BP disaster update: 40,000 barrels a day, kill the birds, and a Rolling Stone bombshell

• Video: “A controlled burn of an oil slick 10 miles from the Deepwater Horizon drill site. A controlled burn, or in-situ burn, is one method to eliminate crude oil in a very small area at sea. U.S. Coast Guard video by Chief Petty Officer Robert Laura.” (via Constant Siege)

• “Researchers have doubled estimates of how much oil has been spewing from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, reporting Thursday that up to 40,000 barrels (1.7 million gallons) a day may have escaped for weeks.”

• Remember those heart-wrenching photographs of birds drenched in oil so thick their forms became unrecognizable? Animal biologists who have experience dealing with wildlife caught up in oil spills say euthanasia is kinder than the slow, painful death that inevitably awaits. “According to serious studies, the middle-term survival rate of oil-soaked birds is under 1 percent. We, therefore, oppose cleaning birds.” (Dangerous Minds)

• Rolling Stone: “The spill, the scandal and the president: The inside story of how Obama failed to crack down on the corruption of the Bush years – and let the world’s most dangerous oil company get away with murder.”