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Q. What do you call a bunch of insurance company CEOs at the bottom of the Berkeley Pit?

A. A good start at actual health care reform.

The Berkeley Pit - photo via NASA

For those who don’t know and aren’t getting my pointlessly obscure joke, here’s a bit of info on the Berkeley Pit from Damn Interesting:

By 1983, the hill was so exhausted that the Anaconda Mining Company was no longer able to extract minerals in profitable amounts. They packed up all the equipment that they could move, shut down the water pumps, and moved on to more lucrative scraps of earth. Without the pumps, rain and groundwater gradually began to collect in the pit, leaching out the metals and minerals in the surrounding rock. The water became as acidic as lemon juice, creating a toxic brew of heavy metal poisons including arsenic, lead, and zinc. No fish live there, and no plants line the shores. There aren’t even any insects buzzing about. The Berkeley Pit had become one of the deadliest places on Earth.

So yeah, seems like a pretty appropriate place for a pack of white collar bloodsuckers to go on a permanent corporate retreat.