nietzsche wrote:I'm a bit late but the first 3 facts are, as you say, scary and should be investigated.
BP is a huge company and has had, always has various internal problems and issues.
However, to leap from that to "this spill was intentional" is to pick something simple instead of the more complicated truth.
The truth is that BP might or might not be a bit worse than other oil companies. They were less lucky. They did contract with Haiburton, a company that seems to pop up everywhere and who, well I would not trust to collect my garbage. That said, I base that opinion on what I saw in Iraq, other things. I don't know that they were considered that bad a company for this type of work (before this accident happened, that is). Even if there were some "issues", they are the kind of thing that is much more obvious after the fact, not before. BP made a bad choice, but again, any worse than other companiess? No, but again, they were less lucky.
Let's, however look at the broader framework. We live in a country that considers oil, as a resource to be among the most important resources out there. Whether you believe we actually went to Iraq because of oil or not is irrelevant. Our government, this country has done many, many things for the sake of oil. Oil is an absolute priority.
The Gulf, by contrast, is very, very important to fishermen. It is important for commerce in many ways other than oil and plain shipping. However, a lot of those things are more "touchy feely" and "esoteric" issues. Sea turtles -- nice, if we have the money and time. Else? Are we really going to die off this planet if they are gone? Same with just about every species out there. (note, this is not what I believe, but it is what a lot, a lot of people "out there" truly believe).
Was it cooincidence that funding for all that research was cut very, very heavily, during the administration of someone who just happens to have heavy ties to the oil industry? Maybe, maybe not. That same administration was big on cutting government, in general. They also took a very, very dim view of almost all environmental regulations, flat out telling agencies to ignore significant portions of the clean air and water acts, not to mention the endangered species act. Many species were given lower priority, and all evidence seems to indicate that a big part of why was economic pressure.. as in people who felt their business-making activities would be too heavily curtailed if the designations were not reduced or held the same.
Add in the heavy decrease in science education, particularly natural resource education, real understanding of WHY putting oil rigs up is harmful to all of us, perhaps much more harmful (in the long term) than doing without that oil. Right now, most people don't even know enough to ask the right questions. (more now, since this incident) I definitely do NOT mean stupid, uneducated people, either. I mean those among our supposed "best and brightest" who just have not been given enough information to really questiong these decisions.
So, was all of that Bush's fault. No. Was it largely his fault? I don't know. He was the one most in the position to have reversed those trends or who, at the least, did not have to continue full force in making them worse. Still, I don't believe any of this was by intentional design. (If it was, then it would be because he believed in the "end-timer" scenario, because I do not truly believe that guy was as stupid as he made out to be... however, he may well have just not looked into these issues all that well). If you live in a society that values any form of oil over any endangered species, (which we truly do, despite some blips to the contrary), then you will act on that peradigm.
The ultimate problem, then is not BP, Bush or Obama. The ultimate problem is this whole peradigm that places oil and other energy resources, use of resources in general well above any long-term sustainable natural systems. Our whole system is designed to benefit most from growth, from use of resources. Long-term perpetuation is the anathema of those concepts. Sustainability is often the enemy of growth. So, the decisions are made to benefit growth and we wind up with an economy that is utterly and fundamentally unsustainable.
If we want to move away from BP-style accidents, if we even have time, we need to more fully and completely toward more sustainable systems. But that means fundamentally changing everything from tax laws to income structures to the way resources are even owned. I don't see it happening any time soon. So, we will face more of this. Maybe not oil spills in the Gulf, no, but many other tragedies.
I just remember I have a cousin who work with Golden Slacks. I'll give him a ring and find out why they sold those stocks. Remember that these guys are in some major shit right now, but I still just don't understand why they would do all these to gain "x" 
