Slick Work

What a week. The latest thing is that the entire local coast is thick with vile, heavy, carcinogenic, toxic, fumy shipping oil. Jolly. Likely, the person in charge of the Pacific Adventurer was under pressure to meet deadlines, fill quotas or whatever management tripe you like, and so didn't consider avoiding the cyclone area. Nope, just carried right on through dangerous seas with dangerous cargo. So thanks, mate, for the ammonium nitrate over the side, and the hundreds of thousands of litres of oil along our coastline. Nice work.

The usual solution to this kind of disaster is to throw money at it, but I don't really think that that's going to fix it this time. While a gigantic fine is appropriate, I'd like to see more appropriate punishments handed out, to not only the captain, but also to the people further up the pecking order. Be forced to live in a house where every surface is coated in oil, including all food, for example.

It's hard not to be despondent about this kind of thing. The people responsible will not be held accountable in any meaningful way, we'll be left to deal with the pollution, life will carry on as normal. I just can't believe that this kind of thing still happens, I really can't.

Being election time, The Borg has seen this primarily as an opportunity to throw his usual tiresome array of schoolyard taunts. This does nothing but turn me away. If he were truly interested in gaining a bit of respect, he'd be meeting with Anna Bligh and asking what he and his colleagues can do to help.

Heartbreakingly, in the cyclone a school friend's brother was lost at sea. We've had a big spoonful of malevolent nature in this country over the past few weeks.