Quote:
Originally Posted by Peanut
Government inspections are not the same as national and international engineering design standards and codes. My point was that I doubted the campaign contributions had any influence on engineering design standards and codes. Presumably the dam was designed to comply with engineering standards and codes originally by KPC, back in the 2000's or whenever it was.
I don't know what your point is about AMEC and Knight Piesold regarding my comment? I read both those articles before I saw this thread on CP. Obviously CP is not my source of info, since nobody was even talking about AMEC or KPC in this thread. I said I was surprised that nobody else was discussing the role of the engineer of record in this incident. They would seem, to me, to have much more influence over the design of the dam than Murray Edwards.
And it sort of gets my back up that you're calling me ignorant, while posting photos of yourself hoisting your bike at the top of Mount Seymour as a testament to your environment loving ways.
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When you see companies donating large sums of money to the government, can you really trust the government to work for you? Do you really think they don't change regulations, policies, codes, and whatever else they feel is impeding them in any way?
Many of us here - heck, even Mayor Nenshi - looked down on the whole "Occupy Wallstreet" because most of us just saw these people as radicals, losers and 'hippies'. "Go get a job!", blah blah. That is what many people here in Calgary thought. Who here decided to investigate why this movement was so important? Where it came from? Why were these people protesting all over the world suddenly?
There was a very fantastic example of why they were doing it in the States (forget where exactly). The protestors were exercising their right to protest peacefully (one of the rights in the US constitution). They were pepper sprayed by the police. Why? The police actually had no right to do this apparently. Do you see the rights and freedoms - democracy itself - failing? Why are so many against multinational companies? Globalization? It has lots more to do than just 'our jobs' going somewhere else.
When private enterprise is donating huge sums of money to government, why on Earth do you think they do that? What are the motives for this? What does this do in the long run?
Could it just be that it is an attempt to influence the government? That you, me and Joe Blow no longer have a real vote and a real say in who runs this country, and how they should do it? Our rights and freedoms become eroded more and more, and democracy does indeed start failing. We stop having a 'choice' in government. Why? Because they all accept huge campaign contributions, and in the end, the huge companies get what they are after. Media Lens did a fairly large-scale phone survey where they called households in the UK (they operate in the UK). They asked them what they wanted to see in a campaign platform, what they felt was important, and were asked for 5 or 10 things. None of the politicians campaigning had 2 of the top 3 or 4 items in their campaigns (one included Iraq, I believe). So how is it that a democratic government who is supposed to be representative and responsible for 'our needs' not include exactly what the majority of people want? Their point is that democracy is failing, and there really isn't a 'choice' any longer in who represents us, or what they campaign for.
Also, you have to look at what has been historically the 'government critics' - the media. They used to be this voice for the people. Who owns them now? These same companies that spend all this money influencing the government. Now they get to write the stories (or stop them from being written) that they feel should be part of influencing the masses.
Remember when the UN told the USA NOT to invade Iraq? Why was it done again? I will never forget the CNN correspondent cutting off and 'correcting' the Al Jazeera correspondent when he called it the "Invasion of Iraq", instead of the "Liberation of Iraq". The UN did not call it a liberation. The people of Iraq - even though they had a terrible dictator (who was put into power by whom again? and why again?) - didn't call it a liberation. You can call it a genocide (just look up uranium-tipped weapons and Fallujah - illegal under international law). However, how many media services pick up on this? Zero from the west. What does this tell you?
So, if you don't think these large companies influence government in changing codes and standards - engineering or not - that they state are too 'rigorous, extreme and costly', then I guess absolutely nothing happened at Mount Polley except a total and unavoidable accident that will never happen again, and the real villain here is indeed Thymebalm riding his evil mountain bike in the wilderness.