Must Be Some Way To Blame Bush For Oil Mess

In his previous letters, Dallas Dunlop wrote that there were no significant oil deposits in the Baltimore Canyon or anywhere else off shore for that matter. Now his mystical geological sources are telling him personally that there are no oil deposits in the eastern gulf either.

Since these geo-swamis know so well where the oil isn't, maybe they know where it is! If so, would you ask them to tell those ignorant folks at www.mms.gov where to direct the drilling, because they seem to think that the Gulf is one of the most important potential sources for our future energy needs? In fact, they think they found after 980 test bores, 126 significant deepwater deposits since 1995, and they think they haven't yet scratched the surface. What would have happened if they gave up after 15 test bores like those in the Destin Dome!

If he is going to quote sources, how about instead of taking bits and pieces out of context, tell the whole story. Of all those rigs and platforms destroyed in the hurricanes few, if any, were responsible for any significant spill since the wells have shutoff valves. Now we know we had better purge the transportation pipelines in advance of a major storm since they were the source of the major losses. Unquestionably Katrina was a disaster of epic proportion; and since we learned a lot from it, might we be better able to prepare our offshore resources? To be sure, drilling technology is expanding at an exponential rate over that of several decades ago.

But, let's for a moment explore what would happen if we do it your way, Dallas. We ignore the will of the vast majority of the people, since we are infinitely smarter. We don't drill anywhere. We continue the current trends. We continue our dependence on foreign oil. The shortages increase and the price of gas continues to escalate. More and more people find their homes in foreclosure, their jobs gone and they're unable to feed their families. Meanwhile we continue to pour our national wealth into the pockets of the likes of Iran, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.

And rather than tourists, the pristine beaches of Florida will be lined with starving and homeless people surf-fishing for a meal. Then, in desperation, we put our economic turndown on pause and place our population in suspended animation. I get out my coffee can full of tenpenny nails and my hammer and you and I begin to build our entire new infrastructure.

To heck with those darn Republican envirowhackos! Whoops! Wait a minute; aren't most envirowa-mentalists Democrats? Isn't it the Democrats who want to continue the moratorium on drilling? Isn't it the Democrats who want to tax our way out of this?

Rats! I Know Bush is responsible for this mess, I just have to figure out which facts to ignore so that we can prove it!

Tom Cannariato

Weeki Wachee