dgaraets“My goal was to take all the extensive efforts that are going on and see if we could unify them into a comprehensive knowledge management-based picture of the Gulf of Mexico as it relates to the presence of hydrocarbons in the water column.”
First things first: God bless Thad Allen and all who sail with him. He’s doing important work and he deserves the nation’s thanks for bringing the Gulf oil disaster toward a close. But he sure does talk like somebody who’s spent a lifetime in the government and military bureaucracy. Some of his remarks Wednesday, taken from a McClatchy Newspapers transcript, are as murky as any polluted patch of the Gulf.
“One of the reasons we’re putting the new blowout preventer on is to make sure we can pressurize the well and the blowout preventer to the point where when we pressurize the annulus on the intersection if that pressurization resulted in a lifting of the seals at the casing hanger at the top and we had pressure into the BOP that it could withstand. And we think that will indeed be the case. If that happens, there shouldn’t be any hydrocarbon release into the environment.”
Whew. See, “hydrocarbon release into the environment” sounds more important than “oil spill.” And it doesn’t fit so easily onto a protest sign.
Penn and Teller offer a brief lesson in the use of big words for simple concepts in this video. Unfortunately, they also demonstrate the use of vulgar words (well, Penn does, anyway). So don’t watch if you’re sensitive.
