The Answer Is Still 42

[from 6/2/10]

Can we declare war on British Petroleum yet? If not yet, when? We declare war on everyone else. Why can't we declare war on a corporation whose annual income exceeds the GDPs of over 150 countries, including Finland, and acts without respect for our own national interests? If Togo did this to us, we'd have carpet-bombed them back to precolonial days before the end of April.

I think it's because they're so darn adorable. I've enjoyed the company's pronouncements about the Gulf oil spill disaster, drawing delight after delight from them, as they redefine the very meaning of comedy for me.

Oil companies do the funniest things. I'm just now getting over the hilarity of the fact that BP executives only this week are saying "sorry" about this whole Mondo Macondo Blowout business. Talk about slow takes! They've totally out-done Jack Benny!

The drilling platform that blew up, burned, and sank was built by Hyundai, so you'd think everybody would blame them (why not?) but instead Transocean, BP, and Halliburton repeatedly used Congressional hearings to blame each other in 3rd-grade style circular fashion -- A blames B, B blames C, C blames A -- thrilling math geeks everywhere with everyday proof of the non-transitivity of the blame relation.

Speaking of geekdom, the current question about Life, the Universe, and Everything, is "How many US gallons are there in a standard US barrel of oil?" And the bonus point question about Life, the Universe, and Everything is, "Why are there that many?"

Anyway, there are that many, and it's so much that now it's looking like as many as 800,000 gallons of crude oil (20 times more than BP originally guessed) could be leaking out of that well per day. To put that in perspective, that's worth some real money. If BP could get that oil into barrels and sell it, they'd be rich!

I think that's why the method of preference for stopping the leak is the "relief well". The relief well is a method by which ultimately the oil could be rescued to be packaged and sold, rather than the less attractive method, to BP, of just stopping the leak, and holding it in.

Notice: We've just had a demonstration of how dangerous these wells are. But this one is the only one whose operation is suspended! We don't even know for sure why it blew up, and yet everywhere else it's business as usual. It resembles the theory that if I've managed to only plow my car into a public market killing dozens of people once in decades of drunken driving, the odds of it happening again are slim, so, yes, I will have another for the road, thank you.

But don't we all love BP's talk about how they're going to fix this? Top hats, junk shots, top kills. Top kills! It's an action-adventure starring Tom Cruise! Junk shots! It's a segment on America's Funniest Home Videos!

Now that three tries at top kill have failed, the next thing they're going to try is the Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) Cap Containment System, which will be used in connection with a riser from, of all things, the "Discover Enterprise" drillship. It's like every bad disaster movie you ever saw. I don't know what any of that LMRP stuff means, but it sounds like it will be really cool when it doesn't work either. Maybe the Discover Enterprise will blow up and sink, too.

After that they try a cheese shot. Cheddar cheese stops me up, but Kraft American slices might be quicker. Don't forget to unwrap them, people! I know when you're in a hurry it's easy to make mistakes.

Then there's the Russian Solution, AKA The Bruce Willis. This is where you let go of 50 megatons and turn the ocean floor at the well site into glass. I'm seeing Jeff Goldblum telling them don't do it -- Chaos! Deterministic uncertainty! -- and dinosaurs unleashed. Then we declare war on BP.