Obama Turning The Corner On The Gulf Oil Spill?

After all the rhetoric Obama and his cronies spewed last week, they apparently seem to think the crisis is over since their attention is no longer focused on the spill.

According to Michael D. Shear of the Washington Post:

Has the president turned the corner on the oil drilling crisis? This week's schedule for President Obama suggests that the White House believes he has. After dominating the conversation in Washington all last week, the environmental crisis in the Gulf of Mexico does not appear front and center on the White House calendar. Not that the West Wing can afford to take their eye off the ball, as chief of staff Rahm Emanuel acknowledged yesterday during a rare Sunday morning television appearance. "What's important is, are we capping the well?," he told ABC's Jake Tapper on the network's "This Week" program. "Are we capturing the oil? Are we containing the clean-up? Are we filing the claims? Are we also cleaning up the mess? That's what's important." But the administration is clearly expecting -- maybe hoping -- that the intense public attention on the spill fades a bit, starting with this week, giving them a chance to turn to other subjects.

Wait a minute! We are entering Summer vacation time and a large segment of America's vacation region is being threatened by a massive oil spill and the White House actually believes that our attention can be directed elsewhere? This is just another attempt by Obama to cover-up his own incompetence at handling the situation.

Here is what Obama has planned as a diversion:

For the rest of the week, Obama and his aides hope they can focus on Afghanistan, health insurance reform, relations with Russia (whose president arrives for a visit on Thursday) and the global economy. Obama departs Thursday for Canada for the G-20 gathering of the world's largest economies. Ahead of the meeting, the president warned the group last week that members must redouble their prior commitments or risk allowing the global economy to sink once again. Tuesday's meeting with state health care commissioners is another chance for Obama to remind the public of the benefits he predicts will come from the massive overhaul of the nation's health-care system. And Tuesday night's White House celebration of gay and lesbian pride month should be an upbeat event for Obama. That constituency -- which has been angry about the slow pace of some changes -- is likely to be happier at this year's version of the annual event, as Congress is on the verge of ending the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Yes! God forbid that the worst environmental disaster in the Gulf take any time away from pandering to the radical agenda of gays and lesbians! Clearly listening to the complaints of the gay community is more important than solving the problem that is putting thousands of people in the Gulf region out of work and destroying the livelihood of thousands more!

Whatever complaints the Dems had about the way George W. Bush handled Katrina, Obama has proven to be at least twice as bad.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Turning The Corner On The Gulf Oil Spill?
Michael D. Shear
Washington Post
June 21, 2010

James Carville Asks Obama: "What Took You So Long?"

Yes, Carville really said that.

FACT CHECK: Obama Left Blanks In Oil Spill Speech

Calvin Woodward of the Associated Press looks into Obama's speech from last night and how certain claims stacked up against reality:

OBAMA: "We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused and we will do whatever's necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy. ... Tomorrow, I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company's recklessness. And this fund will not be controlled by BP. In order to ensure that all legitimate claims are paid out in a fair and timely manner, the account must and will be administered by an independent, third party." THE FACTS: An independent arbiter is no more bound to the government's wishes than an oil company's. In that sense, there is no certainty BP will be forced to make the Gulf economy whole again or that taxpayers are off the hook for the myriad costs associated with the spill or cleanup. The government can certainly press for that, using legislative and legal tools. But there are no guarantees and the past is not reassuring. It took 20 years to sort through liability after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, and in the end, punitive damages were slashed by the courts to about $500 million from $2.5 billion. Many people who had lost their livelihoods in the spill died without ever seeing a check. ___ OBAMA: "In the coming days and weeks, these efforts should capture up to 90 percent of the oil leaking out of the well." THE FACTS: BP and the administration contend that if all goes as planned, they should be able to contain nearly 90 percent of the worst-case oil flow. But that's a big "if." So far, little has gone as planned in the various remedies attempted to shut off or contain the flow. Possibly as much as 60,000 barrels a day is escaping. BP would need to nearly triple its recovery rate to reach the target. ___ OBAMA: Temporary measures will capture leaking oil "until the company finishes drilling a relief well later in the summer that is expected to stop the leak completely." THE FACTS: That's the hope, but experts say the relief well runs the same risks that caused the original well to blow out. It potentially could create a worse spill if engineers were to accidentally damage the existing well or tear a hole in the undersea oil reservoir. ___ OBAMA: "From the very beginning of this crisis, the federal government has been in charge of the largest environmental cleanup effort in our nation's history." THE FACTS: Early on, the government established a command center and put Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen in charge of coordinating the overall spill response. But officials also repeatedly have emphasized that BP was "responsible" and they have relied heavily on BP in making decisions from hiring cleanup workers to what oil dispersing chemicals to use. Local officials in the Gulf region have complained that often they don't know who's in charge _ the government or BP. ___ OBAMA: "We have approved the construction of new barrier islands in Louisiana to try and stop the oil before it reaches the shore." THE FACTS: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and local officials pleaded for weeks with the Army Corps of Engineers and the spill response command for permission to build about 40 miles of sand berms along the barrier islands. State officials applied for an emergency permit to build the berms May 11, but as days went by Jindal became increasingly angry at federal inaction. The White House finally agreed to a portion of the berm plan on June 2. BP then agreed to pay for the project. The corps was worried that in some cases such a move would alter tides and drive oil into new areas and produce more harm than good. ___ OBAMA: "Already, I have issued a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling. I know this creates difficulty for the people who work on these rigs, but for the sake of their safety and for the sake of the entire region, we need to know the facts before we allow deepwater drilling to continue." THE FACTS: Obama issued a six-month moratorium on new permits for deepwater drilling but production continues from existing deepwater wells.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

FACT CHECK: Obama Left Blanks In Oil Spill Speech
Calvin Woodward
AP via TownHall.com
June 16, 2010

Hidden Black On White Crimes, New Deal Economics And Alternative Fuel Woes

On this last day of the year 2007 A.D. (Yes, I say Anno Domini rather than the politically correct C.E.), I have three articles I would like to bring to the front. The first is a column by Dr. Walter Williams:

Whenever there is a case of white on black crime, whether real or alleged, it becomes front-page headline news. But, when it is black on white crime, well, then it is treated differently by Old Media.

Dr. Walter Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well. Oh yeah, for those of you who didn't know it, he is also a black man.

Here is what he writes about this issue over at TownHall.com:

If you're like I am, you've heard scores of media reports about the 2006 Duke University rape case, in which three white lacrosse players were falsely accused of raping a black stripper at a wild party at the home of one of the team members. These guys, convicted by the news media and Duke faculty, were later found innocent. It turned out that Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong was running for re-election. In seeking the black vote, he concealed DNA evidence that would have exonerated the lacrosse players. ... I don't know about you, but it was just recently that I heard about a gruesome murder in Knoxville, Tenn., that is far worse than the false charges in the Duke rape case and is at least as horrible, if not more so, than the dragging death of James Byrd. Unlike the Duke rape case and the Jasper lynching, the national news media's coverage of the interracial Knoxville murders paled in comparison. On Jan. 6, 2007, University of Tennessee student Channon Christian and her boyfriend, Christopher Newsom, were carjacked and kidnapped in Knoxville. Both of them were later murdered. According to a 46-count indictment, suspects Darnell Cobbins, Lemaricus Davidson, George Thomas and Vanessa Coleman, all blacks, are charged with committing rape, including sodomy against Christian and Newsom, both of whom are white. After being raped, Newsom was shot several times and his body was found burned along nearby railroad tracks. Christian was forced to witness her boyfriend's rape, torture and subsequent murder before she was ultimately raped, tortured and murdered. The police discovered her body inside a large trash can in the kitchen of the home where the murders took place. Before disposing of her body, the murderers poured bleach or some other cleaning agent down her throat in an effort to destroy DNA evidence. Trial dates have been set for next May.

Dr. Williams rightly asks where the news media is and why they aren't covering this incident as closely and completely as they did the Duke fake-rape case. He also rightly asks why the NAACP doesn't speak out about this as they spoke out against the prosecution of the Jena 6.

Why is this so important to us? Read on:

According to the 2004 FBI National Crime Victimization Survey, in most instances of interracial crimes, the victim is white and the perpetrator is black. In the case of interracial murder for 2004, where the race of victim and perpetrator is known, more than twice as many whites were murdered by a black than cases of a white murdering a black. The failure of civil rights leaders, people like Jackson and Sharpton, as well as politicians to vocally condemn black-on-white crime -- and the relative silence of the news media in reporting it -- is not simply a matter of double standards. It's dangerous, for it contributes to a pile of racial kindling awaiting a racial arsonist to set it ablaze.

The column is short but profound and can be accessed on-line here:

Hiding Black Interracial Crimes
Dr. Walter Williams
TownHall.com
December 26, 2007

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Since 2008 is a Presidential election year, it would be a good idea to start looking at the campaign promises of the various candidates and how those promises reflect on certain relevent issues. Probably the biggest issue is that of the economy. We all know that the market is heading for a massive readjustment pretty soon, probably within the next year. The question will be: how do we respond to it?

Many Democrats have already decided that the solution is to impose New Deal style socialist policies on the United States. But is that really a good idea?

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Amity Schlaes has the following:

Notwithstanding the largest peacetime appropriation in the history of the world, the New Deal recovery remained incomplete. From 1934 on--the period when the spending ramped up--monetary troubles were subsiding, and could no longer be blamed alone for the Depression. The story of the mid-1930s is the story of a heroic economy struggling to recuperate but failing to do so because lawmakers' preoccupation with public works rather got in the way of allowing productive businesses to expand and pull the rest forward. ... People became accustomed to a sort of calculus of frustration. The closer the country got to the prosperity of 1929, the more impossible reaching such prosperity seemed. The 1930s came to be known as the always recovering but never recovered decade. The Dow itself confirmed this pessimistic assessment by stubbornly remaining below 1929 levels through World War II and into the 1950s. The relevant points for today are simple. The famous "multiplier effect" of public spending may exist. U.S. cities do indeed need new highways, new buildings and new roads, maybe even from government. But these needs should be weighed against damage that comes when officials create projects and jobs for political reasons. An emergency such as a Great Depression, a Sept. 11, a Katrina, can serve as a catalyst for an infrastructure project and for job creation too. But the dire moral quality of that emergency does not guarantee that the project undertaken in its name will be more efficient than your standard earmark. In other words, candidates may want to be careful as they climb onto FDR's shoulders. The New Deal edifice may look solid, but it doesn't form a good basis for the American future.

Socialist policies have never succeeded in bringing any nation to economic prosperity. It didn't happen during the New Deal and certainly didn't happen when James Earl Carter unleashed his disasterous policies on the American economy back in the late 70's. So, why are the Dems so intent on inviting that same disaster here in the Y2k's? It would only lead to higher unemployment and more economic dispair which would in turn put a larger burden on the American people.

Free markets are the way to go, not inefficient central planning.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

The New Deal Jobs Myth
Amity Schlaes
OpinionJournal.com
December 31, 2007

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And finally we have another story about alternative fuels and what they are really costing us. Eric Berger, writing for the Houston Chronicle brings us the following:

The recent passage of the mammoth energy bill could have unintended consequences for the Gulf of Mexico that have nothing to do with oil and gas platforms. Under the law, production of ethanol is set to increase five-fold to 36 billion gallons a year by 2020. Some environmentalists are worried that the shift to ethanol — viewed as a home-grown alternative to foreign oil — could enlarge the northern Gulf's "dead zone," an 8,000-square-mile area so devoid of oxygen that fish, shrimp and other sea life cannot survive. Already ethanol, by doubling corn prices since 2002, has driven corn production to its highest levels since World War II. Growing corn requires considerably more nitrogen-based fertilizer than most crops. When the fertilizer runs off fields in the Midwest, it drains into the Mississippi and eventually reaches the Gulf of Mexico. "This year's dead zone is the third highest on record, and I think we're already seeing an impact from increased ethanol use," said Donald Scavia, a University of Michigan professor who studies farm practices and hypoxia, or low-oxygen water. Scientists say the Gulf's dead zone has grown larger since its discovery more than 20 years ago. According to Nancy Rabelais, a professor with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium who annually surveys the area, the dead zone has been about 15 percent bigger in the last five years than normal.

It is a great truism of the Universe: you cannot get something for nothing. Sometimes the something you get is not worth it.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Ethanol Stirring Coastal Concerns
Eric Berger
Houston Chronicle
December 31, 2007