Who knew: All we ever really needed to contain the leak was a new plan

It’s, what, day 54 or 55 of thousands of barrels of oil gushing into the gulf? Our ass whippin’ government has finally stumbled upon a plan for plugging the damn hole. That plan consists of demanding a new plan within 48 hours from BP. Brilliant!


You can almost hear the team of BP engineers sitting around the table smacking themselves in forehead, “I could have had a V-8! A new plan!!! Why didn’t we think of that? This changes everything. OK everyone we have 48 hours to get a new plan together. It was so obvious all along. I can’t believe we weren’t working on a new plan.”

OK what does the new plan consist of? Here’s my plan. Demand a new plan from BP, but give them only 24 hours. Hell, Jack Bauer can save the world the several times over in 24 hours, why can’t BP come up with something new in that amount of time?

Here’s the real thing:

Make containing and closing the leak the #1 priority of the Coast Guard, Departments of the Interior, Homeland Security and Energy.

Convene a board of the best minds in science and the oil business in America to solve this problem.
Order every ship with a collection capacity to the spill.

Buy all of the boom material that can be produced and get it to the spill.

Set up an oil containment hot line to evaluate tips from the people to contain the spill. Trust me, someone out there has an idea that will work.

Evaluate Kevin Costerner’s oil/water separator immediately and if it works, mobilize industry to start building them on a massive scale.

Work with governors to clean affected beaches as the oil comes ashore.

Have the military set up tent cities in the gulf and register unemployed workers and college students to work at minimum wage cleaning the beaches.

Use military transport to rush teams to spots where the oil comes ashore.

Fire every census worker to pay for part of the effort.

Issue a positive statement praising BP for their effort. You cannot blast the company that you expect to pay for everything, thereby driving their stack price through the floor, and expect that they will have the money necessary to pay for the clean up.

Open Alaska and close in ocean oil reserves to development. We got into this mess because we did not retrieve the oil closest to our shores first.

Set up a small tent on a lonely beach somewhere in the FL panhandle for Slow Joe Biden to monitor the situation until it is resolved. This would be a perfect use of his talents.

The Lakers lost game 5 of the NBA finals last night.  Now, you'd have though that Lakers coach Phil Jackson would have called a time out somewhere along the way and come up with a new plan to avoid the loss.  He didn't.  They lost.