Postscript

The top kill has failed.

Now they're going to try a new plan, a "lower marine riser package," different sort of cap from the "top hat" tried earlier.

Great. Except that Bob Dudley, managing director of BP, said today there was "no certainty" that the plan will work. And Carol Browner, WH adviser on environment and energy, said there is a risk it could make the flow worse. And even if it "succeeds," Dudley would only promise to get "a majority" of the oil and gas spewing out. And

“We’re still looking at a month before we get this thing killed,” Les Ply, a retired mud engineering consultant for the oil industry, said yesterday in a telephone interview. “I think we’re looking at a week to 10 days to get this riser and cap in place.”

Browner called this "probably the worst environmental disaster we’ve ever faced in this country." And we are already committed to a course that will produce more.

We are, indeed, so very screwed.