June 9th, 2010
Solution to the Gulf Oil leak: hot air
Members of Congress were invited down to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Most members had thought that the purpose of the trip was to make a full assessment of the crisis, so they could report back to their constituents that solid action steps were underway to correct the problem. Turns out, that was half right.
The full truth was that they were going down to actually be part of the solution. A prestigious Bizarreville engineering firm, Shmedlock Partners LLC, came up with an ingenious soluton to stop the leaking oil. They determined that if they could harness a high volume of excessively hot air, channel it into the broken pipeline through a specially designed nozzle, they could boil the oil, turning it into a gas. Then with a separate pipeline under vacuum and a separator, they could extract the petroleum in gas-form, evaporate it on the ship, and load it onto an oil tanker.
The challenge, of course, was where to find a sufficient source of very hot air to make the process work. That’s when young engineer, Jimbo Milkfard, suggested using Congress. Principals in the engineering firm were surprised and excited about the brilliance in this young man’s elegant, simple solution to such a complex problem.
“The combination of the warm, humid ambient air and the high-volume of hot air coming out of legislator pie-holes is more than enough to boil the oil,” said Milkfard who had just completed the energy calculations. “We may have to keep them on the mother ship for a few weeks until the situation stabilizes…may have to keep them there indefinitely.”
Preliminary polls taken of public reaction show overwhelming support of this idea. “It’s a tradeoff,” said one anonymous citizen. “One one hand, you have a solution that will clearly protect the environment, saving millions of birds and fish, and protecting vulnerable sea shores from long-term devastation. On the other hand, we could have these blowhards stay in the Capital discovering and implementing new ways to waste our money. Hmmmm…tough choice.”
Some congress people have belly-ached about this not-quite-voluntary effort to actually do something about the crisis, saying that they have lots of paperwork and other work to do. The military has been brought in to help escort the feet-draggers down to the Gulf coast, and load them onto the boat. One freshman congressman argued that he hadn’t been in congress long enough to develop a strong source of hot air. But he was put on the boat anyway. “Every BTU helps,” said the boat captain.
Disclaimer: all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the ones you wish were true.
