GULF OIL SPILL - THE PERSPECTIVE OF NUMBERS

"Unparalleled disaster" "Environmental catastrophe" "Massive pollution"

You've seen these and other End of Times headlines everywhere in the news covering the gulf oil spill.

Your favorite Ostrich Killer will now, without any comment whatsoever, give you the numbers that pertain. You may draw your own conclusions, as thoughtful people do.

Spill: 200,000,000 gallons (max. Probably less, but let's use the worst case quoted.)

Gulf: 700,000,000,000,000,000 gallons, rounded off.

Doing long division, we get 1 gallon of oil for every 3,500,000,000 gallons of water.

Doing a little more long division, we get 1 drop of oil for every 55,000 GALLONS of water. To do your own long division, assume 16 drops in a cc of oil.

But wait! It gets better! Turns out, about forty percent of that leaked oil was collected on ships. Of the remaining sixty percent, a substantial amount - maybe a third - has evaporated. Much more - another third? - has filled the bellies of oil-eating microbes, untold quadrillions of which roam the Gulf of Mexico feasting on the crude that has seeped naturally from the bottom every day since before the first well was ever dreamt of. Doing a little more math with the above numbers, we come up with only twenty percent of the oil still available to pollute in one way or another. 40,000,000 gallons of the original 200,000,000 gallons. That's a lot, but . . . well, you know.

Doubt this? Do your own research and your own math. I rounded off; you may not wish to. Have fun.

NEWS FLASH: Drudge story headline - "Disappearing Oil: Cleanup crews can't find crude in gulf."

Let's see . . . I have 55,000 gallons of water, in which I'm trying to find twenty percent of 1 DROP of oil . . . I wonder why it's so hard to do?

Duh. And no, that is not an editorial comment.