BP - Botched Priorities

As British Petroleum tries once again to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, one can only guess what's going through the minds of BP executives.

My guess is that they're getting very upset and wringing their hands. Not because of the environmental degradation and disruption of livelihoods on the Louisiana coast. No, they're probably upset because all this oil has been wasted, when it could have been made into gasoline and made them more money.

One good has come out of this crisis so far: After Rush Limbaugh told his listeners that the Sierra Club forced oil companies to drill for oil farther out where it was less safe, donations to the Sierra Club skyrocketed. And just for the record, BP would have been out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico drilling for oil even if they could have drilled ten feet from shore. BP and other oil companies will always go where the oil is. If they could drill in the Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean - at 35,000 feet deep the deepest ocean on the planet - they'd do so.

Wrong Call

Have you ever wondered why progressive causes and policies a majority of Americans support - tougher environmental laws, more support for Amtrak, universal health coverage - never come to be? Perhaps this episode involving the Sierra Club explains it.

I got a call today from a Sierra Club asking me if I would support the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which is up for a vote in the House of Representatives, by speaking directly to someone in my congressman's office. The Sierra Club representative told me she could transfer me to my congressman's office, as they knew who my congressman was based on my telephone number exchange. It sounded like a good deal to me, so I said yes.

The next voice I heard on the phone answered, "Good morning, Congressman Bob Etheridge's office."

Bob Etheridge is not my congressman.

I didn't know what to do, so I feebly excused myself and hung up.

And people wonder why the left never gets anywhere.

Maybe I'm better off just clicking form letters to my congressional representatives through e-mail.