“What is the A-Whale ?” you ask.  The A-Whale is the largest open-water oil skimmer in the world. 

According to Hot Air yesterday:

“Originally an oil and ore tanker, the ship’s owners recently refitted the ship to do exactly the kind of work that the US so desperately needs in the Gulf of Mexico, and to do it on a vastly larger scale than current operations can handle.  According to the ship’s project manager, the entire American effort in 66 days has skimmed off 600,000 barrels of oil.  The ship’s owners claim that A-Whale can skim 500,000 barrels a day.”

The Boston Human Rights Examiner also posted a story yesterday on this ship.  According to that article:

“”So where is the A-Whale now? In the Gulf? Not yet. It’s on its way there after being tied to a dock in Norfolk, Virginia, and won’t be allowed to join the cleanup effort until the Coast Guard and the EPA figure out whether it meets their standards (h/t Deb Singer on Twitter).”

“Continually, questions are being raised about why offers to assist with the BP blowout have been rejected and why the Navy, with more resources in terms of vessels and technology have not been accessed to help.”

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air points out:

“This, by the way, is Day 68 of the Gulf crisis.  The A-Whale didn’t get refitted on Day 66; this work had to have been done over months, if not years.  Shouldn’t the government have known about the existence of this ship two months ago, and been working on certifying it immediately?    The A-Whale shouldn’t have had to stop at Norfolk at all to get the nation’s attention, but should have been hired to steam directly to the Gulf and get to work immediately. It’s indicative of a crisis management team that is spending more time worrying about regulations and red tape than cleaning up the mess, just as we saw with Packgen’s boom.”

What do we need to conclude from the disaster that is continuing in the Gulf?  Government is not the answer to all our problems, and more often than not, it is government that is the problem.  Government is not what made this country great–the productivity and genius of the American people are responsible for the prosperity of America.  We will lose that prosperity if we continue to elect people who believe that the government should be in control of everything.