I refuse to accept any Renzulli piece that does not pain the tail of blame on the core libertarian donkey.

Wow, great story. Disturbingly reminiscent of Katrina in this aspect of refusing ready help. It is EXTREMELY hard to feel otherwise than that certain key "leaders" that have gotten hold of the reigns of power in the Gulf are hell-bent (as it were) on undermining the more serious assets that could have been, and still could be, brought to bare on this self-inflicted disaster.

In particular the assertion pertaining to Holland that "Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway. 'Our system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour,' is incredibly disturbing. Beyond disturbing. It is veritably CONCLUSIVE. And the Dutch assertions seem to check out 100% in the short time that I spent verifying them.

One has to wonder: what do the Dutch think of this rebuke? How hard would it be to stand by on the sidelines when you could easily step in and deal with the mess--when you could deal with FOUR TIMES that mess without breaking a sweat? Not to disparage the Dutch in any way, far from it indeed, but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't stand by. I would be enraged. I'd be in there getting busted for "helping to fix the mess without a warrant to do so". I can resist the primitive urge to use destructive methods against Statist oppression, no problem at all. Among other things, it just makes the 'enemy' (who needn't even really be the 'enemy') even stronger--it's what the bad apples want from me, violence and subversion, and I will never give it to them. But could I resist the urge to intervene and save a floundering victim, even a victim of his own inexplicable perversity? I'm not so sure that I could.

I mean, sure, it's absolutely humiliating that Cuba was willing to field thousands of fully kitted-out doctors FOR FREE on our behalf during Katrina when we had our own people at gun-point (our own guns) suffering and dying and waiting, when willing help was a hop, skip and jump away, FOR FREE. Sure, I could see how it was too humiliating for us to allow a tiny 'enemy' island to save our butts because we couldn't or wouldn't do it ourselves. I understood how the politics worked against our accepting the humiliation of receiving that top-notch help (although I would have authorized it without hesitation). But Holland? WTF? I am so ashamed. I wish I could say that I was the slightest bit surprised.