LogFAQs > #890558734

Ultima_Dragoon posted...

What are the chances someone sabotaged the pipeline

Unlikely. Sabotage is extremely rare in North America and a buried line is a difficult target. Most of the time deliberate damage occurs, it's at aboveground sites like pump stations or, less commonly, valve sites.

This was, I believe, a recently installed line, so significant corrosion damage is also unlikely, as are weld flaws and cracking. The most likely causes at this point are a line strike or operator error.

TheCyborgNinja posted...

Funny story: the criminal kept appealing it until after 9/11, then the rules were changed and his sentencing ended up being based on post-9/11 legislation instead of what existed prior.

That... sounds wrong. In almost all cases if someone is charged for an action and laws subsequently changed, they cannot be charged under the specifics of the new law, for what should hopefully be obvious reasons.

Zeus posted...

Possible, given the eco-terrorists.

You really don't actually know much about pipeline spills, do you?

As I mentioned above, deliberate sabotage of below-ground assets is almost unheard of in North America. Moreover, think about what you just suggested for a second: eco-terrorists strike back at an oil company... by causing a significant ecological disaster that TransCanada's insurance will pay for. Because that makes sense.

On the (rare) times that eco-groups go for pipelines, it's frequently construction sites or aboveground facilities that they target, not a buried pipeline in the middle of a field (which they would need to locate by survey and excavate first, because it would have been buried at least one metre underground).

streamofthesky posted...

(still don't know how the U.S. government can even do that...)

Eminent domain, which is far from unique to the US government. If a work is deemed to be in the public interest and requires the use of privately-owned land, the government can seize the land either temporarily or permanently in order to facilitate construction. Notably the government must first attempt to negotiate with the landowner in good faith and, if no agreement can be reached, fair compensation must be offered. It's used fairly regularly in pipeline construction, since there's always at least a few landowners on the right-of-way that refuse to voluntarily allow construction.

Rasmoh posted...

Voting democrat would truly be voting against one's own interests in about every sense.

Over the last 75 years, the debt-to-GDP ratio decreased under every single Democrat president except for Roosevelt and Obama, who have the excuses of having to pay for WW2 and the 2009 financial crisis respectively. By contrast, the last Republican president to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio over their term was Nixon. Bush Jr. was responsible for the single largest jump in debt-to-GDP ratio of any president since WW2.

Rasmoh posted...

I'd wager it's hardly in the best interest of the average American citizen to import millions of foreigners to come suppress wages, increase crime, shit on our traditions while proudly championing the traditions of the country they're fleeing from, and further overburden every social assistance program there is.

1) There is no data suggesting immigrants suppress wages
2) Immigrants - especially legal immigrants - are statistically less likely than native-born Americans to commit crime
3) A disproportionate majority of social assistance recipients are native-born whites
4) Most immigrants aren't "fleeing" any country - you're thinking of refugees
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