Well, one good thing to come out of the massive BP disaster in the Gulf has been that people are paying a little more attention to offshore drilling issues. 

And, thankfully, the courts have ruled that three offshore permits up in the Chukchi Sea, off the northwest coast of Alaska, were issued without proper environment review. 

These permits were auctioned off in the waning months of the Bush administration at a rate of $2.7 billion for access to 2.76 million acres. 

I know what you're thinking. $2.7 billion, that's a LOT of money. Well if you're like me and have a hard time imagining how much land an acre is, let me give you some comparisons. 

To start with, 2.76 million acres is 120,225,600,000 square feet -- roughly 85,875,429 times the size of my house. 

Price wise, that's 978.26/acre, or two cents a square foot. Or, if they were getting my house at this price, it would have cost them $31.44. 

And that's why I wish I were an oil company! Seriously though, the reality is we sell off our public lands for insanely cheap prices when we should be protecting them with all our might. 

Kudos to the Obama administration for reversing these land leases, and to the courts for upholding that decision