"Every asshole who ever chanted 'Drill baby drill' should have to report to the Gulf coast today for cleanup duty," - Bill Maher.

I have always been in favor of Cape Wind off Cape Cod but the confluence of these two events will surely help swing public opinion further in favor of non-carbon energy. David Brooks has a very helpful column today on how government is necessary to get this industrial revolution kick-started. If the Democrats do not use this disaster to advance the energy bill ASAP, they may miss a critical moment to escape the oil-addiction even George W. Bush acknowledged in his final years.

(Photo: A boat makes its way through crude oil that has leaked from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico on April 28, 2010 near New Orleans, Louisiana. An estimated leak of 1,000 barrels of oil a day are still leaking into the gulf. By Chris Graythen/Getty Images.)