Author: Andrew Sullivan

A reader writes:

You wrote, "[One has] to be emotionally and spiritually dead not to watch this and not feel some deep qualms about what our civilization is doing to its environment and to itself."

That is the note I hope President Obama could use to address the nation, instead of treating it as a management crisis. He started to do this in the press conference two weeks ago when he talked about the ocean being sacred in Hawaii where he grew up.  I'm not a believer in religion but I accept that there is spirituality in our DNA and I value the natural world the way you write so beautifully about your beliefs.  We should be leaving the earth the way we found it as much as possible.  It makes no sense that we are exploiting all the planet's resources in a few short generations, as if there will be no needs for our children after we are gone.

I am in a state of grief for the world for spiritual reasons as much as for the huge environmental and economic consequences of this disaster. Please continue to get these ideas out there.

My view is that the role of the president in this should not be psychiatrist-in-chief but strategist-in-chief. He should use this example as a reason why government is necessary for certain core things, especially regulating things like deep-sea drilling. And he should argue that this catastrophe mandate a real effort to move off oil as fast and as thoroughly as we can. Which means a carbon tax – perhaps offset by a FICA cut.

I think this is the core lesson of this episode and one that is not merely a function of crisis-management. Obama loses when he looks as if he is trying not to look weak. He wins when he challenges us to confront the real and deep problems we face and offers an actual way forward. Get on the offensive, Mr President. Own this crisis as a political call to arms.

Somehow, they managed to smuggle the film past Israeli security. Seeing the helicopters from below gives you a better sense of the vulnerability of the ship – and the psychology of its travelers.

Four years later, Andy Worthington compiles a useful primer on the mounting evidence that they were not suicides at all.

Oil gushers? Wind farms? Nothing compares with the impact of carbon.

Chait is angry that "many people with more left-wing views have decided that debating my actual analysis is less useful than debating a neoconservative Likudnik":

I consider settlements a very major problem. I do think, though, that the more important problem is the refusal of Palestinians to accept the legitimacy of any Jewish state. In a 2009 poll, 71% of Palestinians said it was "essential" to have a state that encompasses all of present Israel and the West Bank. Only 17% of Israelis said it was essential to have a Jewish state controlling all that territory. I believe that, if presented with a peace accord that Israelis think will not endanger their security, it is difficult but far from impossible to imagine an Israeli government signing on. I have a harder time envisioning a Palestinian government doing the same — any Palestinian government that surrenders the dream of replacing Israel is going to be an unrepresentative one that's likely to be quickly overthrown. I think it's still worth trying, and the settlements remain a crime, but that's my view of the obstacles to peace in order of their importance.

So the question here is one of tactics then, right? Chait thinks that until Palestinian opinion shifts decisively, the pressure should be on them in resolving the issue, not the Israeli government's policy of increasing settlements. I think this is completely misguided. I think the settlements are obviously the biggest problem for a two-state solution because, er, they are on the other side's land and are imposed by brute force and often racist and religious contempt. And with each day they grow – and they've almost doubled in population this past decade – they kill off any chances of peace. It seems to me that a quarter of a million squatters on occupied land is a pretty definitive peace-blocker. But even freezing their construction was too much for the pro-Israel lobby to handle.

But even if I'm wrong and Chait is right, and Palestinian opinion and not settlements is the major problem, isn't continuing the settlements and collectively punishing Gazans likely to have the opposite effect on Palestinian opinion? Hasn't it already? And so, Chait's position becomes self-fulfilling. Israel says: we will continue building settlements because the Palestinians are still hostile to our existence, but their hostility to Israeli existence is exacerbated by the settlements. The logic of Chait's argument means that, practically, nothing will change. The settlements will continue; US aid to Israel will remain; Palestinian resentment will deepen; Israel's isolation will intensify; Israel's demographic slide into an apartheid state will accelerate.

Reversing this cycle was precisely the point of Obama's insistence on a settlement freeze as a kick-start to negotiations.

This wasn't a big leap or an impossible demand. It wasn't a reversal of any settlements, let alone forcible dismantling; it was merely a suspension of adding to what Chait calls a crime. And yet even then, Chait backs Israel. And the US has already done a lot to nudge West Bank sentiment by economic support, and backing the most capable Palestinian leadership – Fayyad especially – in years. A constructive response from Jerusalem and AIPAC last year could have greatly built on this. But we got the usual bile.

The reason Chait comes off as a neocon Likudnik is that his bottom line is still that of a neocon Likudnik. Somehow, it's always Israel that gets the benefit of the doubt – even when led by Avigdor Lieberman and Bibi Netanyahu. And somehow, nothing ever changes – save the jerk of the collective AIPAC knee.

Balluta Bay, St. Julian's, Malta, 12 pm

Marbury:

The fact that BP is being "beaten up" isn't what's causing the share price to crash – it's the bloody catastrophe that's doing that, and it really doesn't need much help. If British pensioners are losing money that's because their fund managers over-invested in BP and didn't properly account for the risk of a disaster like this one…

It's not the crass opportunism that gets me down about this stuff, or the (faux-)stupidity, it's the chippiness. It makes us seem so insecure, always seeking out "slights" from abroad to get upset about. Whatever happened to those great British traits of effortless confidence and sang-froid (excuse my French)?

Check out this letter to the editor of the WSJ this morning. Like the Technology Review piece, it is written by someone who really knows how this industry should operate. Read the whole play by play for the full impact. And get angrier:

Mr. Hayward and BP have taken the position that this tragedy is all about a fail-safe blow-out preventer (BOP) failing, but in reality the BOP is really the backup system, and yes we expect that it will work. However, all of the industry practice and construction systems are aimed at ensuring that one never has to use that device. Thus the industry has for decades relied on a dense mud system to keep the hydrocarbons in the reservoir and everything that is done to maintain wellbore integrity is tested, and where a wellbore integrity test fails, remedial action is taken.

This well failed its casing integrity test and nothing was done. The data collected during a critical operation to monitor hydrocarbon inflow was ignored and nothing was done. This spill is about human failure and it is time BP put its hand up and admitted that.

Did Douglas Brinkley let a cat of the bag?