[O] Oil Leases

Dear Friends,

The Obama Administration has decided to sell more oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico.  The following is from a story in The New York Times (here).

Making good on a promise, the Interior Department announced Friday that it had scheduled its first sale of offshore oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon disaster last year. But it is changing some of the rules to ensure that leased parcels are actually drilled and not hoarded.

For reasons that I cannot understand, President Obama continues to provide the oil and gas industry with more opportunities to pollute our planet.  At a time when we should be focusing on alternative sources of energy and energy conservation, President Obama continues to try to win support from the oil and gas industry by letting them drill where ever they want to.

The oil and gas industry continues to claim that they can stop leaks and blowouts but all the evidence is to the contrary.  The following is from a story from the Guardian (here):

Shell admits risk of further North Sea oil spill

The final amount leaked could be four times the volume that has spewed into the sea in the past week

• Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 August 2011 21.41 BST
• Article history


The Royal Dutch Shell platform Gannett Alpha in the North Sea. Photograph: Ho/Reuters
If efforts to dam the Shell oil spill prove unsuccessful the final amount of oil leaked into the North Sea could be four times greater than it is at present, the company admitted on Wednesday.
More than 200 tonnes of oil have already poured into the sea, with unknown effects on marine life, making it the worst spill in UK waters in the last 10 years. But Shell has estimated there could be up to 660 tonnes still in the affected pipeline.

You will of course remember from my earlier post (here) that Shell is the company that the Obama Administration is preparing to permit to drill in the Arctic Ocean. 

All I can think of is "When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?" from the song by Pete Seeger, "Where have all the flowers gone?".  For those of you that do not know the song here is a link to the words.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

[V] Obama in the Valley

Dear Friends,

Charles Blow's op-ed in The New York Times today (here) is entitled "Obama in the Valley".  Mr. Blow discusses the phrase in robotics, "the uncanny valley".

In the field of robotics, and increasingly in computer animation, it refers to the theory that people feel good about robots — up to a point. When they start to look almost real, but not quite, we experience an eerie and unsettling sense of revulsion.

Mr. Blow then applies the phrase to politics.

I have often thought that there must be an uncanny valley of politics, a point at which particular politicians rouse our discomfort because there’s something about them that people connect with, but there’s something else about them — intangible, unbelievable and not relatable — that produces a sense of unease.

It is easy for him to apply his thesis to many of the Republican candidates for President, and he does quite effectively.

But one person I never thought would fall into this valley was Barack Obama, the charismatic candidate who electrified the electorate in 2008 and whom many saw as the fulfillment of the dream of the even-more-electrifying Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Yet here Obama is, down in the valley, struggling to connect with the American people and failing, increasingly coming across as dispassionate to some and outright revolting to others.

A robotic Sustainer-in-Chief with an eerie inhumanity will not satisfy. At this moment, we need less valley and more mountaintop.

For some reason when I read that I could not help but think of Governor Christie of New Jersey at a recent press conference where he said what needed to be said.  Here is a quote from Yahoo News (here)

New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie defended his decision to nominate a Muslim judge to the state Superior Court against conservative critics who warned that the new judge will implement Sharia law. The notoriously blunt-spoken Christie calling their fears "crap" and "crazy."
The appointee, Sohail Mohammed, is an American attorney who offered legal aid to New Jersey residents who were suspected after the 9/11 terrorist attacks but were later found innocent of any crimes.
Opponents of Mohammed's nomination have issued warnings, with no evidence, that Christie's nominee, if approved, would base his rulings on Islamic law. Christie was having none of it.
"Sharia law has nothing to do with this at all. It's crazy. It's crazy," Christie said at a press conference Wednesday. "The guy's an American citizen who has been an admitted lawyer to practice in the state of New Jersey, swearing an oath to uphold the laws of New Jersey, the constitution of the state of New Jersey, and the Constitution of the United States of America . . . .This Sharia law business is crap. It's just crazy. And I'm tired of dealing with the crazies."

 Here is the portion of the press conference.



It is time for President Obama to speak the truth otherwise he will continue to have trouble relating to the American people.  The bully pulpit of the President of the United States has gone unused for long enough.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal