On Sheer Idiocy

So there are miners trapped underground in Chile. It's going to be months to get them out.

Today, officials told them they could have cigarettes.


Wat?

You're trapped underground in a dank confined space. Do you really think it's a good idea to smoke up? Really?

No, not really. Actually some "science people" (I don't want to call them "scientists" just yet) said they had cleared the air vents enough and gotten enough air pumped in from above-ground to allow the miners to have cigarettes.

Still. This is just stupid. I'm sure no canary survived the massive cave-in. Sparking your Zippo would be a real fast way to test for gas leaks down there.

Well, on the other hand, if there is a gas leak, it's not like they can go anywhere to avoid it. And frankly, if I were trapped underground for weeks with escape a distant possibility, I'd probably be dying for a smoke too. So what are we taking, like a pack-a-smoker, here?

Two packs for 33 people.

Seriously? Jesus, now that you've determined it's safe to smoke and I've agreed they could use it, you're giving them a smoke a day with some loosies to fight over? That's cold, brah.

But I guess it's better than nothing. They've been getting sent gum and nicotine patches for the last couple weeks. I don't wanna see what a nicotine fit looks like a half-mile underground trapped in the dark.

Well, I wouldn't see it, but the noises would be terrifying.

On the Oil Spill

I was asked tonight to explain the oil spill, not so much how it happened but how so much oil could be coming out so fast for so long.

The way I explained it was like the opposite of when you get a break in your drinking straw. It's fine at first, but then you drink the waterline down below the break and suddenly your getting all this air along with your drink. The BP oil spill is kind of like that but backwards; instead of air seeping in through a break above sea level, oil is spilling out because the break is below.

But how can it come out so fast?

I dunno, man, underground pressure maybe? I mean, we drilled it it shoot oil up out of the ground. Now the derrick is just burned and collapsed into the sea and we put a ring of floaties around it. Like those little hats you give kids to keep the soapy bath water out of their eyes.

But how have we not fixed it yet?

No one's, uh, ever had to deal with one this big before. Pretty much every solution's been failing spectacularly. We put a ring on top of it, the oil's clumping underwater and flowing outside the ring before surfacing as giant goobers. We drop a giant concrete box on it, it's still spewing. We poor tons and tons of mud and cement down its fossil hole, great, now it's spewing a lower ridiculously large amount of oil into the open sea per hour. Great.

I read the other day that the BP oil spill is sending enough raw crude into the ocean now to match the entire 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster every three and a half days or so.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we go ape shit over that? Weren't there massive repercussions? Didn't we all come together to help clean up the water and, only after containing what we called "an ecological disaster," blame people accordingly? Where the fuck did all that go? Where's Argentina and Russia and all those people familiar with oil drilling to fix this?

But we've never dealt with one this big before!

I know, I said that. That's why you had like, a month to figure shit out. How is no one on top of this kind of thing? Where's Sweden? "Oh, hey, we know we're Sweden and everything but, I mean, we've got this thing? We used it back when our entire nation went solar back in 1975? And, well, we just thought maybe you guys could use it right now."

Thanks a fucking lot, Sweden. Assholes.

Seriously, though, is there some mad businessman just waiting for the last possible moment to gouge us on anti-petrol breathing masks for fish or something? Is someone out there just waiting to Lex Luthor us and make a fortune?

Can't we send anyone to fix this?













"Send me.…GWOAN!!"