CNN reports that Medical marijuana stores firebombed in Montana.

Actual Molotov cocktails were used and set two stores on fire with the message “Not in our town” spray painted on the wall, but this isn’t terrorism. No, this is a state arson case, although ATF has been contacted for technical assistance.

I guess the Attorney General only gets involved in failed arsons, not real ones. 😈

The BBC reports that Gordon Brown ‘stepping down as Labour leader’, which is not a surprise, given the poor showing of the party in the election, but everyone assumed that he would be replaced as a matter of course at the party’s next conference.

The timing of the announcement seems to be tied to negotiations over the next government, Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats has always maintained that he wouldn’t work for, or even with, Gordon Brown, so it would appear that the timing was to make it possible for Labour and the LibDems to get down to some serious horse trading.

Clegg may just be using this to prove to the Conservatives that he has options, so the Tories had better improve what was on offer, or Clegg’s membership may have indicated that they don’t want to cut a deal with the Tories.

Of course the “moneyed interests” have their knickers in a twist that this wasn’t settled election night. They want to know who they have to bribe and/or invite to parties so their crimes won’t be noticed.

At 10:00AM CDT the Leak Meter hit 4,200,000 gallons which is 100,000 barrels of oil. That is a minimum figure which other people think is off by a factor of 5.

The Pensacola News Journal carried the report: Oil leak is 5 times greater than reported by officials

The amount of oil gushing from BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil disaster is five times more than what the oil company and the U.S. Coast Guard are currently estimating, said a Florida State University oceanography professor on Saturday.

At an oil spill environmental forum at the Hilton Pensacola Beach Gulf Front, Ian MacDonald said the blowout is gushing 25,000 barrels a day.

The Coast Guard and BP estimate 5,000 barrels a day of crude is spewing into the Gulf.

MacDonald said his estimate is based on satellite images and government maps forecasting the slick’s trajectory.

Florida universities and colleges have formed the Oil Spill Academic Task Force (OSATF) to provide as much information as possible about the spill, but they are facing a desert of data from BP and the government who are treating the spill as classified. I understand about BP, they are a corporation and lie, stall, and stonewall reflexively, but the government needs to start acting with some transparency if they don’t want to look like an unindicted co-conspirator in BP’s problems.

I fail to understand why Florida’s government refuses to back water-sampling in the Gulf. They are going to need facts when they file suit against BP to be reimbursed, and this would provide them. BP has a long history of not paying until being sued, so the state should be working on the law suit now.