Happy now?

By Capt. Fogg


Is the Gulf of Mexico becoming the cesspool of the Oil business; the repository of all the spills resulting from accidents, neglect, irresponsible drilling and all the other inevitable situations we refuse to listen to while sneering at "enviros" and calling for more oil whatever the cost?

Sure it is, but we may just be beginning to give a damn, now that it's appearing that many of us won't live to see that section of the great mother of life, the World Ocean, and it's shorelines restored to any kind of health.

We have another gusher, apparently. Just off the coast near New Orleans where a barge has reportedly crashed into a well spilling more oil just where we need it least and just where we have our equipment otherwise occupied. It hasn't been the first time, and it won't be the last, but maybe now we're starting to realize that you can't get all the world's oil out of the ground without the nasty consequences we've been ignoring. You can't transport it by ship or by pipeline and you can't pump it without leaks and spills and fires and of course, loss of life.

Yes, that's right, you're paying three bucks a gallon -- much, much less than other countries do and all our efforts to ruin what's left of what's worth keeping in our country aren't going to reduce that price. It's all going to get worse until you start listening to those hippie, treehugging, sandal wearing weirdos and stop listening to the bought and paid for politicians who refuse to do a damned thing that might stop the campaign contributions and free propaganda that keep them in office. The rich TV blowhards, your friends, your neighbors and all their stupid stories about vast reserves of oil ready to pour into your tanks if only the government and those environmental freaks would let our friends at Exxon sell it to China and Japan at a higher price than we want to pay.

I'd like to blame it all on Republicans, like the ones in Florida who refuse to take any steps whatever to keep the oil off our shores ( or the industrial and agricultural waste that poison our inland waters) but even the President we elected in our naivete, thinking that he could be immune, has been tainted.

Oil corrupts. Big oil corrupts big time, whether it's in Nigeria, Venezuela or Iraq. It's corrupted us and has corrupted presidents since the Harding administration. But before you think I'm going into another partisan rant, think again. It's us - it's you who elect these people. It's the American people, the snickering snarky states of America looking for scapegoats while we support the Palins and the McCains and the Cheneys and the Bush's who tell us we need more oil and that we need only to disregard all prudence to get and use more of it and faster.

Yes, they either bought or bamboozled Obama into thinking it was all so safe despite the shaky safety record and now they want you to forget that we all cooperated in eliminating all traces of safety standards -- you know, the things we've been dumb enough to see as "Communism.." It's us, the soccer moms, the commuters, the SUV fashionistas who don't think past our daily concerns and laugh at the concept of giving a damn about the future. You wanted oil and you've got oil. Are you happy now?

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Drill it, spill it - we don't care.

By Capt. Fogg

The subject of off shore oil and gas drilling has been a frequent discussion topic since I've lived in Florida. My particular part of the state has a large proportion of people who have environmental concerns, at least as far as clean water and the health of fish stocks are concerned. Most oppose rapid growth, virtually all of my local friends are extremely concerned about the ongoing discharge of polluted fresh water from Lake Okeechobee into our estuary and are likely to show anger at the sugar industry and even the cattle industry that are sources of much of it and who benefit greatly from the government guaranteed status quo. But when it comes to oil, it's been Drill Baby Drill even despite former Republican Governor Jeb Bush's opposition to it.

Before the BP disaster, one couldn't bring up the subject without becoming an audience for vituperation against "the Enviros" who were the root of the problem: the problem of course being high oil prices. The Environmental bogey men, they insist, are the reason we don't have more and cheaper nuclear power and why our bottomless oil reserves aren't being tapped as cleanly and risk free as turning on the bathroom faucet. It's the Liberals -- it's always the Liberals. They're all Republicans and conservationists without being in favor of conservation and environmentally concerned without being environmentalists. It's doublethink at it's finest.

One would expect that to have changed, and indeed it is changing, but not by as much as you might think. The illusion persists that there are huge amounts of oil off our coasts than can be easily accessed by sticking a straw into the mud and that the sooner we give the right to do that to foreign oil companies who sell into a competitive worldwide market, the sooner we'll be back to 26 cents per gallon. Efforts -- my efforts at least -- to dispel the mythology haven't been worthwhile. There's always some secret reserve or hidden oil field kept under wraps by a malicious government and their familiars: the Enviros.

They're not chanting Drill Baby Drill any more; not out loud at any rate, but Floridians aren't yet solidly behind a Constitutional amendment preventing these operations in Florida waters. The Republican-led Legislature seems firmly against it and abruptly adjourned a special legislative session after 49 minutes Tuesday, squelching Governor Charlie Crist's proposal to put the amendment on the ballot. Florida legislators, of course, get a lot of money from the oil and gas industry and before the false equivalence parade float is pulled out of the shed, the lion's share goes to Republicans.

The House Republican leader, Adam Hasner claims that Crist is making it "all about politics" but of course opposition to environmental responsibility has little else but politics to offer as a basis.
It's all about continued profits for the oil industry, continued support for their party (which Crist has recently left) and continued disregard for public safety, health and the common resources of our country.

I don't expect my local friends to put it all together and realize that we' can't preserve our local environment while letting the unholy alliance between oil and government rape the land and water and food sources, but according to the Miami Herald today, support is indeed growing for a permanent ban on at least near-shore drilling. That means at least a few more people are willing to see the picture beyond what is framed by their job, their backyard and their circle of idiocy. It's far too soon -- enormously far too soon to sound like an optimist and in fact I'm convinced that slogans and dogmas, slanders and stupidity will remain the song of the South until the Gulf looks like the LaBrea tar pits and we have to resort to eating termites and grasshoppers while the crops die -- and even then, I'm not sure many minds will be changed in the direction of responsible oversight and regulation by a government agency.

What the hell, might as well just drill!

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

The next BP disaster?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

One pretty much knows what to expect from the oil industry. Regardless of the disastrous situation in the Gulf of Mexico, it will ignore the obvious lessons stemming from that ongoing catastrophe and continue to push for drilling and more drilling. Perhaps one also pretty much knows what to expect from government, namely, that it will continue to hand the oil industry what it wants and look the other way when it matters, failing to provide the necessary regulatory oversight, but one expects, or should expect, better. Government, after all, exists not to, or should not exist to, help private industry maximize its profits but to advance the broader public interest. Such optimism is clearly unwarranted. The Times reports:

The future of BP's offshore oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico has been thrown into doubt by the recent drilling disaster and court wrangling over a moratorium.

But about three miles off the coast of Alaska, BP is moving ahead with a controversial and potentially record-setting project to drill two miles under the sea and then six to eight miles horizontally to reach what is believed to be a 100-million-barrel reservoir of oil under federal waters.

All other new projects in the Arctic have been halted by the Obama administration's moratorium on offshore drilling, including more traditional projects like Shell Oil's plans to drill three wells in the Chukchi Sea and two in the Beaufort.

But BP's project, called Liberty, has been exempted as regulators have granted it status as an "onshore" project even though it is about three miles off the coast in the Beaufort Sea. The reason: it sits on an artificial island — a 31-acre pile of gravel in about 22 feet of water — built by BP.

The project has already received its state and federal environmental permits, but BP has yet to file its final application to federal regulators to begin drilling, which it expects to start in the fall.

As bad as that is, it gets worse:

Rather than conducting their own independent analysis, federal regulators, in a break from usual practice, allowed BP in 2007 to write its own environmental review for the project as well as its own consultation documents relating to the Endangered Species Act, according to two scientists from the Alaska office of the federal Mineral Management Service that oversees drilling.

The environmental assessment was taken away from the agency's unit that typically handles such reviews, and put in the hands of a different division that was more pro-drilling, said the scientists, who discussed the process because they remained opposed to how it was handled.

"The whole process for approving Liberty was bizarre," one of the federal scientists said. 

Well, that's one word for it, but, when you think about it, it's not really all that bizarre. This is government not doing what it should be doing, and therefore what it so often does, not just looking away but encouraging the irresponsible activities of the oil industry -- responsible to shareholders, perhaps, despite the obvious risk, but irresponsible to the broader public, which, as along the Gulf Coast, will suffer the consequences should there be another environmental disaster, and irresponsible in terms of environmental stewardship.

Otherwise, to put it more bluntly, this is just insane. BP gets to do this because it built an artificial island and claims that it's actually onshore drilling (when it clearly isn't)? And the government just lets BP write its own environmental review and consultation documents?

Makes you wonder who really runs the country. Until you realize that we already know who does.

Drill until we drop

By Capt. Fogg

Perhaps a society such as ours has as finite a lifespan as the individuals it's composed of and I think I'm seeing the kind of memory loss and dementia in the American public that we associate with extreme old age. The aged body sometimes can't absorb sustenance very well and neither can the American public assimilate the things that make a capable and dynamic Democracy possible. a large part of our population, for instance, seems to think that the huge environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico means that we need to do more of what made it happen and in the same careless, unregulated way. Presumably a number of those live far inland and don't like seafood or care that the Earth is becoming less livable because these are still the "end times," but not all of them. Some just think that as long as their immediate, short term needs are met, the rest of the world can go to hell, and so it goes.

A recent poll shows that despite the total lack of evidence and the extreme unlikeliness of the scenario, nine or ten percent of Americans do believe Limbaugh's idiotic proposition that it was the "enviros" behind the drilling platform explosion, but the scary part is that 22% are "unsure." Amongst self-identified Conservatives, the number jumps to 44% who believe it was sabotage by liberals. The evidence to the contrary is out there, the evidence for it isn't out there, so either 31% are unable to assimilate it by reason of dementia or have no interest in the survival of the USA as we think we know it -- or like many elderly people, they've given up and are simply wandering in a senile, paranoid daze of denialism looking for their lost youth and vigor.

"Perhaps most surprisingly 21% of voters said the spill made them more likely to support offshore drilling,"

said Public Policy Polling director Tom Jensen. 55% of Americans polled after the disaster began, still supported offshore drilling, according to the same poll.

Am I pushing this too far? Is this really only more of what America has been doing since its beginning? We are, after all a nation that is happy to continue its war on drugs and embargoes on foreign countries that cause more harm than good; a nation that has had to struggle tooth and nail to overcome our vicious habits. Most of all we're a nation that always waits for a calamity before doing anything. What I'm afraid of is that this time the calamity we're waiting for won't come until we're a nation incapable of taking care of ourselves but a nation with a huge Army.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Exposing the hypocrisy at the heart of the anti-government GOP

By Michael J.W. Stickings

WaPo's Dana Milbank exposes the utter hypocrisy of anti-government conservatives like the ones who head up the Republican Party these days:

There is something exquisite about the moment when a conservative decides he needs more government in his life.

About 10:30 Monday morning, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), an ardent foe of big government, posted a blog item on his campaign Web site about the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. "I strongly believe BP is spread too thin," he wrote.

The poor dears. He thinks it would be a better arrangement if "federal and state officials" would do the dirty work of "protecting and cleaning up the coast" instead of BP.

About an hour later came word from the Pentagon that Alabama, Florida and Mississippi -- all three governed by men who once considered themselves limited-government conservatives -- want the federal government to mobilize (at taxpayer expense, of course) more National Guard troops to aid in the cleanup.

That followed an earlier request by the small-government governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal (R), who issued a statement saying he had called the Obama administration "to outline the state's needs" and to ask "for additional resources." Said Jindal: "These resources are critical."

About the time that Alabama, Florida and Mississippi were asking for more federal help, three small-government Republican senators, Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions of Alabama and George LeMieux of Florida, were flying over the gulf on a U.S. government aircraft with small-government Republican Rep. Jeff Miller (Fla.).

"We're here to send the message that we're going to do everything we can from a federal level to mitigate this," Sessions said after the flight, "to protect the people and make sure when people are damaged that they're made whole."

Sessions, probably the Senate's most ardent supporter of tort reform, found himself extolling the virtues of litigation -- against BP. "They're not limited in liability on damage, so if you've suffered a damage, they are the responsible party," said Sessions, sounding very much like the trial lawyers he usually maligns.

All these limited-government guys expressed their belief that the British oil company would ultimately cover all the costs of the cleanup. "They're not too big to fail," Sessions said.

I apologize for the long blockquote, but that's some hilariously revealing stuff there. Go read the whole piece.

For more, see Steve Benen: "It's the kind of routine hypocrisy and ideological inconsistency that occurs on a nearly daily basis."

Cheney's Chernobyl

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Thank you, Skippy.

And spread the word, people. It's not Obama's Katrina, it's Cheney's Chernobyl.

How so? Check out William Galston at TNR (read it all -- it's important):

First, an oil-drilling procedure called cementing -- which is supposed to prevent oil and natural gas from escaping by filling gaps between the outside of the well pipe and the inside of the hole bored into the ocean floor -- has been identified as a leading cause of well blowouts. Indeed, a 2007 study by the Minerals Management Service (or MMS, the division of the Interior Department responsible for offshore drilling) found that this procedure was implicated in 18 out of 39 blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico over the 14 years it studied -- more than any other factor. Cementing, which was handled by Halliburton, had just been completed prior to the recent explosion. The Journal notes that Halliburton was also the cementer on a well that suffered a big blowout last August in the Timor Sea off Australia. While BP's management has been responsive to press inquiries and relatively forthcoming as to its responsibility, Halliburton has refused to answer any questions -- an all-too-familiar stance on its part.

And that's not all:

Second, the oil well now spewing large quantities of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico lacked a remote-control acoustic shutoff switch used by rigs in Norway and Brazil as the last line of defense against underwater spills. There's a story behind that. As the Journal reports, after a spill in 2000, the MMS issued a safety notice saying that such a back-up device is "an essential component of a deepwater drilling system." The industry pushed back in 2001, citing alleged doubts about the capacity of this type of system to provide a reliable emergency backup. By 2003, government regulators decided that the matter needed more study after commissioning a report that offered another, more honest reason: "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly." I guess that depends on what they're compared to. The system costs about $500,000 per rig. BP is spending at least $5 million per day battling the spill, the well destroyed by the explosion is valued at $560 million, and estimated damages to fishing, tourism, and the environment already run into the billions.

There's something else we know, something that suggests an explanation for this sequence of events. After the Bush administration took office, the MMS became a cesspool of corruption and conflicts of interest...

So here's my question: what is responsible for MMS's change of heart between 2000 and 2003 on the crucial issue of requiring a remote control switch for offshore rigs? What we do know is that unfettered oil drilling was to Dick Cheney's domestic concerns what the invasion of Iraq was to his foreign policy -- a core objective, implacably pursued regardless of the risks. Is there a connection between his infamous secret energy task force and the corrupt mindset that came to dominate a key program within MMS? Would $500,000 per rig have been regarded as an unacceptably expensive insurance policy if a drill-baby-drill administration hadn't placed its thumb so heavily on the scale?

Very good questions indeed.

It's one thing (and bad enough) to do offshore drilling, quite another (and worse) to do it according to Bush and Cheney, that is, without the appropriate safeguards.

We are witnessing the catastrophic consequences of that gross negligence and irresponsibility, stemming directly from Cheney's pro-corporate (pro-Halliburton) laissez-faire ideology, in the Gulf of Mexico and, increasingly, along the oil-coated shores of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

It's an environmental nightmare, and Dick Cheney, along with those on his side (the drill-baby-drillers and the enablers of corporate recklessness), have some explaining to do.

A tale of two governors

By Michael J.W. Stickings

1. Yesterday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a conservative Republican and occasional secessionist, suggested that the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico may have been "an act of God" that could not have been prevented." Needless to say, he wants offshore oil drilling to continue.

2. Also yesterday, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a moderate Republican with an independent streak and a solid environmental record, reversed his position on offshore oil drilling in the wake of the spill. He is now against it: "You turn on the television and see this enormous disaster, you say to yourself, 'Why would we want to take on that kind of risk?'"

Perry, evidently, is insane, while Schwarzenegger continues to be one of the few voices of reason and responsibility in a party that generally shuns reason and responsibility altogether.

Heckuva Twist, Brownie

By Capt. Fogg

When you want to get the best advice on how to treat a disaster, who're you gonna call? Well certainly not the "enviros" who might know something about nature and how it works. Certainly you don't ask advice from people who have been telling you it was going to happen any day now after the day actually arrived. That would be to close to admitting you were wrong. No, you want to hear from someone whose personal record of handling catastrophic situations has become a metaphor for bungling and incompetence: you ask Brownie.

Of course the hottest new dance, the Tea Party Twist, has the baggers in knots trying to blame Obama for the latest Gulf oil disaster, the kind of disaster we've all been warned about and have been laughed at for worrying about. We dare not mention George and Dick who actually were partying it up while New Orleans drowned and doing Lord knows what for days afterward since it might diminish the outrageous new claim that Obama stalled doing anything about this oil spill so as to maximize the tragedy and give him an excuse to "pander to the environmentalists." You remember them, they're the guys who were to blame for the high prices that made the oil industry so happy?

Come on baby, let's do the twist:

"This is exactly what they want, because now he can pander to the environmentalists and say, 'I'm gonna shut it down because it's too dangerous,' " No, this would never have happened but for President Hussein.

"This president has never supported Big Oil, he's never supported offshore drilling, and now he has an excuse to shut it back down."

whined Brownie through the microphones at Fox without regard to the fact that "back down" would indicate that it had ever been shut down and that Obama hadn't been saying all along that he was in favor of drilling when needed if it could be done safely. No he hasn't yet joined Rush in claiming that environmentalist hippies in diving gear sunk the platform and he hasn't mentioned the failure of the safety equipment from Halliburton -- who would dare? Why mention that the free market is supposed to take care of this, not that durned Gummint. Who would be so unpatriotic and nonpartisan as to mention the truth? Lady Sarah after all says we need people to trust the oil industry. That means we need people to distrust the (Democratic) government if not Democracy itself.

So let's go, the band is playing and it's the Blame it on Obama Cha-Cha. Who can resist? Play it loud and you won't hear me blaming this on official drill baby drill Republican policy.

Blame it on ObamUH
Blame it on ObamUH!

Come on everybody!

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Who cares?

By Capt. Fogg

Can we call public reaction to the Gulf oil spill predictable? I'm not surprised that a CNN poll yesterday shows 47% don't approve of the way the President has handled it, but I would be surprised if many of that group really have no idea of what Obama has or hasn't done -- perhaps the majority of them, perhaps more. Of course the poll isn't scientific and it didn't ask how many people approve of BP's safety record or of the Halliburton safety equipment that failed. It's just another chance for people to show that they really disapprove of the man being in office. Another CNN poll today shows that 61% favor the continuation of drilling. I wonder how many of them live far inland.

Has anyone else noticed the lack of notice that 11 people are missing and presumed dead; either burned alive or drowned in the oil rig explosion and sinking? Shouldn't we be lionizing them for having died for cheaper oil which after all is the only thing that keeps us free and in God's good graces? No, that's predictable too. No talk of sacrifice when it comes to oil please, since it may lead some to consider what sacrifices are worth it and who should be making them. It may prompt people to ask whether the loss of jobs and industries makes the penny or two's difference in the cost of crude worth more and more destruction of the oceans we depend on for food and oxygen.

It's all too easy for us to keep the blinders on. We're too occupied with this week's groceries and next week's mortgage payment and American Idol and Obama bashing and besides we're so damned ignorant of how nature works we can't make the connection between the fish sticks and the fish they come from - if there is any.

Yes, the free market will take of everything and a bull will eventually find his way out of a china shop and besides I don't have time to care about it. I've got to pick up the kids from school and take them to soccer practice and yoga and put gas in the SUV . . . .

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Quote of the Day: Dick Durbin on offshore drilling

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Sen. Durbin, today:

There's a lot to be learned by members and perhaps new standards when it comes to off-shore drilling. I don't think we're going to eliminate offshore drilling in the future, but any future offshore drilling is going to be held to much higher safety standards.

Higher safety standards are the least that can be expected from this (man-made) disaster.

I appreciate Durbin's concern, and I wish him well, but the real lesson here is not that there need to be higher standards, which is pretty obvious, but that, if at all possible, there shouldn't be any offshore drilling at all, and that the only way to avoid not just this sort of disaster in future but environmental destruction generally, not to mention to slow down climate change, of which our reckless oil consumption is a leading cause, and stabilize global temperatures, is to shift to alternative and renewable energy sources.

Last time I checked, solar panels and wind turbines don't have quite the catastrophic consequences as, say, an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico does.

Black is the new green

Guest post by Distributorcap

I'd like to introduce you to a new guest blogger here at The Reaction -- Distributorcap (not his real name), the proprietor of the excellent blog Distributorcap NY. He describes himself as an angry and frustrated writer who has spent his entire life in New York City (hence the anger and frustration) and who likes to report on what he sees around him while having a few laughs along the way. I'd describe him as an astute political commentator who brings just the right sardonic tone to his observations. I've long been a fan, and I think he'll be a great addition to our team. Look for more from him soon and be sure to check out his blog regularly. -- MJWS

**********

What is happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now will probably end up being the biggest disaster ever to strike the U.S. Not only will millions of fish, animals, and plant life be destroyed but the livelihoods of millions of farmers, fishermen, businessmen, and resort owners along the pristine shores will likely suffer dramatic economic consequences. And the fragile ecological systems that ultimately sustain the arability of lands in the south will be forever tainted. I know this sounds alarmist, but the magnitude of this catastrophe will end up growing exponentially because this country refuses to face the obvious fact that we cannot drill baby drill (D-B-D) our way to energy independence.

I wasn't going to write about this, but I find it comical (and predictable) that the ONLY thing the D-B-D crowd on the right wants to talk about is how the Obama administration has been late to fixing this mess. You know, this is Obama's Katrina. (Then again, Obama does not get off scott free here. It was only a few months ago that he surprisingly lifted the moratorium on offshore drilling to buy a few GOP and conservadem votes).

Harken back to recent (dark) history, the 2008 Republican Convention. Who can forget the chants of "drill, baby drill"? From McCain, to Romney, to Giuliani, to the Schnook of the North, the crowds went wild as each of the stars of the GOP proclaimed we would "drill our way to economic health."

(can't you just hear Sarah singing "Ah sweet mystery of life I have found you" as the oil covers her).

Well, where are those D-B-D people today? In the words of that Republican Godfather (who has to be turning in his grave today), Abraham Lincoln, "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."

Fresh off their rapid health care protests against anything government, why are the teabaggers and their leaders so silent on the government takeover of the oil spill? Why isn't every teabagger, who protested so LOUDLY about the big bad government and the nasty income taxes that only benefit immigrants and welfare queens in their Cadillacs, down in Louisiana scraping oil off the egrets?

"Don't touch my Medicare, and now clean up the shorelines!"

The reason that they aren't opening their pie holes and saying anything is that they fully know our Kenyan-led socialist government has to go in and clean up this mess. Without that, those same teabaggers know it would remain a mess, and would ultimately affect the price of their shrimp cocktails. Even Governor Bobby Jindal (another complete moron who famously pooh-poohed a volcano warning system and other assorted government programs) needs this socialism to help his state out once again.

One thing about the GOP, they have no shame in being hypocrites.

I bet we ALL can easily recite the next few lines from the teabaggers, Rush, and Beck:

• Accidents will happen, no big deal. It is only a few dead catfish.
• The oil spill is good for America. Think of all the jobs it will create
• The liberals and environmentalists caused this! (Rush has already used this one.)

The bloviators are nothing if not predictable.

And finally, what would a catastrophe be without some remarks from the 1/2-term walking catastrophe from Alaska herself? On Friday, the nitwit ex-governor finally "tweeted" her two cents:

Having worked/lived thru Exxon oil spill, my family&I understand Gulf residents' fears.Our prayers r w/u.All industry efforts must b employed

You know, as much as I think Sarah Palin is some sort of reincarnation of Eva Peron, Eva Braun, and Lucretia Borgia, I have to give her credit for handing pure comedy gold to the writers of the world. She makes it all too easy.

First, during the presidential campaign, Lady Blah-Blah couldn't even remember the Exxon Valdez Supreme Court case. Now she is an "expert who has lived through it." If she "helped in the clean-up" back in 1989, why didn't she mention the case when asked by Katie Couric?

Second, in 1989, five-college Sarah (besides being a disingenuous liar) had just eloped with Todd when the Exxon Valdez spill occurred. She was also barefoot and preggers with Track at the same time. Our Miss Sarah Louise did not enter politics until 1992. I would bet the farm that Palin was not cleaning the shore or de-oiling birds in Prince William Sound or having anything to do with getting her manicured nails dirty. She was staring at Russia from her window.

Third, has anyone ever articulated exactly what Miss Energy Policy knows about oil and the environment? Remember, Mooselini wanted to open ANWR for exploration -- you know make Alaska safer with a few less polar bears. I will tell you what the former beauty queen knows about energy. She knew how to get some cash for Alaskans out of the oil companies. And after a few weeks, she will be tooting the "drill baby drill" horn all over again.

I have a good way for the quitter to finally get her "environmental credentials." She should high tail it down to the Gulf Coast in one of her fancy Cessnas and start helping with the clean up. I bet she could suck up that oil through one of her bendy straws in no time.

Everything about this woman is fake. And like every other opportunist with no brain, she is eventually exposed for what she is. "Drill, baby, drill" -- she said it. So did McCain, so did Rudy. Hopefully this disaster is their (borrowing the line from Senator Jim Demented) Waterloo or Oilloo. Maybe they should drill her head to see if there is a brain in there.

When is this country going to finally grow up and face some sort of reality -- that the world is not our oyster, that we are not entitled and we are not anymore special than anyone other country? The catastrophe that is occurring in the Gulf of Mexico has very little to do with keeping the country moving and everything to do with the delusion that we can drill our way to economic health. This massive oil spill is not a bump in the road to energy independence but rather another in a long list of somber warnings that we have to change our ways or we will end up having no ways, and that that oyster is going to be nothing more than a repository for gasoline.

Meanwhile, enjoy your Louisiana blackened catfish with oil on the side.

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

Palin's experience

By J. Thomas Duffy

"Sarah Palin is back! The keeper of the light! All hail Sarah Palin! All hail Sarah Palin! Oh Sarah Palin can you see by the dawn's early light..."

Grand Central Station Locker Creatures.



It's a good thing I hadn't had my first morning cup of coffee when I caught this, otherwise I would have spewed it all over the computer as I fell to the floor in a fit of laughter.

It should be no surprise that The Wasilla Whiz Kid would call for, on her Policy Think Tank Facebook Page, continued drilling: 

All responsible energy development must be accompanied by strict oversight, but even with the strictest oversight in the world, accidents still happen. No human endeavor is ever without risk – whether it’s sending a man to the moon or extracting the necessary resources to fuel our civilization. I repeat the slogan “drill here, drill now” not out of naiveté or disregard for the tragic consequences of oil spills – my family and my state and I know firsthand those consequences. How could I still believe in drilling America’s domestic supply of energy after having seen the devastation of the Exxon-Valdez spill? I continue to believe in it because increased domestic oil production will make us a more secure, prosperous, and peaceful nation. 

No, actually, "increased domestic oil production" will not make us more secure and prosperous (well, it will make the oil industry companies very prosperous).

It will continue to destroy our environment and strain state and federal budgets, cleaning up, for years to decades, those "accidents with the strictest oversight" while underfunding the development of alternative, safe, renewable energy sources.



But that is not what would have had coffee shooting out of my nose.

Rather it was the Flying Monkey sycophants over at Conservatives4Palin.

Latching on to anything, anything, with Herculean powers, anything that could possibly make Mommy Moose look like a thoughtful, competent leader, they go to the source, the beryllium sphere, Ms. Ya'Bet'cha's book, to highlight "her experience" in dealing with oil spills.

Palin's Experience With Exxon Valdez Oil Spill


Governor Palin wrote earlier today about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. As the governor mentioned in her Facebook posting, she's experienced the effects of an oil spill first-hand. The following is an excerpt from Going Rogue about the Exxon Valdez spill (pages 59-62):

On Good Friday, March 24, 1989, I baked a cake for Dad’s fifty-first birthday. It started out a great day, but turned into one of those “where were you when ...” moments. When Ronald Reagan was shot, I heard about it over the intercom upstairs in the library at Wasilla High; when the space shuttle Challenger exploded, I was watching it on TV while standing in my dorm room at UI. 

On this day, I was in my apartment on Peck Street in Wasilla when the phone rang.

“Sarah, turn on the TV!” It was Blanche. The intensity of her voice did not spell good news.

[snip]

When the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef, I was a young mother-to-be with a blue-collar husband headed up to the Slope. I hadn’t yet envisioned running for elected office. But looking back, I can see that the tragedy planted a seed in me: If I ever had a chance to serve my fellow citizens, I would do so, and I’d work for the ordinary, hardworking people—like everyone who was a part of my ordinary, hardworking world. 

Well ...

Not exactly.

It was more like she'd work for about a half term for those "ordinary, hardworking people" before bailing out and jumping on the Money Train.

Meanwhile, back in reality:

Leaked report: Government fears Deepwater Horizon well could become unchecked gusher 

The worst-case scenario for the broken and leaking well pouring oil into the Gulf of Mexico would be the loss of the wellhead and kinked piping currently restricting the flow to 5,000 barrels -- or 210,000 gallons -- per day. 

If the wellhead is lost, oil could leave the well at a much greater rate.

[snip]

Gouget said the loss of a wellhead is totally unprecedented.

Maybe she can go down there and wink at it.




Bonus Links

Andrew Sullivan: Tweet Of The Day

Laura Conaway: Palin feels Gulf's pain, but accidents happen, OK? As proved by 2nd rig collapse

Cheney, Baby Cheney ...

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

It's not just BP's fault

By Creature

Rush Limbaugh would like to blame eco-terrorists for the heartbreaking disaster unfolding in the Gulf, but really he should look a bit closer to home (and his wallet). Can you say, Halliburton? I don't think Rush can.

Consider the source

By Capt. Fogg

So how long did you think it would take? Actually I'm surprised that Chairman Rush took so long to blame the oil rig disaster on "hardcore environmentalist wackos." He couldn't have been waiting for some evidence before making accusations of murder and terrorism since there hasn't been any and he's never let that bother him before. Besides he isn't actually making any accusations in the first place:

"I'm just, I'm just noting the timing here."

It happened on Earth Day of course. It's always so easy to say "case closed" when there isn't any case so I won't even hint that Halliburton, the recipient of unholy amounts of government subsidies, grants and contracts and with strong ties to Dick Cheney is handling the capping of the well. I'll just note who's getting rich from it.

It didn't take long either, for the "government can't be trusted" set to pledge their trust to the Arizona police never to define their "reasonable suspicion" in a way that lets them stop and harass American citizens of Hispanic origin or Hispanics with legal work papers. They don't have to worry at all, though they should be sure to have witnesses standing by, to never go out of the house without proof of citizenship and to be very, very polite to Sheriff Arpaio when he demands they stand and deliver.

There's simply no reason to worry about abuse except that the recently signed bill seems to have been drafted by Kris Kobach who is a lawyer from the Federation for American Immigration Reform , which the Southern Poverty Law Center has listed as an anti-immigrant hate group since 2007 and who was former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s top immigration adviser. Hey, I'm not suggesting anything, but Ashcroft isn't known for respecting the niceties of Constitutional law in matters concerning the Bill of Rights. So maybe it's constitutional, maybe it's not, maybe it's going to be hell for Hispanics in Arizona, maybe not, but I'll simply consider the source.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Barack Obama and the Seven Samurai

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I don't have much to say today. Or, rather, I do, but I'm just too busy with other things to blog. I'll be back later with new posts, but make sure to stay tuned for more from my great co-bloggers.

I also need my anger and frustration to subside a bit. Consider:

1) NYT: "A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the National Security Agency's program of surveillance without warrants was illegal, rejecting the Obama administration's effort to keep shrouded in secrecy one of the most disputed counterterrorism policies of former President George W. Bush."

2) NYT: "The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday."

Now, while I applaud the judge's ruling, a confirmation that Bush's illegal domestic surveillance program was (and is) indeed illegal, I oppose offshore drilling strenuously. But what especially angers/frustrates me -- and this is what links the two stories -- is how President Obama, whom I continue to support and whose victory, along with the Democrats', on health-care reform I consider an historic triumph, is essentially governing as, if not quite a Republican, a moderate-conservative Democrats in Republican clothing.

His health-care reform plan, a solidly moderate Republican effort, was hardly as progressive as it could have been, and ought to have been, but I accepted that political reality was what it was and that the plan itself was probably the best that could have been achieved -- not that Obama ever pushed for more, however, such as a public option. Meanwhile, the stimulus package was good but not enough and the Wall Street bailout was a concerted effort to reward some of those in the financial oligarchy who had helped cause the meltdown in the first place. And then there's the escalation of the Afghan War and... do I need to go on?

Well, Obama's been propping up some of the worst elements of Bush's national security state (even if he did away with some of the worst abuses), and now he's doing his best Sarah Palin impersonation on drilling. And for what? Bipartisanship? It's not like Republicans, excepting Lindsey Graham and maybe one or two others, are about to support a meaningful climate-energy bill, and it's not like they're about to go along with him, and his party, on anything else this year. They showed all their cards during the health-care debate, and all they've got is obstructionism and ideological extremism.

So what is it, then? Is Obama just playing the bipartisan card to win public support in anticipation of eventual Republican opposition? Is he just setting Republicans up to look bad? Maybe, but it's not all image. He really does seem to support domestic surveillance and he really does seem to want offshore drilling. His presidency, if we judge it on its record, is anything but solidly progressive, health-care reform (which is progressive only in relative terms) aside.

I know, I know. This is hardly news. Critics like Glenn Greenwald have been saying this all along, and they're right. I've been saying it, too, from time to time, though I've usually given Obama the benefit of the doubt, and I'm sure I'll continue to support him, not least because the alternative, Republican rule, is so much worse. But, while I realize he's in campaign mode and trending to the right in consideration of November, when running as bipartisan moderates could help Democrats stave off electoral disaster, there are real-world consequences to governing as a Republican lite. And for that Obama deserves our anger and frustration.

Alright, so I guess I did have a fair amount to say, and the time to say it.

But my intention here was not to riff off a couple of NYT articles but to say that I'm busy and, in belated celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the greatest film director of all time, Akira Kurosawa (who was born on March 23, 1910 and who died in 1998), to post the trailer for the greatest film of all time, Seven Samurai. Yes, I really think it's the greatest, tied with Kieslowski's Decalogue (which isn't really a single film) and ahead of, among others (and in no particular order), Ozu's Tokyo Story and Floating Weeds, Imamura's The Profound Desire of the Gods, Gance's Napoleon, Watkins's Edvard Munch, Girard's 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould, Lumet's Network, Altman's Nashville, Lang's M, Allen's Annie Hall and Manhattan, Wenders's Wings of Desire, and another Kurosawa film, Ran.

Anyway, here it is -- a trailer that hardly does the movie justice, a movie that, to me, is about everything, as I often describe it. If you haven't seen, there's a massive hole in your life. So go watch it. All of it.

See you later.

Offshore drilling

By Creature

Another futile exercise in trying to garner GOP support. John Boehner's already come out against the plan (surprise, surprise). Next up, Sarah Palin telling us that Obama is trying to socialize the oil industry.

Greed is god

By Carl

This week seems to be my week to explore humanity and the emotional states underlying our current national crises of the economy and the political atmosphere.

So let's take this from a different perspective and try to tie them together.

Fortuitously, I was reading an article in National Geographic magazine about the burgeoning oil sand industry in Canada.

Lest you think that natural resource exploitation and the ravaging of native lands only happens in tropical climes, you need to read that article. However, it's this quote that caught my eye and got me thinking:

"It's my belief that when government attempts to manipulate the free market, bad things happen," Premier Stelmach told a gathering of oil industry executives that year. "The free-market system will solve this."

But the free market does not consider the effects of the mines on the river or the forest, or on the people who live there, unless it is forced to. Nor, left to itself, will it consider the effects of the oil sands on climate. Jim Boucher has collaborated with the oil sands industry in order to build a new economy for his people, to replace the one they lost, to provide a new future for kids who no longer hunt ptarmigan in the moonlight. But he is aware of the trade-offs. "It's a struggle to balance the needs of today and tomorrow when you look at the environment we're going to live in," he says. In northern Alberta the question of how to strike that balance has been left to the free market, and its answer has been to forget about tomorrow. Tomorrow is not its job. 

Today v. tomorrow. The now v. the then. Hmmmm... sounds familiar...

And this is the struggle that President Obama as well as every other world leader faces today, the juggling of the efficiencies of the free market against the need to protect the environment and the people, to state the general case.

There are no simple answers to be had here, as much as the conservatives would like you to believe. They want you to believe that because in an environment (pun intended) that is bereft of ideas, we cling to the past, to ideas that work sometimes if at all. The simple answer is to let the market sort it out.

I've said before that the power of the market, the real strength of it, is to weed out weakness, to promote a sort of economic evolution.

When it works well, it's extremely good at this. I don't think the market has worked well since the Reagan administration, and I'm not completely sure why.

Certainly, with Reagan, we saw the fledgling crony capitalist markets. The amount of money suddenly available in the junk bond market, the extraction of mythical valuations of "goodwill" and the raping of pension plans for the cash they contained, all combined to create barriers to entry in industries as diverse as banking and retail.

If you're wondering why Wal-Mart is ubiquitous, but you can't find an Alexander's or a Gimbel's (sorry, I'm Noo Yawk oriented), this is why: they were swept up in junk bond mania.

At first, this was an efficiency exercise. Truly there were companies that were wasting resources, paying, you know, salaries and pensions, among other things. The wave of mergers and acquisitions probably, at first, cut a lot of fat out of the marketplace, setting the stage for the enormous growth of the 1990s.

However, all good things become bad in due time, and the wolves howling at the door stopped wanting just fat and wanted the real meat.

The market, rather than be efficient, became cannibalistic.

We've seen this time and time again in America: they call it a "bubble" but in truth, it's the self-feeding cycle of cannibalism, developed through what Greenspan called "irrational exuberance".

Another Reagan-era monstrosity is the flow of corporate money into politics. A nonsensical and absurd ruling (1978 Boston v Bellotti) by the SCOTUS allowed that corporations, which are basically money magnets, have the same free speech rights as persons, and so should be allowed to contribute to politicians and to have a say in the running of the country.

All that money that had been paid out in dividends and re-invested in making the company more efficient and more responsive to their customers now became a cudgel to force legislators to bend the rules of commerce in their favor.

And now we have what we have: a Congress beholden to special interest groups, because the rewards of all that contributed money is more money to spend on advertising, which means the price of campaigning skyrockets, which means the only way a person can afford to run (even Obama) is to suckle at the teat of corporate America.

The Chinese have a saying: all feasts must have an end.

As well, governmental regulation has its good points, and its absurdities. Too much regulation can stifle creativity. Too little regulation, and you get salmonella in your peanut butter. The tendency in this swing of the pendulum is to enforce "just right sized" rules, but eventually, there will be too many and they will be too burdensome.

So which becomes the bigger burden? Too much regulation or too much money floating around?

Neither. Both. And there's the problem.

We'll continue this whipsaw back and forth until someone has the gumption to stand up and say "enough". No more corporate political contributions, get that stupid decision overturned and finally work for the people, the individuals, and not the aggolmerations of capital and political power that have worked to effectively disenfranchise the entire nation.

This is not a Republican issue (altho it tends to affect Republican administrations more than Democratic) or a Democratic issue, but a national issue.

Greed is god in this country, and it's time to tear down the idols and expose the feets of clay.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Cartoon crap

By Capt. Fogg


Dear Mr. McCoy,

Using it up now is not the same as saving it for the future. Drilling it now is useless not because the results are 20 years away, but because the results won't matter. In fact, the small amount of oil in the Gulf will be more valuable if we leave it there. Your analogies are really lies, aren't they? Of course, Obama isn't opposing drilling for oil, you just made that up because you're a liar, aren't you?

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)