exhausted by the discourse of disaster…
The unfolding nightmare in the Gulf of Mexico has me gripped in alternating waves of anger and despair.
I’m exhausted by BP’s rhetoric of petroleum engineering garnished with failure:
“blow out preventer”, “top hat”, “containment dome”, “top kill”, “junk shot”, “relief well”. All nothing but argot for shit that has yet to help as they “proceed to the next option…”
Collectively, neither the federal government nor the three commercial interests involved in this massive CF have done a good job of explaining the the “normal” process of deepwater drilling or the resulting problems in this case.
And they are now unlikely to. As lawyers and congresscritters circle and drool, all we get from BP, Transocean and Halliburton (and to a lesser extent, MMS bureaucrats) pointing at each other as they try to protect their bottom lines.
And while the live video feed of the leak that Congress delivered is terrifying: there is no scaling, and precious little perspective provided to help us understand exactly what we are looking at.
Which leads to comments like I heard on CSPAN yesterday:
“Can’t they just drop a giant boulder on it?”
At first I thought it was a stupid question. And then I looked at the video feed…and got it.
http://globalwarming.house.gov/spillcam
Besides, given BP’s track record: they could be showing us anything.
I’m lucky: I got to enjoy the gulf before it turned into a petrol wasteland. Right now, I’m pessimistic that my kid will get to do the same.
God Bless our neighbors along the gulf coast.
