Not At All A Slick Move...

Unless you've been living in a cave for the past 50-plus days, then you've heard of the huge British Petroleum (known commonly as BP, but abbreviations are are reserved for the convenient, and British Petroleum is anything but) oil spill that is slowly obliterating the Gulf Coast.  Actually, you've probably realized it even if you are living in a cave, because so much oil is leaking that it's probably seeping into caves all over the world.  Honestly, the situation is so bad and so poorly handled that you'd think it's being run by a dyslexic two-year-old with no eyeballs.
 



Let's go back to that fateful explosion (above) 52 days ago, April 20th (that's right, this gusher is about a week shy of two months of oil-spewing).  A British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the coast of Louisiana, costing 11 workers their lives.  The first several days after the explosion were mostly spent worrying about possible survivors of the explosion still out at sea.  Once we realized the number of fatalities and accounted for all the missing workers attributed to the explosion, it became time to address the oil leak.

People began to worry, "How much is leaking into the Gulf?"   British Petroleum wasted no time in stepping up and admitting that 5,000 barrels of oil (roughly 210,000 gallons) per day were leaking into the Gulf of Mexico.  It's a number that shocked most of the county as, let's be honest, 210,000 is a large number, and it's a number that's leaking every day.  But British Petroleum reminded us Yanks that as compared to the entire Gulf of Mexico, 210,000 gallons isn't a whole lot.  If they get this thing plugged as they vow to do, then this won't really be a problem.

So British Petroleum got to work on the problem.  First they initiated lowering a Lower Marine Riser Package, or LMRP Cap (above) over the gushing valve.  What they tell us this device will to is seal off the busted pipe in a chamber and siphon the leaking oil through another pipe attached to the top of the chamber to an oil tanker resting at the surface of the Gulf.

This sounds like a fantastic idea.  Just nip this in the bud, and let's move on.

Now in order to more successfully be able to view this operation, British Petroleum set up a camera on the ocean floor to be able to see what exactly they're doing down there.  However, once they got this live camera set up down at the busted valve, U.S. Congress wanted to take a look as well, demanding access to footage of this oil leak.

So British Petroleum took a peek at the footage and then handed it over to us Yanks.  However, as British Petroleum handed over the footage, they also mentioned in passing, "Oh yeah...so it turns out that there's actually 100,000 barrels of oil leaking every day instead of 5,000...so...have fun with that."

Dick Move Number One.

Really?!?!?!?  You told us that 5,000 barrels a day were leaking into the Gulf.  Now that you're handing over footage of the leak, you conveniently drop in that piece of information right as we were about to see it for ourselves.

That's like getting hot and heavy with a gorgeous woman, and right before you get intimate, she tells you she has a penis.  You're about to find out for yourself, but he/she feels that hearing the news from it would somehow ease the pain.  So when it comes down to it, British Petroleum is a she-male that's gushing almost 1.4 MILLION gallons of oil into the Gulf EVERY DAY, which means it surpassed the Exxon-Valdez, widely considered the worst spill in U.S. history, in a matter of days.

So we're onto you now.  Apparently you aren't shooting us entirely straight.  But at least we've got this cap coming.

But of course it didn't work.  British Petroleum gave us a detailed explanation of how this cap would work, but when people asked what went wrong, they simply responded, "Well, we've never done anything like this before."

Dick Move Number Two.

Maybe you should let us know before this fails completely that this is a dry run.  That's like a surgeon telling you "I'm actually an insurance salesman.  I'm just helping out a friend who wanted to go out of town," right before he puts you under.

Then came the "top-kill" procedure.  This is where British Petroleum (as described by their website) takes "heavy mud" (didn't know there were multiple kinds) and forces it into the gushing pipe through a machine-driven hose.  Once the mud has stopped the flow of the oil, the hose that forced the mud into the pipe would then force cement into the pipe, effectively sealing it.

After the cap failed, Americans weren't too sure about this top-kill procedure, but then again, what choice did we have?  Ya gotta believe...or we're going to lose our coastline.

So the process begins.  We take a peek at the live underwater camera and notice, "Nothing looks any different from before.  Oil is still gushing out of that pipe."

But those damn Brits step in again: "No, that's just the mud that isn't getting into the pipe.  The top-kill is actually working very well.  Now, we won't officially know for a couple of days, but the process is doing exactly what it's supposed to."  Well good.  It's about time you limeys get something right.  A couple of days passed, and we eagerly awaited the good news...

"Well, it turns out that was oil still coming out during the procedure.  The top-kill was a complete failure."

Dick Move Number Three.

Are you kidding me?!?!?!?!?  We saw it still leaking during this procedure meant to stop the leak, but you convinced us the pipe wasn't leaking and the top-kill was working because it was what we wanted to hear.  We had pictures in front of us of this not working, but there you sat, telling us how our eyes were deceiving us.  So they pretty much pissed all over us and told us we're on fire.

Well where do we go from here?  We need to get some money sent in for the coastal efforts, because this thing's been leaking so long that it's starting to wash ashore.  Why don't you send in some money to help clean up this mess you made, British Petroleum?


They're more than happy to spend the money.  Let's clean up this mess, right?

That's exactly what they set out to do.  British Petroleum wants badly to clean up this mess...of public relations.  Instead of getting in there and getting his hands dirty helping fund the clean-up or maybe even cleaning up some of it himself, British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward (above) launched a $50 million ad campaign to get the word out to the American public: "My bad."

Dick Move Number Four.

Guess what $50 million buys for the oil spill relief.  I don't know the materials exactly, but I am 100% sure it gets you roughly $50 million (depending on taxes) more worth of equipment than if you spend it on yourself.  Instead of sending money to the relief efforts, you're looking out for yourselves.  Forget the thousands of fishermen who will be left with no jobs when this is all over.  Forget the rapidly deteriorating ecosystem along the Louisiana coastline.  People are mad at British Petroleum, so let's say something nice to the outraged masses.  Honestly, it's like spending the rent money on crack.

Fuck You BP, you she/he crack-whore.

You stick out your chests because you're employing these fishermen and boaters who lost their businesses, but it's because you're PAYING THEM TO CLEAN UP YOUR MESS, WHICH COST THEM THEIR BUSINESSES.  What happens when there's nothing left for them to do for you?  Whatever they used to fish for is probably dead now, so what will they do?  Just because your beaches and shorelines suck something awful doesn't mean you have to ruin ours.

STOP TELLING US HOW GREAT OF A JOB YOU'RE DOING AND JUST DO SOMETHING!!!

But back to the leak.  This thing's gotta get stopped.  So British Petroleum actually goes back to the cap to give it another shot.  But they decide that in order for the cap to fit more securely onto the leaking pipe (which wasn't at all the problem in the first place), they needed to cut part of the pipe off.  This, of course, caused much more oil to leak into the Gulf.

Dick Move Number Five.

Nothing fixed...even more oil leaking.  You cannot do anything right, British Petroleum.  You're not running this relief effort this worth a damn at all.  I do a better job of getting women, and I still use "Are you from Memphis?  'Cause you're the only ten-I-see."

But wouldn't you know it...they got the cap in place.  Alright, let's siphon all this oil up to the tankers and start focusing our full efforts on the clean-up.  Just gonna take a peek at this leak cam and check...wait a minute...there's still a whole lot of oil leaking.  I see that this cap's on there now, but there's still a bunch of oil leaking out the side of it.

Well it turns out that this cap only catches some of the oil...actually it catches very little of it.  Once the cap was in place, it was only siphoning the additional amount that began to leak following the pipe being sheared down so the cap would be a better fit.  SO, the cutting of the pipe to allow the cap to fit caused so much more oil to leak, that once the cap was in place, the original amount of oil was still leaking into the Gulf.

Dick Move Number Six.

Have they fucked up enough to make this a Three Stooges episode yet?

Through this apparent false hope, we as an American public have just somehow shot ourselves in the foot, walked in a circle, then shot ourselves in the other foot.

Fortunately, they've seemingly shot us straight.  British Petroleum came out and said they are working on a relief well, but it won't be ready until late August.  Fine.  That's all we get, but we'll take it.  We are reduced to just being grateful this leak will last into August, knowing that we know we won't have to hear any more of their bullshit until the end of the summer, when they will likely tell us that whatever they're doing to fix the situation isn't working..

Why are you doing this to us?!?!?  It's getting exhausting, all this hoping for something and never, ever getting it.  I'm a Cubs fan, and I feel I've dealt with it fairly well thus far, but this is too much.  I'm just tired from all of this.  You've worn me down, British Petroleum.  And for what?

The 2010 World Cup, that's what.  They're trying to exhaust our hopes and efforts in the recovery while they feed us lies about how soon this will all be fixed.  All the while, they're having a pint and watching some futbol.  We have three starting U.S. team members who are from coastal states either already affected by the spill (Altidore - FL), or those that expect to be directly affected in the future (Onyewu - MD, Howard - NJ; that's right, so much oil is spilling that a Gulf current is expected to force the oil to strike land along the Atlantic Coast).

That's right.  Those limey fuckers are so diabolical that they're willing to go this far for a World Cup win over a team who, let's be honest, they're favored to beat.  The French actually seem like nice, smoke-free people compared to this scum, who provided our beaches with this...

Sorry to be a buzz-kill, but that little guy probably didn't make it.

This might seem like a bit much to all of you, but why else would British Petroleum just jerk around everybody remotely involved in this spill?  They clearly proved to me that they wouldn't bat an eye about the spill if nobody knew about the situation.  They're not fighting to keep the Gulf of Mexico clean...they're fighting to keep you coming to their gas stations.  Whenever you fuel up at a BP, remember, they did this and don't care.  They aren't upset this spill is ruining the Gulf Coast ecosystem.  They're upset that it's caused them to take a hit in the public relations department.


So please, tune in to the match this Saturday and cheer with all your might, hoping that transvestite of a conglomerate doesn't pull off another dick move and win again.