By Wayne Dawkins
 
Everybody sing:
           
Smoke on the water,
Fire in the sky
 
It’s time to associate the chorus from the 1970s-era rock band Deep Purple with the BP Gulf catastrophe.
 
On day 56 of the crisis BP in collaboration with local people in Louisiana is doing controlled burning on the Gulf waters of large quantities of oil.
 
There literally is fire in the water and thick black smoke rising to the sky.
 
The spectacular burn-offs are capturing a fraction of the oil, according to Monday’s CBS News report, yet the burnings mean less oil that will drift to the coastlines.
 
BP now has me thinking of Bear Stearns. Remember them, the button-down Wall Street investment banking institution that crumbled into dust because of breathtaking greed and absence of good judgment?
 
BP now looks like the next juggernaut to end up mortally wounded because of fatal errors of judgment.
 
BP executives promised to reply later this week to this report: Halliburton officials counseled BP to proceed more cautiously in drilling at the Deepwater Horizon site and proposed specific steps, like using 21 centralizers to keep well casings secure. BP bosses however rejected the advice and used only six centralizers in order to save money, reported CBS.
 
BP’s desire to drill the well in 51 days for $96 million instead ran late and way over budget. The company is now shelling out billions of dollars to clean up the mess it made.
 
Halliburton is the oil industry powerhouse big business critics love to hate, but this time that corporation looks like it is on the side of the angels for a change.
 
Certainly these are interesting times. Gulf water is on fire, and a multinational corporation often associated with brutish decision making appear like Boy Scouts.