Shared Blame

Certainly BP is far from blameless for the Gulf oil leak, but I find more fault with this and prior administrations, as well as the environmentalists who forced oil companies to drill in deep water. No one developed a plan to deal with leaks at 5000 feet below the ocean surface and now everyone's pointing the finger at BP and not at themselves. Completely halting all offshore drilling is as irresponsible as forcing only deep water drilling in the first place. Alternative energy sources should be pusued where they make sense, but Obama's plan to put fossil fuel exploration on the back shelf is ridiculous. Solar and wind power energy production in most of the country is extremely impractical and will never replace conventional means (oil, gas and nuclear).

Boycotting individual BP stations is equally absurd! Do people realize that by doing this they're hurting small businesses and their own local economies? Instead, we should be supporting the BP dealers.

Instead of focusing on pin wheels and sunspots, the U.S. needs to:

• Build more refineries
• Continue offshore drilling, both deep- and shallow-water 
• Build nuclear more reactors
• Vote Obama out of office in 2012