everybody likes a little nukie

A few days ago I alluded to the fact that numerous people, some of them influential and some reputedly intelligent, think that the best way to handle BP's Gulf oil spill is to nuke it. I've heard (but have not seen evidence) there are even some scientists who hold this opinion.

As far as I know, everyone thinking this way is a guy -- no women. Real men like to blow shit up. It's natural. From today's New York Times:

“Probably the only thing we can do is create a weapon system and send it down 18,000 feet and detonate it, hopefully encasing the oil,” Matt Simmons, a Houston energy expert and investment banker, told Bloomberg News on Friday, attributing the nuclear idea to “all the best scientists.”

Or as the CNN reporter John Roberts suggested last week, “Drill a hole, drop a nuke in and seal up the well.”

Fortunately, as the same story reports, the likelihood of that happening is zero. This means that sometimes the people in charge of some things, at least some of the time, aren't totally nuts.

Stephanie Mueller, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department, said that neither Energy Secretary Steven Chu nor anyone else was thinking about a nuclear blast under the gulf. The nuclear option was not — and never had been — on the table, federal officials said.

“It’s crazy,” one senior official said.

I've changed my mind about the federal Department of Energy, which ordinarily I think of as existing only to perpetuate its own existence. On second thought, it might actually be good for something once in a while.

Photo: the nuke Fat Man, 1945.