Monday, May 31, 2010

The oil spill

The Gulf oil spill has produced almost as much nonsensical rhetoric as the Arizona immigration law. One thing seems to have gotten lost in all the hoopla. The United States really needs oil. The country will fall without it. So why did Obama stop drilling in the Gulf, and why did the Governator change his mind about California offshore drilling? We are almost wholly dependent on oil, and these knee-jerk reactions are going to further damage the country.

The situation is akin to Three Mile Island. As a result of that incident and Hollywood fearmongering, the US has hamstrung itself on nuclear energy. The oil spill is already having a similar affect, and we shouldn't let it.

Yeah, we should be angry about the trial-and-error approach to stopping the spill, and demand better safeguards in the future, but one fact has not changed: we need to drill everywhere we think there might be oil because we need it.

We have leaders in office who are saying, "How terrible, let's stop drilling," when we need leaders who say, "This is terrible, and we must fix it. Let's continue drilling, but let's learn from this and do it better."

Where are these leaders? Not in California. I've been following the primary races, and all we have are self serving, super-wealthy flip-floppers.

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