Pressure mounts on coal king

Is Don Blankenship the baddest guy in America? He is the chairman of Massey Energy, the company that blows up the mountains of West Virginia because that is the cheapest way of mining coal. A big man of 58 with a jutting moustache, he is a real-life version of Daniel Day-Lewis as the ruthless oilman of There Will Be Blood, nominated for an Oscar.

Blood has been spilled by coal miners in the Appalachian Mountains for years, most notoriously at a strike-break in 1921 just a few miles from where Blankenship was born. But at least the mines themselves did not scar the landscape back then. They were buried in hillbilly 'hollers', forested with hickory and hemlock.

Blankenship, who signed up