Is this Obama's Katrina?

It's bad enough that Sarah Palin is saying stuff like this. It really pisses me off when this is a headline on the first page of the Los Angeles Times!

Katrina was not a man made disaster. The hurricane did not last for 5 weeks with no end in sight. There were very low tech solutions to rectifying the damage to the city and the delta area. The government's response department, FEMA, knew what it needed to do and simply did not have the expertise to actually implement the disaster relief plans that had worked many times before.

So.. is Obama somehow responsible for this disaster? Is Obama to be held responsible for not figuring out a way to deal with this environmental nightmare fast enough?

That would assume that he , and the current administration, know the solution to this problem and actually have the capability, the equipment & the engineering skills to somehow stop the leak!!!

Actually, we are more to blame than either Bush or Obama; we allowed the legislature to water down all the safety regulations already in place. It's more than safety inspectors accepting tickets to the Super Bowl Game. Even those inspectors who tried to get bp to correct safety violations were ignored. They apparently didn't even have the power to force bp to pay a fine, much less force bp to fix the problems!! /why? Because ultimately, we trust big business to protect our interests. Because ultimately, we believe that big business is equally concerned with both safety and profit margin. Because ultimately, every American citizen has voted to support federal, state and city who put short term job creation and getting elected ahead of long term safety issues. We have the science to go to the Moon because we allowed NASA to use science as their guide and followed their lead in crafting regulations, instead of allowing Martin Marietta or other aerospace companies to write their operational manual.

Let's hope that in the future, we will not allow private industry to put our economy and environment at risk. Maybe we need to continue drilling for oil..... but shouldn't we make sure that we hold the oil companies to the strictest standard before allowing the wells to go online!

Our Congress does not have a stellar record of responding to environmental disasters with effective legislation ; after the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, the Congress approved regulations which gave the oil industry until the year 2015 to replace their single hulled tankers with double hulled tankers. Not even one (except the Valdez of course) single hulled tanker was pulled from the fleet.

What do you think?

why are we building firetrucks on the way to the fire?

so... bp tried to stop the oil leak once again... and failed. So, now they say that the only reasonably sure way of stopping the leak is to drill 2 relief wells that will meet up with the current well below the leak and then siphon off the oil going into the damaged leak. That way, they'll be able to cap the old well (because there won't be the upward pressure of the oil blowing the cap off. )

I hope that this will work; too bad that bp estimates that these wells won't be completed until August!!

That's alot of oil!

I would like to know why BP was not required to drill these wells BEFORE the federal govt. allowed this drilling operation to go online?

bp assured the regulatory agencies that they had effective safeguards against any oil leak and should those safeguards not work, they had IN PLACE systems that would stop the leak and fix the pipe. Obviously, they lied.

It cannot be blamed on the lack of technological expertise; they knew that these relief wells would be a way to address the problem. So why not?

So now, all of Louisiana (and the rest of the Gulf Coast) is on fire (figuratively) and bp is building the firetrucks and researching ways connect the firehoses to the fire hydrant!!

money talks

I'm ready to scream about the recent Supreme Court decision which grants corporations the same right to donate to political candidates as a individual.

First of all, there's no chance in hell that I'll ever have as much influence over energy policy as Exxon Mobil! So much for equal status between individuals and corporations.

So now the Senate is going to start confirmation hearings on a potential Supreme Court justice. that's pretty important! But what is the media and the congressional committee going to debate.... something that the potential jurist said 20 years ago when they were a college student! Or how about the fact that they went to the University of Chicago law school (Obama did too) 15 years before he was there!

Justice should be blind.... but that doesn't mean that a judge can't have a point of view. It is unrealistic to believe that anybody can be neutral concerning key issues of the day; separation of church and state, abortion rights, the right to bear arms, states' rights etc. We have to believe that judges will put aside their personal opinions when they enter the courtroom and base their decisions on the law and the constitution.

The history of the Supreme Court shows that it is possible for judges of very different political backgrounds to reach the same judicial conclusion.

those were the days! Now all the decisions are straight down party lines.... that's not right. Or a less emotional reaction might be that it is illogical to believe that the present justices could ever be confirmed today if they all had to prove they had no personal beliefs about key issues, or prove that their decisions would not be influenced to a certain degree by their background.

Potential justices should be grilled about their beliefs, experiences and life and they should be free to tell the whole story without fear of being stereotyped. All we can hope for from a judge is that he/she is intelligent, hard working and has a history of being able to work with a wide variety of people and issues. If our justice system works at all... and I think it does for the majority of cases.... than we have to believe that our judges do manage to put aside their personal beliefs when they decide cases.

It really bothers me that recent confirmation hearings do not allow us to get those opinions

sarah palin doesn't have a lock on it

okay, okay... this is old news but I can still remember my annoyance when Palin implied that all soccer moms wear lipstick! Or more significantly, implied that all soccer moms share her values and political philosophy. First of all, how can anybody really draw those conclusions about a person based on their ability to 1) have children who are active in sports and 2)have the time to attend games on a regular basis. I'm very active in my son's life AND I'm a "liberal". Does that mean I'm not a soccer mom????

Let's get to the genesis of my blog's title..... I am a "soccer" mom (To be honest, my son is now 16
years old. He now plays basketball, not soccer. But I still bring cases of water to the game and share in driving to the away games whenever I can. ) However, not all soccer moms are created equal. Not all caring mothers have the same political beliefs. Not all have the same religion, or educational background. Not all have the same parenting skills or philosophy.

I'll give Sarah Palin the benefit of believing she uses the phrase "soccer mom" as a metaphor for a parent who loves their child enough to support them and help them become a productive and happy participant in the United States.

But does this kind of vague and odd "joke" have any place in a presidential campaign speech? (besides being a catchy sound bite.) I'm pretty tired of political discourse being reduced to exaggerations and labels. I told my six year old son to have an open mind. I told him not to call names.

If only I could convince everyone to feel the same way!