Water Water Everywhere, but not a drop to drink...

I've been following the oil spill thing for the last couple of months, or whenever it blew sky high... just a few things then:

I found this illustration of the scope of the spill; if you add your city and state it places the area of the spill over the area in which you live. Above you can see it over Spokane, WA. It is pretty revealing, since it is sometimes difficult to gage distance in pictures of the Gulf. I first saw this weeks ago, and, of course, whenever I pull it up again to show someone, the area has increased. Check it out:
 If It Was My Home

Also here are a few pictures taken along off the coast of Louisiana and then a slideshow of various telling pictures since the explosion:
Wildlife Caught in Spill
Slideshow of Spill and subsequent clean up attempts etc.

Then, in the NYTimes there are a few good articles about the impact on wildlife and the efforts to fix the spill. If you haven't read about it and don't understand why they can't just "plug the spill", they do a pretty clear job of explaining it here, with diagrams etc. Also, in the wildlife tab, it explains why the spill is so harmful to many different types of wildlife.  For example, even dolphins are effected, because they tend to be sociable and follow the boats, getting dangerously close to the spill.

Now a solution? I read this article in the FiTimes which I thought was pretty interesting:  To Save the Gulf, Free the Mississippi.  (btw if it denies access through that link, just google the title and it should come up...)

Finally, here is a video from Nottingham Uni's Periodic Table Vids which talks about the chemistry behind the oil spill and a little bit about why it is so hard to clean up and so dangerous for wildlife, especially birds. It's rather short, but does a great job of explaining: