About six weeks ago a company associated with British Petroleum began spilling lots of BP’s oil into the Gulf of Mexico out of a broken oil rig.  It remains unclear what caused the pipe to rupture, but some scientists believe it had something to do with the fact that it was built remotely by unmanned submarines operated by guys who never had girlfriends, or possibly, that it has something to do with the fact that it was located more than mile under the damn ocean, which is incidentally, the same reason why nobody seems to know how to fix it. 

Conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh believe the break was caused by eco-terrorists, who were trying to make the point that off shore drilling was dangerous and who took a break from picketing outside of the supermarket holding signs, rented a submarine, went undetected 5,000 feet below the Gulf of Mexico, and managed to destroy a pipe in just a way that no number of scientists could fix it.  All things considered this theory is actually pretty believable, especially when you consider that I haven’t seen anyone picketing my grocery store in a quite a while.

In the immediate aftermath, loads of experts were hitting the television and radio to explain the best course of action while politicians and commentators were concerned with the more important question of who was to blame.  Most of the politicians thought that the oil could be stopped most effectively by having a hearing and allowing companies to point fingers at one another.  Mr. Obama, for his part, opted to go for the strategy of going to the Gulf and taking a helicopter ride and then saying he felt very bad for the people who were affected, only not bad enough that he was going to ask those responsible to risk losing their flow of oil by destroying the well and starting over.

The first idea to stop the pipe was proffered by BP and involved building a seven story concrete box and then lowering it down over the pipe, and then somehow redirecting all of the oil into a tanker that was floating around on the surface.  Despite early optimism, this idea proved unworkable after authorities realized that even after they dropped the 4,000,000 ton mausoleum they were still 5,210 feet away from being able to have actual humans do any of the work and the robots got pissed about having to work in such a dark and cold environment.

The latest idea involved using a saw to cut off a piece of the pipe.  Nobody really knew what they were planning to do once they cut off the pipe but since everyone kind of wanted to see a robotic saw go that far under the ocean, it was given the green light.  Even Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, who looks mildly like a frog, was so excited about the prospect of the saw cutting the pipe that he wore a baseball hat while doing a press conference to mark the occasion!  Of course, he didn’t wear the hat only because he was excited about the saw, but also because President Obama was adhering to the Rule of Political Appearances which require a politician, when faced with a difficult disaster of any kind, to dress his most prominent surrogate in attire consistent with yard work so as to distract attention away from the fact that his surrogate is standing there with his Johnson in his hand and no idea what the hell is going on (see: Brown, Michael D. and Katrina).  Unfortunately, before anyone had a chance to think about what they’d do if the saw idea worked, the saw jammed in the pipe because saws always jam in everything,  and since it was a mile below the ocean, all they were able to do was get some clear shots of it for the evening news from very effective robots.

Despite all of the crack ideas we’ve had for stopping this thing, we’re still just about as screwed as we were when it all began.   Gulf residents, who’ve been on the short end of a great deal of government competence in the last several years are understandably skeptical that anything will happen.

Even if they weren’t actually in a submarine and instead just had to work a few extra shifts at Trader Joe’s, the Eco-Terrorists have won this battle.  I don’t expect too many people to be chanting “drill baby drill” this November and if they are, I expect they won’t be popular.  Even Sarah Palin has to hate this kind of disaster.  If this keeps up her husband will be out of his job as a salmon fisherman – and she’ll be forced to raise her kids on her paltry appearance fees and his snowmobile winnings.