Hearing Premier Williams' scrum Friday on the Titan booster crisis made me want to take back the good things I posted about him earlier.
Friday we got the old hysterical Danny from the offshore revenues fracas. Here's the CBC Here and Now broadcast from Friday complete with Deanne Fleet's report at time incidence 6:39. This link needs RealPlayer. CBC uses a submarine launched ballistic missile to illustrate the story - missile guys. The Premier uses a 1998 Titan accident (see "The Missileer") to highlight why he is worried. The Premier sounds increasingly like a guy building a case for suing on behalf of a client with "stress". Remember the guy who sued Fear Factor because he was grossed out by one of the food stunts? You get the idea.
The Premier sounded hysterical in the sense of "uncontrollably emotional; convulsive, fitful...In a state of panic or behaving in a wild irrational manner, due to fear or emotional trauma."
We are living under a threat, according to the Premier.
He needs an assurance from the US government that this missile has absolutely "zero" chances of hitting the Hibernia rig or that if it comes close that the impact won't disrupt the rig. Someone should make the transcript public so people can see everything the Premier said and how he said it.
The Premier has caused unwarranted and unneeded public worry with his irresponsible comments.
To make matters worse, some national media are now talking about a missile flying "over Newfoundland" when the bloody thing will actually burn up on re-entry over 400 kilometres out to sea.
In the meantime, the Premier is apparently miffed, perplexed, annoyed and angered that people are giving conflicting information. Well, that's easy enough to solve: give me a call and I'll set you straight.
The CBC nationally has picked up this same crap, referring to conflicts between agencies in the US government that actually don't have anything directly to do with the launch. Some guy from State says the launch is on for Wednesday, which is likely what his subordinates briefed him. meantime some Captain from Space Command in Colorado says the date hasn't been reset.
Now I am not sure how reporters followed their daisy chain to get comments from these guys but let me put this out there as a wild-eyed, radical like a Russian-anarchist kind of idea:
The rocket is being fired by USAF Space Command, so the Space Command guy likely knows what he is talking about. The guy from State probably needed a briefing on where Canada was let alone why some place called New Finland was upset.
In any event, the launch was postponed for technical reasons and once those reasons are fixed, up she goes. That's what I have been saying all along. Won't someone please pay attention?
But what's the conflict furrowing the brow of Der Premier? Literally whether or not there is a one in 10 million or a one in a trillion chance of the rig being affected in any way possible. As I listened to the scrum played today by Ted Blades "On the Go" I heard a personal injury lawyer who can see the red lights on the ambulance.
We live under threat, alright: A threat that someone with a grip on reality might seize the microphone and tell everyone to go back to sleep.
We live now under a new threat. Engineers are reportedly meeting tomorrow (Saturday) to put some kind of firm numbers on the probability of impact. Add the lawyers to the equation and we will get even more confusion.
In the meantime, I will drag everyone back to what I said before: there is no problem. There is no threat. The odds are either one in 10 million or one in a trillion the platforms won't be hit by a piece of the Titan 403B booster.
I wish I could get those kind of odds that say Danny Williams might take a pill before his next scrum on this subject.
Gimme a frickin' break.
