Oil In Troubled Waters

Oil in troubled waters. Death to the polar bears?

The Cheney Regime is expected to ramp up its efforts to pillage American resources and the environment. And today they took a grand step in that direction. It was announced that on February 6, the Feds will offer up undersea oil exploration leases on an area almost as large as the state of Pennsylvania. This beneath the hitherto unheralded Chukchi Sea off northwest Alaska.

They expect to find rich oil and natural gas fields though no drilling is to be allowed within
fifty miles of the shoreline. Out of sight, and they hope, out of mind.

Needless to say there's opposition to these Chukchi leases from environmental groups. One of
the largest U.S. polar bear populations inhabits that region. This can only add to the bears'
survival problems. One critic of the plan pointed out nobody had any idea how to clean up an
oil spill in a sea afloat with broken ice.

Expect a few lawsuits to follow.

Oil problems in Alaska? Well, there was the classic Exxon Valdez tanker spill back in 1989.

Google that one and you'll find a laundry list of dedicated websites including one maintained by
the petroleum boys claiming science is on their
side. Everything is fine now, Mac.

Currently BP is so bummed by its treatment in Alaska that it may withdraw all its investments
there. Course, they did some things to sour their relations. Like not fix leaky pipelines. That
cost them a few hundred million of those cheap Yank dollars.

What other moves can the Cheneyites make before they leave office? Perhaps we could force
emergency evacuation of West Virginia so we could simply coal-mine the whole state? How about we invade Norway? I hear they're working on solar weapons. They're the third largest oil exporters behind Russia and Saudi. Besides, they might find Guantanamo a warm alternative to Oslo in January. I hear rumors there's oil in Crawford, Texas, so let's get to drilling.

Comments

[rexspam]

I can't wait for the trials to begin. They will mess up, or the world will be so tired of their pillaging that we all stand up and do it ourselves. This is reason 4,235 on why republicans are horrid people with no souls, 4,236 is I've been caged, and now have to go through a pain in the butt process to be able to vote. Thanks you red sacks of crap. Sometimes I just can't believe humanity....

[eastearll]

Save the bears! Lets go back to what we used before, Whale Oil!! They aren't even cute and cuddly.

[The Collinbrandt]

Why was oil only $10.00 a barrel a decade ago and it is $100 per barrel today? Answer: Bush and the Saudis pulled off 9-11. Absolute power driven by absolute fear and powered by absolute greed made possible by absolute ignorance.

[ljsfolly]

But all of the opec was PROMISED the oil by bush cheney and how dare they leave office without making it right? After all bush cheney want the jobs that the rich and powerful will give them. And bush, poor poor bush and family have been so very close friends with those families whose name we cannot name (saudi/binladen etc) without the price of gas climbing. That the price of oil is so high is the excuse they will use to further kill us off. After all the poles melting will eventually kill a few humans as well as bears.

[realitytrumpsbull]

A good fix for all the enviro-whining would be
for all the oil corp's to just stop selling
gasoline. Have em cite environmental concerns,
sorry, everybody, take the bus or walk or bike
or buy a horse or something, show's over, yeah,
station's closing for good, dozer's coming in
next week to flatten the building and rip the
tanks out. Been nice doing business with you,
we're off to the Bahamas!
Then, out of sheer desperation, people will
start self-study on ethanol and hydrogen and
so forth. Meanwhile, the CEO's are absorbing
their OWN ethanol under a palm tree, somewhere,
checkin' the camel-toe...

[realitytrumpsbull]

An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted on by an outside force. Conversely, an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted on by an outside force. Inertia. Momentum. Motion. Energy.
'Back in the day', Columbus sailed the ocean
blue in fourteen-hundred and ninety-two not
by diesel power, but by sail power. Of course
the ships were a little smaller, but what do
you expect from 500 or so years ago, wooden
boats and all that. Still, similar craft plyed
the high seas long before it was cool, and
way, way before you could sign up for a Princess
cruise.
The ocean is a body that is both in motion
and at rest, depending on what part of it you
look at, time of day, and all that. The ocean
is acted on by a couple of different things,
including the sun, the moon, and the weather.
If we were smart, we would run our country
off of the bouncety-b­ouncety-bo­unce that goes
on on the surface of the ocean, or something.
But, we're not, so we'll keep getting robbed to
buy diesel from people that kind of really
don't like us, and stuff.

[Thurber]

Hell yeah, I say let the feds seize the land, particularly oil-rich Bush "ranch" land and start sinking some wells, even if that means we have to drill through the three sickly looking cows still there.

I'm sure at the very least we'll get some pretty greasy hamburgers out of it.

[Mark701]

If we could find a way to use stupidity as an energy resource we could drill in Cheneys head. Probably a 100-year supply in there at the very least.