Today Limbaugh unwittingly made the argument for nationalization of off-shore drilling.

[DemoTex]

I never listen to Limbaugh, but I was tuning through the AM dial as I drove through western Alabama on my way to Oregon. I heard Ru$h, so I parked the dial there for about five minutes. It was unbelievable!

The Porcine One argued (nay, railed) that the government has not done anything to help in the BP Gulf oil catastrophe. He pointed to the Apollo 13 in-flight problems in 1970 (and, of course he screwed the story up by saying that the malfunction happened on the return trip from the moon - negative Ru$hbo, it happened on the way to the moon, but that doesn't really matter). What Ru$h did get right was that NASA was in charge - waaaay in charge. As Ru$h said, NASA pressed private contractors into a frenzied effort to help NASA engineers solve the problems in a very, very short period of time. It worked and three astronauts returned safely to earth (to be picked up at sea by the US Navy).

The Ass-Boil's drug addled brain misses the fact that Big Oil is 100% in-charge of running all off-shore drilling operations. After Bu$h/Cheney, the government regulation and oversight of drilling operations (on and off-shore) is not unlike trying to monitor Apollo 13's post-accident progress with a backyard telescope.

OK, Rush. You made a point. But you don't realize it. If off-shore drilling continues, put the hated government in charge (like NASA was and is in the space program). Hell, NASA was loved and respected worldwide in the 60s and 70s - a balance perhaps to the universal hatred of the US Department of Defense and its War in Viet Nam.

BTW: I'm hunkered down in a motel in east Texas watching the tornado warnings on the Weather Channel. Nick and I are on the way to Oregon for fire season 2010 (more on that later).

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. "Unwittingly" is the operative term here.

Everything Uncle Assboil does is unwitting.

[DemoTex]

2. The Ass-boil is many things, but he ain't avuncular!

I reserve that for the likes of Walter Cronkite! Know what I mean?

[sharesunited]

3. Was his point that NASA, i.e. the government, was helpless to guide a safe return

without its private contractors?

I agree, to the extent that government is obliged to buy technology from any for-profit vendor.

[DemoTex]

4. Well, who knows what his point was ..

But Limbaugh seemed to me to be clear that NASA was totally and admirably in charge.

[sharesunited]

5. No, that can't be true. Because the A-13 astronauts made it back alive.

[DemoTex]

6. Yep. Must have been Carnival Lines that plucked them out of the south Pacific ..

Disguised, of course, as the USS Iwo Jima.