The BP Oil thing

So, I'm writing this on Memorial day - yes,yes - call it what you will, I don't actually blog everyday. I blog a lot on certain days and then time the blogs to publish each day. And since I'm headed out for 2 weeks of (almost) uninterrupted travel (Albuquerque, Seattle, UK), I'm building a buffer.

I hope that by the time you read this the BP oil spill disaster has been cleaned up and they have successfully stopped the oil. But at the moment (Memorial day/last Monday etc), that is not the case and I am wondering how this could have happened.

You'd think that BP would have some sort of "Plan B" (and C and D for that matter) for disaster-like problems. They should employ a team of smart people to just think about solutions and test them out. Gas is expensive, so they can afford to pay big bucks to smart people. But maybe they had such a high safety factor that it precluded the need for a Plan B (clearly not high enough...).

Let's say BP doesn't have any smart people working for them (perhaps evidenced by their inability to solve the problem....but I digress) - they should have contacted every major smart person establishment and had everyone start brainstorming ways to stop the problem as soon as possible. It's probability - the more ideas, the higher the probability of finding a good one.

It just seems like there has got to be a better solution that sopping up the oil with leftover hair.