Okay, for any Firedogs and Wheelheads following the big Top Kill moonshot (link is to a great Oil Drum explanation) going on, this is an open discussion thread. If you need a link, CNN has a live feed linked on their front page, here is the NPR feed. If folks have better ones, put them [...]

I pull into a parking space and Ivan and I talk about what to do. I turn my head and watch two National Guard members pull up their golf cart to a green dumpster. They unload big, orange oil booms one by one from the back of the cart, and throw them into the dumpster.

Now here’s some change I can believe in.

Opening statements by the Democratic and Republican chairs of the House Natural Resource Committee tell us the only point of oversight hearings is to ask for a few fixes so we can go back to killing people and destroying the environment.

This administration has been through one budget cycle. Mistakes like this are either unconscionable or deliberate. The $500 million for border security attached to a National Guard presence gets tossed in at the last minute, and a teacher funding bill which has been on the priority list for two weeks gets scuttled amidst mixed messages. Can’t anyone here play this game?

I call bullshit on Carol Browner’s media blitzed fib. Now if only I could ground a few government officials and put some BP/Transocean/Halliburton personnel in time out.

Blue Dogs are probably balking at the extent of the spending that doesn’t get an offset, if not the end of the tax break for wealthy contributors money managers. Put it this way, if it gets a vote in the House, it’ll pass; if not, all bets are off.

This sham DADT repeal might be in trouble given House Armed Services Chair Ike Skelton’s opposition. It can’t go through committee; it’ll need to be brought up on the House floor.

Looking over the edge of the pier, a light sheen of oil stays as the tide recedes. You can see the orange red tint of oil on the beach, as new oil hangs around. There’s a bird eating a dead bird while standing in the oil sheen. While not oiled itself, the bird is right in the thick of what’s there.

Back when the House Commerce Committee had its first hearing on the BP Disaster, Rep. Henry Waxman revealed some inconsistencies about the negative pressure test BP did on the well before it moved to close off the well. Waxman has now offered an interim report on what happened.