No amount of money is going to 'fix' this. As for the estimates of the leak? Only to help plan how long and where to prepare for the 'clean up' (now there's a fine laugh).

Tony Hayward and his band of know nothing spin shmucks are busy figuring how to cheat widows/orphans and retired folks of their dividends in order to shore up his gazillion dollar cash flow.

The Brits are unhappy about the bad publicity? Boo-hoo. How about the species and food chains that are being erased by their greedy, criminal negligence? How about the people who've lost their incomes and way of life in all this?

I wonder what the Scots would have done to BP had this happened in the North Sea and this stuff washed up on their shores?

*doc has a flash of William Wallace skewering the board of BP and turning them into a fine haggis. 

  can't believe they spent 50 mill to make themselves look better.....how many people with buckets and detergent washing birds/wildlife would that have employed....and some instant help for the locals......

wonder if James Cameron can help them come up with something....

You think they care? They know that they're selling what everyone needs, so who cares what anyone thinks?

They've got everyone by the short and curlies, and that's the way it'll stay until further notice.

Seems to me, Tony Hayward is a penny pinching, lily livered gutless wonder who needs a good swift kick in the rectum with a steel capped rig boot.  I would've said gonads, but if he had any balls he'd have taken this spill by the scruff of the neck and found a speedy solution, rather than pussy footing around with "Guess how much oil we're spilling" contests and pretending to be concerned.

Oh, and seeing as Tony Hayward wasn't collared to sit atop the pipe and create a backdraft, I did volunteer for the job if all curried cabbage meals were provided.  However, Congress voted against it... reckoned it's cos, regardless of how much refining, they'd never get the smell out of the oil...

"Given this oil would be destined for US markets, we could not risk our highways being contaminated by the waft of curried cabbage.  We thank the Australians for their offer of assistance, but thanks but no thanks"

Congressman Staines.

With a name like that, I don't know that he has a lot of room to talk, but oh well.

The mayor of London does not care for the BP bashing in the USA.  Who are we going to hear from next? The Sheriff of Nottingham?  If this oil was washing up on the shores of Britain, we might think that the mayor of London was relevant to the discussion.  But since it isn't, he isn't!

And what about your country reducing the 5.7 million tonnes of CO2 you pump into our atmosphere each year?

Nobody here cares about a few drops of oil on your poxy little country. Clean up your own mess and stop blaming us.

Friends I think we may have an all out lymie shmuck attack going here.  Nobody cares about a few drops of oil?  Response: FU.  Long letter to follow. 

Whoa! No one is blaming England for anything.

Fuzzy, ekimragz..... please: I posted this about the oil company BP. NOT ABOUT ENGLAND NOR THE BRITISH PEOPLE!

I'm requesting you both PLEASE edit your replies before this gets out of hand.

We are a Community WITHOUT national borders united by our love of skinning and each other.

Please, guys... let's change what's been said out of anger.

I will be the first to say that BP is NOT the only corporation guilty of arrogant negligence. They all are. American, French, German, Israeli, Egyptian, Chinese, Russian, etc....ALL OF THEM.

None of them care a whit about people. Money talks and people walk.

Keep in mind that it was the Bush administration that granted BP an Enviromental Impact waiver, allowing them to operate without any sort of plan in place to deal with such a disaster.   BP is not the only company granted this waiver. I think there is plenty of blame to go around for all parties responsible.

Personal attacks/insults will only cause more damage and won't clean up one drop of oil.

Bashing BP is well and good for anger release, but I word of caution.  If you expect them to pay the huge sums that will be levied (and rightly so), It would be wise for the government not to bash them straight into bankruptcy.  You know who gets the bill then right?  Yep, you and me.

Doc , I am a bit surprised that you accuse the BP CEO of planning to screw the wives, widows and pensioners that depend on BP for their retirement and at the same time expect them to pay for Obama's call to shut down the remaining wells for 6 months and cover the cost of the resulting laid off employees as well as all the clean up costs.  It is not as if they have unlimited resources or can print money like a government.  The equipment that will be idled by the moratorium will simply find a home overseas and another 300,000 Americans will be unemployed.

Oopps. I forgot that they can take all those thousands of green jobs (sic) !   

Anger is one thing.  Thinking it through is another.

Yeah seriously...some twit writes it up in the paper or on the net about how some idiot somehow think the British people are to blame and then it escalates into an al out flame war...lets end that here. BP is not England or the British people. 

If you want to blame the British people for something...what's up with the beans & tomato with your eggs!?

Absolutely correct.

Wiz for Chairman of the Bored Board!

I think you had it right the first time Doc.

Right! It is about the English based oil company BP and not the British people.  Except those who open their mouths to say something like that jerk just did about not caring about a "few drops of oil."  Heh Mr. well-named, it ain't just a few drops of oil.  It is the worst man made ecological disaster in the history of the world which will have the most profound affects on this country for years and years into the future.  Hopefully, BP will spend their last farthing making this right and, if they do that, it still won't be right.  And that is to say nothing of the 11 lives that were lost and all the small businesses (like the fishermen) who depend on this eco-system for a living.  If an American company destroyed the English channel and polluted the British coastline on this scale, I would hope that the Americans would have the good grace to pay for the damage (at least that which can be paid for) and shut the f.... up about the outrage and  criticism that the British public would be entitled to express toward the offending company.

Sure he is...despite the fact that his Corp. makes gazillions. He could end that rumor with a simple statement. He hasn't.

Obama has already gone back on that call because of the economics of the Gulf states. Green Jobs? Yup....that's about the right color the workers will be after about one seek's work there. (see the endless stories of oil related illness...also see the X-Files).

I'm angry at what's being done to our planet and the people who live on it. I'm angry about the exploitation of people by others. I'm disappointed about the fact you don't seem to be angry at what's been done and why.

Ken, it's your planet as well. That supercedes all job concerns. It even supercedes (G-d forgive my blasphemy) skinning.

Just when are people going to wake up and understand "Sustainability"? What's it going to take to end arrogant greed?

@ekimragz: You persist in your errors:

If an American Co. created the damage, the American Co. pays. NOT the American people.

If BP caused it, BP and NOT the British people (who, incidentally have also been hurt by this) pays.

This is a thread I started. Please edit and stay civil or be gone. No one here is going to put up with you insulting the British people nor Fuzzy Logic who is a long time, much loved member here...who also was a Moderator. His credentials in skinning and the Community are obvious. Give him the respect he deserves on my thread or be reported to Moderation. Pull in your horns. 

"Ken, it's your planet as well. That supercedes all job concerns. It even supercedes (G-d forgive my blasphemy) skinning.

Just when are people going to wake up and understand "Sustainability"? What's it going to take to end arrogant greed?[/quote]

I am very concerned about all that you mention.  Right now though, I am concerned most about getting the gusher stopped and the clean up completed.  To do that we need a viable BP to foot the bill and driving them into bankruptcy does not achieve that end.

That is the entire point of my post.

It is a horrible disaster but far from the largest in US history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakeview_Gusher

Somehow the state of California and the planet survived and we will this time as well.  The anger is understandable but usually not a part of solving the immediate problem.

Completely agree.

BP will be good for the bill even if stock prices drop all they have to do is sell some oil field assets. Maybe Obama is trying to force them into receivership to guarantee the cost be repaid, though I doubt that. A viable company is better than a crippled one.

As for getting the gusher stopped, I'm less than optimistic simply because BP doesn't seem to be listening to the thousands of ideas which have been put forward...not talking about the cracked pot 'nuke it' suggestions. There are good ones there too. BP seems set on the relief wells and 'so what' to the continuing leak....or not very energetic about checking solution suggestions.

As for stopping the gusher,I have no idea if BP has rejected ideas that are truly feasible or not and I rather doubt that any one in the media has a clue either.  I have not seen one idea put forth from the other oil majors or from anyone that actually has a track record of performance.  

As for the containment part, it seems that the biggest impediment is an ancient labor/union law that prohibits the use of amy vehicles or devices not manned by American crews.  There is a group of skimmers (vessels) sitting idle because of this law.  Bush waived it for Katrina, Obama has yet to do so for this situation as the unions are against it.  Sure it is BP's oil, but they can not override American law.  The President keeps telling everyone  he is in charge, I wonder when they will get around to waiving the labor law.  

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4236464/law-in-need-of-revision

Thus, I share your lack of confidence in a timely and proper clean up.

ekimragz: I have no idea who you are or where you came from, but you are the one causing problems here. One insulting post after another

Go away and leave this thread to the people who were discussing the gulf problem quite rationally until you came along.

Nor are you likely to, Ken. This is the first deep water blow out.

Therefore, when 'logical' or 'it worked on land/shallow water therefore....' ideas have played themselves out and failed, someone has to say, 'time to think outside the box.' Unfortunately, it isn't BP and although I agree that the government is hardly a 'brain trust', really top notch engineering departments haven't been very vocal, either. Therefore, who's left? The people and BP.

Unfortunately the latter isn't paying much attention to the former....at least review the ideas with some experts and give the people some feedback.

As for the skimmers...someone should get on the government's ass about that. I wonder what will overcome the immense underwater plumes? What's going to contain them? I wonder which has the majority of the oil...the surface or subsurface?