Oil is hitting Pensacola beach

[Uniform Two Six]

Well, it looks like it's official. BP will pay a little less than 19 billion dollars. Less than half of the 45 billion they were supposed to get fined. On the up-side, it (probably) won't go through the litigation-hell that the Exxon Valdez disaster did. While not exactly chump-change, the $19B probably isn't going to deter future stupidity.