Corin Chellberg's online something or other

Today, the Coast Guard and board members of BP announced the existence of two additional leaking oil wells.  According to the information given to reporters at the press conference, drilling stations in the Pacific and Atlantic have experienced massive ruptures, the causes of which are still being determined.  The two leaks were each discussed briefly.  The first, just two miles from the shore of San Diego, California, ruptured early this morning, and has been evacuated pending safety investigations.  From submersible video, experts estimate that it is leaking close to 100,000 barrels of oil a day, over 50% more than the latest estimates of the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The second rupture occurred on a drilling rig east of Florida.  It is said to be leaking only 50,000 barrels of oil a day, but due to current patterns is expected to spread environmental damage on the scale of the Gulf of Mexico all along the eastern seaboard.

The press conference was made all the more jarring when a marine biologist/correspondent in attendance took a harpoon gun from his satchel and shot himself in the head, apparently unable to bear the thought of the millions of whales, dolphins, and other marine wildlife that will surely die a terrible, sticky death as a result of BP’s rampant incompetence and near-homicidal behavior towards animals.

I might try out an idea I had the other day, where I would blog as a (quasi) realistic looking news story, the worst possible resolution I could imagine for current, unresolved issues, like the oil spill.  The point being, after reading my horrible resolution, whatever actually does happen, no matter how crappy, will feel like good news.  Maybe.  Worth a shot though.

Just by writing this post, I’m probably opening myself up to having my employment terminated.  I’ll keep you posted.  I just want to quickly mention how stupid Kmart’s social media policy is.  In short, it’s an agreement new employees have to sign, which has several reasonable requirements, and a few not so reasonable requirements.  I couldn’t find this policy anywhere online, so this is from memory.  The reasonable sections basically state:

• You may not divulge confidential information about Kmart or Sears on social networks (or anywhere) – confidential being information that isn’t readily available to the general public
• You may not defame/criticize Kmart or its employees on social networks.  – Here, I’d prefer to be able to trash talk my boss if the need arose, but I understand the intent and it’s mostly reasonable.

Here’s the unreasonable bit:

• You may not use profanity on social networks.

My reaction? Fuck that shit.  I can get behind keeping company secrets off of Facebook, and I can get behind protecting managers from public defamation, but restricting what WORDS I choose to use on Facebook/Twitter merely because they offend some people, who would supposedly connect my words with Kmart and take their business elsewhere?  This, my friends, is complete and utter bullshit.  I’m not sure if this is actually unconstitutional or not, but it seems that way to me.  I know there’s a line between your right to free speech and the rights of others impacted by your speech, but my feeling is that Kmart should not be able to fire me for saying “Fuck you, Glenn Beck.”

Now then.  I’m not actually that concerned about this, because it’s next to impossible to enforce.  With my privacy settings, I’d have to be friends with someone in Kmart’s management (someone who actually gave a shit and checked Facebook often), which I am not, to get caught.  But even so, I think it’s a stupid addition to a mostly reasonable agreement.