Criminal Charges for BP -- It's Long Past Time

Two days before the end of 2011, the Wall Street Journal reports (below) that criminal charges are about to be brought against corporations and persons responsible for the catastrophic oil "spill" in the Gulf of Mexico, caused by a preventable explosion that caused eleven preventable workers deaths.

The trial promises to be the environmental equivalent of the Nuremberg Trials.

Let those who caused this spill have a fair day in court before a jury of their peers.

Let's hope that any prison sentences are severe, and that probation includes public service -- cleaning up their mess for the next twenty years.

Let's hope the government suspends and debars BP from all government contracts, instead of the usual wrist-slap that suspension and debarment officials administer whenever the offending corporate felon is an oligopolist with powerful political connections.