Photos BP does not want you to see

BP has purchased Google and Yahoo search terms which would make finding such photos much more difficult - I used Bing.

This human-made catastrophe reminds me of the old joke about a drowned man who greets Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates, fuming. He's furious because he drowned even though he prayed and prayed for God to save him.

St. Peter says, "Hey, we sent a First Aid rowboat."

The guy responds there was only a couple feet of water at the time. Besides, he didn't want to leave his house. It was time for Wheel of Fortune to be on TV. Besides, he kept praying to be saved so he was sure God would save him.

St. Peter says, "When the water came crashing into your second story window, we sent a Red Cross motor boat."

The guy protests that the water didn't seem to be moving that quickly. Besides, he kept praying to be saved, so he was sure he would be. He was a man of faith.

St. Peter says, "Yeah, when you were finally up on your roof, we sent an Army helicopter and you still waved it away."

The guy angrily insists that his prayer for God to save him should have been answered by saving him, no matter what else was going on.

Finally St. Peter says, "We tried to save you. We sent the rowboat, the motor boat, the helicopter..."

And so these images - and we've seen too many of them over the years from dozens of spills and disasters - are a warning about what we humans are doing to the planet. If we don't stop, we are going to destroy our planet. Period.

Penguins near Antarctica were found *three years ago* covered in oil from another "spill."

Pictures of birds being cleaned are only a way to feel better about something that needs another, larger solution. The vast majority of cleaned birds only live for a matter of hours, or days, after "cleaning" because they've already been poisoned by ingesting toxic crude oil. "Cleaning" them only extends their agonizing death in order to assuage human guilt and frustration; cleaning them only creates the false hope of onlookers that they will live.

More importantly for BP, it creates the false idea that animals can be rescued from oil spills.

The rowboat, the motor boat and the helicopter have already been sent. It's up to us.

Republican politicians pray for God to kill health care bill

I found this "prayercast" video and transcript of the Republican US Senators and Representatives' "prayer" on the Rachel Maddow Show.

In it, full-tilt right wing Republicans vehemently demand that God do horrible things to congressfolk who wanted to vote in favor of the measure to make sure it was killed - including claiming their opponents support a number of terrible things - terrible things that are not included in the bill. Which means they lied. They inserted a lie in a prayer.

I was stricken with these notions:

Not once did any of them pray for the best and highest good of health care for people in our nation.

Not once did any of them pray for guidance to help them assist their constituents with their health care challenges in the greatest, most positive way (Some might actually call this the most Christian way, since better, affordable health care is something Jesus might advocate- wait, according to the new testament, he actually did!).

Not once did any of them pray for the greatest welfare of our nation's people, regardless of party, regardless of wealth or station.

Not once did they pray for a scintilla of compassion for people most in need of health care assistance. It was all about them, their party, their mission, their money, their agenda - to hell with their constituents or their constituents' urgent life-and-death struggles.

No, they only prayed for what they wanted for themselves, and for God to be their henchman, to deal with their opponents in the harshest, most chilling, damning way.

For the spiritual among us, we understand their prayer was actually answered.

God said, "No."

The Senate version of the bill passed.

Christmas eve.

Amen.