Salazar says drilling companies made “some very major mistakes”; Expert reviewer finds well’s cement seal “was probably faulty” and inadequately tested (to save money); Explosion occured while BP executives were on board “celebrating the rig’s safety record”!

We now know with pretty high confidence the three main, interrelated, underlying causes of the BP’s oil disaster:  Hubris, recklessness, and arrogance.  So the metaphor is as much Goldman Sachs as that other great maritime disaster — the Titanic.

And if BP turns out to be guilty of malfeasance, too — violating its federal permit — as the NYT suggested — then you’d have the Four Horseman of Oilpocalypse.

Reporting over the weekend has also given us a pretty good idea of the proximate cause, which, as we’ll see, appears intimately tied to the underlying causes.

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UPDATE:  As noted below, Rehm’s show always made clear that this show would be trumped by an Obama announcement on his Supreme Court nominee.  And so it goes.

Thanks for all your suggestions.  They will be put to good use.  And the show may get reprised in the future.

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U-VA faculty Senate: Cuccinelli actions threaten “our ability to generate the knowledge upon which informed public policy relies.”

Climate scientist Ken Caldeira commented on my recent post, “WashPost: University of Virginia should fight AG Cuccinelli’s faulty investigation of Michael Mann.”

Since it’s well worth reading, I am reprinting it below — along with the powerful conclusion of the University of Virginia Faculty Senate Executive Council statement.

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Our guest reviewer is John Atcheson, who has more than 30 years in energy and the environment with government, private industry, and the nation’s leading think tanks.  He is working on his own novel about climate change.

Ian McEwan writes sentences that are works of art.  They glisten as if they were laid down in gold leaf with a silvered quill.

And sometimes he writes great novels as well.

But not this time. Solar still sports some to the best writing in the English language, and from almost anyone else, it would have to be considered a success, but it may signal an emerging weakness in McEwan’s oeuvre.

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Florida Panhandle politicians who had been ardent offshore drilling advocates are changing their tune as the BP oil disaster begins harming their constituents.  Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has the story in this repost.

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