Our big story that fall was the Free Speech Movement on the University of Californias Berkeley campus.

The fact that the mosque is intended to be a finger in Americas eye and a way of celebrating the successful attack on the World Trade Center by Islamists the original plan was to name the place Cordoba House (after the capital city of the Caliphate that ruled Spain after the Moslems conquered it) is beside the point.

The Macondo blowout may be many things, but one thing it is not is the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history — not even close. Dozens — hundreds — of environmental disasters have done both far more and far longer lasting damage to the country’s environment than the Macondo blowout or any other oil spill.

First some background. According to a story in last Sunday’s Camera, a new U.S. law requires companies to certify whether their products contain blood metals. Blood metals are just like blood diamonds but without the carbon. They’re metals that come from mines controlled by rebels in the Congo.

Get together a big army, pour over the border, crush all resistance, occupy the country from the Rio Grande to the Rio Usumacinta, and annex it to the United States. Make English the official language and teach it to everyone. Award NFL franchises to Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterey.

This became obvious when Israeli commandos attempted to board the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara last month. Along with several hundred peace pilgrims and 1,100 tons of styptic pencils and Band-Aids bound for Gaza, it also carried 50 or 60 Turkish Islamist toughs, each of whom had been paid $10,000 cash to seek peace.

You betcha. Sarah knows a lot about the oil business and about BP in particular. As governor of Alaska, she spent seven months negotiating with BP over a proposed natural gas pipeline to the lower 48. Chances are BP CEO Tony Hayward’s phone number is in her computer.

For the next nine days, oil spewed into the sky at the rate of 100,000 barrels a day — which was more than the combined production of all the other oil wells in the United States at the time.

“I think it’s a very fair comparison, and I hope that we’re not headed on the same trajectory that Nazi Germany was. But this was a very recent experience for Jewish Americans and Jews worldwide, and it’s something that when we see similarities we start ringing alarm bells.

He succeeded. The ensuing fiveinch-thick, 42-mile-wide oil slick eventually stretched for 101 miles down the Kuwaiti and Saudi Arabian coasts. It contained about 1.5 million metric tons of oil. (A metric ton of Kuwaiti crude oil equals 7.33 barrels or 308 gallons, so Saddam’s slick contained about 11 million barrels or 462 million gallons of crude.