Rick Martinez gets it wrong again
Submitted by scharrison on Tue, 06/08/2010 - 5:03pm
As he tries to spray dispersants on the growing concerns over offshore drilling:
The pictures of oil from the BP gusher reaching the shores of Louisiana tear at my heart. But the images haven't changed my mind about offshore oil exploration. I'm still a "Drill, baby, drill" guy.
I've previously written about the need to do a full cost accounting of alternative energy such as solar, wind and biomass. Now it's time to apply the same standard to oil. As with every other source of energy, I want to know the true cost of oil exploration and extraction, and that includes the cost of safety measures to prevent catastrophic blowouts.
No, you don't, Ricky. You say you want to know, but that's only to make your other wants seem reasonable.
The last thing we need is political exploitation of this disaster. Fine BP according to the laws on the books.
That "laws on the books" approach would be $75 million towards a multi-billion-dollar disaster. Tell us again that you want to know the true costs?
But the spill should not be used as a phony-baloney rush for more tax funds to develop wind, solar, biofuels and other forms of inefficient energy.
"Phony-baloney"? Who are you, the Cat in the Hat? Yeah, that offshore drilling is real efficient. It has efficiently shut down the seafood industry in several states and efficiently curbed the flow of tourists to the region's beaches.
Those fuels will become prevalent when it becomes economically feasible for them to be so. Infusing more tax funds only delays the day when green energy can compete economically with carbon-based fuels.
Yeah, all those billions in taxpayer subsidies sure "delayed" Big Oil's economic feasability and ability to compete, didn't they?
Does the N&O actually pay Martinez for this tripe?
This man is....
... a soulless creep who never lifts a finger to verify anything he writes. He spouts the worst rightwing rhetoric without regard for whether there is any truth in it at all. I'll never forget reading one of his columns in which he claimed people driving Mercedes were ripping off Medicaid.... when, less than 24 hours earlier, I'd sat in a Medicaid office in Wake County for most of the day trying to get help for my parents after 9 years of Alzheimers treatment for my mother and nursing home care for my father had wiped them out (trust me, a lifetime of savings won't go far once your baseline medical bills hit $9,000 a month and it won't matter whether you're rich, poor, black, white, Democrat or Republican)). All I saw in that Medicaid office that day were sick, weary, discouraged, suffering peoplke looking for the faintest ray of hope that they might be able to afford a fraction of the medical care that wealthier Americans and entitled jerks like Rick Martinez take for granted.
Yeah, there are people ripping off the system, but they're called corporate leaders and they're all voting right with Martinez and they're not driving their own cars at all.
Katy Munger,
Progress North Carolina
www.progressnc.org
Lead, follow or get out of the way....