Well, the pro-”repeal” folks seem to have talked Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) into supporting their sham compromise, although they needed to add another step to the process to get his vote: a 60-day post-report review process to ensure Congress is happy with the certification provided by the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The White House has told various news agencies that President Obama will today extend for another six months the partial moratorium on new offshore oil drilling permits in the Gulf. In addition, he will cancel proposed leases off Alaska and Virginia.

The people here can and have lived through just about anything but losing the ability to fish, and on that note everyone in the bar ordered another round. “We have always had the water but now we have nothing.” We should all write our representatives and let them know we want BP to be held accountable for they’re actions and make sure that the businesses and communities affected by this disaster are properly compensated as well as the wildlife and coastline rehabilitated.

Barney Frank announced his conferees for the Wall Street reform bill Wednesday, and he made the important point that the focus on the specific names is a little misplaced. The views of the leadership, and the White House, and what can garner the requisite votes, will factor into the ultimate decisions as much as the specific conferees involved. Frank called his conferees “the agents of collective decision-making than autonomous deciders.”

BP ordered 125 fishermen using their boats for the cleanup effort to go home late Tuesday after four workers fell ill. A bartender reported after the call with a friend in Venice, Louisiana witnessed a fisherman back from a BP cleanup trip who “busted his skull” as he fainted from his boat onto the dock.

I loved the obligatory “campaign staff shakeup” in the wake of Randy’s oopsies.

BP is optimistic there is mud in your pipe.

Featuring a new video by Everest.

I don’t suppose there’s much point in reading Zev Chavet’s exciting new hagiography, Rush Limbaugh: He Is Ever So Dreamy, when even the timidest attack lamb of the NY Times books section is disgusted by it, and when it contains featherweight fluff of an especially featherbrained class.

What are the long-term solutions to the ongoing crisis in the Gulf of Mexico?