It was never a big secret that offshore oil drilling is an incredibly reckless and dangerous activity. We have known all along that every offshore oil well is a ticking time bomb. Yet, look at British Petroleum's lack of preparation for the inevitable.

The oil started gushing from their well on April 20. That's right, it's over two months since this catastrophe began, and enormous amounts of oil are still flooding from there. We now know that problems at the well started at least as early as February, and British Petroleum kept it quiet as long as they could.

Yet, the earliest that British Petroleum might, might stop the oil flood is August, when they are going to drill more holes in order to try to stop the oil (and keep pumping it). If that corporation's priority was to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, they would have stopped it already. The main problem is that they insist on being able to produce from the well, so it's Spill, Baby, Spill while the Rand Pauls and Linda McMahons of the world Shill, Baby, Shill.

Even with the insistence on maintaining production, British Petroleum could have stopped the catastrophe much sooner if they had planned for it. All the materials and people that they are taking time to assemble should already have been on standby before the disaster happened. That should be a standard precaution for any corporation that engages in offshore drilling. Besides, British Petroleum had at least two months before the explosion to prepare, yet they didn't even try.

Even worse, British Petroleum's executives act like people are being unreasonable with them because they don't accept all of the delays in solving the problem. They not only act in a completely childish and arrogant way, but they actually have the nerve to act as if this completely predictable event (that was predicted by environmentalists for decades) was a surprise.

GDAEman is absolutely correct. British Petroleum's corporate charter should be revoked. That is one corporation that needs to be put to death. Then, the assets should be used to clean the Gulf, compensate the victims, and compensate the retirees.

British Petroleum is a far greater threat to civilization than Al Qaeda. It needs to go!