As I have said repeatedly, the best solution in the Gulf would have been for the government to get the FUCK out of the way of the engineers. And here’s proof.
The cap that eventually stopped the oil from flowing was nearly pulled about a day after it was installed in mid-July because pressure readings looked so low that they indicated a leak elsewhere in the system. BP wanted the cap left in place and the well to stay shut, but government science advisers were firm and near unanimous in wanting the cap removed because of fear of a bigger, more catastrophic spill, the report said.
One scientist took a cell phone picture of pressure readings and e-mailed it to a government researcher in California for advice.
Just using that cell phone photo, Paul Hsieh, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist, created a model to explain what was happening under the cap and how — despite low pressure readings — there was no leak. He was convinced the containment cap wouldn’t blow. He got more data, which bolstered his case.
And he turned out to be right.
Engineers ∞, government 0.
H/T.
Ideas about how things should be
That should read “Ideas about how things should be [less-than sign] readings based on quantifiable units”.
rackin’ frackin’ HTML
Ampersand-lt-semicolon (<) is your friend 🙂