You Can't Do That

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans today overturned the Administration's moratorium on off-shore drilling imposed by the Interior Department. Calling it arbitrarily imposed and rash, the Judge concluded that the government acted wrongly in stopping all drilling just because one rig had an accident.

The Interior Department had halted approval of any new permits for deep-water drilling and suspended drilling of 33 exploratory wells in the Gulf.

Here's what the Judge had to say in rendering his decision:

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an unprecedented, sad, ugly and inhuman disaster," he wrote. "What seems clear is that the federal government has been pressed by what happened on the Deepwater Horizon into an otherwise sweeping confirmation that all Gulf deep-water drilling activities put us all in a universal threat of irreparable harm."

His ruling prohibits federal officials from enforcing the moratorium until a trial is held. He did not set a trial date.--Fox News

This was definitely the right thing to do. The moratorium would have crippled the world's energy supplies, cost thousands of jobs, and further damaged the economies of both the states directly affected by the spill, as well as the nation at large.

We expect the White House will appeal. You didn't expect them to admit they overreacted and made a mistake, did you?

This decision, if upheld, would also place limits on the Executive branch's authority. Many feel the President exceeded his authority in imposing the moratorium, or directing that it be imposed. The President's powers ARE NOT unlimited, and there must be a basis in law for his actions.

And now to ClearOurBrainZ !

We cannot afford to let emotion overcome reality as it relates to our energy policy. We have to have increased domestic production of oil and gas while we transition to cleaner technologies.

The moratorium was a kick in the pants to Louisiana and the other gulf state's economies, already losing money from the lack of tourist business this summer.

Thank you, Your Honor.

Your comments, please.

Have I Got A Deal For You !

Well, it seems the White House successfully twisted the arm of the BP executives, forcing them to cough up 20 BILLION DOLLARS over the next 4 years to "mediate" the effects of the oil spill on the businesses affected. That's 5 billion $$ a year. Not an insurmountable amount for a large company like BP.

But it's a LOT of money. Money the company loses, money that won't be used for exploration and production. Money that won't be returned on the shareholders' investment.

I also think the media has played a very large role in keeping tourists from visiting their normal haunts at the beach, further adversely impacting the coastal economies. What is their share?

How about the government's responsibility to inspect the drilling rigs offshore, and enforce existing regulations, that they absolutely failed to do? What is their share?

Other companies will be liable as well, since this was a joint project. The legal eagles will fight that battle.

I don't object to BP posting such an "escrow" amount to be distributed to those truly impacted by the spill. There are many families and small business people who are devastated by the effects of this accident. It remains to be seen how these funds will be REALLY distributed, and how much of them will be absorbed by the "overhead" and "expenses" of paying them out.

If our experiences with the Katrina relief funds administration are any example, it will be rife with fraud, waste, and mismanagement. Even the 9/11 funds distributed by Kenneth Feinberg, currently known as Obama's"pay-czar", had these problems. And, that was less than half of the amount he's going to be in charge of this time.

You don't think there are not already schemes afoot to grab some of this "free money", do you?

Of course there are! Loot always draws crooks. This will be no different.

Sure, we caught and prosecuted lot's of people for stealing Katrina money that didn't deserve it, or need it....they were just crooks. But, the money was most always not recovered, or very little was.

What I object to is the President of our country shaking down a private company for money. That's the appearance of this, no matter how the Administration tries to "spin" it. It smacks of "The Chicago Deal", and gangsterism. It looks really bad. I don't believe the Constitution gives the Executive Branch this kind of power.

I realize we don't have a lot of facts. We are not privy to the behind-the-scenes workings of a deal like this....and it was a deal, worked out beforehand, that much is obvious. You don't really think that such a quick sale was made around a table at the WH, do you?

This "conference" with the BP execs at the WH was strictly for show. BP had surely decided, on advice from their legal and financial teams, what needed to be done. After all, the $75 million dollar cap on spills is the law. I think BP is making an aggressive move to show their willingness to cooperate and do the right thing.

The wrong thing, is for an American President and our government to make Hugo Chavez-like moves to force a private company to give the government what amounts to a huge political tool(the money) to solidify it's position and shore up its crashing popularity with the American public. This isn't a banana republic, Mr. President....it's the USA. You aren't doing yourself or your administration any favors by acting like a dictator.

More facts will emerge in the coming days and weeks. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

Will this turn into a free-for-all feeding frenzy that will devour BP, and drive oil production completely out of the US? It very easily could. Politicians are not known for being farsighted. They can rarely see beyond the next election, if that far.

As for the argument that this disaster will drive the rapid development and implementation of "green" and "renewable" technologies to replace "evil oil", we all know that it will take decades to do anything even approaching such a level of use and adaptation. It has to be practical, and actually work. We are only in the infancy of developing and utilizing such technology.

We are going to need that "evil oil" for some time to come. Even if we had the "green" technology ready to go right now, cheap, efficient, and practical, we will still need petroleum for many of our industrial feed stocks. Where do you think plastic comes from, huh? And thousands of other products you use every day.

Then there's the latest federal commission created by our Glorious Leader. Filled with eviros and an anti-oil leader, Fran Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council. She isn't just suspicious about drilling, she outright opposes it.--Fox News

Composed of academic and environmental advocates with ZERO experience and knowledge of the oil industry, this body is charged with ensuring that a disaster like the one we have underway in the Gulf never happens again. They all espouse a similar ideology – one that is opposed to drilling and oil.

And these geniuses are going to decide what to recommend our national policy on oil production should be?

I think someone should ClearTheirBrainZ, except they haven't used them in so long they may be hard to spot.

My guess, is that they will spend lots of our money(that we don't have), eat at many fine restaurants(all while discussing the Public's business, of course), and jet around on government aircraft. I say, we give them a budget and a timeline for completion....just like in the real world. It would be interesting to see if they could perform.

I doubt it. How about you?

Your comments, please.

He Said, They Said--Say What?

White House energy adviser Carol Browner on Friday rejected accusations from a panel of experts who claim the administration misrepresented their views to justify a six-month ban on offshore drilling in response to the BP oil rig disaster.

"A blanket moratorium is not the answer," they wrote in a letter claiming Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar's report "misrepresents" their position. "A blanket moratorium will have the indirect effect of harming thousands of workers and further impact state and local economies suffering from the spill. We do not believe that punishing the innocent is the right thing to do. We encourage the secretary of interior to overcome emotion with logic," the experts, picked by the National Academy of Engineering, wrote. --Fox News

Lawmakers in the Gulf Coast region are saying the same thing, arguing against the moratorium imposed by the Obama administration.

Salazar has acknowledged that the moratorium was his decision, not theirs(the expert panel). Browner argued that the administration did nothing wrong.

Why did they(the administration) bother to consult the experts? Anyone know? To cover their butts?

Back to the show....

So, our illustrious Secretary has decreed that we shall not drill, pump, maintain, or explore. I'm sure that will solve everything, aren't you?

Let's just put tens of thousands more Americans out of work, shall we? That will make everything better, won't it?

What our "officials" are really doing is frantically trying to cover their butts after being caught with their pants down. Nothing makes an august functionary more angry than being tagged out for not doing their job. Look at Salazar now, "rallying the troops" down on the Gulf(at our expense, flown there by private Air Force jet, complete with 5-star service. You didn't think he was staying at the Motel 6, did you?).

Let us ClearOurBrainZ !

What are the facts?

The MMS failed to do their job. Witness the recent abrupt departure of the head of MMS. Who ya gonna call?

BP and the other companies involved dropped the ball big-time. They certainly didn't want this spill to happen, but somewhere, someone cut some corners. Now their chickens have come home to roost. You can bet that heads will roll, those who weren't barbecued in the explosion and fire on the doomed rig. A whole sequence of bad or poorly-considered decisions were made, snowballing into disaster.

The government is more in the way than assisting in the efforts to stop the leak and clean up the mess. Mostly they are just churning the water with rhetoric and demands, while being capable of actually doing little to solve the problem. Not just at the Federal level, but at the state and local level as well. Lot's of hot air, but not much accomplished. Unless, of course, you count the political grandstanding and sound bite opportunities they are indulging in at every opportunity.

Remember, the best people aren't in government, just the politically connected ones. The real talent works in the private sector, where the money is. We don't need over-rated government clerks and bean counters trying to tell engineers how to solve a problem. Oversight? Sure. Keeps them(industry) honest. Control? Nope. We need to make a profit to stay in business. The government is only good at loosing money. And wasting it.

Who ya gonna call? Even the Coast Guard admiral said the same on more than one occasion. He really made the "journalist" who asked that question look like an idiot, didn't he? I'll be he made some enemies in the press that day. They(the media) don't like it, either, when THEY get tagged as idiots, even though many of them obviously are.

BP is not liable, or should not be, for losses incurred because the Obama administration decided to kill all offshore drilling, the exact opposite of what their own experts recommended. The experts DID NOT recommend that. The Secretary of the Interior did, most likely at his boss's direction. It is ludicrous to expect BP to pay for losses they did not cause, but were caused by the stupid actions of our government. This kind of blame game politics is what we have come to expect from this administration. They are incapable of rational thought and actions. THEIR OWN EXPERTS told them NOT to shut down everything, but "Father Knows Best!", so they disregarded the information and advice they themselves asked for. Now we will all pay for their stupidity.

Your comments, please.

LADIEEEZZZZ AND GENTLEMENNNNN!!! CHILDREN OF ALL AGES!!!(cue the clowns)

Yes, children, the circus is alive and well, nay, thriving !

Today's post abounds with flummery, stupidity, elite arrogance, and all the other joyous antics of some of our public officials and personages. It never ceases to amaze me how foolish and outright dumb some of these stalwarts can be. Sure, everyone makes mistakes. None of us are perfect, but surely a higher standard should be demanded of those we choose to manage our public affairs. An underlying theme to most of these seems to be an underestimation by those in authority of the intelligence, and the will to act, resident in the people they are supposed to serve. They seem to have lost touch with reality, living out a fantasy life untouched by any concern that perhaps the "people" might object.

There is so much to choose from, but I didn't want to write a book today. I've just chosen a few examples that tickled me the most.

You know, sticking your nose in other people's business can sometimes turn around and bite you in the butt. Many city councils, school boards, sports teams, and so on, have "butted in" to Arizona's attempt to deal with a difficult problem facing the residents of that state. Let's see what we have:

California: Always good for a wacky good time and a rollicking belly laugh.

LA city councilman Ed Reyes said although he understands the "inconvenience" caused by the boycott battles between Arizona and California, he said that"does not compare to the violation of civil rights"caused by the AZ law. Really? It's a violation of civil rights to show ID? Since when? Because you say so? Who helps you tie your shoes in the mornings? How do you feel about the Easter bunny and the Tooth Fairy? An inconvenience, Mr. Reyes? You call the loss of tens of millions of dollars by YOUR state and Arizona an "inconvenience"? What do you consider a "serious problem", Mr. Reyes? What business is it of the City of Angels how another state tries to deal with a problem? Deal with your own problems--you haven't been doing much of a job with that, a very poor one, in fact. Yet you feel qualified to tell ANOTHER STATE what to do?

Butt out.

Next, we visit the heartland, Illinois. Land of the "Chicago Deal".

A school board in Illinois suddenly changes the meeting agenda late yesterday to address parent's concerns over their decision to cancel a basketball team's trip to AZ. It seems, according to the statement issued, that Arizona's actions "are not in line with our beliefs and values" or some such malarkey. They did make some vague statement about safety, a statement so vague it's almost invisible. So, the people of Highland Park, IL., will put up with the school board using their children as pawns in a political game? I'd love to have observed this meeting last evening! This is idiocy in its perfect form, for such a body as a school board to use its power to make a political statement. It's none of their business how another state chooses to address an issue. You don't have enough to do there in Highland Park?

Butt out.

Some "sports teams", the pros, I mean, have also been just as guilty. They should remember that they are only entertainment, and stick to what they do best. Play ball, hockey, or whatever, and remember who pays the bills.

Butt out.

I was going to put Milwaukee, WI in this slot, but they wisely reconsidered at the last moment. Of course, I fully expect them to take a lick or two at this lollipop. Politicians can't resist candy, or cameras.

Let's journey now to the home of Wally World, the entertaining state of Arkansas.

At a press statement, Arkansas incumbent Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-AR, is called on a false statement by a voter---she's totally poleaxed and left speechless that the people dare to speak out and call her on her bald-faced lies. Running scared, dodging for cover, she purported to be a "moderate" on her voting, despite the record indicating the EXACT OPPOSITE. The older gentleman who called her out, viewed by millions on ABC news this evening, was civil, but firm. Bravo, Sir. Senator Lincoln was shocked into speechlessness. VERY funny!!!

You've got a friend in Pennsylvania. It says so right here on the label.

Senator Arlen Specter, R-D-PA(which is he?) is in the race of his life, running against retired Admiral Joe Sestak. After switching sides last year, he's having a spot of trouble shoeing himself in to another term of hosing the voters out of their tax dollars. Caught telling the truth on camera, saying he switched sides so he can keep his job, he's tanking, it appears. President Obama has declined to appear on his behalf, soaring overhead aboard Air Force One today, on the way to Ohio to inspect a factory refurbished and expanded with TARP money. Really just a glorified photo op, you understand. How much does it cost to operate that aircraft, now? Who pays for it? The government? Isn't that us?

"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed regularly," Marc Coleman 41,of Philadelphia, said.

Anyway, it's pretty clear that the WH has written Specter off, especially since their attempt to buy off his opponent with a position offer in the Administration as Secretary, or perhaps Undersecretary, of the Navy. Something like that--a juicy offer, for sure. Kudos to you, Admiral Sestak(ret.) for dismissing such an dishonorable offer. It's clear Adm. Sestak understood that acceptance of such an offer would reflect extremely poorly on him, and the Navy. You don't have to be an Admiral to understand that! I can hear Admiral Ernie King rolling over in his grave from here!

Historical side note: Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King (November 23, 1878 – June 25, 1956) was Commander in Chief, United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations (COMINCH-CNO) during World War II. As COMINCH, he directed the United States Navy's operations, planning, and administration and was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was the U.S. Navy's second most senior officer after Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, and the second admiral to be promoted to five star rank. As COMINCH, he served under Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and later under James Forrestal.--Wiki Encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_King

He was a tight-lipped sailor's sailor, a two-fisted, flying, fighting Navy man with salt water in his veins. Although known for many pithy sayings, one of the best attributed to him was:"When the going gets tough, they always send for the sons of bitches". He denies every having said that, but offered once, "I wish I had." Appointed after Pearl Harbor to take things in hand, he was notorious for his dislike of the media. Rumored by sailors to shave with a blowtorch and eat razor blades for breakfast every day, his colleagues often said, that given his way, there would only be one press release during the war. It would be issued at the end after the surrender or destruction of the enemy, and would read:"We won." Such are legends born, especially in wartime.

History aside, the press does play a vital role in our society. And they are not immune to the change in the wind any more than the politicos. Nor are they without their own troupes of clowns and stuffed shirts. I was astounded by the coverage give by the Mainstream Media (MM) of the events playing in the center ring of today's political circus. I almost choked on my cotton candy when Diane Sawyer of ABC wryly commented on some of the political antics in today's broadcast. To see the MM skewer the Left is quite a change from the love-fest they were having with the Dems this time last year. After all, they NEVER miss a chance to skewer the Right, do they? You think they don't smell the coffee? Remember, they have to sell, sell, sell to stay on the air. Give the people what they want or they'll tune you out. It's not like olden times when there were only the Big Three controlling all that you see and hear. Now, anyone can be the media.....even me....and you. When ABC showed the gentleman calling out Sen. Lincoln in AR at her press conference, I could hear the laughter all over the country. Nothing like a little dinner-time buffoonery to make your day. I'm still chuckling.

So, how do we find the reality today?

Time to ClearOurBrainZ !

The reality today, is that we can affect these clowns. We can send them packing back to the farm, or off to the Wonderland on the Potomac for another term. WE CHOOSE ! Not the political "machines", not the media, not Evil Big Business. We choose. We choose to hire and fire. Of course, if you don't vote, well....you can't bitch. Well, yes you can, it's certainly your right. Free speech. But, you don't have much credibility if you didn't participate in the process. Just my opinion. I fully support your right to disagree.

The reality: We are really in charge, and therefore responsible. We can blame the rascals all we want, throw them out and put new rascals in, but WE are responsible. It's up to us to choose wisely, or to correct our error if we blow it. Personal Responsibility. A concept that could make a real difference to our future and way of life. We don't seem to embrace it much. We should.

Your comments, please.