I’m not much of a carpenter, but I have spent enough time with wood to learn the woodworker’s mantra, which is to measure twice and cut once. It’s a bit of pragmatism that can be applied to lots of things. Measure twice, cut once. Take all necessary precautions before committing yourself to a cut that may waste lumber or weaken the structure.
Precaution. The word itself has the necessary lessons built into it. There’s abundant folk wisdom of this kind, most of it ingrained in us by the time we reach middle school. “Better safe than sorry,” for instance, or “Look before you leap.” Even more commonly, there’s the Boy Scout creed, “Be prepared.”
Despite the ubiquity of such sensible notions, BP chose not to have a backup well in case of an eventuality like the one we’re all now paying for in the Gulf of Mexico. In order to save the millions a relief well would have cost, they made a corporate decision to proceed without a contingency plan, which is why we’ve seen them fumbling with Rube Goldberg solutions since the rig blew up back in April.
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