I don't know if I should be blogging this, but I picked up a small stake of BP today. The price drop just seemed like too good of an opportunity to pass up.

The only thing is, oil is a dirty business. Dirty in the sense that they are not surrounded by a lot of warm and fuzzy vibes. A lot of people are upset with "big oil" for the high gas prices, and now, what is shaping up to be one of the biggest ecological disasters in oil history.

And although I am no fan of greedy corporate fat cats, I'm not sure that's really the case here. I mean, it's not like BP wanted an accident like this to happen. No one does. And although I did not like the CEO's first reaction (blaming it on Transocean for mishandling the rig), at least they did come out and vow to pay for the clean up.

Bottom line, as much as I can understand about the anger over BP, I also believe the market is unfairly punishing it right now. It's still a quality stock with a huge dividend, and now, it's selling at a substantial discount. So, I bought a small stake.

I have a limit sell in place, but I may sell earlier pending any legislative changes regarding offshore drilling in the gulf. But mostly, I'm just going to sit on it and collect the 7% (at the time) dividend.