FULL CAPS

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I've seen plenty of comments in plenty of places calling Obama incompetent for not stopping the oil leak. So, now that it appears to be stopped, does that mean he's suddenly competent, or will the negatrons switch to saying he had nothing to do with it after all? And if so, will they address their hypocrisy or, as usual, ignore it? Will they have a timeline showing how, had Sarah Palin been president, the cap would have been designed, built, and attached sooner?

Personally, short of donning a bell or piloting a submarine or operating the machine tools himself, I've never known exactly what Obama might have done to impress his haters. He did marshall a bunch of scientists and they've been giving approval or withholding it depending on plans. How much they did or didn't have to do with the design and execution of the final cap I have no idea.

Of this, though, there's no doubt: from those who've been trying to hang the whole thing on Obama, there'll be no kudos for the success, and the blame will continue unabated. The truth or fiction of it all is irrelevant.

It's All Over

Finally. No more oil leak, no more dead animals; the beaches and marshes shall gleam. It's amazing no one thought of it until now; not, at least, as official policy.

State senators designated Sunday as a day for citizens to ask for God's help dealing with the oil disaster.

"Thus far efforts made by mortals to try to solve the crisis have been to no avail," state Sen. Robert Adley said in a statement released after last week's unanimous vote for the day of prayer. "It is clearly time for a miracle for us."

The resolution names Sunday as a statewide day of prayer in Louisiana and calls on people of all religions throughout the Gulf Coast "to pray for an end to this environmental emergency, sparing us all from the destruction of both culture and livelihood."

Haul in ye the boom, send forth to their homes the cleaners of the beaches. Uncap ye the gusher, invest ye in BP. For the day of healing is nigh. Raise ye your voices and thank ye your Father, for it is His day.

Fathers' Day.

Our father, who... leaketh His crude, killeth His birds, and screweth the fishers of His flock. Hallowed be Thy name. Thy pollution be done. For thine is the kingdom, the (carbon-based) power, the gooey, forever. Amen.

What a guy. He'll keep pounding those pelicans, shredding the shrimpers, mangling the marshes, corroding the coastline until enough people ask him to stop. Or so those silly solons must believe.

And yet this is exactly the direction in which Sarah Palin, former half-term governor, and Glenn Beck, rescuer of the tin-foil industry, want to take us; and in which the teabaggers can't wait to follow. How to prevent it?

Let us pray.

Fantasy

I haven't yet posted what I wrote after watching President Obama's Oval Office speech. Disappointed, I wanted to let it settle for a while. Why did he even bother, was my central thought. Has he become deaf to his own words?

Then I saw the above clip, and realized it captured much better than I'd written what my thoughts were. The message is exactly what we should have heard. And didn't.

On the other hand, the next day President Obama announced something really astounding: a twenty billion dollar escrow account that BP will establish to pay for damage done. What he lacked in words, he made up for, in large part at least, in action.

Which, jaw-droppingly, drove Republicans crazy. Actually, it's the entire gaggle of Congressional Republicans. Holding a private corporation accountable to the people whose lives it destroys after flouting the law, it turns out, is anathema to them!!!

How can it be that Republicans are poised to make enormous gains in November? It's un-frickin-believable. Democrats are nothing if not meek and afraid; but, my god, it's like choosing between walking by a panhandler and Jack the Ripper.

Boom Bust

I just watched a really disturbing video, about the booming -- or lack thereof -- of the Gulf Coast. It's full of really bad language, so much so that I'll just provide a link as opposed to embedding the clip. But for those of you who wouldn't be offended by pervasive use of the f-word and occasional use of the c-word, it can be seen here.

In short, it argues that the placing of booms has not only been inadequate and incompetent but has, in fact, been mainly for show. It claims that proper booming can prevent oil from coming ashore. It suggests media have been complicit -- or, at minimum, useless -- by failing to let people know. (My opinion: they'd rather talk about political impact and show dead birds than do actual reporting, which takes work. And intelligence.)

It's really, really disturbing. If it's a fair statement of what's possible and what has not, in fact, been done, then everyone involved deserves.... I don't know what. Hanging, maybe. And if President Obama knows this and has let it slide it's inexcusable; and if he doesn't know this (assuming it's a true representation) then he's failed miserably to have found out what he needs to know. Same with Jindal, Barbour, Congress, the lot of them. They're disgusting beyond words.

I must say that I've wondered from the beginning how those pathetic little booms could be expected to work in anything but flat water. On the other hand, I'm just a guy with too much time on his hands. The people doing it, responsible for it? Shame on them. Beyond shame.

Unless the person on the video is lying. Which I seriously doubt.

Awful

Had Dick Cheney not thought $500,000 was too great a burden on builders of oil platforms, I wonder if this might not have happened.

We'll never know.