I submit the following to prove my point that oil makes people do and say crazy things:
1. The desire to gain control of oil production in Iraq was at least one of the factors that led the neo-cons (read Cheney) to be eager to invade Iraq -- even before 9/11.
2. Sarah Palin declared on her blog that the oil leak polluting the Gulf is the fault of the "radical environmentalists." If they had not blocked drilling in Alaska's pristine nature preserves, they wouldn't have to be drilling a mile deep in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. But, Sarah, let's not stop there; history is more than a decade old. Why not blame the inventor of the internal combustion engine? Or the first person that discovered that oil would burn?
3. Mississippi Governor and former head of the GOP Haley Barbour said that the temporary moratorium that Obama has imposed on drilling in the Gulf is worse than the oil leak that's been polluting the Gulf for over a month now.
4. Texas Representative Joe Barton apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward for the awful way Obama strong-armed him into coughing up $20 billion to pay for it all. It's was a "shakedown," Barton said. House GOP leaders at least saw the political disadvantage to siding with BP in this and made Barton apologize for his apology. But -- don't be fooled -- they all really want to side with Big Business on every issue. This one is just a little too politically incorrect right now.
5. Not wanting to be left out, Michele Bachmann (my favorite purveyer of crazy talk) called the BP fund for Gulf victims a "redistribution of wealth fund." All together now, Sarah, Haley, Joe and Michele. Let's have another chorus of: "Drill, baby, drill."
6. Rand Paul has even hinted that some people think that it all might have been a Democratic conspiracy: create the polluting leak as a way to sell radical new energy legislation. No, Rand. Nice try for distraction; but creating the largest pollution ever is just not the style of environmentalists. You're confusing conspiring to cause a tragedy with recognizing the tragic result as a teaching opportunity.
7. The Louisiana Senate last week unanimously approved a resolution creating a state-designated Day of Prayer to seek divine intervention to the oil crisis. The last state sponsored day of prayer to influence nature that I can recall was GA governor Sonny Perdue's getting folks to pray for rain during our drought a couple of summers ago. The Almighty was a bit slow responding: the drought dragged on throughout that summer; but the next spring it rained like crazy, so that we began thinking maybe we needed to have another day of prayer to tell God "that's enough, thank you."
Ralph
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I have never understood why fundamentalists think God is Santa Claus. Didn't any of them ever read the Bible? Esp the part where Jesus says don't ask for things in prayer, since God already knows what you need. Just pray praise and thanks.
ReplyDeleteIt's a prayer - not a shopping list.
richard
What I have never been able to understand is how they deal with this question: when two competing football teams both pray for God to help them win the game, how does God decide which prayer to grant?
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't seem to correlate with the piousness of the players or to whether it is a church-sponsored school or a completely secular private school. Winning and losing just doesn't seem to correlate to such things.
I can see the cartoon: God sitting up on a cloud, shaking his head and saying "Decisions, decisions !"
If God is God he is not good;
ReplyDeleteif God is good He is not God.
[J.B. Archibald Macleish]
I agree with Richard. It's hard to figure how they put 'God is all knowing' together with prayers that are essentially advice to God.
But as for oil making people crazy, that seems to be true of power whether it's in the human or chemical format...