> "If someone's hair catches on fire on Monday at 3pm, then BP's first attempt to put out that person's hair fire is at 8pm, then next on Wednesday, then next about 2 weeks later (failing again), then 2 weeks later the next attempt, etc."

Fixing a large fissure deep under the ocean is not at all like putting someone out of fire. To even make such a comparison betrays a severe lack of understanding about the magnitude the difficulties of such a problem.

Honestly, I'm trying to be as civil as possible here, but your attitude aggravates me. You are laying down serious claims of impropriety on the part of all of the scientists and engineers who are working on this problem based on your, let's be honest, uneducated notions about what plugging an underwater leak is like. If you are going to accuse others of such grievous impropriety, you should at least make some effort to be qualified to make the judgment. As it is you are, like many others, armchair geological engineers.

> "Also, this is one of the cases where the fundamental elements of the problem are actually pretty simple: oil leaking into water"

Jesus. Fucking. Christ. I'm not sure how much more you can oversimplify that. Would you also characterize your car's engine as a fire burning in a confined space? Or how about let's use your extensive experience with bottle rockets to criticize NASA engineers? I suppose absolute zero is a lot like the inside of your freezer, too, just colder.

> "Lots of ways to do that. Yes it is deep. Yes high pressure."

Uh-huh. I really like how you've just completely dismissed two of the most bleeding-edge limits of human technology, understanding, and ingenuity with a wave of your hand. Yep, it's deep, yep, it's high pressure, but surely our trained scientists will breeze right past those minor inconveniences! Otherwise what the hell are they good for, if they can't even make mincemeat of such minor roadblocks like being 5000 feet under the ocean?

> "With a decent background in physics and engineering I think one can come up with lots of solutions and tactics that would work."

As someone with a decent background in engineering, I would like to know what in the blue hell would lead you to believe this. Our scientists and engineers are smart, talented people, they are not magicians.

> "What angers a lot of people in this case is the sense that BP and friends did not do this."

Good misdirection. You started off by criticizing the people in charge of plugging this hole, saying that because of the long delay between each try to plug the well, they are clearly not trying hard enough, and that lay advice would be useful to these people who clearly don't know WTF they are doing. Now you're steering this into a criticism of oil regulations - which has nothing to do with the original topic at hand.

Free speech is awesome - everyone should have the right to say whatever they want. It does not, however, make you a qualified commentator on everything and anything. "It can't be that complicated" is all too common a sentiment with laymen, and I'm particularly disappointed that a tech-savvy crowd, who has to deal with the limitations of scientific and engineering understanding everyday, is so easily susceptible to this.