Another way of looking at the BP spill in the Gulf

What we keep hearing is how bad it's getting. It's not good, but let's consider this.

There are half a quintillion gallons of water in the Gulf, and every one is full of microbes. The water is warm, the sun is shining straight down on it, and while fish may not eat petroleum, microbes do, and things eat microbes that are eaten by things that are eaten by fish, oysters, and shrimp. People talk about this as an environmental disaster for the Gulf. I look at it as lunch.

Of course, in the short term, those higher up the chain such as fishermen and pelicans are going to be stressed, but I worry about real national catastrophes that we might do something about, like why our sixth graders can't multiply. In the mathematical sense.