{"id":316,"date":"2010-05-14T12:35:17","date_gmt":"2010-05-14T18:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/?p=316"},"modified":"2010-05-14T12:37:39","modified_gmt":"2010-05-14T18:37:39","slug":"this-kind-of-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/2010\/05\/14\/this-kind-of-mess\/","title":{"rendered":"This Kind of Mess"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Not so long ago, our fearless leader was moving in a different direction than today. \u00c2\u00a0Not so long ago, he said,<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8230;oil rigs today don&#8217;t generally cause spills. \u00c2\u00a0They are technologically very advanced. [ref: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/21134540\/vp\/37152335#37152335\">msnbc<\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>That was not so long ago. \u00c2\u00a0Today the situation has obviously changed.<\/p>\n<p>Today, there aren&#8217;t many people who want to hear about how <em>advanced<\/em> that technology was (and &#8220;was&#8221; is the operative word, as all that wonderful technology lies in a heap on the Gulf floor while brown goo belches from broken pipes). \u00c2\u00a0Today,\u00c2\u00a0there aren&#8217;t many people who want\u00c2\u00a0\u00ef\u00bb\u00bf\u00c2\u00a0to hear about how the rigs don&#8217;t generally cause spills, because it&#8217;s quite clear now that <em>generally<\/em> doesn&#8217;t help when a single event can do what this single event is doing.<\/p>\n<p>So today, our fearless leader is moving in a different direction than he was back then. \u00c2\u00a0He&#8217;s seen the light, evidently.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s &#8230; our job to make sure this kind of mess doesn&#8217;t happen again. [ref: <a href=\"http:\/\/news.firedoglake.com\/2010\/04\/29\/obama-oil-rigs-today-generally-don%E2%80%99t-cause-spills\/\">firedoglake<\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>With great anticipation I await his proposal on just how he&#8217;s going to do that. \u00c2\u00a0Because the technology hasn&#8217;t changed. And as BP says, this is just a tiny amount of oil in the ocean, and the motivation to drill baby drill hasn&#8217;t gone away. And there are plenty of politicians willing to carry water for these folks for just a contribution or two to their reelection fund.<\/p>\n<p>So what&#8217;s he going to do?<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s he going to do to make sure this doesn&#8217;t happen again? \u00c2\u00a0How&#8217;s he going to put in place a system that can stare down the billions in profits that come from this enterprise? \u00c2\u00a0How&#8217;s he going to ensure that his regulators don&#8217;t again get captured by the regulatees?<\/p>\n<p>What are you going to do, Mr. President?<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t tell us about all the people being marshaled, about the volunteers and Coast Guard. \u00c2\u00a0Don&#8217;t tell us about all the best brains, about all the fancy technology. \u00c2\u00a0Don&#8217;t tell us about miles of boom laid or number of ships deployed or millions gallons of toxic water skimmed. \u00c2\u00a0Don&#8217;t give us figures and happy-talk.<\/p>\n<p>Just tell us how you&#8217;re going to make sure this kind of mess never happens again. \u00c2\u00a0And convince us that it will work.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-style: italic; font-size: 70%;\">hat tip: <a href=\"http:\/\/agonist.org\/sean_paul_kelley\/20100514\/a_ridiculous_spectacle\">the agonist<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not so long ago, our fearless leader was moving in a different direction than today. \u00c2\u00a0Not so long ago, he said, &#8230;oil rigs today don&#8217;t generally cause spills. \u00c2\u00a0They are technologically very advanced. [ref: msnbc] That was not so long ago. \u00c2\u00a0Today the situation has obviously changed. Today, there aren&#8217;t many people who want to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,22],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions\/325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}