Deepshit Horizon; Or, Spill, Baby, Spill; Or, Man, We Are SO Fucked

The image is only marginally relevant to the post title(s).  One has to wonder if the warrior is in trouble, what with the somewhat sensual, certainly wicked spectral things looming up at him from noxious mists.  I for my part feel equally threatened today, by all the bad news on so many fronts:  the Goldman Sucks show this week, the riots in Greece (and the promise of More to Come on 5 May); and, of course, the massive clusterfuck that is/was BP's Deepwater Horizon rig, now resting at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.  Where, as my brother suggested hopefully, one day it may provide a great habitat for wildlife.

"IF there's any wildlife left by that point," I'm thinking.  As of this moment, the spill is said to be the size of the island of Puerto Rico, and growing.  GREAT.  And, of course, our Fearless Leader has promised to hold BP accountable, and responsible for shouldering the costs of the cleanup.

Well, sure.  I'm not arguing otherwise.  But what I'd like to see is a more direct effect on us American consumers of gasoline, something that makes it finally hit home to my fellows among the Great Unwashed that No, we can't have it all.  (Dovetails beautifully with the article in the previous post.)  I propose a "Hazard Tax" on gasoline, which would help pay for extra environmental safeguards on all drilling sites on US territory and in territorial waters.  It doesn't really matter if the money is actually used for that purpose, or lines politicians' pockets, as long as me and the rest of the Happy Motoring crowd are shelling out the cash.  I figure about $2 extra per gallon should do the trick.

You want fresh seafood?  Be ready to pay $5 a gallon gas, buddy.  Now that kind of money would just be kick-you-in-the-crotch, spit-on-your-neck fantastic to me and mine, who are already paying a big chunk of money to BP/Chevron/Exxon each week.  It would send grocery prices even further into the Blue than they are now, and effectively shut down my already sputtering efforts at action figure collecting, which is admittedly embarrassing in certain circles, but hey, it's me.  It would sock it to the video rental business, which is how I make a living, since it would make driving to Blockbuster to rent and return movies a Very Bad Deal for a good number of my clientele, many of whom come in from the boonies to git they fix.  It would, in fact, put our zombieconomy out of its misery.  (Or, for my fellow RM/MERP geeks, a roll of 66 on any Weapon Critical table.)  But that's the only way people will cut down on their driving, and all the myriad other ways we take advantage of cheap oil, and thus maybe, MAYBE begin to have some positive impact on the environment... or, I guess, no impact at all.  (As far as government use of petroleum, well, that won't end until the oil really runs out.  They'll have access to it for a lot longer than we will.)

It would only be fair, it would only be right.  It's coming, anyway, of course:  higher gas prices, I mean.  But I worry that it will not come soon enough to prevent us from completely ruining our world.  I mourn the Gulf, and we all should; but then, too, we should all mourn our own greed and lack of vision, and the fact that we are not yet wise enough to know what to do with something as incredibly useful and potentially destructive as cheap, abundant oil.

Meanwhile, I'm looking into buying a bicycle.  Afterward, I will cut and paste an image of myself astride a Schwinn, 12-gauge in hand, onto the Frazetta painting above.  THAT will be SO COOL...