Dumb, Baby, Dumb

First of all, let me make a correction regarding a statement I made earlier about the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. I stated that eighteen workers were killed in the blast. The actual number was eleven.

Anyway, it appears that the oil slick is likely to have an impact on more than just the Louisiana and Mississippi coastlines, or even the Florida Panhandle. The Gulf Stream, the warm oceanic current that runs up the Atlantic Ocean from the Gulf of Mexico, could carry the oil slick - which is growing exponentially due to the ongoing well leak - to the Atlantic and possibly deposit all that oil on Florida's eastern coast. This oil spill is not a disaster anymore; it's an apocalypse.

I earlier lampooned Sarah Palin for having supported oil drilling in the past. Apparently, she still does. Not even an oil slick the size of Maryland that could destroy ecologically sensitive shorelines and fisheries have moved her from her position. This is what the former governor of Alaska - a state that had its own oil spill in Prince William Sound twenty years and change ago - had to say about the Gulf disaster on her Facebook page:

"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."

So far, increased domestic oil production has made us more volatile to international petroleum price swings, diverted badly needed investment in alternative energy sources, and has caused unrest among people affected by such disasters.

Oh yeah, and that's not the only idiotic statement made about the BP disaster. Rush Limbaugh has actually opined that the initial explosion may have been caused on purpose by environmentalists to make offshore drilling look bad.

Sarah Palin continues to believe in offshore drilling - and she's not repeating the slogan "drill here, drill now," the original slogan was "drill, baby, drill" - in spite of the Exxon Valdez spill that affected Alaska because she either doesn't care or doesn't want to admit she's wrong. But mostly because she doesn't care, despite her (or her ghostwriter's) protests to the contrary. What's it to her if all of those poor birds end up getting saturated in oil? How would Sarah Palin like being covered in oil?

Hmm, I think I just offered a scenario some tea partiers fantasize about on a regular basis. :-O