Non sequitur

The headline on Andrew Malcolm's LA Times blog post on Obama's speech last night was pretty amusing: "There's a pipe spewing a gazillion globs of oil into the gulf, so let's build more windmills". As non sequiturs go, it brought to mind the kid who, when asked what he thought of the fair responded "I like turtles!":

As the more cynical among us have come to expect, the President used the crisis to push for green energy solutions which are not yet fully developed nor will produce sufficient energy at a reasonable cost. But last night was not the time for such a speech. As Malcolm points out:

Instead, Obama was like a Harvard-trained nurse talking vacation to a new patient bleeding all over the ER floor. Hello, could we please stop the blood flow here before we discuss the long-term recovery?

We know, Mr. President. You want to move the country to alternative energy sources...we get it already. But how about dealing with and actually resolving the crisis at hand? We'll be happy to hear your take on solar and wind energy after oil stops gushing into the Gulf of Mexico and the crap is mopped up.

How to plug the damn hole

This oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is, to say the least, horrendous. The environmental impact to wildlife and the coastal ecosystem is sure to last for decades to come, not to mention the economic impact on coastal residents. We're now approaching Day 50, and oil continues to spew into the ocean, so here's my inexpert, wholly uninformed idea on how to stop it.

First, construct a form and drop it so that it surrounds the wellhead (or whatever it's called). This would need to be a little bit higher than the "plumbing" from which the oil is now pouring.

Next, lower a pipe roughly the same diameter as the size of the leak directly over the opening, and just start dumping dry concrete inside the form until it completely fills the form. Yes, concrete will set underwater.

Let the tankers queue up to capture the oil.

Obviously this is an over-simplification of what would be needed, but seriously...how difficult would it be?