I just heard a fun story on NPR. It was accidentally so contrary to their usual approach to things. It was an interview of this NGO guy who has spent like 20 years in developing world digging wells and latrines. His current endeavor is to change the way these organizations try to help people – based on his own mistakes.

They tried like hell to frame the conversation in a – we all need to buy compost toilets – type of thing, but the main message that slipped out was a pro-capitalist one.

Basically, what water organizations have been doing is sweeping in, building some kind of well, assembling a little local village committee to control the well, and training several locals villagers to repair and operate it. You know – the ideal social model Liberals so badly want to believe in… Or in the case of one small village, they just put one lady in charge who was then ostracized when the equipment failed in a way she couldn’t fix. Gee… And I get anxious when my web servers are down…

The trouble with this model is the obvious one to any idiot who has spent time outside of a suburban home or university. The people trained to maintain the well die, move away, or just don’t do it, or don’t know how to do the tough stuff. Or, something happens, like a flood, and that’s that.

However, a model sprang up from villages that just wanted to pay someone to maintain their well. Organically, some of the guys trained to care for local wells started traveling around, maintaining wells for a fee. They do a good job because they know what they’re doing, can get the parts, and all that horse shit. So one day, this one area gets flooded. All their water points are destroyed. What happens?

The nasty capitalist traveling plumbers swoop in and get to work – fix like 100 water points in a few days, the only ones left broken are still under water. People are trying to gather up their lives, can’t get to their money, all their shit has washed away – but hell – they got clean water to drink. The bill’s in the mail.

Click on image to enlarge

British Petroleum’s busted well in the Gulf of Mexico is still leaking. “Top-Kill” didn’t work (thankfully). Originally what happened was, for whatever reason, the drilling platform exploded, dropping the mile long pipe into a messy pile down below. On top of the well, right near the floor of the ocean, was a device specifically designed for this occurrence. It was supposed to clamp down on the pipe and cut it or otherwise crush it shut. It was triggered but it didn’t crush the pipe shut.

PB’s next idea was to post-hast manufacture a big steel box to lure down onto the wreckage, with the idea that the leaking oil would be captured inside, allowing it to be leisurely pumped to surface ships. However, loads of natural gas is also spewing out of the well, which crystallized everywhere and clogged things up.

The next idea was Top Kill which involved forcing mud into the well through special ports in the shutoff device. But the pressure was too great and people started to get worried about corking such a high pressure well. If you plug this hole it might come out somewhere else, or a lot of places. It could have compromised the well and caused a serious gusher. That idea almost seems stupid now…

Today they managed to cut off the messy pipe for their next idea, which is to seat a larger diameter fitting around the well and draw the oil up to surface ships. This would hopefully last as long as it will take to get a relief well drilled, as early as August, which will – hopefully – draw the unreasonably high pressure out of this ill fated shale.

Before discussing this any further, I need to get three things out of the way first.

1. All of you engineers, scientists, and otherwise expert non-oil-worker idea-men (hence forth referred to as stupid people) – STOP CALLING RADIO STATIONS AND POSTING ONLINE ALL YOUR INGENIOUS IDEAS! This is one area where open-source community solutions are useless and irritating.

Seriously. The crap being proposed either includes impossible to manufacture equipment (ok, maybe possible with a few years of lead time), a gross misunderstanding of the magnitudes involved, or, even in the most rational cases, miss one or more of the big harry primary or secondary problems/consequences. Problems like temperature, pressure, secondary reactions, distance, currents, and so on. And reactions like brittle steel, expanding water-ice, leaks, and God knows what else.

It’s like that old riddle about how to get a fox, duck, and bag of corn across a lake in a small row boat. You can’t leave the fox with the duck, he’ll eat it, likewise the duck with the grain, and there’s only room for one thing in the boat.

2. All you idiot Conservatives who give the rest of us a bad name, when Obama does finally take over this disaster and take control of the US subsidiary of BP, don’t cry Socialism.

3. All you idiot Liberals who have been worrying your yourselves about those cries of socialism, and you idiot Liberals who like to pretend you’re smart by trying to dress up Conservative views to look contradictory – they want small small government until something happens then all of a sudden they want big government action – shut the hell up and think things through for 15 seconds.

No one with a brain is calling it socialism for the Fed to take over a multi billion dollar company that has caused amulti billion dollar disaster any more than they’ll call it socialism for the fire department to take over a burning building in an attempt to save the whole damn neighborhood.

And this – this – is the type of thing Conservatives like to keep government reserved for. Disasters are similar to war in that way. Do you call Conservatives big-government-lovers when they call for a big strong military? No, of course not. You call them baby-killers, war-mongers, and racists.

Conservatives think government should only do the things only government can do or can certainly do MUCH better. This is one of those things. Running health insurance isn’t. Running banks and factories ISN’T. Telling us what to eat, where to live, and how to invest ISN’T. As a matter of fact, this whole disaster more than likely would have been prevented if currently existing regulation had been properly implemented. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t because that whole bureaucracy, like all bureaucracies, is inefficient. They’re never capable of the lofty challenges we assume they can are.

Ok, with that out of the way let’s talk political strategy. Everyone is worried/hopping that this is Obama’s “Katrina”. And, of course, it is. Presidents get blamed for the problems fair or not. So, in this case, is it fair?

I’ll tell you one thing that is fair. Obama took every cheap shot he could at Bush over Katrina. It’s fun seeing someone get his Karmactic retribution in the current life. Hey Barack, how do you like whinny Liberals now that YOU’R in charge???

Bush didn’t realize how bad New Orleans was right away. When he did, it didn’t matter right away because the disaster area was under state domain, and once the Fed did get involved FEAMA was useless and the only guys doing their job was the military – and even with their incredible efforts they couldn’t – like – rain down bottles of water, tepees, and lunchables anyway.

Likewise, Obama couldn’t have imagined this clusterfuck. He laid low at first, as he usually does, pondering the best symbolic presentation of himself and positive angle for his agenda. And, he had just uncharacteristically supported off-shore oil drilling in an attempt to win Republican support for Cap n’ Trade. So I bet he was hoping BP would do a quick fix before people started asking what he was doing about what and when and who and how much and why, why not and where.

Since then Obama’s strategy has changed direction multiple times, sometimes oddly. Holder is preparing a criminal case. First BP was bad – then they were good, then bad again. But in Obama’s press conference he did make two things clear.

1. He was with the crisis from day one: On day one he had a meeting and the cost guard was in the Gulf. Of course, he has a meeting every day about everything in the news. And the cost guard – they were in the Gulf on day -1.

2. He has been doing everything possible to fix the problem: Of course this is crap. He and BP have been incrementally increasing their response this whole time as the scale of the problem has become more and more apparent.

Currently Obama is on the attack. In his last speech he was giving guff to everyone on the list and sighting the crisis as a reason to pass Cap n’ Trade. That’s probably the best strategy for him now. It’s so hard to say though. In the game of democracy, the arbitrary flow of public opinion shifts with the oil plum. Think how hard Obama would be hammering Bush if Bush were in Obama’s place doing the exact same things – minus the poetic speeches of course.

Seriously though, I’ve got the feeling this is one of those things that changes society. You never see those coming. They start small and seep into life.

Here are the three best live feeds of the oil leak. They’re rather interesting to watch – soothing yet terrifying. 47 days, 50 million gallons.

PB’s own feed

I still don’t have much love for the Creationist movement, but this Ben Stein movie is hilarious. It, among other things, follows scientists who were blacklisted for being associated with “intelligent design.” It’s pretty well done. Made me laugh.

When an ex sends you fabulous pictures of her amazing wedding with her spectacular husband in their lavished mansion on a private island next to her garage with her brand new Mercedes to let you know she’s doing wonderfully and hopes you are too, Noisy Dove recommends the following reply:

Dear [insert name, spelled wrong],

Wow. Congratulations! I could hardly believe the pictures. It’s simply amazing. I guess what they say is true: there is someone out there for everyone. No mater who you are you can eventually find someone to marry you. It’s great to see you have yourself a little starter house and are finally gaining a little extra weight.

I can see you and your husband were wise and didn’t go for the regular big elegant wedding package. I remember you talking about how tacky cheap weddings can be. I’m glad you changed your mind. Good for you. You can use that money for the baby in six months.

So did you ever [inset something you know she didn’t accomplish].

Thanks for the update. I was just thinking the other day about [describe a run romantic time you had with “her”, her being some other chick, obviously confusing her with someone else.]

Well, wish I could have been there. Let me know about your next wedding. I’m always looking for a reason fly back there for a weekend.