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Dakota Access Pipeline to win US Army permit for completion

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171–180 of 195 posts

Re: Dakota Access Pipeline to win US Army permit for completion

#171

At this point, the main concern is getting that camp cleaned up before the flood comes. It should be noted that the tribe has passed a resolution for protestors to go home[1] with no provisions for relocation. This isn't the only area of North Dakota that is going to flood this year and money spent on this foolishness is going to be missed. Devils Lake is going to rise about 4' under current estimates. The reporting…

> 2) There are no friggin wild buffalo roaming North Dakota - they are all on ranches, preserves, or the national park land. Thank you. I grew up on a ranch near there (about 30 minutes from where the protests are happening) and I know ranchers who have had tractors and combines (clearly not a piece of machinery involved in laying a pipeline) ruined because protestors put sugar and dirt in the gas tanks. The people o…

What zip code is your family's ranch? I want to look up the area on a topo map.

Re: Dakota Access Pipeline to win US Army permit for completion

#172
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Disingenuous" is unfair. But symbolic, certainly. What this is really about, what I'm getting at, is that this is being done because no one actually gives a shit about the tribes, except the tribes. The state is more or less free to steal from the tribes, or endanger them. If anything of value is found in whatever land they have left, it's taken from them. So this is symbolism. Standing in front of a bulldozer and s…

"Disingenuous" seems fair to me. The land is suddenly sacred and inviolable when someone asks to build a pipeline near it (not on it), but the massive casinos these tribes erect on their "sacred" land isn't an issue. I would be more amenable to the tribes if they were honest and upfront about what they're doing: a form of collective bargaining to maximize compensation from the government.

Now that is disingenuous. There's no casino there. Not all land is sacred, but some is. Casinos aren't built on land that might face internal opposition within a tribe.

Re: Dakota Access Pipeline to win US Army permit for completion

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly I would have expected most R's to vote for the confirmation of R cabinet nominations. One needn't invoke complicated rhetorical scenarios to explain such an action. Some reportage of confirmation hearings might have left the impression that this particular nominee is some unhappy amalgamation of Satan, Brandine Spuckler, and Richie Rich as interpreted by Robot Chicken. That seems pretty unlikely! Probably thi…

I brought up this situation because it's an example of a "paid protesters" claim being falsely used in other contexts as a reason to ignore actual human interactions. I think you are trying to invalidate the notion that there can be a reason for people to disagree other than media manipulation. I disagree with that argument and I will not attempt to engage with you on the basis of fact until and unless you walk it ba…

Uhhh... I'm not sure how to proceed here. I don't intend to upset anyone. My point was that R's will vote for R's. If that weren't the intention of the electorate, they would have elected a D. (Isn't the "two-party system" fun!) I don't why we'd need to invoke a conspiracy theory, even one offered up by the R in question, to understand why an R would vote for an R. That is, don't believe everything that politicians tell you, even (especially?) about their motivations for the actions they take.

Perhaps mistakenly, I anticipated an objection to this simple scenario along the lines of "this person is really extra super bad, so normal Congress-critters even from the same party would never have voted for her without being fooled by evil memes, and that's why we should believe that this Congress-critter really does believe in the evil meme of the Soros Army". If you wouldn't have objected thus, I apologize for making an uncharitable assumption.

Re: Dakota Access Pipeline to win US Army permit for completion

#174
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly safer for the environment in general in terms of oil spills but the communities that would suffer from truck or trail spills are different from the communities that would suffer from pipeline spills. And since the former don't get to sue but the later do there's a certain pressure against pipelines in general. But on the other hand pipelines are more cost effective than other means of transport. That m…

But more oil is used to transport the oil (in trucks/trains), so I think that increases CO2 usage overall. Also higher prices mean more oil is exctracted - and sometimes more is used to do the extraction (IE, more marginal EROEI projects are undertaken)

It's higher profit for extracting that would mean that more oil would be extracted, not higher prices to the consumer. Higher transport prices decrease ROI.

You have a point about transport CO2 use but I'd expect that would use a small amount proportionally.

Re: Dakota Access Pipeline to win US Army permit for completion

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you actually explain how it doesn't benefit USA? All the studies I read explained the economic impact it will have on the states it goes through after completion.

Sure, it'll benefit executives at Energy Transfer Partners, Phillips 66, etc. since they'll have an easy way to transfer oil to be shipped overseas. The states as a whole? Please. The number of permanent jobs this pipeline will create are pathetically low, a couple of people to man an oil field and a couple dozen to deal with the pipeline itself. Eventually there's going to be less reliance on the USA for refined pet…

You are forgetting about taxes going to states. A lot of indirect economic boom surfaces as well. Check out the economic studies for the pipeline.

Re: Dakota Access Pipeline to win US Army permit for completion

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering they had a completely adequate water supply until their local government decided to switch to using the Flint River directly [1], I don't think this is a remotely accurate comparison. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis#Switching_t...

really? you don't see a correlation between tainted river water in Flint and future tained water in ND? nothing? ok.

Considering that all 3 fracking locations that are even remotely close to Flint are all downstream, yeah, I see 0 correlation.

Re: Dakota Access Pipeline to win US Army permit for completion

#177
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Disingenuous" seems fair to me. The land is suddenly sacred and inviolable when someone asks to build a pipeline near it (not on it), but the massive casinos these tribes erect on their "sacred" land isn't an issue. I would be more amenable to the tribes if they were honest and upfront about what they're doing: a form of collective bargaining to maximize compensation from the government.

Now that is disingenuous. There's no casino there. Not all land is sacred, but some is. Casinos aren't built on land that might face internal opposition within a tribe.

[deleted]

Re: Dakota Access Pipeline to win US Army permit for completion

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2) There are no friggin wild buffalo roaming North Dakota - they are all on ranches, preserves, or the national park land. Thank you. I grew up on a ranch near there (about 30 minutes from where the protests are happening) and I know ranchers who have had tractors and combines (clearly not a piece of machinery involved in laying a pipeline) ruined because protestors put sugar and dirt in the gas tanks. The people o…

What zip code is your family's ranch? I want to look up the area on a topo map.

That's not a creepy thing to ask at all...

Check post history, I've written about growing up on a ranch in a bunch of my posts here. My family ranch is near Shields, ND -- it's a few towns over from Cannon Ball.

Re: Dakota Access Pipeline to win US Army permit for completion

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I brought up this situation because it's an example of a "paid protesters" claim being falsely used in other contexts as a reason to ignore actual human interactions. I think you are trying to invalidate the notion that there can be a reason for people to disagree other than media manipulation. I disagree with that argument and I will not attempt to engage with you on the basis of fact until and unless you walk it ba…

Uhhh... I'm not sure how to proceed here. I don't intend to upset anyone. My point was that R's will vote for R's. If that weren't the intention of the electorate, they would have elected a D. (Isn't the "two-party system" fun!) I don't why we'd need to invoke a conspiracy theory, even one offered up by the R in question, to understand why an R would vote for an R. That is, don't believe everything that politicians t…

I definitely will agree with you about the existence of horrible flaws in the "two-party system" - I don't want to put words in your mouth but if you have it, then I share the belief that large improvements to our voting processes are possible. For my part, I'd like to see innovations like instant run-off voting, mathematically fair drawing procedures for the regional boundaries that determine the shape of geographic voting precincts, strict campaign finance regulations, and deployment of an automatic methodology to turn certain flavors of congressional deadlock into public referendum rather than the baroque set of tie-breaker rules/conventions dominating the strategy behind congressional procedures (in my opinion, the possibility of injecting a little bit of stochastic noise from the electorate into the law-making process would provide a much better incentive structure for how congress critters should think about their differences than the overly deterministic incentives currently in place).

But back to the point - I brought it up not to argue that this particular appointee was any better or worse than some standard, but to support the notion that it is correct to object to propaganda that attempts to discredit voices due to false accusations that those voices are only the voices of paid protesters with a corrupt financial agenda rather than the opinions of actual people who formed those opinions based on their real-life experiences. Deploying this strategy falsely to discredit legitimate opposition groups is inherently anti-democratic, corrupt, polarizing, and very dangerous (in my opinion).

You responded to this expression with a claim that I interpreted as expressing that the only possible disagreement about a particular appointee is a product of partisan media manipulation and therefore its fair game to insinuate that any opposition voices are entirely partisan in nature. Within the context of the thread, I understand you attempted to establish that point in order to suggest that it is 'OK' to spread false caricatures of the opposition voices to the portion of the electorate that is prepared to receive that message regardless of veracity.

I understand the desire to be jaded about politics -- I typically try to ignore as much of politics as I can and tend to think that's the best possible strategy for me. It appears to me though that you take your cynicism further by asserting that there is basically no role in the political process for decision making beyond the level of team sports. All disagreement between members of A and members of B is inherently only about media manipulation rather than the possibility that such disagreement could express something rational about the real world.

I think that world-view (as understood by me) is inherently anti-rational-discourse and is worth disagreeing with.

Re: Dakota Access Pipeline to win US Army permit for completion

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What zip code is your family's ranch? I want to look up the area on a topo map.

That's not a creepy thing to ask at all... Check post history, I've written about growing up on a ranch in a bunch of my posts here. My family ranch is near Shields, ND -- it's a few towns over from Cannon Ball.

Whoa -- that is a very small town in a low population density area. I apologize for asking -- my question does a lot more to attach identity to you than I'd realized. I would delete my question if I still could.
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