Republicans don’t seem to want a little thing like the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico to interfere with the profits of the corporations that own them. Haley Barbour is a prime example:

As dumb as Haley Barbour’s oil spill denialism sounded, and as silly as Fox’s Bill Hemmer looked when he defended Barbour, the Barbour’s stupidest comments came when he joined Bobby Jindal in demanding an expansion of dangerous deepwater drilling. Let’s take your points one-by-one, Haley: "In the last 50 years, the four states that allow offshore drilling on the gulf, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Alabama — more than 30,000 wells have been drilled in the Gulf of Mexico. This is the first time in that more than 30,000 we have ever had anything like this happen." Um, Haley, you’re looking at the biggest environmental disaster in American history. If you want to base your argument on the offshore drilling industry’s safety track record, you can’t just brush it to the side — especially when we’re now pushing new frontiers. "These big oil rigs — by the way, B.P. and Transocean are not even American companies." So you think that we should trust foreign companies to mine our natural resources? "In six months, these oil rigs aren’t going to be sitting around the gulf waiting. They’re going to be in west Africa." Trust me, if there’s oil in the Gulf, and we can drill it safely, we’ll have no problem finding somebody willing to do the work. Maybe even a domestic company. "About 30 percent of America’s production of oil and gas coming out of the Gulf of Mexico." Actually , 8% of America’s daily liquid fuel production comes from the Gulf (and 10% of crude oil), and none of that will be impacted by the moratorium, which applies to new drilling, not existing production sites. "And the loss of production that we’re going to suffer will make us even more dependent on the Middle East, on Venezuela, on people that aren’t our friends." See #4, and then answer this: why, Haley, are you opposed to a massive national effort to develop alternative sources of energy that we can produce domestically? "And let me tell you one other little thing environmentalists ought to think about. Of the 10 worst oil spills in American history, seven of them were from ships." I haven’t fact-checked that, but even it’s true, the largest spill — by far — was from deepwater exploration. You can’t simply ignore that. …

Inserted from <Daily Kos>

As I considered the problem yesterday, afternoon, I had a 💡 moment. I suddenly realized that I have been inaccurately thinking of the GOP Gusher in two dimensions. The sane view is to respond to it as a three dimensional problem. Last night I saw two segments that endorse that view.

The first is from Rachel Maddow with Dr. Samantha Joye.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The second is from Keith Olbermann with Philippe Cousteau.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As sad as it is, I accept that the technology to prevent the damage we can see on the surface will ideally capture 20% of the surface oil. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.