The Gulf oil spill is rapidly moving from terrible tragedy to full-blown disaster, and sadly, each day brings more news about the general ineffectiveness of our society to deal with such a calamity. 

The Obama Administration put out a moratorium on new drilling, and on the issuance of the permits that allowed for the kind of drilling happening in the BP debacle. Of course, the NY Times reports that since the explosion on April 20th, "at least 19 environmental waivers for gulf drilling projects and at least 17 drilling permits" have been issued. 

When pushed on the issue, the Department of the Interior says, "we didn't have any intention of stopping ALL new drilling". Of course, it doesn't appear that they've stopped any. 

Meanwhile BP can't get it right whether they're pumping out 210,00 gallons a day or 4,400,000 gallons. The dome didn't work, the other dome didn't work, the chemicals are poison, last I heard they were trying, no joke, mud. 

Aside from waffling on the meaning of the words 'moratorium' and 'new', Sec. of the Interior Salazar made the bold move yesterday of having a sternly worded press conference in which he said, "If we find they’re [BP] not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, we’ll push them out of the way appropriately". 

Huh? What they're supposed to be doing is NOT be spilling millions of gallons of oil. What they ARE doing is spilling millions of gallons of oil. It's time to push, appropriate or not. 

Again, the NY Times points out that this sternly worded sentence flies in the face of what the military said the same day, which is that since BP has access to the well, they are kind of running the game. 

When I was growing up, if I couldn't handle something, I wasn't allowed to do it. That included everything from eating ice cream not at the table or drinking soda too close to bed time to driving the car or mowing the lawn. 

BP has shown -- in fact, I'll say the oil industry has shown -- they cannot be trusted with our natural resources. They cannot be trusted to drill safely, to transport safely, or to respond to crises swiftly. 

Since they're not ready for it, we should take the Gulf away from the oil industry.