Speaking of total system failure...

Dan Froomkin:

Despite more than three weeks of accumulating scientific evidence that gargantuan plumes of oil lurk beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico -- presenting an imminent threat to sea life and a possibly decades-long threat to the nation's coastlines -- NOAA Director Jane Lubchenco on Wednesday refused to contradict BP CEO Tony Hayward's statement over the weekend that "the oil is on the surface" and "there aren't any plumes."

Scientists on NOAA and academic research vessels have been reporting since the week of May 10 that they have spotted -- and sampled -- oil suspended in the water column. And the Huffington Post has learned that lab results from a previously secret NOAA research mission have been analyzed; its results just haven't been made public.

But to Lubchenco, the Obama appointee running the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, all the accumulated evidence is just "circumstantial."

And what others call oil, she calls "anomalies."

It's all in the mind, y'know.