• good Over a couple of days of testing, BP has found that the well hasn’t leaked any oil since the cap was put on.
• better Rather than removing it, they’re going to leave it on for testing until they have a permanent solution. Hooray! source

• It’s held up pretty well so far, but they just want to ensure its safety. There haven’t been any leaks in the spill as of yet, but you know, they don’t want to force the issue. So it’ll continue on beyond the 48-hour timeframe they originally gave themselves. They also want to check the seafloor to see if any gas or oil is leaking, just to be on the safe side. Feel confident about this process, guys – they’re trying to base everything they’re doing on science, not on the whims of a bunch of idiots. source

• 6,745 pounds per square inch of pressure in the oil well
• two number of pounds this level is increasing per hour source

• » Why this is good: Simply put, if there’s high pressure in the well, it means the cap can hold up without sporting a new leak. Point guy Thad Allen says that if the level were to get above 7,500 pounds per square inch, it’s would show the cap his high integrity, but if it were to go down, it would suggest that a leak sprung up somewhere.

• YES which is a very positive sign; hopefully it keeps up source

• Let’s face it, guys. We’re all really optimistic that BP’s latest ploy actually contained the oil spill for good. Heck, BP’s stock went up significantly in the immediate aftermath of the news. But as our boy Jake “Dr. Buzzkill” Tapper put it, we’re not out of the woods yet. There’s much more to deal with. But, instead of being party poopers like Tapper, who is probably upset about his pending exit from “This Week,” let’s bask in this moment for a second – no new oil is flooding the Gulf of Mexico. A quick breakdown from us:

What 85 days looks like

• 7,403,100 seconds of oil leakage

• 123kminutes of exciting oil spillage fun to deal with
• 2,056 hours of oil-spilling excitement for the the whole family
• 185M gallons of oil flooded the Gulf in the meantime; hooray!

The major players in the spill

• 40%of people polled in June disapproved of Obama’s oil spill performance
• 70% of people in the same poll thought BP sucked at their job source

• fourvisits by Obama to the Gulf Region
• 31 days since Obama last visited the Gulf
• 26 days since Tony Hayward went yachting

So, what’s next?

• oneBP will continue its testing of the method, which will last around 48 hours.
• two BP will then go back to its old system, recovering 80,000 barrels a day.
• three BP will remain busy, working on a permanent relief well solution. source

• good Our good friends at BP have put a tighter cap on the well, with the goal of stopping the oil leak altogether.
• bad Oh, there’s between 89 million and 176 million gallons of oil that have already leaked over 83 days. (Just sayin’.) source

• 162 cases of illness due to the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster
• 128 are oil rig workers or assisting in the spill’s cleanup source

• » What did they get? The most common illnesses were things like throat irritation, shortness of breath, cough, eye irritation, nausea and headaches – considering all the oil around, this seems totally understandable.

• There are things the administration could implement today that would allow the industry to go back to work tomorrow without an arbitrary six-month time limit.
• Transocean CEO Steven Newman • Arguing that the U.S. should back off its somewhat controversial deepwater drilling ban. (His company ran the Deepwater Horizon.) He’s not alone – the BBC quotes Chevron and BP execs (not Tony Hayward) saying similar things. The oil industry is pushing against the regulations and a court decision about the drilling ban is forthcoming. Haley Barbour got a lot of crap about making a similar statement recently, despite the fact that BP is paying workers who have been laid off due to the spill. source

• The blocking off of drilling affected thousands of Gulf Coast jobs. As bad as the oil spill is, the side effect of stopping offshore drilling to get regulators back in lockstep was nearly as damaging for the region’s economy. When the new regulations are put into place as soon as Tuesday, expect new rules on shallow water oil and gas drilling. Also, the White House is considering canning the liability cap on oil spills, because, well, hey, BP can afford to pay for the mess. source

• 
  Thad Allen just scared usWant to feel something hit the pit of your stomach? Watch this clip, where Thad “this oil spill needs a hero” Allen says in very plain terms that the spill is going to be with us well into the fall. Let’s hope a hurricane doesn’t plow through in the meantime. *fingers crossed*
• 
  Obama the GOP’s “Enemy”? On “Fox News Sunday,” Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who has a reasonable beef with Obama over the response to the oil spill, compared him to a Napoleon quote about watching your enemy self-destruct. The key phrase there is not “self-destruct.” It’s “enemy.”
• 
  He only wrote the lyricsWhether or not the news cycle has just gotten faster or what, comedian Bruce Fine was able to take Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and focus it on everything that’s happened during the Obama administration. The Joel version covered 50 years. Whoa.