I know that there have been a number of threads here on the BP oil spill. But my motto has always been why keep quiet and be thought a fool when I can write something and remove all doubt, so here goes.

We’re now six weeks into the spill, with relatively little chance that it will be abated until August. BP is actually considering throwing a bunch of old tires and golf balls into the hole to plug it up. I’m no engineer, but when this is the solution that seems best, my guess is that engineers can’t come up with a real solution, and we’re just supposed to assume that ‘experts’ are smarter than the rest of us, so let’s just shut up.

Well, we’ve fought two wars for a decade, each of which experts said would be walks on the beach. Then, the financial community bankrupted the nation, and we have found the joy in resuscitating them while unemployment remains high. So, maybe now isn’t the time for the oil industry to tell the rest of us to just lay back and enjoy the damage to the gulf.

I’ve also learned that what I always accepted as a truism in politics is wrong. I always believed that the media can’t drive a controversy in our two party system without the opposition party joins in the fun. A perfect example is Bill Clinton (luckily for me, he provides examples of all sorts of wackiness). NAFTA would never have been passed with a Republican president and a Democratic Congress. But enough Democrats supported Clinton that the treaty passed, and since Republicans supported it, the media didn’t much care. The same was true with welfare reform. With Bush II, the analogy would be the paid prescription program (which I’ve never been able to figure out how it’s paid for, but that’s just me).

But with the oil spill, Republicans haven’t said much of anything, other than to say this is the same as Katrina. I dunno, it seems like it’s sort of the opposite problem to me. The problem with Katrina for the feds was inaction after the fact; the problem here was a lack of effective regulation ahead of time. But, still, every day, the media says the government should plug the hole. I’m not really sure what the federal capacity is to plug holes in the bottom of the ocean, unless it decided to park a submarine on it. But the media is like a bunch of toddlers who don’t really care what works, just do something, and do it now.

So tonight, while driving home from NOLA, I’m listening to the radio, and a caller came up with what seemed like a reasonable solution, and I’m passing this on free of charge so the ‘experts’ can use it instead of using old tires to stuff it up. What this guy said is that the leak is between 6-12 inches wide. Well, just make a pipe with a hole 2 feet wide and 5 miles long and then the oil will go through this new pipe.

What I fear is going to happen is that everyone will keep wringing their hands until August. Then a hurricane will spread it all over the South, solving the problem for a couple of months. I’m not sure if I can put turpentine on my dogs to get the oil off of them, but I guess I’ll find out.