Drill, Baby, Drill has a cost ...

... but how do we put that cost into perspective?

The oil rig spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been compared to the Exxon Valdez disaster in Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989 which dumped 10.8 million gallons of oil into an enclosed area. Though it makes an easy sound bite, I don't think it's a good comparison on several levals.

Prince William Sound is an area enclosed by islands and about 15,000 square miles in area. The Gulf of Mexico comprises an area of roughly 615,000 square miles or more than 40 times larger and flushed by the Gulf Stream providing a global scale.

In trying to find a better comparison it occurred to me that the oil from torpedoed tankers in the gulf of Mexico during the Second World War might provide some insight.

During the period from December 7, 1941 to May 8, 1945 (VE Day), 1,244 days, I found the following:

Ships torpedoed in The Gulf of Mexico - total of 46, of which 27 were oil tankers.

Based on the average oil tanker of the period having a capacity of 16,613 long tons (2,240 pounds per long ton) and a gallon of oil weighing about 7 pounds ---

That means during that 1,244 day period roughly 143,536,320 gallons of crude oil were dumped into the Gulf or about 115,383 gallons per day, to wash up on Gulf shore beaches. (More if you consider the fuel load on the other merchant ships sunk during that period... but not that much more.)

The current oil spill has, according to the news, has an output of about 5,000 barrels per day. Multiply that times 55 gallons per barrel and you get 225k gallons per day versus the 115.3k brought by all out, unrestricted submarine warfare.



Is it bad? It's probably worst that you think.

Guns v. Butter 2010

See if you can identify the bleeding heart liberal who said this:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."

Noam Chomsky? Michael Moore? Bernie Sanders?

Nope, it was that unrepentant lefty, five-star general Dwight Eisenhower, in 1953, just a few months after taking office -- a time when the economy was booming and unemployment was 2.7 percent.

Read more about our priorities and how they work against us on Huffington Post after the click ...

A Point of Information

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
South Park Death Threats
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

or catch the video on Comedy Central after the click ...

The Improbability Pump

Imagine for a moment that a large proportion of Americans -- let's say half -- rejected the "germ theory" of infectious disease. Maladies like swine flu, malaria and AIDS aren't caused by micro-organisms, they claim, but by the displeasure of gods, whom they propitiate by praying, consulting shamans and sacrificing goats. Now, you'd surely find this a national disgrace, for those people would be utterly, unequivocally wrong. Although it's called germ theory, the idea that infections are spread by small creatures is also a fact, supported by mountains of evidence. You don't get malaria unless you carry a specific protozoan parasite. We know how it causes the disease, and we see that when you kill it with drugs, the disease goes away. How, we'd ask, could people ignore all this evidence in favor of baseless superstition?

But that's fiction, right? Well, not entirely, for it applies precisely to another "theory" that is also a fact: the theory of evolution.

Read the rest by Jerry A. Coyne in The Nation after the click ...

Religious persecution

Controversial atheist billboard severely damaged

Local St. Augustine news reporters received word from Northeast Florida Coalition of Reason who told Historic City News that one of their controversial billboards on US-1 that displays an atheist message has suffered major damage from apparent vandalism.

The billboard is located 5.7 miles north of SR-16 and visible to southbound traffic on the west side of US-1. The sign reads, “Don’t Believe in God? You Are Not Alone”.

The message immediately raised controversy in St. Johns County when it first appeared on March 29th. Now those behind that message believe vandalism may have been involved.

Read the rest of this example of religious persecution after the click

The dangers of magical thinking

Vaccine-autism claims, "Frankenfood" bans, the herbal cure craze: All point to the public's growing fear (and, often, outright denial) of science and reason, says Michael Specter. He warns the trend spells disaster for human progress.



or catch the video on YouTube after the click ...

Just a thought ...

"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
-- Anne Lamott

The Old Mission

Daughter visiting so we're spending time as tourists, doing some sight seeing.


Mission St. Xavier del Bac - 1783

The scaffolding is finally gone and the mission looks like the mission again!


Father Kino


Looking up to Heaven


Inside looking out.

On Religion

Or catch the video on YouTube after the click ...

Glen Beck Attacks!

Sky and Cactus

4th Avenue Street Fair, Tucson, AZ

Twice a year - in December and in March - the merchant association on 4th Avenue in Tucson holds a street fair. For three days, literally thousands (maybe 10s of thousands) of people descend on 4th Avenue, not far from the University of Arizona campus, to patronize more than a mile of vendors there.


The Fourth Avenue Street Fair - more than a mile of craftsmen.


The Ukulele Player - singer of 1920's rag time tunes.


Pigs Fly


Roof Line with Awnings

My take on the Street Fair? It's more like a Renaissance Fair than any Renaissance Fair I've ever been to ... and far more authentic!

Mark Twain ... with tongue firmly in cheek

"In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles.

"Therefore ... in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period the Lower Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long... seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long... There is something fascinating about science.

"One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."

On Sunday, Will GOP be on Wrong Side of History ... Again?

Mark Green on Huffington Post

Republicans warn Democrats about the political downside if Obama-Pelosi win Sunday's vote on Health Care. Actually, it's the GOP that's in a lose-lose -- either the Democrats earn due credit for change or the public will blame the GOP for opposing major social breakthroughs as it so often has.

It's happening again, and for much the same reasons. At the brink of a major social advance, the GOP is standing at the doorway of history shouting STOP! Let the free market status quo continue to screw things up, is in effect the message. Whatever the short-term headlines and polls -- and probably a third of America will buy whatever anti-government rhetoric if offered -- there's a long-term cost to a party that's been so consistently on the wrong side of reform and reality.

Apparently there's a reason the GOP constantly has to refer back 150 years as "the party of Lincoln" given its track record since.

... read the rest on Huffington Post after the click.

This too shall pass

or catch the video here after the click, of course!