Cowboy,

Maybe not as stupid as it seems, for some aspects of the operation. The major complicating factor in this spill is the depth of the well, there’s few people in the world who have more experience operating in a deep environment than Cameron. After Titanic he went back down and shot another, longer movie at 15,000′ depth, Ghosts of the Abyss with a pair of custom-designed cameras and lighting rigs. He’s a pretty technical and innovative dude, I don’t particularly care to hear his input on the politics of the thing but if he has some tips or suggestions on ROV operation, lighting so the engineers can see to do what they need to do or pretty much anything else, I’d welcome those contributions.

Buddy would have been very useful before the explosion, if for no other reason than to remind people of what standard and safe operating procedures are (e.g., “bottoms up”) and maybe sit there with a shotgun in the back of the BP guy until they realized that something was very, very wrong with their well.

At this point, there are no experts because there isn’t any prior experience with a gushing well at a mile below the surface of the sea. Seeing as every solution tried so far in the last 45 or so days has failed and the only sure solution is the relief well that won’t be done until August (assuming they can keep drilling through hurricane season) at the earliest, if Jim Cameron wants to plug the well with his ex-wives, well… anything is an improvement at this point.

I think maybe the worst thing I have heard so far is the trial balloon of “nationalizing” BP to be sure they pay all claims to the satisfaction of the federal government. The things the government could have done (approving the offshore sand berms, approving the surface burn) they have not done. All this crowd of morons can do is suggest the first thing that comes to hand — seizing the means of production. Does it trouble anyone else that their reflex arc runs through Das Kapital?