I have comforted myself a bit by falling back into my natural cynicism and fatalism. My ability to "embrace the horror" is wide and deep but it isn't limitless. The apparent overall level of technical incompetence and carelessness is still maddening. Brain dead levels of stupidity, protected by arrogance, is nothing new, it has been with us seemingly since we climbed out of the trees. But at least back then the ones who got careless just got themselves and their family lunched.

The stakes are higher now. Not just the lives of oil workers and corporations. We are talking about the lives and well being of the populations of thousands of miles of coast. That and a good chunk of the US ecology and economy.

In that light the pursuit of quarterly profits and stock prices seems trivial. Which makes the numerous errors and carelessness unforgivable. This is made all the worse because corporations, and the people who run them, have no shame. The lack of empathy and shame are the defining characteristics of a sociopath.

I could go into detail what it might mean that the largest corporations and the people who run them are sociopaths but I'll leave it for your imagination.

I posted it on another thread but there are some interesting, and frequently updated maps of the situation at:

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doctype/2931/53979/