In a lovely show of either short sightedness or vested interest, Federal Judge Martin Feldman reversed the Obama administration's moratorium on current and planned deepwater drilling in the Gulf and Pacific ocean. 

Let's be happy, at least, that the news is covering the fact that this judge appears to have financial ties to the energy industry. 

What's fascinating is that the judge wrote in his decision: 

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an unprecedented, sad, ugly and inhuman disaster. What seems clear is that the federal government has been pressed by what happened on the Deepwater Horizon into an otherwise sweeping confirmation that all Gulf deepwater drilling activities put us all in a universal threat of irreparable harm.

This could be one of the more ridiculously wrong statements I've read during the course of this catastrophe, and I'd like to parse words for just a moment. 

The Deepwater Horizon spill is hardly unprecedented. We've had giant oil spills far too often, some of them even a result of offshore drilling. 

Secondly, it's hardly inhuman. It is, in fact, exactly the opposite of inhuman. This was not a natural disaster. This wasn't Katrina or a tsunami. 

Thirdly, yes, when you have a terrible catastrophe, the first place you look for future disasters is the same form the initial disaster took. Like shutting down air travel after 9/11, checking emergency preparedness after Katrina, or banning new offshore drilling, as our nation did after the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. 

I never thought I'd say this, but that judge is nuts. Thankfully the Obama administration is going to appeal the decision, but this certainly seems like the wrong way to go.