I Blame the Viking or Brad Pitt whoever shows up first.

I wrote this before the fix/solution had been put into place.

I Blame the Viking

“It’s Brad Pitts fault.”

That’s what I said when I discovered that I had inadvertently walked into a room filled with 4 other people sitting literally at a round table discussing the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Not surprisingly the entire room got silent as I walked up to the table, pulled up a chair, sat down and immediately propped my feet up on the edge of another chair.

“Skip, you don’t even know what we’re talking about.” Was the first response out of one of my co-workers mouth.

“Yeah, and what does Brad Pitt have to do with the oil spill Novak?” Another asked.

The other two just stared at me.

“Well, if you really want me to go into this I will.” I said and then I thought about this blog and you guys, my Dear and Wonderful Readers. So I composed this blog while sitting around a round table in a building with 4 people I work with and you know what? It’s time for you to read about it.

I am going to try and summarize as much as I can. I am also going to try and leave out most of the conversation that followed, along with all the off color jokes about Llamas. Why? Well, simple, off color Llama jokes is an entirely different Blog.

So this is what I tried to explain to them.

To say that Tony Hayward, BP’s CEO, is responsible for the oil rig explosion in the Gulf is a lie. To say that BP is responsible for the Oil Rig explosion in the Gulf is wrong. To say that the men working on the Oil Rig in the Gulf when it exploded is wrong. This is not about right or wrong. This is not even really about responsibility. This is about SHORTCUTS! We all take them. We are even proud when we can share our shortcut knowledge with others. It’s fun. You do it. I do it. It is a fact of life.

Sidetracked.

You see, in Canada when a company wants to do offshore drilling that company first has to drill the relief well. Actually in most countries this is true. Even ours. Most of the time, but in this instance there was no relief well drilled. Why? I don’t know. I would like to know but there wasn’t one. Hmm, methinks there may be a waiver by some Government agent somewhere. Who’s in charge of protecting the environment? Anyone? How bout you. Yeah, you. The one sitting there raising your hand at a computer right now.

That’s RIGHT! The EPA is in charge of protecting our environment and I am not sure but I think that somewhere in some drawer in some Civil Servants desk somewhere in America is a piece of paper that is signed by someone that has or had the power to grant that waiver. And no one will admit to it. No one would be dumb enough to admit to it. Why? Simple, it is easier to point your finger at an “EVIL GREED RUN CORPORATION” than it is to stand up, raise your hand and say “Ooops, my bad. I am the idiot responsible for the world’s greatest ecological disaster since Krakatoa erupted.”

I know, I know, Krakatoa was a volcano and man did not cause it to erupt, but it was a disaster of epic proportions.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a terrible disaster and I hate that it happened. I hate the fact that incalculable damage to our shores and wildlife is happening now and will continue to happen for years to come. But I truly do not believe it is the fault of BP or the oil rig manufacture. I believe it was a veritable man made domino snake waiting to be knocked over by humankind’s inability to do the right thing at every level of this particular evolution from the lobbyist in Washington DC to the Inspectors of the rig itself. Honestly, I have this mental image of the Three Stooges trying to pull this off in one of their short films. Moe being the ringleader and bribing and strong-arming everyone in site, Larry running around trying to pick up the oil drill pipes and Curly trying to make the pipes go into the floor of the ocean with a 10 ounce ball-peen hammer.

So when I hear someone say “It’s this guys fault or that guys fault.” I say in return “It’s Brad Pitt’s fault.” Why? Simple, cause he had as much to do with that rig blowing up as the Tony Hayward did.

One last note, please let us not forget the 11 men that died on that rig when it exploded or their families.

Here are then names of the men that lost their lives on the explosion of the oil rig Deepwater Horizon in the gulf:

Jason Anderson
Aaron Dale Burkeen
Donald Clark
Stephen Curtis
Roy Wyatt Kemp
Karl Kleppinger
Gordon Jones (M-I SWACO)
Blair Manuel (M-I SWACO)
Dewey Revette
Shane Roshto

Adam Weise

P.S. Always "Blame the Viking" he is the one who drinks all the coffee, breaks the dishes, hits your car and does not leave a note, drinks the milk from the container and absolutely does not wear a helmet with horns on it.