That sure is what this sounds like to me.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry Monday offered a stern warning against halting oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of a massive oil leak, and he raised the question of whether the explosion was an “act of God.”
The Republican governor, speaking at the Chamber of Commerce in Washington, warned against a “a knee-jerk reaction” to the spill and said the government doesn’t know what caused the leak, which took 11 lives and threatens the Gulf coast’s vast fishing industry.
“We don’t know what the event that has allowed for this massive oil to be released,” Perry said alongside several other governors on a panel Monday. “And until we know that, I hope we don’t see a knee-jerk reaction across this country that says we’re going to shut down drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, because the cost to this country will be staggering.”
Perry questioned whether the spill was “just an act of God that occurred” and said that any “politically driven” decisions could put the U.S. in further economic peril.
“From time to time there are going to be things that occur that are acts of God that cannot be prevented,” Perry said.
I’m sure I know as much about this sort of thing as our Governor, but I don’t think it would ever occur to me to call a mechanical failure an act of God. I mean, as Juanita asks, does that mean that the explosion at the BP refinery in Texas City back in 2005 was an act of God, too? Honestly, I have no idea what he’s getting at here. The radical cleric Pat Robertson has claimed that Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake in Haiti were acts of God; specifically, acts of God’s wrath against us for our sins. Would Perry care to venture a guess as to what God was punishing us for with this?
From the easily accessible Wikipedia “In the law of contracts, an act of God may be interpreted as an implied defense under the rule of impossibility, e.g., the promise is discharged because of unforeseen, naturally occurring events that were unavoidable and which would result in insurmountable delay, expense or other material breach.”
Your Governor is apparently trying to set the tone of the discussion as far as the future liability of Transocean Ltd for the adverse environmental effects. Who will pay the bills? Why will [they] pay the bills? Can they run away?
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