Still working, but never too busy to bust a conspiracy theory...

This one has to do with the BP oil well cap that was placed and seems to have stopped the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, an ongoing disaster since April. It's hard to believe that we could finally be at the end of this beginning of this disaster.

While I think that BP seems to have had an inordinate and improper influence on media coverage of the event, how skeptical should we be? A lot of people with a lot more immediately at stake than I have in the well's closing refuse to believe that the well is capped. Their doubt is understandable, but is it justified?

Well, we have BP's word, which is basically worthless. They have been weasels throughout, and I have no intention of taking what they have to say at face value. But we have other evidence, visual evidence of the cap. For what the conspiracy-minded to be true, those pictures would have to be faked or altered. (There are versions of the story where weak pressure at the point of the cap would signify that there was damage elsewhere in the line, but there are no pictures one way or the other to speak to that.)

Here's one shot. It shows only the slightest alteration, probably to bring out the colors of the rig in the murky water. And another shows similar slight, slight alteration.

While I have every reason to have no faith in BP's emergency management technology, I'm not seeing any reason to doubt that the cap is on and working right now.

HJ