Is anyone really surprised?

Today's NY Times reports today that workers on the Deepwater Horizon, the doomed oil rig that was at the heart of the Gulf oil spill, were seriously concerned about safety practices, unsafe behaviors, poor equipment reliability, and lack of inspections. Not surprisingly, they were also afraid of reprisals if they spoke up about these issues.

The icing on the cake? There were multiple known problems with the blowout preventer that was supposed to have stopped exactly what happened.

Instead we're left with 11 men dead, hundreds of millions of gallons of oil spreading throughout the Gulf, economic wreckage in the region, incalculable damage to marine and wildlife habitats, and years if not decades of cleanup.