We'll go down and smell around

Apparently nothing on the rig worked at all. BOP didn't work, cement didn't work, and it's also possible the rig crew wasn't following the safest procedure at the time of the explosion.

In order to properly cap a well, drillers rely on three lines of defense to protect themselves from an explosive blowout: a column of heavy mud in the well itself and in the drilling riser that runs up to the rig; at least two cement plugs that fit in the well with a column of mud between them; and a blowout preventer that is supposed to seal the well if the mud and plugs all fail.

In the case of the Deepwater Horizon, Scott Bickford, a lawyer for a rig worker who survived the explosions, said the mud was being extracted from the riser before the top cement cap was in place, and a statement by cementing contractor Halliburton confirmed the top cap was not installed

Perhaps the companies responsible for making sure these things worked would have taken the issue more seriously if they had been given the impression that someone was going to hold them accountable when something went wrong. Turns out they weren't even required to file a contingency plan for this sort of emergency.

Petrochemical giant BP didn't file a plan to specifically handle a major oil spill from an uncontrolled blowout at its Deepwater Horizon project because the federal agency that regulates offshore rigs changed its rules two years ago to exempt certain projects in the central Gulf region, according to an Associated Press review of official records.

Now why would Minerals Management Service employees feel at liberty to take such a relaxed attitude toward their mission? Well, yeah, they kind of felt that way about a lot of things.

Government officials in charge of collecting billions of dollars worth of royalties from oil and gas companies accepted gifts, steered contracts to favored clients and engaged in drug use and illicit sex with employees of the energy firms, federal investigators reported yesterday.

That's right. The regulators were actually literally in bed with representatives of the industry they were supposed to police. I just hope those oil lobby-whores were damn good lays because they sure did turn out to cost a lot of shrimp.

Note: Even if you go out and get the biggest toughest condom you can find, it doesn't do anywhere near as much good if you wait until the load is shot before you put it on.

And all of this says nothing about what kind of a deal they managed to swing for Senator Landrieu but we assume it was some good shit because..

Meanwhile there is renewed discussion of the lovely smell wafting over New Orleans from the south tonight. It's difficult to describe exactly. It's kind of a charred chemical sweetness. Somebody, I think it was Pat, described it as melting crayons but that's not quite strong enough. When I was a kid, I had this friend who liked to melt Star Wars action figures with a butane lighter. I think it smells like somebody barbecued a pile of Boba Fetts outside tonight. Maybe that goes well with iced tea but I haven't seen any yet.