As part of the oncoming public and private health coverage changes everybody is going to have to deal with soon, the US government just updated their major healthcare.gov website with a Spanish-only version.

According to a press release from the US Department of Health and Human Services, a new website called CuidadodeSalud.gov was just launched, and is… “the first website in Spanish of its kind to help consumers take control of their health care by connecting them to new information and resources that will help them access quality, affordable health care coverage.”

“Consistent with the mandate in the Affordable Care Act, CuidadodeSalud.gov is the partner site of HealthCare.gov, which was launched in July 2010, and is the first website in Spanish to provide consumers with both public and private health coverage options tailored specifically for their needs in a single, easy-to-use tool.”

“In addition, the website is a one-stop-shop for information about the implementation of the Affordable Care Act as well as other health care resources. The website connects consumers to quality rankings for local health care providers as well as preventive services.”

“CuidadodeSalud.gov is particularly important for Latinos, who have the highest rates of un-insurance in the nation—more than one in three Latinos are uninsured. Without healthcare coverage, Latinos have less access to care. Latinos are only half as likely to have a usual source of primary care, and half of Latinos do not have a regular doctor. Twenty percent of low-income Latino youth have gone a year without a health care visit – a rate three times higher than that for high-income Whites.”

If nothing else, I am glad the government is giving out information on this oncoming healthcare brontosaurus to everyone possible.

Click here to see the official English press release from HHS, or you can click here to read the official Spanish press release about the new site. You can also click here to jump straight to the cuidadodesalud.gov website or you can click here to go see the English version of healthcare.gov website.

Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* There’s some things you just don’t do. Ever. Off the top of my head, the top 5 things are…
#5 – Drink orange juice after brushing your teeth.
#4 – Ask an MMA fighter if his lace panties get bunched up when he’s getting smacked around on the mat.
#3 – Clone dinosaurs from mosquito DNA (and hire Newman as your IT guy).
#2 – Loudly cheer for the visiting team when you are sitting dead center on the home team’s side of the field.
#1 – You NEVER EVER EVER say anything even remotely related to “well, at least things can’t get any worse!”
Aaaaaand guess what Bloomberg just did? “Economy Avoids Recession Relapse as Data **Can’t Get Much Worse**” [BLOOMBERG]

* “New research shows that mentally stimulating activities such as crossword puzzles, reading and listening to the radio may, at first, slow the decline of thinking skills but speed up dementia later in old age.” Soooo my choices for the future are (a) to be smart and go nucking futs or (b) to be stoooopid but remain completely sane. Wow. Some choices there. Uh, how about (c) NOT GROW ANY OLDER? I think that would be the solution!! Now where did I leave that map to the fountain of youth? [PHYSORG]

* Cash for clunkers turned out to be, in extremely technical terms, a big ouchie owie boo-boo! People are needing new cars because their current cars are breaking down (the ouchie part), but since cash for clunkers bought all the old cars off the market and destroyed them (the owie part), there’s no cheap used cars for anyone to buy! (the boo-boo part). [BOSTON.COM]

* If anybody comes up to you and says your world view is “immensely simplistic”, don’t you think that’s a smack talkin’ pre-prizefighter bout kind of insult? Tony “Tiger” Blair said that about George “Granite” Bush this week! And Bush supposedly said it was funny! Damn! Bush! Come on, man! Bust Tony one in the face for that! He’s British, so nobody will know if you mess up his grill! Go for it! [CNN]

* Speakin’ of Georgie-Porgie, Obama called Bush before his big speech earlier this week, and the White House wont reveal the content of the conversation. Great. The big neon sign says “don’t feed the conspiracy nuts”, but the machine just keeps handing out big tasty pellets like this one! [CNN]

* Now the MPAA is showing some brains! They’re going after the advertisers on torrent sites for contributing to criminal delinquency and piracy! That’s pretty smart! Soon they’re going figure out that… wait, why should I help the MPAA and give them any more ammunition? Nevermind! Next news bit! [TORRENTFREAK]

* Johnny Knoxville is doing a serious film on the re-emerging Detriot? Saywha? When did Mr. “Jackass” go all 2-legit-to-quit on us? And, by the way, Detroit looks like an abandoned former warzone. Seriously. If it was upgraded to “hell on earth” at least it would at least be populated! [LEFT LANE NEWS]

* Now here’s a spiffy problem to have… the Netherlands are gonna’ close a lot of their prisons “for lack of criminals.” Either (a) they have no laws so nothing is criminal, (b) the population of the Netherlands is somewhere between 2 and 3 people total, (c) or they’re doing something right. [NRC]

* Here’s a perfect example of lawsuit abuse… 51-year-old Craig Smallwood is suing a videogame manufacturer because they didn’t warn him that their game would be addictive! Smallwood says the game “was so addictive that he is unable to bathe, dress himself, communicate with others and wake-up during the day.” Dude, anything is addictive if you don’t have the stones to control yourself! FOOD is addictive if you don’t control yourself! And it gives you the same symptoms! And what exactly is a fiddy one year old doing playing videogames all day? Sorry, Smallwood. No sympathy here. [STAR ADVERTISER]

* The nuclear fuel of the future eats it’s own radiation?! It’s plentiful?! It’s cheap?! And it’s here now?! Soooooo we’re not using it because… seriously? No reason? Nobody has built a nuclear power plant with this miracle rock yet? Dammit! Reason #355 why I need to be a millionaire billionaire… [TELEGRAPH.CO.UK]

* Good. Lord. This hurts so much it kicked what passes for funny right out of me… are you ready? “Eight Years of the Iraq War Cost Less Than the Stimulus Act” Oooof! [FOX NEWS]

* While the funny is attempting re-entry, let me throw in this other bit of grim news. The AP editor of editors posted a warning for all their reporters covering Iraq that reality is a tad different than the press releases coming outta’ Washington. “Combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials. The situation on the ground in Iraq is no different today than it has been for some months.” [POYNTER]

* Oh, and the real Libertarians (IE: NOT Glen BokBok) agree too, saying “President Obama needs to stop lying. In his speech, he repeated the ridiculous and false claim that the U.S. combat mission is over in Iraq. He seems to think that if he keeps talking about the war in a nice way, then the war isn’t really happening.” [SMALL GOV TIMES]

* Want even more proof nothing has changed in Iraq? “Pentagon officials want troops to know that the change from Operation Iraqi Freedom to Operation New Dawn will not affect combat and other hazardous duty entitlements they receive.” I was not aware the Pentagon gave out hazard pay for peaceful no-longer-combat-troop-occupied democratic countries! Oh, wait… [DOD LIVE]

* This next bit has “pimply ingrown-hairy butt-ugly” written all over it. Everybody is pulling their money out of Afghanistan banks, so “President Hamid Karzai told Afghans on Thursday not to panic shortly after his brother, a major shareholder in the beleaguered Kabul Bank, called for intervention by the United States to head off a financial meltdown.” Sooooo we’re about to be formally asked by the biggest bankers in Afghanistan to bail their country out. This is the same country that we’re going to be visiting with a few hundred thousand of our soldiers for the foreseeable future? Can we seriously say NO and keep the Afghans from taking out their anger of their financial collapse on our soldiers who are stuck over there? Can we seriously say YES and not have the entire US population get “gasoline on a bonfire” upset about it? Yeah. This is gonna end REAL well. [WASHINGTON POST]

* I always wondered how those Mardi Gras people spit fire after drinking something. They lied to me and said it was just pure alcohol! Ha! It turns out you can use regular tap water from Pennsylvania! It lights on fire just fine! Oh, and I also learned from reading this story that “fracking” is not a polite way to curse. It actually means “hydraulic fracturing”. Fracking hell, dude!! [WARNING : VIDEO LINK] [CNN]

* If one of your longtime rivals ever pulls you aside and tells you that your game is starting to suck, like Apollo Creed did for Rocky Balboa during the Rocky III movie, you really should listen to them. In this example, Rocky is the United States, and Apollo is Europe. Specifically, Apollo is Spiegel online. They recently said… “The Obama administration and the Federal Reserve want to fix the United States economy by spending more money. But while that approach might work for Europe, it is risky for the US. The nation would be better off embracing traditional American values like self-reliance and small government.” and on the second page of the article… “The Obama administration’s current policies rely on more government rather than personal responsibility and self-determination. They are administering to the patient more, not less, of exactly those things that led to the crisis. The crash was partially caused by a policy of cheap money. If interest rates stay as low as they are, the state will get into more and more debt. One day these debts will have to be repaid, together with interest and compound interest. This will result in tax increases, which will reduce wages, the result of individuals’ hard work.” Yo, Adrian. Apollo has it right, y’know. [SPIEGEL] or with photos at [SPIEGEL 1] and [SPIEGEL 2]

* I just can’t improve on this headline… “One of the trapped Chilean miners is dreading his rescue after his wife met his secret mistress at the entrance to the San Jose mine. Yonni Barrios’ wife, Marta Salinas, and Barrios’ lover, Susana Valenzuela, were both holding vigils for him outside the mine.” D’oh!! And the rescue won’t be complete until December? Wow. I think this is the first time I’ve heard of a man getting dug out from under the ground just to get killed. [FOX NEWS]

* There’s a giant “app bubble” for the iPod/iPad/iPhone/iwhatever devices. It turns out they’re not profitable for anybody involved, there’s too many crap apps for the device, and there’s a giant problem of quantity overshadowing quality. Combine that with AT&T’s spectacularly ass-tastic service and it really is a miracle people buy the iPhone at all! I bet in a few years everyone will look back at the iPhone like they’re the modern day parachute pants and go “what the hell were we thinking?” [FAST COMPANY]

* And finally, “President Obama on Monday called for a “full-scale attack” to revive the struggling economy.” [FOX NEWS] Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! A “full-scale attack”? He had to use the phrase “a full-scale attack”? Allow me to quote a big, but important, comedy bit from the late, great (and very missed) George Carlin…

—-

“Where do we get our values from? I do not understand our values. By the way, speaking of American values, aren’t we about due to start bombing some small country that only has a marginally effective air-force? Seems to me like we’re weeks overdue to drop high explosives on helpless civilians. People who have no argument with us whatsoever. I think we oughta be out there doin’ what we do best, gang, making large holes in other people’s countries.
And I hate to be repetitious, but we are a war-like lot. We can’t stand it not to be fuckin’ with somebody. We couldn’t wait for that Cold War to be over, could we? Couldn’t wait for that Cold War to be over so we could go play with our toys in the sand. And when we’re not invading some sovereign nation, or setting it on fire from the air, which is more fun for our Nintendo pilots, then we’re usually declaring war on something here at home.
Did you ever notice that about us? We love to declare war on things here in America. Anything we don’t like about ourselves we declare war on. We don’t do anything about it; we just declare war on it. It’s the only metaphor we have in our public discourse for solving problems: declaring war. We have to declare war on everything. We have the war on crime, the war on poverty, the war on litter, the war on cancer, the war on drugs.
But did you ever notice, we got no war on homelessness? You know why? There’s no money in that problem! No money to be made off of the homeless. If you could find a solution to homelessness where the corporate swine and the politicians could steal a couple of million dollars each, you’d see the streets of America begin to clear up pretty god-damned quick, I’ll guarantee you that! ”

—-

That’s all I got for this week. Back TUESDAY (‘Cause Monday is an official day off! Booya!)

This is interesting. The DEA (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration) and the DOJ (U.S. Department of Justice) just announced that… “on September 25, 2010, collection sites around the country will take any expired, unused, and unwanted prescription drugs for safe, legal, and environmentally friendly disposal” under the “National Take Back Initiative” plan.

Apparently, if you click on the official “GOT DRUGS?” banner below…

…you will be taken the “Office Of Diversion Control” page, where you can key in your zip code and find local places that will take back any of your unused prescription meds and have them safely dispose of them for you.

I know chunking prescription meds down the sink or in the trash is all kinds of bad (specifically mentioned [HERE] and [HERE] and [HERE] and [HERE] and [HERE]), and it really is great that there is a way to get old prescription meds out of the home, but looking at the Diversion Control page, four out of four dropoff locations for this program in my area are at police stations.

Not that I have anything to drop off that I’m ashamed of, but wouldn’t it have been better just to permanently leave a DISPOSE OF YOUR OLD EXPIRED RATTY PRESCRIPTION MEDS HERE bin in front of some key locations? Kind of like most grocery stores do for paper, plastics and electronics? Make it a lockdown, biohazard, no-access drop-in-only bin like all the hospitals have and be done with it? Or maybe something like the post office has where you pull down a drop door, put your meds in, and let the drop door go and have the meds fall into a restricted collection bin?

I say this because, with these “permanent” collection bin ideas, people will feel somewhat anonymous dropping off their meds, and the collection will not just be on that one Saturday when everyone is going to show up at once.

Also worth mentioning is that “Intra-venous solutions, injectables, and needles will not be accepted” under the “National Take Back Initiative” plan and “Illicit substances such as marijuana or methamphetamine are not a part of this initiative.”

Oh yeah. You know some idiot pothead is going to turn in his useless stash at some location. I just hope there are cameras around for the “whaaaaaaaat” reaction shot!

Here’s the official release from the DOJ and here’s the link to the drug-dropoff finder page.

Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* An AdWeek poll asks if a genie appeared and gave you the choice of being Richer vs. Thinner vs. Younger vs. Smarter, which would you choose? Dude! That’s easy. Richer! With money you can hire the best trainers in the world to get you in ridiculously ripped shape, and you can also hire a corporate-sized “think tank” to whip out solutions for anything you dream of. And as for Younger? Unless it’s permanent “younger”, as in I can stay one age forever, that’s only a temporary fix. Next survey! [AD WEEK]

* I think I’ve come up with an amazing book-series title. Just use “Putin” and add any High Testosterone Manly Activity after it. Check it out.. “Putin. Boar Hunter.” “Putin. Firefighter.” “Putin. KGB Agent.” “Putin. Whale Hunter.” See? Awesomeness ensues! [SPIEGEL]

* This next bit won the coveted “infuriate the blogger” award for the week. Apparently, “Police can walk onto your driveway and stick a GPS device on your car without a warrant, according to a federal appeals court ruling in California.” The bozo judge who granted this said “…a person cannot automatically expect privacy just because something is on private property. You have to take measures — to build a fence, to put the car in the garage” or post a no-trespassing sign, he said. “If you don’t do that, you’re not going to get the privacy.”” OOOOOOH REAAAAALLLY? So just because I have an item on private property, MY private property, I STILL need to “take measures”? So, by that logic, if I don’t lock my doors at night, it’s OK for a burglar to come in and rob my home because I didn’t “take measures”? If I don’t have a sign that says PRIVATE PROPERTY, trespasses will be ALLOWED because there was “no measures” taken? And since when is a driveway public property? Can’t I tow a vehicle that’s parked in my own driveway if it doesn’t belong? Can’t I arrest people who are in my driveway that don’t belong there? There’s far more coherent write-ups on why this is all kinds of “4th-amendment-be-damned” bad at [CNN] and [GIZMODO] and [TIME].

* The runner up for the gold plated “infuriate the blogger” award for this week was this little gem that was trying to sneak by while everybody was looking at the driveway ruling… “a federal appeals court ruled that the covert recording of a phone conversation using a mobile phone is not a violation of the Wiretap Act if done for legitimate purposes.” Well, that’s just peachy! So who gets to define “legitimate purposes”? [INTOMOBLE]

* The headline says it all… “Blockbuster tells Hollywood studios it’s preparing for a mid-September bankruptcy.” There’s quite a few things I never understood about this company…

• Late fees? In this day and age? At the very least they need to adopt Netflix’s policy on “one price per month for X amount of movies” strategy!
• Redbox should have been bought the moment they appeared on the radar. If it is not too late, grab them, convert them to block-boxes, trash the current crap Blockbuster kiosks, let Redbox management continue their expansion without interference, and voila!
• Blockbuster has movies to throw in the air, so obviously they had all the major hollywood studios’ attention. Why not play hardball and sign “exclusive” deals with them so only Blockbuster would carry their movies on the first month of release?
• Look to the future and invest in tech for storing and streaming movies immediately. Build an app for every platform and partner up with HP, Dell and Apple. Offer five free streaming movies with the purchase of every hardware and a easy signup for streaming. Or better yet, get friendly with Amazon!
• Get IN the “actual” movie theaters. That’s where all the movie fans are! Offer discount prices on Blockbuster rentals on the back of every movie ticket stub. Put kiosks in movie theaters for “related” movies and discounts from the theater. (Example : Someone goes to see a Sylvester Stallone movie. On the back of each movie ticket is a “half off” coupon for any Stallone movie at Blockbuster. And in the theater itself, offer promo material from the current Stallone movie that’s only available at Blockbuster brick and mortar stores.)
• Point the dinosaurs to the tar pits. Clean house. Fire every manager and upper-tier corporate moron at Blockbuster that got them into this mess.

Right now, I think Blockbuster needs to copy the profitable tactics of Netflix and Redbox and, here’s the hard part, do them better. Then completely pass them both by getting in tight with the movie studios and getting into “real” stores that Netflix and Redbox haven’t (or can’t). Oh, and it’s loooong past time to rebrand the company. Damn, if I can whip all this out at 2 AM on a Saturday morning, maybe I should apply for CEO of Blockbuster! [LA TIMES]

* I’m going to try my hardest not to be a wiseass with this one… “Men could reduce their risk of developing prostate cancer through regular masturbation, researchers suggest”. Ah. Well then. May I suggest that, based on this study, men everywhere should see if scorching hot sex will be able to, in fact, cure other kinds of cancer. Hey, it kind of follows! Sort of. Maybe. Kinda. Not really. But we must find out for science!! [BBC]

* Three words : Ginormous. Cat. Ranch. Part “awwwwww”, part “DAMN, DUDE!! WTF!!” [ANIMAL TALK]

* Speaking of cats, a psycho beyotch pushed a cute little cat into a trash bin for no damn reason. This nutbag got caught on tape, and now she’s saying “it was just an animal!” and is overtly worried she will lose her job because people are upset for some strange reason! The good news is that the cat is perfectly fine. The bad news is that there’s no “stuff a wacko in a old trashcan for 10 hours” facility at the local jail. [AOL NEWS]

* Apparently some pentagon computers were “attacked with flash drive” and had a lot of secrets that walked out the door on good old fashioned sneakernet. A flash drive? A frigin’ $5 flash drive compromised the Pentagon? Dammit! I’ve got better security measures at the company I work for, and we don’t have a $104.8 billion budget! I know you should never give anything away you’re good at for free, but all you IT idiots in the Pentagon might want to click this link and see how to DISABLE flash drive access on every single PC with sensitive information on it (or access to sensitive information)! Send me any piece from the SR-71 and I’ll call it even. [YAHOO]

* OK, how would you (1) mobilize the NRA for a “cause”, (2) give Obama another headache (3) cause a run on ammo and ammo prices and (4) give the Republicans another talking point to use in the upcoming elections. The answer? Get the EPA to seriously consider “a ban on lead ammunition” right now. Nice going EPA! So if lead ammunition is banned, that leaves… that leaves… uh oh. [WASHINGTON EXAMINER]

* WANNA LOSE WEIGHT? FAST AND SAFE? WITH NATURE’S MOST NATURAL INGREDIENT? FOR JUST FIVE EASY PAYMENTS OF $59.99, I’LL SEND YOU THE LINK ON HOW TO DO IT! Wait… the big secret is on the Economist? Front page? Crap. OK, fine. Just drink a big glass of water before eating a meal and you’ll lose weight. [ECONOMIST]

* Tell me if your phone does all of this… take a no-flash, undetectable photo of your face and multiple photos of the surrounding location without telling you. THEN record your voice regardless of whether you are making a phone call! THEN monitor your internet usage and record your heartbeat and “vibration signature”! THEN, if it looks at all that information and decides you are “unauthorized” to use the phone you paid for by any arbitrary criteria they have, they can remotely lock, wipe out, or completely shut down your phone! Welcome to APPLE’S NEW IPHONE AND NEW IPAD!!! Go Steve-J! Go Steve-J! It’s yo’ birf-day! It’s yo’ birf-day! [NEWS.COM.AU]

* The US military’s top secret X-37B shuttle ‘disappears’ for two weeks, changes orbit, then reappears. Um, guys? It’s not a top secret anything if you have a bajillion photos of it! Maybe it just went out to get some of that space ice cream they sell at the NASA website. BTW, that NASA space ice cream tastes like refried chankla. I’d rather eat a burnt MRE. [NEWS.COM.AU]

* Troops overseas are apparently becoming telepathic! They’ve all picked up on my thoughts! Specifically, they’re wondering what the fucking hell are we doing in Afghanistan! Amazing! [WIRED]

* By the way, how’s things going over in Iraq-a-palooza? Much worse than before the US invaded, thanks for asking! [COUNTER CURRENTS]

* A home is a home, of course of course, unless you want your home to invest the most. In other words, fughtaboutit! [CONSUMERIST]

* Jupiter is like the ideal big brother of the solar system. It’s always standing up to anything that comes to try and mess with us, and spends the rest of the time just standing there ignoring everyone and looking big and badass. [UNIVERSE TODAY]

* You know those squeaky helium voices you get when you inhale one of those floaty kinds of balloons? It turns out the Earth is actually running out of helium! In addition to the super critical balloon problem, there’s apparently a lot of scientific doohickeys that need helium to work. Medical scientific doohickeys. Seriously. This might end bad. [NZ HERALD.CO.UK]

* Philly says you gotta pay $300 to have a blog in their fine city. Next up should be the air tax, the walking tax, the sunlight tax and the tic tax. [CONSUMERIST]

* A lot of 20 year olds just ain’t growing up. I betcha’ it has a lot to do with “modern” parents wanting to be “buddies” with their kids instead of growing a pair and making some hard decisions. Then again, looking at how the world is now? Those 20 year olds juuuust might have the right idea! [NY TIMES]

* File this in the big yellow “DUH!” cabinet. “People Don’t Really Like Unselfish Colleagues, Psychologists Find… unselfish colleagues come to be resented because they “raise the bar” for what is expected of everyone. As a result, workers feel the new standard will make everyone else look bad.” This, unfortunately, explains a great many things… in work as well as society. [SCIENCE DAILY]

* A traffic jam that lasts for weeks? “with cars moving little more than a half-mile (one kilometer) a day at one point”? Welcome to China! Man, what do you do if you’re stuck in your car for a week on the freeway? [ASIAN CORRESPONDENT]

* And finally, something fairly deep. John Shelby Spong, a former bishop, says “God is not a christian. God it not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu or a Buddhist. All of those are human systems which human beings have created.” He continues on about how when you’re born again, you’re still a child, and the problem is people need to grow up. Dude! Don’t take this wrong, but Hallelujah!!

That’s all I got! Back Monday!

Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* Feeling a little social anxiety? Pop a Tylenol! Seriously! Studies show “acetaminophen relieves social pain”. I really expect to see “Social Strength” Tylenol on the store shelves soon… and probably for $5 more than “regular” Tylenol. [HCP LIVE]

* A personal submarine painted like a shark? That can jump out of the water? I want one! Underwater speakers to play the JAWS soundtrack are apparently sold separately. [NEATORAMA]

* The SEC charged New Jersey with securities fraud. So now the SEC is going to pop states that are misrepresenting their income and assets? This isn’t going to end well. [REUTERS]

* A “double dip” recession seems more possible day after day. I believe this was prophesied by the great philosopher “Freak Nasty” in the epic stanza…

BONUS – Freak Nasty – Da’ Dip

* This week’s winner for the “RED ALERT / RAISE THE SHIELDS” story goes to Yahoo, as they say “the country is headed for rising unemployment, poverty, and violent class warfare as the government efforts to keep the economy going begin to fail.” Violent class warfare? I hope we’re just talking 11th grade vs 12th grade here. [YAHOO]

* The latest proof we’re living in the future? Night vision is coming to cell phones. Personally, I won’t be impressed until they add motion detection and an infrared scanner. [DISCOVERY]

—— GULF OIL SPILL UPDATE STARTS HERE ——

The gulf oil spill isn’t over, no matter what the government says.

* “A study of the effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill has confirmed the presence of a toxic chemical residue one kilometre below the sea surface.” So now the oil is supposedly gone, only this wholesome toxic chemical is left? Frying pan? Fire. Fire? Frying pan. [BBC]

* Leave it to the people on the “front lines” to know what’s really going on, as “scientists and commercial fishermen appearing before a congressional hearing Thursday challenged assertions from the Obama administration that the “vast majority” of the oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico is gone.” [WSWS]

* Also, leave it to scientists to come up with some pesky little facts to screw up everybody’s celebration party. “Researchers say they saw a 22-mile hydrocarbon plume in Gulf” [CNN]

* Also, “new evidence shows that a 22-mile-long (35-kilometer-long), 650-foot-high (200-meter-high) pocket of oil has persisted for months at depths of 3,600 feet (1,100 meters).” [NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC]

* And even if, for some reason, all of the above wasn’t enough proof something is rotten in the Gulf, “”Corexit Is Being Sprayed at Night, Even Now (According to BP Vessel of Opportunity Workers and Others)” Sooooo, riddle me this. Why is Corexit still being sprayed if there’s nothing left for Corexit to get rid of? I have a feeling this is a trick question. [WASHINGTON”S BLOG]

Is it me, or does it look more and more like BP was hoping nobody looked below the surface for what is really underneath? Where did BP’s get this brilliant idea from? The Shallow Hal movie?

—— END OF GULF OIL SPILL UPDATE SECTION ——

* American Airlines would like you to know they’re going to ream our wallets while laughing their asses off update their pricing structure once again. In their infinite heartless greed wisdom, they are now charging extra for front seats. [TBO]

* Finally, micro-needles are being developed to replace syringes. They’re small enough not to hurt like “regular” needles, but strong enough to deliver drugs into the bloodstream. Cool! I can also see tons of “secret agent” kinds of uses for these things as well. [NEATORAMA]

That’s all I got for this week. Back Monday!