CBS announced the gas well in the Gulf has stopped leaking:

NEW ORLEANS Federal regulators say natural gas has stopped flowing from a well that has been ablaze in the Gulf of Mexico and remaining small flames are from gas still in the pipe.

In a Thursday news release, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement says the well “bridged over.” That means sand and sediment collapsed into the area being drilled, blocking the line.

Both BSEE and the Coast Guard have flown over the well to check this.

So they know what is happening on the floor of the Gulf by flying over the well. I hope they don’t mind that I don’t believe anything that comes out of their mouths.

University of Georgia marine scientist Samantha “Mandy” Joye is coming down to take samples and check on things. If she says the flow has stopped, I’ll believe it. I’ll believe it because she does her own research and won’t accept grants that come with non-disclosure clauses. She will tell you what she found and what she thinks it means, and doesn’t actually care what the US government or oil companies think. When she finds oil on the bottom of the Gulf, she documents it and reports even if the government and industry have been claiming that it evaporated.

So, the well has stopped leaking, just ignore the fire that continues to burn… Nothing to see here, just move along … Yeah, right 😈

Position: 16.6N 39.6W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: West-Northwest [285°] near 20 mph [32 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 50 mph [ 80 kph].
Wind Gusts: 60 mph [ 95 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 60 miles [ 95 km].
Minimum central pressure: 1001 mb ↑.

Currently about 1550 miles [2500 km] East of the northern Leeward Islands.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]

Lambert reports that the Amash-Conyers amendment lost tonight by 205 to 217, but this isn’t over. It took the combined forces of Zero and the Orange-slice to defeat it, with a supporting role by Ms Pelosi.

We at least got an open debate on the issue, and people now know who they can’t trust with their privacy, because Lambert has the link to the roll call.

Charley Pierce and Steve Bates cover the hypocrisy and ineptitude of Zero on this amendment, so I’ll go back to my own personal complaint about the concept – it doesn’t work.

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism brings a personal perspective to the program: I’m Three Hops from a Terrorist, and Therefore Probably in the NSA’s Dragnet. And You?

If they did it like a standard criminal investigation, which is handled through the regular court system, you might find something useful. You find out who is connected to the suspect, and then you determine if they are people of interest. Then you go through the same process with the people of interest. If this turns up more people of interest, you know you are dealing with worthwhile leads, and you may go well beyond 3 hops for certain specific people, because it starts to look like a network of some kind.

What NSA is doing is hoovering up hundreds to millions of people which makes it harder to find the people of interest.

Let’s get real. If this system was minimally effective, it should have spit out the name of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. He did so many things that were obvious ‘flags’, even without the Russian warning, his name should have floated to the top. They didn’t find out about him until after people died, but they claim their boondoggle is essential. This isn’t being used to find terrorists, it is being used to identify them after the fact.