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The New York Times devoted a big chunk of its front page one day last week to noting that much of the spilled BP Deepwater Horizon oil has "dissipated." Most of it, in fact. And to scant noticeable ill-effect -- at least so far -- relative to the apocalyptic rhetoric attending weeks of televised video footage that showed oil rushing from the ocean floor. It's not clear how much oil actually spilled; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute expert Dr. Judy McDowell estimates that between 96 million and 184 million gallons made its way into the Gulf before the leak was capped...

<p>Teams of scientists working with the U.S. government estimate that 62,000 barrels of oil a day—or a total of 4.9 million barrels—leaked into the Gulf of Mexico from the shattered well operated by BP PLC government agencies said Monday.</p> <p>The new estimate exceeds scientists' previous estimate. That one said the Macondo well was gushing between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels of oil a day after the April 20 blast aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig, which BP had leased to drill the well.</p>

AP EXCLUSIVE: Salazar Keeps Oil Drill Ban, For NowVisiting Oil Production Rigs, Salazar Says Deepwater Drilling Ban To Continue July 31, 2010 **SNIP** Salazar told the AP he believes the industry-wide moratorium imposed after BP's Gulf oil spill was the correct call. "I think we're in the right direction," he said, adding that the ultimate goal is to allow deepwater operations to resume safely. "We're not there yet," he said. "I've got a lot of questions about drilling safety," Salazar said. "I learned a lot about the different kinds of rigs out there - the different limitations in terms of...

Many Americans are proud of where they come from; this is no less true of the people of the Gulf Coast. Human interest stories have gripped viewers and readers following the news about the BP oil spill, which often highlights the locals’ pride in their roots...Many in Mississippi and Louisiana are also understandably weary of an often unresponsive federal bureaucracy. United States Congressman Gene Taylor (D-Miss), who represents the seacoast, said of the federal response, “I’m having Katrina flashbacks,” and called the current administration’s efforts “incompetent.”...he men and women of the Gulf Coast who take to the water to practice...

Now that BP engineers have managed to place a cap on the company's bleeding well in the Gulf, the sprawling oil slicks seem to have retreated from the water's surface, claimed many media reports this week. "Where is all the oil?" an AFP headline asked. Time magazine ran a piece suggesting that the environmental impact of the spill has been "exaggerated." The New York Times ran a story that said the "Gulf oil spill is vanishing fast." And this very news organization ran a story suggesting that oil-gobbling microbes are eating up a lot the oil. These reports have angered...

WASHINGTON, D.C., Jul 28 - The CLEAR Act is being sold as a response to the Gulf oil spill crisis, yet the bill itself stretches far beyond addressing this tragedy to include page after page of provisions that are unrelated to the oil spill, will kill American jobs, and are premature by acting before Congress has the full facts from the numerous ongoing investigations into the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill. The Obama Moratorium on deepwater drilling has already cost tens of thousands of jobs and this bill will eliminate even more American energy jobs by making it harder and...

The latest version of the CLEAR Act is slated for a floor vote in the House this week as Democrats look for ways to use the Gulf oil spill as a means to pass elements of their unpopular energy agenda. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stripped out authorization for an independent investigation into the Gulf disaster.  The Natural Resources Committee unanimously passed the amendment in committee markup July 14 offered by Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) that would establish a bipartisan, independent, National Commission on Outer Continental Shelf Oil Spill Prevention. Unlike the commission set up by President Obama -- packed only with...

Energy: A new analysis of the effects of the offshore drilling moratorium shows more to worry about than beaches and tourism. Massive job loss and economic hardship lie ahead, and we're doing it on purpose. It's been 100 days since the Deepwater Horizon disaster cast a pall over America's energy future while endangering the environment onshore and off. Whether it was due to negligence or the inherent dangers of deep-water drilling, it pales in comparison to the self-inflicted wound of increased energy regulation and taxes and the Obama administration's moratorium. President Obama has succeeded in turning a crisis into an...

Link only - Missing oil in Gulf baffles officials

This is incredible. Very, very well done. Anybody know who this video creator is?

From the Useful Info Nation Humor Page: Michelle Obama Expands Obesity Program to Include Oil-Eating Microbes "I feel that these microbes are setting a bad example for our children by eating more than their fair share of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico," explained the First Lady as she waved goodbye to Bo, who had just boarded a plane to the Catskills. "There's no oil left for the birds or otters. Or Barack and the DNC." Mrs. Obama has decided to expand her childhood obesity program to include fungi and oil-eating bacteria, which has decimated Democrats' attempts at successfully...

NEW ORLEANS -- One hundred days after the rig explosion that set off the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, the oil giant behind it is hoping to move beyond the losses, the gaffes and the live video that ran for weeks of the busted well coughing up massive amounts of crude every second. BP is replacing CEO Tony Hayward with Managing Director Robert Dudley, selling $30 billion in assets and setting aside $32.2 billion to cover the long-term cost of the spill. It's also claiming a $9.88 billion tax credit in the second quarter based on the $32.2...

ABC actually beat them to the punch on this story, reporting yesterday that clean-up crews are having trouble even finding the spill (“experts say an astonishing amount has disappeared, reabsorbed into the environment”), but only now that the Times is on it will it really break big.It’s not that the oil’s all gone, of course. But a lot of it is. And the rest is … hiding. Scientists said the rapid dissipation of the surface oil was probably due to a combination of factors. The gulf has an immense natural capacity to break down oil, which leaks into it at...

Here is a very interesting interview with Dan Juneau, President of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI). LABI is a combination of the state chamber of commerce and the state manufactures organization and represents the business interests of the state. There are 35,000 members, companies of all sizes in the Pelican State. Juneau discusses how bad this oil moratorium will be on the economy of the entire Gulf region. See the video at Publiusforum.com...

The Coast Guard has gathered evidence it failed to follow its own firefighting policy during the Deepwater Horizon disaster and is investigating whether the chaotic spraying of tons of salt water by private boats contributed to sinking the ill-fated oil rig, according to interviews and documents.

Link only - Re-opened Gulf waters cause for celebration (with photos)

Commercial fishing east of Mississippi River could reopen this weekChris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune Updated: Tuesday, July 27, 2010, 10:43 AM Many shrimpers and fishers are using their boats to lay boom or otherwise help in the BP oil cleanup, but reopening commercial fishing grounds would mean they can get back to the work they love. Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune After extensive lab testing and negotiations between state fisheries managers and the federal government, commercial fishing in most areas east of the Mississippi River could resume by the end of this week, more than 100 days after the beginning of the...

North Dakota and Alaska have added the most jobs, while Nevada, California and Florida have lost the most, in the last five years, according to research released on Monday. The study of U.S. employment trends found 40 states had fewer jobs in May 2010 than they did five years earlier, according to Portfolio.com, a business news site that published the research of private-sector employment conducted by American City Business Journals. In first place, North Dakota added 21,300 jobs, and Alaska followed by adding 10,100 jobs from 2005 to 2010, it said. North Dakota saw an increase of 3,200 jobs in...

For 86 days, oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's damaged well, dumping some 200 million gallons of crude into sensitive ecosystems. BP and the federal government have amassed an army to clean the oil up, but there's one problem -- they're having trouble finding it. At its peak last month, the oil slick was the size of Kansas, but it has been rapidly shrinking, now down to the size of New Hampshire. Today, ABC News surveyed a marsh area and found none, and even on a flight out to the rig site Sunday with the Coast Guard,...

The numbers don't lie: two weeks ago, skimmers picked up about 25,000 barrels of oily water. Last Thursday, they gathered just 200 barrels. Still, it doesn't mean that all the oil that gushed for weeks is gone. Thousands of small oil patches remain below the surface, but experts say an astonishing amount has disappeared, reabsorbed into the environment. "[It's] mother nature doing her job," said Ed Overton, a professor of environmental studies at Louisiana State University.