It could take years, possibly decades, for the system to recover from an infusion of this quantity of oil and gas. We’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s impossible to fathom the impact.

– Samantha Joye, marine science professor at the University of Georgia, explaining that oxygen levels in some parts of the Gulf of Mexico have dropped 30 percent, but more decline is expected

HuffPo: Today, Sarah Inc. took to its Twitter account to offer some lessons about What The Gulf Oil Spill Teaches Us. Her bottom line: don’t trust the foreign oils! And many thanks to an emailer named Ben, who reminds me that for eighteen long years, that dodgy, not-to-be-trusted foreign oil company known as British Petroleum employed one Todd Palin.

“The oil that is leaking offshore, the oil that is coming onto our coast threatens more than just our wildlife, our fisheries, our coast. This oil literally threatens our way of life.”

– Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, on May 1, 2010, commenting on the BP oil spill, which is shaping into the worst environmental disaster in the country’s history.

“For 30 years, opponents of American energy have cloaked their arguments in an environmental apocalypse. They have tried to make the argument that no matter what we do, it will destroy the environment…The people who work in oil and gas, their jobs are in the Middle East or Canada. We have exported their jobs. If this amendment passes, we are going to send the rest of them.”

– U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal, on June 29, 2006, explaining his vote to lift a 25-year moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling in environmentally sensitive areas.

Update: FOX News is reporting sources say Charlie will run as NPA. If FOX has the scoop, does that mean Charlie’s really still a Republican?

Previously posted: I might be the only Floridian who will be sad after Gov. Charlie Crist makes public his decision on whether to remain a Republican in his run for the U.S. Senate. As a Democrat, watching his fellow Republicans try to manage Charlie’s eventual disclosure is truly gratifying. Take our state legislature for example (please). Ever since the governor boosted his poll numbers with a veto of a truly awful education “reform” bill, the Republican-run state House and Senate have been scrambling to avoid handing Crist any other victories. They’ve been shooting down their own ridiculous bills just to preempt another wildly popular executive veto.

Hands Across the Sand will bring together people on Florida’s Gulf coast, and possibly the entire shoreline, to join hands in one long line of resistance to efforts by the state’s Republican legislators to sell out the state to oil interests. Literally.