By all means, rant more. I find this way more informative than all the canned news we get on the actual spill.
I grew up in the oil patch of West Texas, and always felt that self-righteously indignant when people bitched about the oil industry. I just considered the people around me missing limbs to be unfortunate requirements of our lifestyle.
In the past 6 years, I've changed my mind. As of this weekend, I am moving to Austin to return to school; I'm trying to take a different path in life. I feel pretty dirty for some of the things I've seen; I haven't really done anything unethical myself, but i am very aware of the fact that I have helped highly unethical men get rich off the suffering of others.
A few more points on the drilling moratorium: there are only 30 rigs drilling in the gulf. None of that would reach production for years. A moratorium of a few months is nothing in the grand scheme.
ALL of these companies drilling rely on the same emergency plans as one another; the same companies to provide booms, to put out rig fires, etc.
All of these resources are currently being used to try and stem the (LOL) tide of the deepwater horizon disaster. There isn't really anything left over in case something else happens.
We cut corners in the oil industry. We have men working 72 hour shifts in control of the drill string (I've done that). There needs to be a big overhaul here, and the only way to catch the people's attention was something like this, unfortunately.