Need a Little Refresher Course?

I was just listening to an NPR story about the Interior Department and the recently revealed scandal in its Minerals Management Service. You know, our own government employees who are managing the rights and income derived from minerals and mining on US property. (Read http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_10491395 for the latest.) Turns out there's a contagious bad-behavior bug running rampant through the place, causing our employees to have sex, snort cocaine and party with the oil and minerals company people they're supposed to be managing. Well, that's some kind of management, is all I can safely say here. NPR reported that the Interior Department will shortly issue a reminder memo on ethics to the oil companies and others who rip precious resources from our land and pay the government for the pleasure. Here's an idea: how about we take the rights to these resources away from the fine men and women who have had sex, snorted cocaine or partied with the Interior Department team of crack minerals overseers? Hmmm....wouldn't eliminating access to the rights to drill and strip-mine and otherwise remove the valuable booty from our land be slightly more effective than issue a memo reminding them of ethics? Or maybe it's just a time saver: the Interior Department can use the Duke Cunningham memo on ethics, the Ted Stevens memo on corruption, the Sarah Palin memo on firing former brothers-in-law without cause. Yeah. Save time, save paper, send an old memo today. I'm pretty sure everyone involved will put down their cocktails, unroll their dollar bills and read up on ethics right away.