I know that post might be drowned out by the death of Sen. Byrd (R.I.P Senator, your service will be remembered for a long time) and the start of confirmation hearings for Elana Kagan (Release the Kagan!) but given the intense pressure that short-sighted politicians are putting on the administration for the resumption of deep water drilling I thought it is worth looking at what we might be able to do to decrease the chance of another of these accidents.
BP and the other oil companies rated the chance of a major blow out as statistically zero. This was a huge mistake in and of itself. The odds of picking all six numbers in a 42 number lotto drawing are 184 million to one. You have a better chance of being mauled by a polar bear and a regular bear in the same day than doing picking those numbers. Yet they are picked all the time. On average there is a jackpot won every 4 weeks. 184 million to one are effectively and statistically the same thing as zero chance, but as the example shows zero does not mean no chance.
"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"
continued at Daily Kos....
