only shoots payloads into the sky, but it still did not shut it down when the Challenger or Columbia blew up.

It was a hernia operation.  And the doctor example was again apt on a micro scale.  Indeed some courts in the US have awarded billions of dollars for medical malpractice (those awards have been overturned), and it is not affecting millions of people (just scores), but that is the case in a nut shell.  Taken down to a micro level (and one that would affect you and me, not just the Gulf Coast).

60 years of drilling in the gulf and one accident.  Pretty damn good safety record.  hardly one to penalize the other 31 platforms that have been drilling with no accidents for years.

On the other hand, one goddamned incident that will have huge repercussion, for a long time on the local ecology and all sea-fauna related industries.

You only needed one of those major incident to put in check the industry and make sure such incident doesn't occur EVER again. It's not a case of "we can afford one spilling per 60 years". It's a case of "we cannot afford any spill".

Specially since we are digging deeper now than we did in the past 10 years. Which means the techniques we developped to close down "accidents"  are outdated - proven by BP.

That's impossible.

Then you best start buying stock in stone knives and bear skins.

Or just theirs.  Clearly the US has not availed itself of the latest and best tools in the fight.  Obama made sure that a mole hill became a mountain.

Interesting analogy but considering it's been nearly 2 months since the explosion and they have yet to seal the well. What makes you think they will be safer 6 months from now? How do we know for sure that after the 6 months moratorium that another disaster will not happen? But then everything in life is a risk whether it be to a single person, an entire coast, a whole Continent or the entire planet. Should we stop doing certain things just because out of 1000 or 100,000 1 fails? It's not about how big this is vs how small the other "stupid analogies" are, it's about how things can have an affect be it to one or millions but we don't stop it just because of that 1 every time.

It appears Obama has no problem giving Brazil 2 billion dollars to deep drill off their coast. Pay back to his buddy George Sorros, a major Obama supporter and Petrobras shareholder. One socialist hand washes, or should I say oils, the other.

Do as I say, not as I do.  Obama and Chavez are cut from the same cloth.