A poster making the rounds protests against Appalachian native Ashley Judd, who opposes mountaintop removal coal mining. It asks, “Ashley Judd makes a living taking off her top. Why can’t coal miners?”

Why? For one thing, Ashley Judd knows how to put her top back on. The coal mining companies don’t put the tops back on mountains. They just blow the mountains up and dump the debris into mountain streams.

Secondly, when Ashley Judd takes her top off, she doesn’t dump huge amounts of toxic heavy metals like arsenic into the local drinking water supply. Mountaintop removal coal mining does involve such toxic dumping.

Do these big coal companies truly not understand the difference? Anyone who has flown over the Appalachians recently, and seen the great scars on our nation created by mountaintop removal coal mining gets it.

New York Times reports, “At least one expert, Ira Leifer, who is part of a government team charged with estimating the flow rate, is convinced that the operation has made the leak worse, perhaps far worse than the 20 percent increase that government officials warned might occur when the riser was cut.”

Read the rest of this important article.

Look at this, here, a photograph of the water next to the site where BP’s cap is in place. That’s from just a minute or two ago, and as you can see, the water is still a disgusting brown, filled with massive amounts of petroleum escaping into Gulf waters.

They’re saying we should feel good about this, but the way I see it, it’s same kind of progress as a skydiver with a malfunctioning parachute finding that he can reduce the speed of his fall a little bit by sticking out his arms.

No, BP, it’s not good enough.

BP has been repeatedly impotent in its efforts to contain the oil spill. The current effort, to cap the main spill site, isn’t even aiming to completely stop the spill. Oh, how the standards of offshore drilling have fallen. They once told us that they were technological geniuses. Now, they’re big energy goofballs.

Why, with this repeated incompetence, should we continue to allow offshore drilling?

Call D.T. Simmons at 323-0344 for information before the march.

Last time I checked, Colorado didn’t have any offshore anything. I guess Representative Lamborn figured he didn’t have anything to lose, proposing that other states put their coasts in danger with the risky operation of offshore drilling for oil.

Now, for three weeks, the Gulf of Mexico has seen an oil spill raging after the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded, killing eleven workers. So, what does Doug Lamborn have to say about offshore drilling now?

Funny thing – all of a sudden, Congressman Lamborn doesn’t have anything to say about offshore drilling any more. He’s gone completely quiet on the subject since the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon.

Postscript: Doug Lamborn is a Republican. So, what do the Colorado Democrats have to say in response to Lamborn’s craven silence?

Nothing. The Colorado Democrats aren’t even running a candidate against Lamborn this year. Thanks to their inaction, voters in Colorado’s 5th congressional district have the choice to vote for Doug Lamborn, or vote for nobody at all.

SURFACE HIGH PRESSURE WILL QUICKLY TRACK ACROSS THE AREA WEDNESDAY
WHICH WILL SUPPRESS WINDS AND FLATTEN SEAS. AS THIS RIDGE
CONTINUES EASTWARD WEDNESDAY NIGHT, WINDS WILL THEN SHIFT BACK TO
THE SOUTHEAST. THIS HIGH WILL SETTLE IN THE WESTERN ATLANTIC
THROUGH THE WEEKEND. MEANWHILE, A SERIES OF SURFACE LOWS WILL
DEVELOP AND MOVE THROUGH THE SOUTHERN PLAINS. THE RESULTING WINDS
BETWEEN THESE 2 FEATURES, SPOT AREA, WILL BE STRONG PERSISTENT
SOUTHEAST WINDS OF AT LEAST 20KTS FROM THURSDAY NIGHT THROUGH
SATURDAY NIGHT. IN ADDITION, EXPECT SEAS TO BUILD TO A PEAK OF
8-11 FEET DURING THIS PERIOD. ALTHOUGH A FRONT IS EXPECTED TO
APPROACH THE COASTAL WATERS LATE THIS WEEKEND, AT THIS TIME IT
DOES NOT APPEAR THAT IT WILL PUSH THROUGH UNTIL POSSIBLY EARLY
TO MIDDLE OF NEXT WEEK. THUS, SOUTH WINDS WILL CONTINUE INTO
EARLY NEXT WEEK.

The practical upshot: Winds will be coming from the south starting tomorrow all the way through into next week, pushing the growing crude oil slick into Louisiana’s coastline. Two national wildlife refuges are directly in the path of the oil. Starting on Thursday, the seas will be too rough for an effective effort to contain the oil spill.

The effort to prevent landfall of this oil spill has failed.

What’s at stake:

As of 1:30 PM this afternoon, the oil spill was 21 miles from the Delta National Wildlife Refuge, 69 miles from the Breton National Wildlife Refuge, and 69 Miles from the Bon Secours National Wildlife Refuge. Also in the path of the growing oil spill are the Gulf Islands National Sea Shore, and the Fort Pickens State Park Aquatic Preserve.

So far, all efforts by BP to stop oil from surging up from the wellhead and riser on the sea floor have failed, and the slick is getting closer to shore day by day, threatening fisheries, shrimping grounds, oyster beds, tourist beaches, and the mangroves that protect the delta from being washed away by hurricanes. The slick is now just 30 miles from shore and should hit the Breton National Wildlife Refuge and the Delta National Wildlife Refuge first.

The Obama Administration says that it will continue pushing ahead with its policy to expand offshore oil drilling, unchanged, despite this offshore drilling disaster. How is that different from the approach the Bush Administration took? Is that what we voted for in 2008?