Saturday, May 17, 2008

The Department of Irrelevance.

In the outer burbs of Houston, a 900-foot diameter sinkhole has created a lake in the middle of what was a subdivision, swallowing power poles and vehicles and providing a new home to a 'gator. Crude oil has bubbled from the ground to give it its own little oil slick. The hole could enlarge to engulf more of suburbia at any time. What does the government spokesperson quoted want us to know?
Danny Diaz, a Texas Parks and Wildlife game warden, said a patch of crude oil floating on the east side of the crater might irritate the alligator’s skin, but the reptile is using the water on the other side.
Well, thank you Mr. Diaz. I was afraid we were going to have to chuck some skin care products in there for the lizard. Let's hope it doesn't get a cocker spaniel stuck in its throat, because so few people know how to perform the Heimlich maneuver properly on prehistoric saurians.

23 comments:

  1. In other news, someone tried to burn down Richie Daley’s summer home in retaliation for his insensitive comments regarding the shooting of a cougar in suburban Chicagoland.

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  2. Got something against 'gators?

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  3. No. They taste just like chicken. :)

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  4. Well by gosh we can't have his skin drying out. Someone get him skinned and made into a pair of boots QUICK! I'm sure someone down in Texas knows how to make a pair or two of cowboy boots out of this unfortunate animal.

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  5. That Daley story just about had to be ELF or one of their offshoots; they tried to burn his house, but they destroyed two others and left his more or less untouched.

    If they weren't on the same side, I'd suspect the BATFE.

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  6. Let the twit worry about the gator's skin, it's less harmful than most things he's empowered to do.

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  7. It's a freaking gator. They've been here a damn long time, through hell, high water, climate change and they've even survived the interweb. They'll be here long after humans have died off. You can't kill the damn things. Oil won't even do it...unless it figures out how to speak Cajun, use a spotlight and shoot a .22 mag.

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  8. Gator giggin' is hard work, even if you don't have to deal with a sinkhole. But apparently be nice to gators is breaking out all over the place:
    http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/19035954.html
    And, from the same newspaper, I submit for your pleasure the exploits of this guy. Apparently he flunked or dropped out of the school of hard knocks.
    http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/19036164.html

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  9. So, is anyone asking the more obvious question, that being about the eeeerrllll that was found oooozzzing its way out of terra not-so-firma?

    I mean, can we just drill for it already, or do we need to ask "permission" from the turds in the toilet bowl on the Potomac?

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  10. Yea,you'd think we might find a use for some of that crude.

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  11. perlhaqr-

    Yup.

    Oil, that is.
    Black gold, Texas tea.

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  12. gator--

    Nope.

    Except for the ones that keep showing up in Knoxville. (VBG)

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  13. Don't be too tough on Danny Diaz. He was assigned to gator patrol and wasn't able to run away in time when a reporter for the Houston Chronicle showed up for the upteenth time at the sinkhole. The AP clipped out parts of the original story, one of several the Chronicle has published since May 8, and put it on the wire for other media outlets to pick up.

    If you want to labeled a moron, agree to speak to a reporter. Anything you say (or not) will be misconstrued, redacted, or taken out of context and will be used against you in the court of public opinion.

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  14. doubletrouble beat me to it.

    Oh well, so much for the 'up from the ground come a bubblin crude' comment I was going to make.

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  15. The reason there is a sinkhole is because we already sucked all the oil out a long time ago. This is Texas after all.

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  16. Anonymous said...
    The reason there is a sinkhole is because we already sucked all the oil out a long time ago. This is Texas after all.
    9:57 PM, May 17, 2008


    Rule to interweb snark #3: Make sure your snarky comment doesn't directly contradict the published facts of the situation.

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  17. Daisetta sits on a salt dome, a natural formation created below the ground over millions of years where oil brine and natural gas accumulate.

    Daisetta was once a booming oil town and today various working oil derricks still dot the landscape.

    Norman said oil drilling from over the years might have weakened the salt dome and caused it to collapse


    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354501,00.html

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  18. Once upon a time, my Littermate and I were watching a program about the capture of the Barker/Karpis gang back in the '30s, down south.

    Announcer: "The trail was cold, until someone informed Federal authorities that a group of tourists were hunting alligators with machine guns and grenades, using live pigs as bait."

    Lm: "Now THAT is a SPORT."

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  19. That sinkhole was the top story when I was down in Houston a few weeks ago. I didn't know a gator has now claimed it as home.

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  20. First thing I thought when I saw the story was that KDT's landscaping project had gone horribly awry.

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  21. A. Early casualties were, among other things, oil tanks, and
    B. Two leaky crude oil pipelines are nearby, and
    C. I blame Global Warming.

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  22. Jeff: Wrong city ... missed it by 239 miles.

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