Sickening

It's gotten to the point now where I can no longer bear to look at any video concerning the Deepwater Horizon spill. The sheer magnitude of this monstrosity is beyond my ability to contemplate. Truly, the word enormity applies.

Here's my problem: For the past, oh, 30 years at least, the oil companies have been all drill-baby-drill, soothing us all with promises that they knew EXACTLY what they were doing, that no catastrophe had gone un-wargamed, that everything was well in hand, so please just fork over the papers that will allow us to despoil habitat legally and go buy that Hummer right now.

Now we come to discover that when the Big One arrives, all the smarties in the oil bidness can do is scratch their asses and guess. Now, look, I get it -- the well's a mile below the surface of the water. It's not like you can just go down there with some Fix-A-Flat and get 'er done. It takes some thought. But . . . didn't you guys think about this one yet? What the hell?

And now, where are the smart people in public life saying: See? See? These people are the most cretinous liars that ever developed opposable thumbs. This is why we've been fighting them all these years! And now we come to find out that they don't even know what they're doing when a crisis arrives. Yeah, these are the people I want in charge of sticking things into Mother Earth.

Further, if the hempsters could put down their bongs long enough, now would be an excellent time to buy some prime-time TV space for an hour or so and make the big appeal that hemp can save the world, etc. etc. George Soros probably has a million dollars lying around waiting for a moral purpose. This would be a good one.

And on an unrelated note, a simple reminder to my old pal GL: Love is a verb, baby.