Deepwater Bender

BP says that the containment cap is back in place on the broken well head at the Deepwater Horizon site and should soon once again be somewhat effective in capturing some portion of the 100,000 gallons of oil being spewed every hour into the Gulf of Mexico. The cap reportedly had to be removed after some crazy robot bumped into it. BP officials state that they'll be sticking to that story. "It's a setback, and now we will go back into operation and show how this technology can work," said BP's new point man Bob Dudley. "Of course, that's assuming that we don't get attacked by a giant squid or that we're not hit by a meteor or some such nonsense. Oh yeah, and hurricane season is coming... Most of our robots are good machines that do the things humans just can't do, invaluable services. I've never had one go rogue on me like this, but I suppose that everything that can go wrong will go wrong on this mission." A multi-purpose service model nicknamed Bender was identified as the rogue robot after being seen on enhanced video, and has already been disciplined by BP. Civilian charges of reckless endangerment may also be pending. "This is the worst kind of discrimination," said Bender, "The kind against me. It seems like that's always the first reaction with you humans - blame the robot. Well, I'm going to fight this and you can bite my shiny metal ass." "This is one you can't blame on me," said BP CEO Tony Hayward. "Not only was I not in the Gulf, but I've got at least a dozen witnesses that can testify the I was playing croquet with Lord and Lady Swaddlebottom at the time of the incident." "I'm afraid this all points back to Tony Hayward," sighed Bob Dudley, the increasingly despondent BP point man. "It seems that Bender was Tony's personal robot and had been malfunctioning for some time. Just hours before this latest fiasco, Bender was seen in a restricted area muttering 'Tempers are wearing thin. Let's hope some robot doesn't kill everybody'... You know, I've only had this job for a week, and already I want my life back."