nations. Fractalman, I appreciate that this is an emotional issue to you, but making baseless accusations about what kind of future I want and what I do for a living make you look kind of foolish. Deepwater was documented as "a nightmare," remember (Brian somebody, right?), and the cementing was found to not have been handled particularly well.  Yet, they pumped at the designed capacity until the rig suffered the spectacular failure.  We could argue whether if the fault "really" lies with BP or Halliburton, but with Halliburton's own track record (known contaminated water supplied to soldiers, for example), anybody hiring them (and not bothering to monitor the work -- skipping the bond log, in this case) should share the blame as you would if, say, you designed a carbon credit exchange with the help of Ken Lay. There were other cost-cutting moves that were considered risky by anybody who looked at them at the time.  It's a pattern. I hear what you're saying about a business needing to mitigate risks, but I wasn't talking in the abstract; the evidence is simply not in your favor.  There's a definite trend toward deliberately increasing the risk and settling cases or diluting blame when a lawsuit is possible. As for energy use, there's also a parallel problem with the automotive industry, isn't there?  Doubling the price for an electric car (which is four motors with wheels, a battery, and a chair, basically) is clearly not meant to push people towards conservation.  And