Poor Henry Paulsen was shaking in his boots that the promises he had made to Goldman Sachs that they would get 100 cents on the dollars they were owed by AIG would not materialize.

They got 12.9 billion dollars as a result of Paulsen's crocodile tears.

And your're right, the bankers would repeat the entire caper were they given another real estate-like vehicle to ride on.

I agree that BP would rather not have had the 'accident', but the calculated risk they took by not using the more expensive drilling equipment, plus not having the safety valve in place--saved another $500,000--has come back to bite them in the ass, and I don't feel one bit of guilt.

Canada, I understand, before anyone can drill in the North, requires the much talked about safety relief well to be drilled simultaneously alongside the production well.

I suspect Cheney and his oil company bigwigs, early on in the Bush administration, settled that and other iffy safety problems to the satisfaction of the oil companies.

If he ever was to go hunting again I would pray his shotgun would backfire. Or better yet, let a large CT SCAN van go by his car and suck out all the metal from inside him. Little exchange for all the lives he's cost in our war to obtain the rights to a future supply of oil and natural gas. (A twinge of guilt, I'll confess to.)

In response to your comment about never separating oil from government, I submit this report which you might find quite interesting. It clearly makes your point. http://mygeologypage.ucdavis.edu/cowen/~GEL115/115CH13oil.html