And now for something completely boring and mundane -- far less shocking than an oil-covered Canada goose:

Why is it that when two cars collide, society calls this "an accident," and generally attaches no moral evil or shame to either party? Around 40,000 Americans die each year from automobile accidents. As nameless and anonymous as hits compiled by a blog site meter, automobile death statistics pile up year after year, and since the invention of the automobile, millions of Americans have been brutally killed.

In my days as a young lawyer, I used to do plaintiff's personal injury work, and I'll never forget talking with an accident reconstruction expert who'd retired from the CHP for a more lucrative career as a paid courtroom witness. Being a cop, he was in the habit of noticing details which most people might miss, and it didn't escape his attention that I spent a bit more time than I should have staring at a particularly gruesome photograph. I admit, I was intrigued by a glossy color blowup showing our client's beloved deceased's squashed intestines and what looked intriguingly like mashed human liver laying right there on the asphalt where they'd been yanked by tires (which left visible tread marks in the flesh) from the front half of his mangled corpse just a couple of feet away.

"Yup, in our society, if you really want to see brutality, auto accidents are the place to go!" he said, with a bit too much enthusiasm.

At the time, I was reminded of an account I'd read about the Roman games being the place to go for ancient Roman medical students interested in studying anatomy.

In modern America, the gore and carnage of highway slaughter fails to interest the masses, who are much more shocked by pictures of oily geese.

Yet no one is claiming that the Delaware River oil spill was other than an accident. An accident which was as directly related to the driving of automobiles by human beings as any collision between two drivers. Considering the amount of fuel which has to be delivered by evil tankers, and refined by the evil men who work in the evil refineries so that it can be put in the gas tanks of evil cars and eviler SUVs, or burned in the even more evil home heating furnaces of the evil humans who occupy these homes, I'm surprised there aren't more such accidents.

Now, considering that it is settled that all oil is evil, along with all consumption of it, it follows logically that those who consume more oil are more evil than those consuming less oil.

While environmentalists like Maya K. van Rossum tend to focus on oil consumption by SUV drivers, I feel compelled to ask, just how evil is home heating oil?

According to these API statistics,

Residential and commercial heating oil accounted for over 17% of all distillate oil supplied in the United States.....

If you're as shocked as I was, you should see the graphic chart they prepared. Hell, it's so shocking I'll share it with you. Evidence of evil, straight from the producers own web site:

Hey, wait a second! Aren't those the blue states? Why are they yelling about SUVs and making everybody feel guilty about oily geese if they're the biggest energy gluttons in the country?

I guess I should address the inevitable argument that heating is "good" but driving is "bad." This, I suppose, is based on the notion that everyone needs heat, but no one needs to drive. The problem with that is that if people can't drive, how can they get to work to pay for the oil that they use for heat? I realize I sound like a hopeless moral relativist, but it's always a slippery slope to hell, and it begins once we admit that we have to live, drive, work, buy things, and have heat. I'm a little troubled by the fact that energy gluttons in the Northeast consider themselves in a moral position to blame SUVs for oil spills, when the same oil is used disporportionately to heat their homes. I find myself wondering whether their stated concern with oily geese (as opposed to dead humans) is motivated by guilt. Perhaps even self hatred?

Maybe the dead drivers got what they deserved!

UPDATE: Things are more complicated than I thought. As it turns out, the oil spilled into the Delaware River was headed for a CITGO asphalt refinery in Paulsboro, New Jersey.

Asphalt is used to pave roads! It's used in construction! Why, most roofs are made of the stuff!

Which means that if you take advantage of streets (whether as a driver, bicyclist, or pedestrian), or if you live in a building (or even on the streets), you're a goose killer!