Oil plugging ideas.

[jerrymcl89]

The Deepwater Horizon incident is, in addition to a catastrophic environmental disaster, which I'm not making light of, also a fascinating engineering problem. There is plenty of politcal blaming to go around in terms of whose fault it is that safeguards were not in place to ensure that if the rig blew up, it would not leave a permanent, open

Comments

[nutmeg3]

Obviously I'm simplifying the problem, but I think you're right, in that so much in this country has become All About Money. Our schools are suffering financially and don't focus on independent / creative thinking and problem-solving, and we've fallen behind much of the world in math and science. Intellectual careers are generally financial dead ends, and R&D in the private sector is all about making money for the company, and in the public sector it just isn't funded the way it should be, and that seems to be true no matter what the research is about. Add to that the "do more with less," "shortcuts are good," and "I want it yesterday" mentality prevalent in business today, not to mention the "me, me, me"-ness of the financial industry in particular (but not just limited to them), and...yeah, we're no longer anything close to cutting edge in a lot of things we ought to be a lot better at. Like fixing problems (or avoiding them in the first place).

[jerrymcl89]

I don't want to ask too much of Obama or anyone else, but I think if it is still possible to steer people's aspirations the way JFK was able to do in a more believing age, it would be worth a try. I have doubts, though, about whether he'd try, and also about whether it would work. But this should be a country of people who solve problems (regardless of where the people who do that come from}.

[nutmeg3]

And isn't that just a whole 'nother can of worms? Arizona may be the only state passing laws about it, but we're not exactly welcoming to immigrants anymore, it seems to me. Emma Lazarus is probably rolling over in her grave.

[jerrymcl89]

True. Unlike, say, India, Mexico sends us more gardeners and housekeepers than engineers. But while they lack education, they still have initiative, or they would still be in Mexico. Given a chance, their children would most likely do what the children of all other immigrant groups have done over the years.