And Now I Am The Adm'ral In The Queen's Na-vy: Or, Why We Have Hundreds Of Idle Skimmers, And Oil Coming Ashore In Mississippi

Cue the music of Gilbert and Sullivan--one could almost write a patter-song from this dolt's use of English.

From Friday's briefing by the one and only Admiral Allen:

OPERATOR: Your next question is from Carol Rosenberg with the Miami Herald.

Q: Admiral, thanks for taking my call. Whatever came of the idea to have the Navy provide skimmers to this effort? And have you guys waived the Jones Act? And if so, where are the foreign vessels?

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Carol, at the outset of this event, we went to the Navy supervisor of salvage and asked for any oil skimming capability they had that they could give to us. The supervisor of salvage is the one that contains most of the Navy's skimming and booming response capability, and they worked with us on many of these large spill responses. And they, in effect, at that point, released all their strategic stockpiles of boom and skimming equipment to us.

The discussions we are having with the Navy and other folks right now is the availability of skimmers that are on standby because they might be needed for a spill someplace else and how we might go about assessing the availability of those resources. So I would separate out the resources that the Navy had that they've already given to us and the discussions we're having across the entire country where we have equipment that's out there as a requirement—legal requirement to cover spill response of those areas and how we might free those up, and that's a work in progress inside the administration right now.

OS again airs his suspicion that the White House desires a truly major catastrophe, for whatever perverse reasons it may have. What else could explain this sort of behavior? Read the transcript, and note the good admiral's complete lack of urgency.

Meanwhile, the situation is truly deteriorating along the Gulf Coast.

If this situation were in Lake Michigan, and the oil were coming ashore along the Chicago waterfront, what would the response of the Obama White House be?

Video Of the Gulf Of Mexico Taken This Weekend: From Gulf Shores To The Deepwater Horizon And Back To Louisiana

This is disturbing footage to watch, especially knowing that the Obama administration sits on its hands as this situation unfolds. OS does not endorse the narrative questioning why BP is doing 'x' vs. 'y' at the spill site, or the final bit with the anthropomorphization of the dolphins. That's a bit odd. But the simple documentation of the spill itself is sobering.

All we need now is a big hurricane...sucking up all that oil to deposit inland.

When OS was a small lad, he visited the Bon Secour Peninsula for many summers in the 1960's. It was a different place then, largely undeveloped, with just a country road running from the village of Gulf Shores out to Fort Morgan, used during the Civil War to guard Mobile Bay. His uncle would take him shrimping in the shallows of Bon Secour Bay, in a small boat, and let him sort through the groaning nets for shrimp and crab, to be served that evening for dinner. It was an enchanted place and time, and the little boy knew it. It was a place apart.

Perhaps, OS's grandchildren, or their children, will be able to experience it for themselves. Heaven only knows what it will take to undo this damage.