Really BP?

    OK so now that we are coming to grips with the spew of toxic sludge jettisoning from the bottom of the sea floor into our jet ski lanes what is BP proposing to stem this black tide.   Well the most widely accepted solution to this tiny problem is to drill relief wells.  What this involves is drilling, on an angle, more holes from other locations surrounding the original hole,  so as to relieve pressure from the current hole and suck the oil out from a new hole that makes the current hole gush slower?  BP would have us believe that this is a tried and true long term solution and that as soon as those wells are finished (estimates vary from double digit weeks to several months all while the current spew continues) the problem will be solved.  Does anyone else see the Beverly Hillbillies analogy here.  Maybe Jed Clampett could just fire a second shotgun blast at a squirrel near the first one and stem the gusher he so easily created with the first shot gun blast.
     Really BP?
   Well it sounds plausible given that their first reaction was to weld together a really clunky box that would fit over the top of the well and by its shear weight contain the leak and allow the black gold to be pumped out and delivered to waiting refineries in a more orderly fashion.  That monstrosity got floated out fifty miles and summarily was lowered carefully to the floor of the gulf whereas, within minutes,  it became clogged at the tiny little hole up top that was, coincidentally, the size of a pipeline.  What clogged the hole?  Icy Sludge.  Who could have anticipated that coming from a sinister hole under more than a mile of water that hasn't seen the sun in some 200 million years. Especially given that the same hole had recently released a large methane burp that rapidly incinerated the twelve poor suckers who had been attracted by offshore wages and benefits like moths to a flame.  Perhaps the experts at BP have never had a snowball and the technology of trying to get a snowball into ones mouth using only a straw escaped them but it doesn't take a genius with a Phd in Geology to figure out that snowballs (even from Hansen's) will have a chunk or two of ice in them that will clog your straw.
     Really BP?
   But wait; it gets better.  Now they want to cut that large clunky box in half and use only the top half (which they have elegantly named the "top hat") to which they will attach some intake valves for warmer sea water from the surface and undoubtedly some type of industrial antifreeze which separates easily during the refining process and can be used again. What I haven't been able to glean from reports is whether we are going to get a brand spanking new "top hat' thus keeping local welders busy or whether we can (in keeping with the "green" practices at BP) use the old clunky box and a bunch of acetolene torches to fashion the top hat from the current monstrosity.  It is, after all, a little too deep to be an underwater reef unless we are trying to hatch giant squid.
    Really BP?
  But wait; it gets better.  If these carefully thought out plans still don't stop the spew of toxic petroleum rising up hundreds of barrels per second  from the depths of the paleolithic hell then they do have one other possible solution.  This is the one that I just love because it utilizes Nerf technology. If all else fails what BP plans to do is to build a giant Nerf gun and shoot a giant Nerf dart fashioned from recycled plastic bottles and tires and such into the hole to try and plug it that way.  Could a top Hollywood screenwiter even make this shit up?  They plan to plug the hole with playground material.  You know that stuff that keeps your kids safe when they fall off the monkey bars and is all squishy under your feet so that you feel that you are wearing a really expensive pair of sneakers when you walk on it. Unfortunately they don't really know if this is gonna work either but on the bright side, if it doesn't, and the dart gets shot right back out the hole and hits some poor grouper in the face at least it won't hurt
   Really BP?
  So what should these poor fools who work for British Petroleum do?  Two words (one hyphenated)
Water-Balloon Technology


tommorrow: the governmental response