"They" get "us" with their words

"Spill" is tangled with intent. And the way intent is used — particularly in the tales of war-death-destruction-despair — is often misleading (see, right there, the way I used misleading... is very misleading).

Easy example: when I make cocktails, I'm very often shaking for four. Squeezing four drinks into one batch brings the spirits near the stainless steel brim — the danger zone. When straining the sweet relief into glasses, some initial spillage can be expected — you know how this works... the shaker is just a little too full, the liquids surge to the edge, and if I don't pour fast enough, some of that icy tequila is going to run down the side of the shaker, de-stressing the tabletop. So... did I spill? Of course not. I had too much booze in the shaker to avoid the small spill, I knew this, and poured it anyway.

If the result of an action is known, speaking of intent is nonsense.

So when Royal Dutch Shell spills dumps oil onto West African land and water... every. single. day... it is not doing so by accident — therefore spill confuses what actually happened (which, of course, is in the interests of Royal Dutch Shell and the Culture of Destruction). As always, the ethical standards of having a Blogger account are high, so I'll be fair with Shell:

Apparently predicting interest in the spill would grow, Shell already had taken out Internet advertising Thursday on search engines, directing those searching for the spill to their website. Jonathan French, a Shell spokesman in London, said the advertising came in the "interests of full transparency" so people can read the company's updates on the spill.

Which brings me to Santa's big gift (assuming, like me, your portfolio is heavy on uranium futures), the new Westinghouse AP1000 is approved and ready to boil! I love the blue, but why did they do the outside in brown? Hopefully they'll have more colors for next year's model. At least it's safe:

But the chairman of the commission, Gregory B. Jaczko, said that all of the panel’s safety concerns had been fully addressed.

“The design provides enhanced safety margins through use of simplified, inherent, passive, or other innovative safety and security functions, and also has been assessed to ensure it could withstand damage from an aircraft impact without significant release of radioactive materials,-” he said in a statement.

Warning: Pass this point, and your face will look like mine

Well, if Dr. Jaczko (he is a doctor, I hope) thinks the safety margins are enhanced... and it's airplane-proof... we can get back to designing the signs that will remain coherent for... for... forever. It really sums it all up, does it not? A culture that can create death on a chronological scale so hilariously vast that it feels compelled (it's the right thing to do) to pass along warnings to our — it'll take you about 45 minutes, but please say "great" about 3,000 times — grandchildren. They are the future.

Nuclear Power is almost all-the-way-back. O-Bah-Ma, O-Bah-Ma, O-Bah-Ma