Oil spills

Image by boutmuet via Flickr

Another day, another screaming headline in the ongoing saga of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster.  We're being bombarded by new stories every day, and it sometimes feels like we're focusing on the wrong things.

CNN's Fareed Zakaria took the unusual step of blasting the press for their obsession with Obama's emotional response to the spill, an obsession which forced the president to utter the now-famous "ass to kick" phrase.  As Zakaria points out:

"What exactly is the point of all this? What purpose would be served by having the president scream or cry or whatever it is he's supposed to do to show emotion? Would it plug the hole?"

Image by SkyTruth via Flickr

After mesmerizing much of America and the rest of the world on Saturday, we're faced with the sobering reality now that BP's top-kill approach has failed to stop the oil gushing in the Gulf of Mexico. The White House continues to alternate between pseudo-apologetic and angry, with Obama saying that the failure is "as enraging as it is heartbreaking."

Image via Wikipedia

The Deepwater Horizon disaster is not actually the first major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, or even the largest. That honor belongs to the Ixtoc I disaster in 1979. The similarities are shocking and many: an explosion aboard an oil rig, a faulty blowout preventer, chemical dispersants, junk shots and top kills - and months of gushing oil. Rachel Maddox summarizes these and other similarities in an excellent and highly recommended video which suggests that history is repeating itself, and that drilling relief wells is the only proven solution.… Continues …