"Insensitive" is not the same as "inaccurate." Whatever damage is done by the leak will be significant, but as with Katrina, what we heard during the event itself was hyped beyond all reason. I tracked a number of websites for information at the time, chief among them a place called theoildrum.com. If you want an example of noise-to-signal, that was the place. The main articles were useful and informative, but every conspiracy nut on the planet descended on the comment page, preaching continental doom from myriad causes. The newspapers were only marginally better, wailing about the Loop Current and decades of destruction.

And with the deep pockets of an oil company? Oh, yes. There will be lawyers. With that much loot at stake, every two-headed chicken born for the next twenty years near that coast will be blamed on the oil leak or the mysterious "dispersant."

Not sure what a cube of gold has to do with it, unless you somehow have a reason for comparing it with the volume of the Gulf of Mexico, which would form a cube 84 miles on a side.

^You should instead be reflecting on how so little oil caused so much damage, cost so much money, and how miniscule a benefit we would have derived from it if we had managed instead to use it for its intended purpose.^

What I was hoping is that people would reflect on how much our lives are controlled by political hacks and ignorant media boobs. It will be interesting to track how much economic damage was done by the actual oil leak versus how much damage was done by government and media hysteria. How many tourists cancelled trips to clean beaches thanks to the "Geraldos" in the media?

200 million gallons of oil are more than a "miniscule benefit." The gasoline alone cracked from it (about 46 percent of the oil) would last the state of Florida for six months. I doubt BP is any happier about that being pissed away (on top of all their liabilities) than anyone else is.

I don't do "clever" here. Ends up being too much work. And as with RL, "Shame on you" does not impress me as a rational debate point.