Greg said: Do you not realize (apparently you don’t) that you could do the same calculation but instead of using your lifeless suburban swimming pool and a pepsi bottle full of crap, you could use an organism (like a human) and a dose of strychnine or cyanide or some other poison and calculate that the equivalent would kill one gazillian innocent babies and kittens?
Colin says: It’s not strychnine it’s biodegadeable natural thin grade (apparently) oil.

Greg asked: So, based on your IP address, I have to ask you, do you work for the BP plastic’s division or just regular BP in that nation of brown people from which you write?
Colin says: I married a brown person, a Malaysian, worked here in Sarawak as an architect in the 80’s and now am retired here. I am an environmentalist and have been since I stood in 1972 in New Zealand for Parliament for the “Values Party” which later became the Green Party. The Values Party was the first “green” party in the world.

In my very humble opinion I don’t think this particular oil spill is as bad for the environment as the media and some people make out. (Because it was deep and a long distance from the shore.)

For example, in the air, the 10-hour exposure limit set for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons is on the order of 80ppbv, with the short-term limit set at around 8,000ppbv. Some chemicals are quite deadly though; it doesn’t take much nitroglycerine to kill someone – the doses used to treat medical problems is extremely small; less than 1 part per billion by weight of the patient.

http://scienceblogs.com/guiltyplanet/2010/08/my_voice_from_the_spill.php#c2718589

http://www.amazon.ca/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/1576753018/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281549314&sr=8-2

Now that you mention it though, there’s even a pretty big discrepancy between media coverage – and that’s without BP killing off people in Florida or Louisiana.

So what you have witnessed here is a moment of deep cynicism regarding how you and I and our oil companies treat the rest of the world. It is hard to see the cynicism in print. The term “little brown people” is anthropology dog whistle speak. It comes from George Bush Sr.

Which is why the remark struck me as weirdly incongruous. I probably could have remarked on it differently, and it could have just had to do with the mental tone of voice as I was reading.