I’ve heard the American media described accurately at a bunch of 7 year-olds at a youth soccer game. There’s nothing strategic about the game; all the kids chase the soccer ball in a pack. I thought of that when I read a story about enduring sickness in the Gulf of Mexico. It didn’t come from ABC, or NBC, or CBS, or Fox News, or CNN, or any local outlet. It came from Al Jazeera.

The Presidential Oil Spill Commission has released their final report on the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Basically, they see the problems that manifested on the Deepwater Horizon well to be systemic, and ensuring the safety of rig workers and the US coastline depends on overhauling the industry completely.

Just when you thought the people of Louisiana couldn’t possibly take another shot to the face, there’s another one coming. It turns out that people who received claim money from BP could see that money taxed at the highest possible rate because the BP oil disaster wasn’t officially declared a disaster.

The oil is actually all there for the counting. No bacteria ate it. It has settled at the bottom of the Gulf, and it’s devastating the local ecosystem.

Halliburton and the other companies involved, like Transocean, have been pointing the finger at BP, and vice versa. At stake is responsibility for the tens in billions in expected fines for violating the Clean Water Act and other environmental statutes, as well as claims from individuals seeking damages.

The Oil Spill Commission’s Twitter feed actually approvingly tweeted out stories about this report, so they want it to be well-known that the government screwed up.

One explanation put forth for why President Obama and his aides are so upset with the liberal base of the Democratic Party is that they believe Obama has achieved legislative success rivaling that of President Lyndon Johnson, but the base does not appreciate this success. Even NPR’s Mara Liasson easily refuted the “success” aspect of the comparison, but the comparison to LBJ is an especially poor choice for a number of other reasons, as well.

Many penalties under the Clean Air Act base their amounts on a per-barrel rate. As much as $4,300 a barrel could be owed to the government by BP, especially if they were found liable of gross negligence in the disaster, so this increase could mean up to $1.29 billion to BP’s bottom line.

Seafood buyer Bruce Guerra, owner of Yscloskey Seafood, sums up the dilemma faced by everyone in his industry. If the state prohibits its summoned biologist from coming to test seafood about which everyone involved has questions, how can he be sure he’s buying — and selling — safe seafood?

The executive summary and the full investigation rely heavily on jargon, but they basically describe a systemic failure. However, BP cleverly sidesteps the question of well design, for which they have personal responsibility, and basically looks at the incidents on the Deepwater Horizon in a vacuum.