Another offshore oil rig explosion in the Gulf! Shockingly, today, there was an explosion on an offshore rig in the Gulf, on Vermillion 380, a rig owned by Mariner Energy in Houston.

It's a little strange hearing about an 'environmental activist' taking hostages. As you've heard by now, James Lee has been shot dead by police and the hostages he took at the Discovery headquarters are all safe.

I've been waiting to write up anything on the salmonella outbreak until a little more information was available. Of course, my presumption and best guesses were that, as a result of factory farming practices, we've had this massive salmonella outbreak.

There was an announcement the other day that the Bipartisan Policy Center is saying that it was safe to resume offshore drilling operations.

Ever since I was a kid I've loved the New Yorker. Just a great magazine. I realize this paints me a little as liberal east coaster, but as a liberal guy from upstate NY, I'm pretty ok with that label.

When President Obama placed a moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling, the oil industry and right wing media entertainers began yelling about how all the rigs would leave the Gulf, tens of thousands of jobs would be lost, and that - yet again - we were at the brink of armageddon as a result of us crazy environmentalists who enjoy an ecosystem without five million barrels of oil.

A lot of you probably read the NY Times article on the group of activists working in West Virginia to replace proposed mountaintop removal mining sites with a big wind farm.

I believe Americans are an 'after-the-fact' people. Instead of disease prevention, we focus on health care, for instance.

Sometimes it's a little challenging, in our complex society, to see situations in purely black and white standards. Banks are a great example. Right now, the financial industry has gone through a lot of scrutiny, and has had their share of problems.

News coverage from the gulf says the capped well is holding, and visible oil in the gulf has all but disappeared. But you and I — and luckily a few political leaders — know that our oil problems are all but finished. The Gulf Spill was a devastating symptom of our country's addiction to oil. And to avoid more spills, more global warming pollution, and more air pollution; we need to break our addition to oil.