I know I haven’t been hearing enough on the news about the flooding in Tennessee. It was only last night I finally saw any kind of real coverage, and even then, they started babbling about the oil spill and the NYC bomb situation as quickly as they could after showing a few images of the awfulness going on with the flooding.

I’ve been keeping up with what’s been happening out in Tennessee at the Tennessean, and excellent resource for anyone interested in keeping up with the news on this subject.

And my thoughts and prayers are with those in the midst of this mess.

Governor Perry has been flapping his jaws again, this time on the subject of the oil spill in the Gulf.

“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.
–Politico

As can be imagined, his comments caused a bit of an uproar in some quarters, like the one where rational and sane people live … people who know that God had nothing to do with the oil rig blowing out and bursting into flames. Therefore, Perry had to flap his jaws some more to attempt to explain himself.

“If you will go look up the definition of ‘act of God,’ we’ve used it in legal terms for a long time in this state,” the GOP governor, appearing annoyed, told reporters outside the Capitol when asked about his comments in Washington on Monday. “Nobody knows what happened, and I said that in my remarks, that there was a lot of speculation. It could have been an act of God, it could have been, you know, who knows?”

Asked what he meant by the phrase, Perry said, “Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to go look it up, the definition, in the dictionary. I meant exactly what Webster’s says by that.

“It’s something that no one can put their finger on, and it may be an accident, it may be something else,” he said, “I do think it is very intriguing that those of you in the media have focused in on one statement when the clear definition of that is pretty easy to get your hands on.”
–Houston Chronicle

I didn’t have to run to the dictionary to look up the definition, because as Perry states, it’s been a legal term in use in Texas for a very long time. It appears in every form of property insurance I have ever seen with my own eyes, and so I am quite familiar with the term and it’s definition. But let’s just look at what Webster’s has to say about it, since that’s the dictionary he suggested his definition matched.

Act of God
Date: 1783
: an extraordinary interruption by a natural cause (as a flood or earthquake) of the usual course of events that experience, prescience, or care cannot reasonably foresee or prevent

For added clarity, let’s also look at Wikipedia’s definition too.

Act of God is a legal term for events outside of human control, such as sudden floods or other natural disasters, for which no one can be held responsible.

In fact, it seems that the entirety of the internet as well as the books on my shelves all agree on the very exacting definition of “act of God” and none of them could be extended to include BP not wanting to spend the extra money to install a safety device or Haliburton screwing up during construction … things for which there is someone who can be held responsible. It’s not like a hurricane blew through or an earthquake happened and the oil rig blew out spewing crude all over the place.

I assure you, if I were to drill a water well in my yard and the end result was flooding my yard and house, my insurance company wouldn’t call it an act of god. They’d call it a f*ck up on my part. Any attempt I might make to argue that it was an act of god –because who knew there was so much water down there or that installing substandard parts and/or ignoring safety measures would lead to calamity– would fall on entirely deaf ears. In fact, they’d laugh in my face. Loudly.

While I am thrilled that Governor Perry knows of the existence of such things as dictionaries and definitions, I would suggest he either learn how to read them or take a course in reading comprehension so he’ll be better able to understand the dictionary definition he is desperately clinging to at the moment. Better yet, he could just stop flapping his jaws and spewing nonsense.