The Three Corporate Stooges

[pic: New York Times] Lamar McKay (BP), Steve Newman (Transocean), and Tim Probert (Halliburton) simultaneously seek permission to go to the bathroom. Representative Bart Stupak, head of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations - which is currently hearing testimony on the massive Gulf Coast oil disaster - has revealed the probable cause for the spill. "I don't know for sure," said Stupak, "so I'm just making a wild-eyed guess here, just speculating, thinking off the top of my head, maybe blowing smoke here, probably talking out of my ass, but could it be... the blowout preventer?" The WaPo is reporting that a review of the blowout preventer found that it "had a dead battery in its control pod, leaks in its hydraulic system, a 'useless' test version of one of the devices that was supposed to close the flow of oil and a cutting tool that wasn't strong enough to shear through joints that made up 10 percent of the drill pipe." "I'm just a layman, so don't take my word as gospel," Stupak astutely continued, directing his comments to the combined brainpower of the three corporate stooges in charge, "but it sure seems to me that you gentlemen allowed one real piece-of-crap blowout preventer to be attached to this rig. I mean, Jesus Christ, you can't even check out the battery?" Lamar McKay of BP and Steve Newman of Transocean, jointly in charge of maintenance, swiftly swiveled face to face in an attempt to deflect blame, inadvertently poking each other in the eye. Tim Probert of Halliburton used the brief disturbance as an opportunity to check whether he still had Dick Cheney's number on his cell phone. Other testimony cited a startling document committee investigators had uncovered: a Transocean analysis of the blowout preventer that BP had called fail-safe. It revealed that there were 260 different failure-modes that would necessitate it's removal. "How can a device that has 260 failure modes be considered fail-safe?" Stupak asked incredulously. "Oh wait, silly me, I forgot there was a Cheney connection in all this." McKay shouted 'Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk' as Newman bonked himself of the top of the head and Probert hit speed dial.