BP and BS...Stuff from All Over

The Washington Post gets it right...gas is very...expensive (via Twitter at @clasticdetritus). There is a lot of blood mixed in with the oil we consume. The apology needs to come from us.

A bit of anger from Rant Hour...How good are Tony Hayward's predictions and proclamations? Remember Bagdad Bob ("the Saddam spokesman who coalition forces would never take the capital even as American tanks were visible a few thousand yards from where BB stood")?

A 1962 ad for Humble Oil from Al's Journal, via Huffington Post. Humble Oil became Exxon in the 1970's. Big Oil definitely isn't humble any more...

From Mike Mitchell, via Huffington Post

And, BP continues to block media access to the devastated beaches with the help of the local and federal government...

Gasoline and petroleum are not our only energy related problems...those gas-saving lithium ion batteries in hybrid car also have a problem with resource availability. Lithium has to be mined too.

More Dangerous Than Cocaine, #3: Don't Worry, Be Happy, the Pushers say it's OK

Via Huffington Post:

Don't worry about the oil spilling into the Gulf, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) says, because the worst spill in U.S. history is "not an environmental disaster," just nature taking its course.

"This is not an environmental disaster, and I will say that again and again because it is a natural phenomenon," Young said after Congressional hearings last week. "Oil has seeped into this ocean for centuries, will continue to do it. During World War II there was over 10 million barrels of oil spilt from ships, and no natural catastrophe. ... We will lose some birds, we will lose some fixed sealife, but overall it will recover."

From the AP (via HP):

Disputing scientists' claims of large oil plumes suspended underwater in the Gulf of Mexico, BP PLC's chief executive on Sunday said the company has largely narrowed the focus of its cleanup to surface slicks rolling into Louisiana's coastal marshes.

During a tour of a BP PLC staging area for cleanup workers, CEO Tony Hayward said the company's sampling showed "no evidence" that oil was suspended in large masses beneath the surface. He didn't elaborate on how the testing was done

.
Governor Haley Barbour says:

"But it's just as possible that what happens here will be manageable and of moderate and even minimal impact."

Oil has not started washing up on shore in any large quantities, and Barbour likened much of the spill to the gasoline sheen commonly found around ski boats.

"We don't wash our face in it, but it doesn't stop us from jumping off the boat to ski," Barbour said.

Oh, and:

"Come on down here and play golf, enjoy the beach, catch a fish and pay a little sales tax while you're here,"

And thus it begins. In this strange alternate reality, oil spills aren't that bad, they are natural events, they are caused by environmentalists, animals are not dying except for the few who smother in oil. And BP cares about the people along the Gulf Coast far more than their stockholders, who just got their $10 billion in dividends.

I feel so sad for the residents of the Gulf Coast, and I feel sick to my stomach that the pushers are telling us our addiction is ok. As long as they get their money. We are being played for fools.

UPDATE: Rachel at 4.5 Billion Years of Wonder was on this yesterday
UPDATE #2: Brian at Clastic Detritus follows up on a Twitter discussion that has been going today

More Dangerous Than Cocaine...Part 2

Photo from AP via Huffington Post (more here)

A drug addiction goes through stages: the highs, the loss of the high, the stealing for a hit, and then one starts hurting those around them to maintain the habit. And then gets worse, it's harder and harder to support the habit. And eventually one hits bottom.

It's been more than a month since my first post on the BP oil spill. The full magnitude of this disaster is still just beginning to evolve. I hear they've been trying to prevent the media from showing pictures of dead and dying animals. I wonder why? I've heard the money comparisons coming from Louisiana: offshore oil drilling produces several tens of billion of dollars annually and fishing only a billion or so. Choices. The oil is going to curl around Florida and move up the eastern Atlantic Coast. But we shouldn't stop offshore drilling; we know NOW how to keep it safe. Oh, and the whole disaster is the fault of environmentalists because we won't let them drill every last spot on land (Palin...again).

At what point will the media and the politicians start asking the right questions? When are we going to face our addiction, and take real steps towards breaking it? Do we do it when we still have good choices, or do we wait until our only choices are bad ones.

Once again: there isn't enough oil. We can't drill our way out of this problem.