The very wild and extremely wonderful Whites of West Virginia are a close-knit, hard-partying, hard-living family of outlaws and misfits, Appalachian royalty, the descendants of renown mountain dancer D. Ray White and his wife the “miracle woman” Birtie Mae. Like the majority of Boone County residents, D. Ray grew up working in the coalmines. He contracted cancer and left the mines to perform his unique style of dance, but was murdered after the filming of Talking Feet, the PBS documentary about him.

While we were preoccupied, the White House quietly worked on meetings today related to intelligence and to Afghanistan.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has officially ended its intervention in the Hawaii Congressional special election to replace Neil Abercrombie, judging that the unique all-candidate, first-past-the-post format makes it likely for a Republican, Charles Djou, to score a temporary victory.

With BP struggling to develop a realistic solution to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, I tried a couple just to put the size of the slick in perspective, and imagine a) how bad things are now and b) how bad things could potentially become.

Although the occasional cipher has been thrust into the highest levels of the Washington political scene in the past (see, for example, Dan Quayle) it seems that the process of driving substance out of the picture has accelerated since John McCain’s inexplicable choice of Sarah Palin to be his running mate. Now that President Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court has been revealed to be Elena Kagan, whose primary accomplishment to date has been to leave no record, instead of the clearly superior and substantial candidate Diane Wood, it seems that substance is in retreat in a way never seen before.

The Department of Health and Human Services has helpfully pointed out to insurance companies how they can avoid the requirement that dependents can stay on their parent’s policies until the age of 26: “The new policy applies only to health insurance plans that offer dependent coverage in the first place: while most insurers and employer-sponsored [...]

Republicans no longer need to prove that Democrats are incapable of governing. The Democrats are doing that job for them.

The White House is poised to name Don Verrilli, an associate White House counsel, as solicitor general after Elena Kagan is confirmed to the Supreme Court.

At least 200,000 gallons of oil spurted into the Gulf of Mexico yesterday. Another 200,000-plus will spurt today. BP has yet to find a resolution to this crisis which has lasted three weeks. And the massive slick is on the move.

Since the Conservative Party won the most MPs in the British elections last week, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has sought an alliance with the Tories in high-level talks. But Liberal Dem MPs have not fully endorsed the measure, seeking assurances that their key issues – many of which are at odds with the Conservatives – would get addressed in any power-sharing arrangement. Seeking the advantage, Labour has initiated talks with the Liberal Dems aimed at their own minority government coalition. And Labour leader Gordon Brown has added a new wrinkle to those negotiations by announcing that he will step down as Prime Minister.