While NOAA is publicly backing down from the press reports of giant plumes of oil below the surface in the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon spill, it is interesting to look at the research plans that NOAA previously put into place for dealing with oil spills. The most recent five year research plan from NOAA (pdf) has some interesting tidbits that relate to the ongoing spill and NOAA’s response, especially when it comes to the question of oil below the surface.

Tuesday was a bad day for Washington establishment candidates and a bad day for conservative Democrats. All three establishment favorites performed poorly in the May 18 elections — and President Obama also fared badly as an endorser.

Note: Marcy Wheeler has been called away but asked me to write up something one of her commenters found. It’s a presentation by an MMS official, who worked for "retiring" MMS head Chris Oynes, describing a "field test" the industry performed on the possibility of a deepwater blowout. View the presentation. As we watch newly [...]

This is the third weekly livestream of the Closed Door Debt Commission brought to you by SocialSecurityWorks.org. The best action is around 9:15am and 11:30am, right as members of the commission are entering and leaving.

• Down goes Arlen.
• Blanche, denied.
• And sounding a little desperate.
• Mitch McConnell, teabagged.
• The GOP’s epic fail in PA.
• A Tuesday night recap.
• The anti-establishment triple play.

Commence the over-broad conclusions of the poorly attended primaries before the slightly less badly attended midterm elections.

A Chorus Line — One.

An Alabama moran [sic] of a geometry teacher used the example of assassinating President Barack Obama as a way to teach angles to his geometry students.

Two big wins tonight so far for the real Democrats, Joe Sestak and Jack Conway. Both races were just called in the past hour. In Kentucky, Jack Conway won the close Democratic Senate primary race against conservative Democrat Dan Mongiardo. While by no means a liberal, Conway was to the left of Mongiardo on many [...]

Most of the Philadelphia vote is in, and Arlen Specter didn’t get the turnout he needs to beat Joe Sestak. AP is calling it for Sestak. Ed Rendell has a few words to eat from May 2009: ED SCHULTZ: Is this going to be a slam dunk for Arlen Specter, or you think that Joe [...]