Is the IV Bag half-empty or half-full? Theda Skocpol, the author of a forthcoming book on President Barack Obama’s health care reforms, argues in the Nation that progressives are underrating reform.

Apparently, the coordinates given in this video are from a “rig [that] was toppled by Hurricane Ivan some 6 years ago. It still leaks today enough to create a plume 10 miles long.” Along with several reports of leaks on the ocean floor from the same basin into which BP was tapping in the blown out rig in April, we need to ask “How many drill holes leak?”

Dan Froomkin from Huffpo lays out info from group of scientists we need to hear from, and who can help GOM Disaster. And this will help with the next disaster, and one will occur, no doubt.

“By sinking and dispersing the oil, BP can amortize the cost of the cleanup over the next 15 years or so, as tar balls continue to roll up on the beaches, rather than dealing with the issue now by removing the oil from the water with the proper equipment,” McCallister testified earlier this week before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. “As a financial adviser, I understand financial engineering and BP’s desire to stretch out its costs of remediating the oil spill in the Gulf. By managing the cleanup over a period of many years, BP is able to minimize the financial damage as opposed to a huge expenditure in a period of a few years.”

Carol Browner, the President’s adviser on environment and climate change, said on Face the Nation that BP’s next effort after “top kill” failed to staunch the gusher could make things even worse, and that we may be facing months of uncontrolled oil/gas gushing into the Gulf.

As the controversy over BP’s refusal to switch to a less toxic dispersant rages on, it seems reasonable to take a look at the underlying chemistry and biochemistry of dispersants and oil which has been dispersed into water. The biological effects of dispersed oil depend very much on the droplet size of the dispersion, and yet this property cannot be controlled by BP as they mix dispersant with the oil leak at the ocean floor.

Both Marcy Wheeler and Kirk Murphy have responded to BP’s filing with EPA (pdf) in which BP insists that they must continue the use Corexit EC9500A as the dispersant of choice in attempting to mitigate the effects of the continuing gusher a mile beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. I want to expand on their findings to point out the intellectual dishonesty BP uses in supporting their decision to continue using Corexit.

Ken Ringle pens an interesting article over at Nieman Watchdog attacking the “drama” around the oil spill that has attracted so much attention– which he feels to be a bit over the top.

Air quality bad, independent testing good!

Is it at all possible that with the help of dispersants, BP is trying to hide the size of their colossal mess by spreading it around so thinly we can never get a handle on it? Is it possible they are trying to go on with business as usual in the mean time, right under our noses?