Drill, baby, drill --> Burn, baby, burn

Don't worry citizens. You know the giant oil slick that's menacing the Gulf and threatening coastlines and marine life? There's a solution. They're just going it light it on fire and burn away the oil. Seriously.

The US coastguard is to set fire to oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico to prevent the slick from reaching shore after last week's explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

Robot submarines have so far failed to shut off the flow more than 1,500 metres below where the Deepwater Horizon was wrecked. Eleven workers are missing, presumed dead, and the cause of the explosion 50 miles off Louisiana has not been determined.

A coastguard spokesman said the burn would begin today. Prentice Danner said fire-resistant booms would be used to corral some of the thickest oil on the surface, which would then be ignited. It was unclear how large an area would be set on fire or how far from shore the fire would be set.

Think of it as less "world's largest ecological disaster" and more "world's largest fish fry". I just think of the tremendous boon this will be to the newspaper industry. They gotta wrap those fish in something. A little investment advice: tartar sauce future are about to go through the roof.

This tactic was employed in Newfoundland in 1993 and ended up burning off half of the oil that had been spilled in an event that in no way make anyone anywhere concerned about the environmental hazards of offshore drilling. Let it be said that there is no ecological problem that cannot be solved by fire.