It is NOT okay and it won't ever be.

I don't care if some miracle or whatever occurs and stops the oil flow in the Gulf at this second, the damage is still going to be immeasurable and long lasting.

I hope to Gawd they do get it capped, and that the worst case scenario doesn't happen. However, just because the worst is avoided, that doesn't mean what happened isn't going to have a huge impact.

BP and others are trying to minimize what happened, and one way they will do it is point at what COULD have happened if the flow wasn't stopped. They will treat that as a victory, and it will become the meme of the MSM and others. The Gulf will be forgotten. IF they can get it stopped. I don't believe a word they say about it.

The Exxon Valdez lawsuit was just settled. This was after a judge cut the damages awarded severely. A lot of those affected had already died. BP would love to follow this course. How many people have kept up with this travesty of justice?

The places where major oil spills have occurred have never returned to what they once were. They are just out of sight and out of mind and considered ancient history.

Drilling in deep water is a crap shoot. They haven't developed or tested the technology nearly enough to do it on a regular basis. In addition as can be seen now, a method to quickly react to this type of event were never developed to a practical level or tested. BP said it couldn't happen. They ASSURED people of that. New methods to clean up an oil spill also haven't advanced nearly enough.

Do not allow new oil drilling! The oil companies haven't proved they can even remotely carry drilling in deep water out safely. In addition, put some people who can understand what they are up to in charge of watching them. Find a fox to guard the henhouse like FDR did when he put Joseph P Kennedy in charge of the SEC if nothing else. They know how the bodies are buried.

We need to see a huge push for alternative forms of energy. "Drill, Baby, Drill" means "Still, Baby,Still" - the dangerous status quo.

Just let some repuke use that phrase again and see how mad people will get. I think the Dems should run that clip where McCain does his little laugh and says it...I forget where, probably a campaign rally with Moosalini...oh, and I don't want to see her mouthing off either...

that could be some big-time trouble right there

My thoughts go out to the people affected by this fuckup

...but I don't think ANYTHING will stop the drilling, or the spilling. Crude petroleum is nasty stuff when it gets into functioning ecosystems, especially aquatic systems. Unfortunately, the global economy is founded upon it. More-or-less secure access to petroleum products is pretty much the definition of "developed world." The payoff for pumping and processing it is immense, and largely subsidized by governments around the world because maintaining the supply of crude oil and petroleum products is one of the most common and universal activities of modern government.

I've said this many times: people will kill the innocent for oil. Governments will send their armies to commit genocide for oil. We will destroy nations and whole societies for it. When the time comes, people will sell their children into slavery for access to oil. It will happen. Count on it, unless some other cheaper, more reliable but just as easily OWNED energy source replaces it.

Trashing the planet? That's small potatoes compared to maintaining access to relatively cheap oil. I won't employ the sarcasm smilie because I'm being ironic, not sarcastic. In fact, people will line up and pay to trash the planet if that's what it takes to maintain our petroleum addiction.

People have got to realize that the planet is not fungible like man made machinery or interchangeable with anything else. What we have lost through our own recklessness in the past and what we are losing now cannot be measured. It is irreparable. It is gone forever and whatever it can return to will not support the ecology it supported or the various biomes or all of the forms of life both aquatic and land dwelling that depended on the beaches and oceans for its survival.

I was just talking to a young man with an infant son who is heartsick. He wants to know what kind of a world his baby will inherit. I want to know the same thing. We are all caretakers for his child and everyone else's' children. Why can't the greed is good people understand that? A rhetorical question, I guess. Throw them a wad of bills and they're happy no matter where the money came from or what was sacrificed to obtain it. We need to pour more research and funding into alternative earth friendly energy. I live in L.A. We could survive beautifully on solar power for a lot of the year and there are passes in the mountains that surround our valley suburbs which could house wind energy harvesters like the one near Palm Springs. It also works very well. It is just that these forms of energy are abundant and available to all of us and no fortunes are to be made, so they keep to the status quo which, as you point out is dangerous and will very likely prove fatal to all of us one day.

...And is in danger of becoming the worst environmental disaster there can ever be.

Lots of manned space missions were launched without a recovery plan in case something went terribly wrong. Not until an investigation after the shuttle Columbia disaster revealed the "smoking gun" foam insulation damage to the heat shield on the wing were in-flight inspection and maintenance procedures developed.

After all, the Gulf coast is hardly such a sparsely inhabited place as Prince William Sound in AK.

There are intensely fished areas and high-traffic tourist spots, IN ADDITION to the local populations who LIVE there.

I have a feeling that this WON'T be forgotten soon. AND, considering Katrina and this oil spill, people in LA just MIGHT start wondering if placing ALL their bets on the GOP is such a productive activity.