Blaming Halliburton appears in this case to be a fool's game. Based on my drilling experience, and what I have read, BP is to blame. While I assign blame to them for bypassing standard operating procedures, which helped result in the lost well, they are doing all they can to fix the problem. As others have pointed out, it isn't easy to fix.

The ones I can't comprehend are those that accuse BP of not wanting to fix it because of corporate greed...

As if it were not in the interest of BP's corporate greed to fix it ASAP.

I am with you, Donna. That accusation defies common sense.

Bp has already spent approximately one billion dollars trying to stop and clean-up this leak -- they will undoubtedly spend billions more. The idea that "corporate greed" motivates them to not "fix it" -- and instead go on losing billions in this fashion -- is laughable. But the hatred of capitalism and business is so ingrained in people that they are willing to entertain such insane notions.

It's scary, really.

To be fair to the original Canute, he issued his futile commanded for the tides to halt in order to poke fun at his more sycophantic minions, who professed to believe that he could do anything by mere whim. But Canute was a wise man - Big O, not so much.

In defense of poor, slandered King Canute, his intention was to show the more toad-eating of his courtiers the limits of kingship by failing to stop the tide.

Michael
Which people are those that have an ingrained hatred of capitalism and business?
I hope our President isn't among them. Now that's scary.

Whoops, didn't see Michael Smith's comment. Apologies.

This is a calamity of epic proportions. I wish to God it never happened or that it could have been stopped before it reached this point. BP should be sued into oblivion for this.

As far as Democrat President Barack Obama goes, what do people expect? You vote for an afro-marxist jughead who doesn't know anything about anything and has never made a single material contribution to his country and you get what you deserve. Just pray nothing else goes wrong until this inept, incompetent, lying, thieving flake is unelected, or better yet, chokes on one of his own phoney speeches.

Arty, you complete me.

"This is a calamity of epic proportions."

No, it's not. It's an oil spill a bit larger than average. The press has turned it into the WORST THING EVAH because they're a pack of drama queens incapable of presenting a rational assessment of the facts. Assess the facts for yourself.

"BP should be sued into oblivion for this."

Why not sue the staff of the rig at the time of the explosion? They're as much to blame as BP in general. Why not sue the crews and owners of the ships that showed up to help fight the fire? Their failure to put out the fire led to the rig breaking up. Why not sue the government regulators who gave the rig a safety award shortly before the accident?

Why not sue the forces of nature that make petroleum flammable? Or the ocean waters that make closing the leak so difficult? Why not sue probability, for letting the unlikely chain of events to occur?

Why not grow up and accept that Stuff Happens? Why not, rather than condemn BP for being victims of a horrible accident, laud them for their extreme efforts to fix things?

Krauthammer asks, "Why are we drilling in 5,000 feet of water in the first place?"

Because that's where the oil is. We are going to continue deep-drilling: and take the prudent measures necessary to contain these kinds of situations in the future.

There have been other large well blowouts* in the Gulf of Mexico and, although they weren't good, they weren't calamities of epic proportions. In other words, the Gulf isn't a dead zone because of them and most people barely know they happened. So, again, while we don't want these things to happen, even one this large isn't going to make the Gulf unusable and devoid of life for the next 100 years.

* The well blowout referred to in the link above wasn't capped for 10 months but the Texas and Mexican coasts are still alive and thriving today.

~FR: "'Krauthammer asks, "Why are we drilling in 5,000 feet of water in the first place?"'

"Because that's where the oil is. ..."

There is plenty of oil in shallower water. Also, with side-drilling, they could be getting at that deep-water oil from a safer position.

The enviro-weenies and the NIMBYs and their pet politicians won't let them.

In 1942 there were 42 tankers torpedoed and sunk in the Gulf of Mexico and they were loaded with gasoline, oil, coal. We never heard anything about the Gulf being killed.

I like the King Canute analogy. Here's another: "I'm in charge! Plug the damn hole!" is like the guy who blows his horn in a traffic jam.

No, Rob, 5000 feet of water is not where the oil is. The whole point of this post is to point out there are plenty of other places to drill for oil that do not require such technical expertise. Does anyone doubt that this leak would have been stopped already if it were on dry land or in 300 ft of water?

The so called environmentalists and other fear mongers have created this whole situation. It is the Sierra Club and other such nannies who should be sued into oblivion.

Speaking of giving a good speech, have the oceans receded yet or the Earth cooled. That sounded good and in command of things, malarkey that it is.

A Haiku...

Obama has failed
The worst President ever
Jimmy Carter smiles!

This is of course a huge environmental and human tragedy but if it results in this marxist muslim being driven from office in disgrace or handcuffs, or both, this nation may yet have a chance to restore the freedoms enumerated in our Blessed Constitution.

'In defense of poor, slandered King Canute, his intention was to show the more toad-eating of his courtiers the limits of kingship by failing to stop the tide.'

Just so. That story has been twisted around over the years to make Canute look like he was power-mad, when in fact in the original version he was making a point about what temporal rulers could and could not do, and mocking the cult of personality.

Hi- I'm the one who said that we are drilling in deep water because that's where the oil is.

We did not go from negligible deep water production to 400Mbd in 10 years because of the Sierra Club.

I included a link-under-name for a WSJ article on the profits and perils of going deep in the GoM. The shallow fields are tapping out. And if we don't grab it, someone else will.

Please. The Big O is and always will be Roy Orbison. Mr. Obama is just a man who signs his name with a really big last initial.

Rick Caird

No, Rob, 5000 feet of water is not where the oil is. The whole point of this post is to point out there are plenty of other places to drill for oil that do not require such technical expertise. Does anyone doubt that this leak would have been stopped already if it were on dry land or in 300 ft of water?

The oil is NOT in the continental US.[oil is not gas, as in shale gas] As the saying goes in the ol' biznes, continental US is a "mature province." No more elephants to be found there: just infill or small reservoirs.Some is in Alaska, which the enviro-doofuses don't want us to touch. Some is in shallower water offshore where the same people don't want us to drill, such as California. But the shallower waters of the Gulf of Mexico off TX and LA have been tapped for decades, so pickings there are increasingly slim.

But by and large, the oil to be found is offshore, in increasingly deeper environments.

hey gringo, google "bakken formation" before you open your mouth again and convince even more people you dont know what the hell you are talking about.
The fault for this oil tragedy lands squarely in the lap of any environwhacko that thinks oil is made up of dead animals and can only be found offshore.
This country has more proven energy reserves than saudi arabia ever had and its now being discovered its a renewable resource.
We need the environwhackos to back away and allow the adults to deliver the energy this country must have to provide the wealth this planet needs.

hey gringo, google "bakken formation" before you open your mouth again and convince even more people you dont know what the hell you are talking about.
The fault for this oil tragedy lands squarely in the lap of any environwhackos that thinks oil is made up of dead animals and can only be found offshore.
This country has more proven energy reserves than saudi arabia ever had and its now being discovered its a renewable resource.
We need the environwhackos to back away and allow the adults to deliver the energy this country must have to provide the wealth this planet needs.

Actually, the deep water is where the oil is. In the last 10 years, there has been a massive amount of oil found in the deep US waters, so much that the decline in US oil production has been reversed. It is true that large areas of the US are off limits to drilling, but only onshore Alaska has the sort of potetial that the deep water Gulf has. We should be drilling both.

why the hell don't we try finding a cleaner, more sustainable source of energy? i think that's the way to go instead of drilling and screwing up the planet more than we already have