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Wow... simply wow... Ixtoc 1 would beg to differ. That was in 160 feet of water and it took them 9 months to cap it. I know you wanna blame the liberal environmentalists but that is simply not the reason oil is being moved offshore. You ever wonder why the current rig we are dealing with is licensed in a foreign country? The Marshal Islands is home-base for the revenue which is conveniently not taxed.

Given that Ixtoc 1 happened 30 years ago and they are using the same exact techniques to deal with it I have zero faith that it would have been resolved by now if this spill were in 500 feet or less of water.

It's amazing the depths of rationalization going on in BPs favor. They have a history of bad behavior and somehow you come to the conclusion that it's the environmentalists forcing them to take risks? Just four years ago BP was shown to be negligent in many of the same ways. It appears little has changed from what should have been a dramatic wake-up call. Regulations for offshore drilling exist for a reason and it's not to make drilling near shore expensive.

I call BS. any sources to back up your claim?

googling "Gull Island" brings up a total of 4 conspiracy mongering sites, but zip in the way of any 'official' record of reserves discovered there.

linky gives some more factual data. 3 wells have been drilled on Gull Island, none of them produced anything remotely close to the conspiracy claims of a 200 year supply. In fact, not even enough to consider drilling there.

Perhaps you think you're joking, but the fact is, we don't need oil to make Haliburton rich off of this. Read this

This is why Bush is so interested in Mars...

If there is life on Mars, it would probably be microorganisms in water deep below the surface of the planet. Dr. Geoffrey Briggs, director, Center for Mars Exploration at the NASA Ames Center, told "Meet Alaska" that NASA is looking at ways to drill on Mars to look for water -- and the life it might contain.

Briggs said NASA has been working with Halliburton, Shell, Baker-Hughes and the Los Alamos National Laboratory to identify drilling technologies that might work on Mars.

Funny you say that. To quote from this article from the Petroleum News (admittedly older):

Briggs said NASA has been working with Halliburton, Shell, Baker-Hughes and the Los Alamos National Laboratory to identify drilling technologies that might work on Mars.
...

Halliburton and Baker-Hughes are working on some very advanced systems, Briggs said, some so advanced they aren't willing to talk much about them. He said the NASA Ames Center relies on working with people in the industry who "really understand the problems and make us face up to the realities ...

"Yeah, a billion will do. To start. Then we can figure out this special Mars-drill thing, or whatever..."

Don't believe me? Here's linkage at PETROLEUM NEWS

Who's gonna' be drilled? Just you and me, again...

NASA consulting with Haliburton on drilling Mars for water

We're likely to run out of breathable air before we run out of fossil fuels.

Wherever do you get that from? Optimistic, pro-oil sources claim "We won't run out for 90 years"! How anyone can say that running out of fuel in 2093 (when I fully expect to be still alive) is not a problem is beyond me!

Pessimists assume that China and India will start to consume oil in this century, and that their usage will run us out much faster. You must know a dangerous secret if you think the air will be destroyed in less than a century.

Now, of course we will never 100% run out of oil. As it gets rarer, the price will shoot up to 100s of dollars per liter, and nobody can afford it. The effect on society will be similar to a total loss of fossil fuel.

Math summary: There are 649 billion barrels worth of oil underground around the world (an optimistic view). Last year, the world burned 75 million barrels of oil each day. That's 8653 days left, or just 23 years. Obviously, one can dispute the accuracy of the source data- but even using MORE optimistic guesses about how much oil the world really contains, you shouldn't expect it to last more than another century or two.

unfortunately the superpowers are concerned primarily with just that.

Wherever do you get that from? Every big nation is pulling back from investment into nuclear energy, which besides fossil fuel is the only reliable source of major power. On the contrary, the US is now pushing for a $90,000,000,000 investment in Iraq's infrastructure, which is really an investment in oil extraction (the only thing Iraq is good for).