I can't even fathom this not stopping sometime soon. The amount of damage that has already been done is something I have a hard time comprehending.

This rig had 3 consecutive tests fail, shut down operations for 40 minutes, and then resumed operations. I doubt an executive called out to the rig and forced operations to resume. I've got to believe that was a local decision.

The executives are, however, resposnible for not ensuring that a disaster like this would be able to be resolved in a timely manner. I am sure they had their safety and risk representatives claiming that they could handle things of this nature, but the responsibilty for followup should fall on the higher levels of management's shoulders.

The jackass that called for operations to resume, despite the safety test failures, really needs to be hung high.

I don't know how BP is expecting to be able to clean this up as they claim they will- in the end we will foot the bill for this too.