I can’t take it anymore:
The ferocious oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is threatening President Barack Obama’s reputation for competence, just as surely as it endangers the Gulf ecosystem.
So White House aides are escalating their efforts to reassure Congress and the public in the face of a slow-motion catastrophe, even though it’s not clear they can bring it under control anytime soon.
“There is no good answer to this,” one senior administration official said. “There is no readily apparent solution besides one that could take three months. … If it doesn’t show the impotence of the government, it shows the limits of the government.”
Hope and change was Obama’s headline message in 2008, but those atop his campaign have always said that it was Obama’s cool competence — exemplified by his level-headed handling of the financial meltdown during the campaign’s waning days — that sealed the deal with independents and skeptical Democrats. The promise of rational, responsive and efficient government is Obama’s brand, his justification for bigger and bolder federal interventions and, ultimately, his rationale for a second term.
That’s Mike Allen and Glenn Thrush in the Politico, sneering that Obama’s “Hope and Change” 2008 slogan hasn’t plugged the worst oil spill in world history.
Assholes. I don’t think it is fair to the rest of us, but these douchebags in the beltway media deserve to live in a world ruled by Sarah Palin and Bill Kristol.
Elisabeth
Some Politico dude was on Morning Joe this am and said the administration was “panicking” that a slow response meme was beginning to take hold on Capitol Hill and with the public at large. You can fault them for many things but panicking ain’t one of them.
James K Polk, Esq.
Here is a handy video for anyone trying to understand what is going on.
As you can clearly see, it’s all Obama’s fault.
flukebucket
If this is Obama’s Katrina I think he is handling it very well. At least he is not at a god damn birthday party.
slippy
Yet another case of Republicans trying to set goals for Democrats. Of course, that means making sure the goal is well out of reach for said Democrat, making him a failure.
beltane
We could use the beltway media to plug up the oil spill. Concrete shoes and all that.
It would be the only time any of these people had ever served a useful purpose.
jacy
So the people screaming about “less government regulation of private industry” are now all verklempt because private industry majorly fucks up, and somehow it’s Obama’s fault?
Color me surprised.
The only thing these people are good for is giving me an excuse to start drinking at 8 o’clock in the morning.
some other guy
Would the beltway media would actually suffer in such a world, though?
cleek
sounds like Mr Senior Administration Official needs a swift kick in the teeth. if you don’t like the job, get the fuck out and let somebody else do it.
Poopyman
Well goddammit, I’ve been wondering since last week why Obama didn’t just swim down there and clamp that pipe with his mighty Kenyan pincer-fingers.
Evidently, I’m not the only one with that expectation.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
So, they can’t won’t don’t make a connection between a thirty (or 130) year campaign of deregulation and lax enforcement toward the fossil-fuel extraction industries, but the fact that Obama hasn’t flown counter-clockwise around the spill to whip the oil up into a funnel that he can then deposit into a waiting vat made of Krypton crystals suggests that he is not really competent? Oh, that’s right, I’m a cultist who thinks Obama is the Messiah.
Zifnab
I totally agree. Never more than today do I wish we’d gone with the “Drill, Baby, Drill” crowd. Their rationality and level-headedness would have capped that leak in the liberal tree-hugger media and kept this oil spill from turning into a massive headache for a proud, All-American capitalist enterprise like British Petroleum.
Jamie
Why does Politico hate America?
beltane
@some other guy: Exactly my thought. What they really deserve is to live in a world run by some leftist dictator who will take away all their toys and force them to pick lettuce in the hot sun.
Violet
@some other guy:
Yes, because everyone else would run away screaming and they wouldn’t have anyone left to do all the jobs they don’t want to do.
Poopyman
@jacy:
That’s evidently good for your Wordsum!
MattF
I’m struggling with figuring out the mind-set that blames Obama for this. Maybe “Katrina was a catastrophe, and Bush got blamed, so it’s really the same thing.” But I’m, like, unconvinced that anyone with a brain actually thinks this way.
beltane
@MattF: How many pundits actually have a brain?
Linda Featheringill
@jacy: Nice word, verklempt.
[And they are.]
Bill E Pilgrim
So if Politico has to be fair and balanced and find “Obama’s Katrina” and so on, finding exact parallels to the Bush White House at every turn, where’s the part where we get “Obama’s flight suit”? Or the talking heads yelling “traitor” at anyone who opposes him, and all the rest of it.
Poopyman
@MattF:
Consider the source.
It really makes me wonder: Do people really see how stupid these themes are, or are they being “informed” by them? Some of both, obviously, and I’m afraid it’s more the latter than former. Sigh.
Napoleon
Mike Allen is a right wing hack, just like Fortier (sp?) from AP and Solomon formerly of the Wash Times and WaPo, and likely Halpern (sp?) as well.
Bill H
I think they expect that Obama will fly to the Gulf and talk it to death.
Robin G
No kidding. There are days that I can laugh at this shit, and there are days I can take it with a grain of salt, and there are days I can just ignore it.
Today I just want to grab these people and shake them until their teeth rattle.
Brian J
I refuse to give that article a page hit, but is there even any justification for the article’s thesis, or is it just a bunch of claims not backed up by any facts? I’m curious to know exactly what they think Obama should have done that he didn’t do.
L-villelip
Stopping the leak of course is first priority, but If BP, the US, and I’m sure other oil companies whos fortunes are dependent on offshore drilling can’t figure out a solution, then it must be Obama’s fault. Its a known fact every Harvard grad has been taught classic ocean floor drilling techniques.
cleek
@MattF:
the prospect of a parallel is too tempting to be held to strict standards of truth. it’s an instant narrative, one that gives pundits and knee-jerk Obama haters a handy pre-fab framework to build around.
remember, for pundits, a topic of conversation doesn’t have to be true, it just has to be interesting. truth is something readers can figure out for themselves.
jrg
What federal agency is funded and trained to stop an oil gusher 1 mile underwater?
Oh, that’s right, you don’t have to fund things in the government. Like Social Security, Medicare, and the Military, these things just appear out of fucking nowhere, like magic.
eemom
oh, fuck these idiots.
sorry, I realize that’s not a very creative comment.
jeffreyw
I wanted to go down there and fix the leak myself just to show ’em that an old fart retired plumber still had his chops. Decided to have breakfast first. I’ll get down to the gulf some other day.
Zifnab
@cleek:
Oh please. What do you want them to do? Wave a magic wand and make the oil slick go away? The US Government is not an oil company. This disaster happened – what? – a week ago? It took a week to get the Apollo 13 astronauts back home, and that was with NASA steering the ship.
In infrastructure and planning in oil drilling was left in the hands of private corporations for the last two decades. Why did the onus suddenly fall on the government to clean up the mes… oh right. Democrats in office. Mop and Bucket of the Nation.
Seems like the only time we don’t look to the free market for a solution is when we encounter an actual problem.
Larry
If George Bush were still president, he’d be out in the gulf with a wetsuit and a monkey wrench, getting ‘er done.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Brian J: Facts need not apply. It’s the old trajectory of Fox (“Is this…?”) to NBC (“It raises questions…”) to everybody else (“people are asking if…”). It’s the long form flow chart for the Cokie Rule: “It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, it’s out there.” Watching TDS last night, I was shocked at how many non-Fox clips they had of anchorbots repeating “Obama’s Katrina?”. I haven’t had non-Maddow cable on in a good week or so.
Zifnab
@jrg:
Motha-Fuckin’ magnets, how do they work?
toujoursdan
Nitpick: I hate the “I’m moving to Canada” expression. Move to Canada because you find something about the Canadian society/political culture/parliamentary system/multiculturalism appealing, not because you are using it as a flophouse to sit out America’s problems.
Sorry, I know you’re saying it in jest, but it’s an expression I hear too often from Americans.
MikeJ
@cleek:
And private industry will get us a solution when?
GregB
Mike Allen would face a firing squad if he got on the wrong side of Evita Palin. It’s funny how these loons love being called lamestream and love to be mocked for being coastal elites.
These clowns should remember that anyone who isn’t Fox is the enemy and will one day be treated accordingly by the Palinista wing.
Stroszek
Oil and gas companies provide a lot of ad revenue to media outlets, so there’s pretty much no chance that the “narrative” was ever going to be about their failures. I’m sure Allen and Thrush will get dinner parties underwritten by BP for this lovely bit of misdirection.
Zifnab
@toujoursdan:
It’s more meant as the suggestion that Canada is America done right. Same general atmosphere, just colder and less full of crazies.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jrg:
Apparently the Minerals Management Service is supposed to do this before it happens:
cleek
@Zifnab:
WTF are you talking about ?
The Moar You Know
Name or it didn’t happen.
I’m serious. Obama’s team has excellent message control. I find it unbelievable that someone high up in his administration would ever say anything like this.
Unless the Politico folks are quoting a senior Bush administration official.
Show of hands. Who thinks Politico would sink that low?
neil
John, this is nowhere near the worst oil spill in history. You may be mistaking it for the worst American oil spill ever, which will probably be the case. But the <a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I"Ixtoc I oil spill in 1979, in the Gulf of Mexico, was an order of magnitude larger than Exxon Valdez, and mostly affected the Gulf Coast. And it didn’t ruin the fishing or tourism industries, either, though it obviously had an effect.
Brian J
@Larry:
I guess it doesn’t matter what it is, at long as he’s doing something, right?
Michael
@beltane:
I was going to suggest adding the bodies of conservative pundits into the concrete amalgam used to form the plug.
sukabi
even jokingly suggesting that an unhealthy dose of Palin and Kristol would somehow teach the douchebag media clowns a thing or two shows a severe lack of empathy for how the rest of us would fare under such a regime… plus, those fuckwads would just pick up their toys and move to some “less cumbersome” tropical paradise to wait out the ensuing dumbfuckery while continuing to wank on about this or that with the same level of expertise that they currently display.
sugarbiscuit
Mike Allen is a right wing hack
Wrong, he’s a corporate hack.
This “Obama’s Katrina” bullshit meme is a complete media fabrication designed to create a profitable controversy.
JGabriel
Two points:
1) To a large extent, they do. Palin, Kristol, et. al. similar, already dictate their themes and talking points.
2) A world in which Palin, Kristol, et. al., literally ruled would be perfectly acceptable – even joyous – to these douchebags. Their page hits would be up, due to voter outrage, and their taxes would be lower, or at least they believe that. The rest of us would suffer, sure, but they’d be in the protected class.
.
sloan
The only living Republican presidents are both named George Bush, and are both considered failures. The Bush legacy is all they’ll have until they can win back the White House and do a less than terrible job. That’s a long way off.
So Republicans are stuck reminding us about Bush’s failures in a lame attempt to make Obama look like an even bigger failure whenever there’s a problem. You know you’re in a bad place when Heckuva Job Brownie is delivering GOP talking points on a disaster in Louisiana.
Erik Vanderhoff
For fuck’s sake! What’s the president supposed to do, merge with Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod to form Mecha-Obama, fly under the sea, and melt the leaking wellhead with his laser vision?!
I need a stiff drink. And it’s not even 8:00 AM on the West Coast.
sukabi
now on to the competence of the Obama admin… as this disaster proceeds to grow in scope and magnitude Obama had better start sending out spokes people that do a much better job than his EPA person did… Sheila Jackson (?) was on Rachel Maddow last night and came off like an idiot of Brownie proportions, which isn’t good at all. She might not be incompetent, but she doesn’t instill a bit of confidence, knowledge or that her department is talking to folks outside of the oil industry for help…
if someone is going to be the sacrificial lamb to
“appease the media”“calm the public” it will be her.General Egali Tarian Stuck
@neil: Here is an abstract of that spill. I don’t believe it reached the fisheries and estuaries of the northern Gulf.
Noonan
These hacks are using a private company’s fuck-up to attack the liberal ideology that government should have an effective role in people’s lives. Only in Washington.
dmsilev
@Zifnab:
In some materials with unpaired electronic spins, electron-electron interactions make it energetically favorable for those spins to align. Below a characteristic temperature, the energy gain from such alignment outweighs the entropic cost of entering an ordered state, leading to a first-order phase transition and spontaneous magnetization. Thus, magnets.
What, you didn’t actually want to know?
dms
sparky
@Zifnab: win.
@dmsilev: and nicely done as well.
uh, o blog proprietor–why do you keep reading this drivel? those folks have two jobs–make money and advance whatever works for their crowd. that’s it. and you know this and yet you keep seeming to wish that somehow they will magically decide they have some other obligation.
they don’t.
but, you don’t have any obligation to read them. none. nor do you need to know much less respond to the flotsam of DC life. that’s all it is–trading in notions on a daily basis, because that’s what they do for a living. you, on the other hand, have the gift of great turns of phrase–please use it on something more worthy of your talents than a bunch of hacks churning out their fluff. wasting your time on this stuff is about as useful as attacking corporate press releases.
pundit fixation can be cured. shots, patches, whatever, dude.
Svensker
@cleek:
Yes, because government is designed really well to plug oil leaks at the bottom of the ocean. And this fuck of a S.A.O. should realize that and DO IT IMMEDIATELY!11
JimF
@neil: The US had 2 months to prepare for when that spill hit our coast.
me
What the fuck is he supposed to do? Wave a magic fucking wand and make the oil disappear?
jacy
@toujoursdan
But I really DO want to move to Canada. They have more hockey there.
Seriously, in my head I’m already Canadian.
The Moar You Know
@dmsilev:
Hey, I don’t want to talk to a scientist.
Yo, motherfucker’s lyin’
And gettin me pissed.
neil
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: It did affect the Texan Gulf coast, at least, which I understand is less vulnerable than the northern Gulf Coast’s wetlands.
cleek
@Svensker:
well, i was thinking more along the lines of: don’t call your team “impotent” when it’s perfectly acceptable to say something like “we’re doing everything that we can, but some things are beyond our capabilities”. obviously the govt isn’t in the deep-sea oil rig business.
lambaste
Man, I made the mistake of clicking on the Politico link. The comments over there are running about 95% spittle-flying wingnuts.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@lambaste: I will sometimes read and link to a Politico article, if it is halfway objective reporting, but never the cesspool of the comment section there. I’d as soon attend a C Street diaper party.
DanF
@lambaste: I did the same thing. What a cesspool of incoherence and lunacy. Nice readership you’ve attracted there Politico…
Elie
@neil:
Is this spill capped yet? Do we already know how large this spill is going to be? I must have missed that.
Of course, I hope that you are right from the standpoint of this not being the largest and most catastrophic. I definitely HOPE you are right, I just don’t have the evidence of it yet until they cap the thing…
Poopyman
@dmsilev:
You got right up to introducing Currie temperature and you stopped. I’m disappointed in you, man.
Poopyman
@sparky:
Actually. Mr. Blog Proprietor’s job here is to drive page hits and comments, so he gets some ad revenue. Or at least so he gets, you know, page hits and comments. It would suck to write a blog and have no one read it. Don’t ask me how I know this.
Mission accomplished, methinks.
neil
@Elie: I didn’t say it couldn’t be the worst oil spill in world history, because anything can happen. But there’s no indication, at this point, that it’s going to wind up as the worst oil spill in world history, and there’s certainly no reason to say that it already is. I only brought it up because John used to read his comments to correct his posts. Those were the days…
dmsilev
@Poopyman: It’s too early in the morning to write a treatise on Stoner-Wolhfarth domain reversal or to discuss the zoo of exotic magnetic materials (things going by names like “dimerized spin ladders” and so forth). Trust me on this.
dms
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Elie: A relatively small amount of oil washing up on the beach at S. Padre Island is not comparable to oil entering and deposited in one of the largest and most productive fisheries and wildlife areas in the world that is the MS river delta. And this oil, uncharacteristic of most Gulf oil, is very dense and crude. And resistant to microbial decomp.
For the time being the slick has stopped moving in that direction they believe from the force of flow of the Ms. river into the Gulf and cessation of southerly winds pushing it that way. If by some miracle the concrete domes they are getting reading to try and cap the leaks works, then the damage will be limited, at least relative to what it could be. Fingers crossed and all that.
Xenos
@Zifnab: I am glad we have Obama there unable to do anything good about it, rather than President Maverick and his mavericky side-kick trying to come up with authentically all-American commen sense solutions. Like nuking the oil well.
JohnR
@toujoursdan:
yeah, not to mention that if things got really bad, Canada would likely be “Fallout”ed pretty quickly (ever watch the little newsreel clips at the beginning of tat classic game?)
But, yeah, the point remains; better to go down swinging than try to hide under the covers in the next room.
Also: ” It would suck to write a blog and have no one read it”
You think? Actually, I find it kind of restful. It’s like talking to myself.
Upper West
Why is anyone surprised that Politico is basically Fox News dressed up.
bondwooley
From article;
“…but these douchebags in the beltway media deserve to live in a world ruled by Sarah Palin and Bill Kristol.”
Personally, I feel that if the right people moved to Canada, the rest of us could stop threatening to move there.
If readers have a minute for some satire, here’s a short video that looks just at the “move to Canada” conundrum:
The Last Straw
Sentient Puddle
Because I was curious, I looked up what was the worst oil spill in history, just to see how our current one is comparing.
It actually looks like this one doesn’t even compare to the worst, the Gulf War spill of ’91. There, Iraq intentionally dumped oil apparently to strategically thwart us. Spill was about 36 billion gallons.
In comparison, the high end estimate I’m reading of our current spill is about 1.1 million gallons a day until we plug it. So we’ve got a good ways to go until we hit “worst ever” status.
Poopyman
I’m thinking that “bad” is bad enough and there’s no need to shoot for “worst ever”, thankyouverymuch.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@sparky: You’ve obviously failed to read the tags. He (along with Dougj & the other frontpagers) reads this shit SO THAT WE DON’T HAVE TO. He suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous right-wing idiocy in order to keep us informed. Get it? He’s a media martyr. This is what Jesus would have done, if he’d had a blog.
Montysano
@James K Polk, Esq.:
The quickest way to send a wingnut into a foaming rage is to link to/quote/mention Al Jazeera, the “terrorist network”. Of course, none of them have ever actually watched or read Al Jazeera, which is Fair and Balanced to the point of being bland.
D.N. Nation
Um, I thought the Official Wingnut Position on Katrina is that it was Nagin’s fault/the people should have left on their own/whatever, New Orleans is crummy anyway, and that Bush looked rightly Presidential while touring the Gulf Coast with his sleeves rolled up. Hell, I remember quite a few wingnuts arguing that Scott Brown never did anything wrong, and that those awesome Brownie e-mails were nothing worse than what anyone e-mails at work.
Down the memory hole, I guess.
Ian
“I’m Moving to Canada”
If you’re moving to avoid massive oil spills and environmental degradation, don’t move to Fort McMurray.
Zifnab
@cleek: You can’t go complaining about random administration officials throwing their hands up at the world’s biggest oil well explosion. We’ve already declared this a national emergency. Obama has dispatched all the resources the government can bring to bare. The Justice Department and the Interior Department are leaning hard on BP to contain and clean the spill ASAP.
What the hell else do you want them to do? The US Government isn’t equipped to rapidly deploy against massive oil derreck explosions. You can’t just make a mess like this go away. This isn’t Heckavajob Brownie twiddling his thumbs while NO sinks, this is an anonymous dude stating the obvious – it’s a big mess and it’s not going to be fixed any time soon.
Cacti
So, why does “incompetent” government need to come galloping to the rescue of “efficient” and “innovative” private industry?
I thought private industry did everything better.
Drive By Wisdom
While The One dithers, our previous President would be working already on the nuclear option in the Gulf.
What does a liberal do when the only answer is nuclear? Let the Gulf die, probably.
ericblair
@bondwooley:
Cell service and broadband are expensive and sucky. Booze is expensive but not generally sucky. The Prime Minister is an asshole and the opposition is lead by a total weenie. If you’re tired of the American South’s constant whining you won’t like the Quebec government too much. Don’t think you’ll leave the racists behind, either.
Other than that, great place and loved living there. Well, except for February, usually.
Oh yeah, someone mentioned Fort McMurray (aka Fort McMoney). Alberta is Texas with Ukrainians.
Citizen Alan
I am almost to the point of wishing McCain had won in 2008. It seems like nothing can stop the Republicans on this mission to destroy America, and I’m to the point of just wanting to let them have their way and get it over with. They want fascism. They want a permanent aristocracy of wealthy CEOs lording over us. They want to rape the environment. They want for America to be hated and despised by the rest of the world. If the Democrats cannot accept the truth — that the GOP is an existential threat to both America and the Human Race — then let them have their way and be done with it. If I can’t have a decent country, then I’ll just have to settle for being able to say “I told you so.”
dmsilev
@Drive By Wisdom: How much of our electricity comes from crude oil?
I’ll give you a hint: Not very much.
Unless you’re proposing sticking fission reactors inside SUVs, the number of nuclear plants in this country has dick-all to do with how much oil we use.
Edit: Oh Christ, you’re even more insane than I thought. You don’t want to reduce the need for oil by building nuclear power plants, you want to “fix” the oil spill by detonating a nuclear bomb over the break. Oy.
dms
Poopyman
@Cacti:
Now there’s a very interesting question. I’m not holding my breath for an MSM-type to actually ask it of a Republican, though.
bemused
And what are in these chemicals that BP wants to dump on the oil anyway?
Citizen_X
@dmsilev: He was writing about using underground nuclear warheads to collapse and close leaking oil or gas lines, which the USSR apparently did a few times.
Drive By fails to notice that those were on land. Drilling at the bottom of the sea to put in a subsurface nuke, on the other hand, would be difficult on the order of it’s never fucking been done or even remotely contemplated before.
slippy
@Cacti: This.
They do EVERYTHING better, until they need the public to bail their sorry asses out.
ET
If it was as easy as some people seem to think to cap this thing IT WOULD HAVE ALREADY BEEN DONE and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
This is why extra precaution should be taken when designing and building of these things, Capping them in place is a pain in the ass. But BP thought some of the precautions were too expensive and unnecessary and the then Bush administration concurred (I can’t believe capping and cleaning up the mess is less expensive than installing all the precautions but BP was playing the odds – it’s what big multinationals do).
Americans have gotten used to quick fixes for things and don’t necessarily understand that quick fixes may be quick but they aren’t really fixes. And some things by the nature of what they are aren’t nearly as quick as most expect.
Do I wish BP, the government, the rig company would have acted faster – yes. Do I wish the spill wasn’t spilling or was within days of not spilling – yes. I just know it won’t happen.
dmsilev
@Citizen_X: Yeah, I saw that and edited my post. Somehow “The Soviets thought it was a reasonable thing to do” doesn’t strike me as much of a recommendation, even ignoring, as you point out, the difference between drilling a hole on land and drilling a hole a mile below the ocean surface.
dms
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@MattF:
Ask Cole since he usta be one of “them”.
Figuring out the right isn’t hard. Logic and consistency isn’t their hallmark. Trying to take back power and finish demolishing the remnants of the New Deal, turn the country into a white-controlled, Gilded Age theocratic state, is.
reid
Cripes, I made the mistake of reading some of the comments over there. It feels like I’ve been tip-toeing through the toilet. I have a hard time imagining wingnut sites are much worse. The number of hateful assholes in this country is depressing.
toujoursdan
@Zifnab:
Sadly, Canada is about 10-15 years behind the U.S. on the road to Teh Crazy. Blame big oil, culture cringe and a secretive, paranoid, right-wing government.
@ericblair:
All this is true, though broadband in the U.S. is pretty shitty too.
I lived in Gatineau, Quebec before taking a job assignment in New York. Wonderful people, great culture, great food, fascinating scenery, but the country’s most expensive yet poorly maintained infrastructure and services I have ever experienced. I don’t know what to make of it.
frankdawg
Always the clear-eyed optimist that I am I am not sure Canada is far enough away. It could end up at Austria to the US Germany if you know what I mean
GODWIN!
CalD
If you’re reading the Politico, whose fault is that? Can’t blame that one on the Politico.
Bhall35
Note to Politico: Stop trying to make “fetch” happen!
bcinaz
I know, it’s totally mystifying that President Obama hasn’t begged Miss Drill Baby Drill to step in and use her offshore drilling expertise to plug a leak a mile down in the ocean.
Just… really baffling.
Flugelhorn
@MattF:
Yeah. How was Katrina Bush’s fault? I’m stymied.
cleek
@Zifnab:
oh fer fuck’s sake. i never said i wanted them to do anything other than not call themselves “impotent”. it’s about word choice.
quit trying to argue against things i didn’t say.
maus
Bailing out GM – communism
Bailing out BP – amer’kun as fuck
Comrade Kevin
What makes people who threaten to move to Canada think Canada would allow them in?
wrb
@Drive By Wisdom:
I think you are absolutely right
There is more good stuff on the radioactive soup created and the poisoned and mutant sea life that still appeared decades later.
This was inspiration for the Japanese monster movies of the ’50s.
Couple the Japanese experience with the knowledge that the insane Americans are making radioactive cauldrons not too far away and a mutant monster crawling from the depths is a pretty powerful nightmare.
mistories.org/remembrance.php
ksmiami
Politico can fuck off and so can all the Teatards and republicrats. Gawd I hate these fuckers. Am I on the way to curmudgeonhood?
bdop4
What I’de like to know is how many MMS appointments are/have been put on hold since Obama took office?
Is this still the Bush Administration’s MMS (y’know, the coke snorting, lobbyist fucking kind) at “work” here?
AC in BC
@Comrade Kevin
They let us in. Five years ago. It was the smartest move I’ve ever made.
Elizabelle
Nope.
Not gonna click on that Politico link.
Wouldn’t be prudent.
Mark D
Had to quote this from Zifnab
Fucking. Brilliant.
I am stealing that and will use it often.
jl
“The promise of rational, responsive and efficient government is Obama’s brand, his justification for bigger and bolder federal interventions and, ultimately, his rationale for a second term.”
This statement makes no sense. The alternative is stand by and let BP handle the spill, or not handle the spill, and just see what happens, even if the whole gulf fills up with oil?
The potential causes of this accident developed over several administrations and Congresses, that favored lax and voluntary safety procedures.
I don’t think you are an Obot to see that using this disaster to discredit Obama’s program as shallow snot-nosed punkism of the lowest order. The logic does not even meet the standards of breathless commentary on a low grade TV reality show.
Elizabelle
Andrew Sullivan’s blog features a picture of a dead turtle in the surf.
Disclaimer says they don’t know what killed this particular turtle.
But it made me so sad. Vulnerable, defenseless animal in a poisoned world.
I think that picture would have traumatized me as a child.
jl
Stricter safety regulations and requirements for more equipment to avoid major spills were not adopted because they supposedly were not cost-effective. Efficiency, as estimated by the corporatios themselves is ALL, you know.
Norway had stricter regulations and requirements for more safety equipment. And Norway’s economy is more heavily dependent on oil production than ours. Let’s see how this kind of regulatory inefficiency hurt Norway.
Well, from OECD statistics, in 2006 and 2007, Norway had higher real GDP growth, higher re per capita GDP growth, and lower price inflation.
2008 and 2009 harder to compare because of panic and recession, but Norway looks like it is doing as well as US through the crisis.
Elizabelle
@Citizen Alan:
Don’t say that.
Get off your butt, go offline, and actually WORK to elect Democrats and other non-Republicans of your choosing.
Seriously.
Organizing for America is doing some excellent work. Lots of preliminary contact with Obama’s 2008 voters, particularly the new ones.
Give up the thrill of despair and get out and knock on doors and make some calls. Get your circle of flesh and blood friends interested in doing the same, for as much or little time as they can spare.
A lot of this Mike Allen reportage based on GOP/Frank Luntz strategizing is precisely aimed at inducing hopelessness in their political opponents.
Don’t let it work.
Zuzu's Petals
Also posted at another thread…this Freeper post actually made me laugh out loud:
The Private Sector Has It Pretty Much In Control
(No worries, not an actual FR link.)
Fern
@Comrade Kevin: Bingo.
neil
@wrb: There are many smaller nuclear warheads than that 20Mt hydrogen bomb. (And for what it’s worth, that one was not detonated under ground or water, but on the surface. The Hiroshima bomb detonated 600m above ground.)
I’m perfectly willing to believe that a small nuclear detonation a mile underwater would be more damaging to the environment than letting the well keep flowing until we can cut it off by other means, but I’m not going to assume either way.
Nellcote
The Prez’s Politico jokes at the nerdpom must have really hit their mark!
Patriot 3
No one says it better…
rudepundit.blogspot.com/2010/05/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-will-wreck.html
Resident Firebagger
OK it’s not Obama’s fault. But funny how you all overlook the fact that about a month ago Obama wanted to expand offshore drilling.
My guess is the president will probably accept the “Obama’s Katrina” BS meme in exchange for his “drill baby drill” talk going down the memory hole…
General Egali Tarian Stuck
puma mea culpa. now up to half a moran.
JR
He’s right… this never would have happened under President McCain. He has a magical republican decoder ring that changes the laws of physics. Or something.
Spike
@ericblair: February was actually pretty awesome this year, at least here in Vancouver.
Nerem
@Erik Vanderhoff:
“And I’ll form… THE HEAD!”
DaveInOz
I’d move to Australia if I didn’t already live here
Stroszek
Shorter Resident Firebagger: “Yes, this right-wing meme isn’t true, but why are we rebutting bullshit intended to shield the oil companies when we could be trashing the real enemy?”
Thanks for illustrating what separates you guys from rational critics of the administration.
mclaren
Yeah, and the prolonged solar sunspot minimum was threatening President Obama’s reputation for competence too until he finally got off his ass and fixed that.
Fvck me. Instead of reading the mainstream media, I should just beat myself on the forehead with a ball peen hammer 500 times. Same effect, quicker.