After 100 days of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s Deepwater Horizon well, and spreading across thousands of square miles, no one seems to be able to find most of it. From Yahoo News:

Nearly two weeks after BP finally capped the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, the oil slicks that once spread across thousands of miles of the Gulf of Mexico have largely disappeared. Nor has much oil washed up on the sandy beaches and marshes along the Louisiana coast.

One contributing cause appears to be evaporation. Anyone who has filled up a vehicle knows that gasoline gives off fumes. Since gasoline comes from oil, the volatile components being there in the original crude would make sense.

“Some of the oil evaporates,” explains Edward Bouwer, professor of environmental engineering at Johns Hopkins University. That’s especially true for the more toxic components of oil, which tend to be very volatile, he says. Jeffrey W. Short, a scientist with the environmental group Oceana, told the New York Times that as much as 40 percent of the oil might have evaporated when it reached the surface.

Some of it may have sunk into the sea, possibly down to the ocean floor, but the main explanation appears to be microbes that eat oil.

Perhaps the most important cause of the oil’s disappearance, some researchers suspect, is that the oil has been devoured by microbes. The lesson from past spills is that the lion’s share of the cleanup work is done by nature in the form of oil-eating bacteria and fungi. The microbes break down the hydrocarbons in oil to use as fuel to grow and reproduce. A bit of oil in the water is like a feeding frenzy, causing microbial populations to grow exponentially.

So it looks like BP may have give a whole lot of microorganisms a huge feast. But with the flow from the damaged well finally stopped (although a permanent cap has not yet been installed), it looks like the little critters will have to go on a diet for a while.

Uh, wait a minute, here comes dessert.

No trip to north central Italy would be complete without some time in Florence, or as the Italians spell it, Firenze. Florence sits on the banks of the Arno river and is the capital of the region of Tuscany.

Starting out as a Roman military camp named Florentia, Florence would become an important commercial center within the Roman Empire. After the fall of Rome, Florence would be occupied by the Ostrogoths, Byzantines and Lombards. After the Frankish emperor Charlemagne conquered Florence, it became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, and eventually its capital.

During the Middle Ages, Florence was ruled by the Medici family, known for being financiers to the Vatican and patrons of the arts. After their dynasty came to an end, Tuscany was ruled at various times by Austria and France, but became part of the new kingdom of Italy in 1861. From 1865 to 1870, Florence served as Italy’s capitol, until the Papal States (and with them Rome) were brought into the kingdom. But even today, the standard form of the Italian language is based not on the speech of Rome, but on that of Florence.

Florence has also had its share of famous residents, including the poets Dante Alighieri, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning; artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Donatello; the political philosopher Machiavelli; and the astronomer Galileo Galilei.
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My Italian travelogue will now be temporarily put on hold, in order to bring you the following news items.

Has Minnesota reinstituted the debtor prison?

From the Atlanta Immigration Examiner, two American universities have been hosting illegal alien students.

Some legal immigrants speak out in favor of Arizona’s new law.

Angelo Codevilla at the American Spectator writes about America’s ruling class.

Speaking of our elites, former Senator Trent Lott has been raking in the bucks as a lobbyist.

A “dour assessment of the U.S. recovery” by Fed Chairman Ben Bernacke causes stocks to slide.

From the Afghanistan Sun via Yankeemom, a British army sniper catches a bullet in the face – and spits it out.

From Apache Clips, a shopping mall opens in Gaza City.

From the “welcome to the club” department, a pipeline explosion has produced an oil spill the threatens the coast of China.

From BBC News (and from the “weird criminal” department), a man is arrested for trying to bring 18 monkeys into Mexico – in his clothing.

In Auburn, California, a man has been arrested for breaking into a bar that had been closed down, re-opening it, and serving drinks.

I don’t think that pigs can fly, but in Russia, donkeys can. (Or was that just one of our Democrats over there on a visit? )

Back during the Middle Ages, the big rivalry in north central Italy was between Florence and Siena, each having established its own state. To make a very long story short, Siena declared its independence in 1176, established a written constitution in 1179, and continued as a republic until 1555, when it was conquered by Spain. The Spanish king then ceded it to the Grand Duchy of Florence, because he was in debt to the Florentine ruling family, the Medicis. This would effectively end the longtime rivalry between the two cities, and unify the region of Tuscany.

Today, Siena is known for Il Palio, a horse race around its central square, the Piazza del Campo, with each horse and rider representing one of the city’s contrade (neighborhoods); and for the world’s oldest bank, the Monte dei Paschi.
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A day after getting rained and hailed on in Perugia, we visited Montepulciano, the last Tuscan hill town on the tour. Montepulciano is much smaller than Perugia, with no escalators or minimetros. With the streets being too small for the average tourbus, we went uphill from the Porta della Farine to the Piazza Grande the old-fashioned way – on foot.
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Just west of the Tiber, Perugia is another city that started out as an Etruscan hill town and later enjoyed a resurgence in the middle ages. From the main bus station, a series of escalators takes you up to a chamber within the medieval city walls, from which you exit onto the main street.
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Famous for being the hometown of St. Francis and St. Clare, Assisi sits on the side of a hill in the region of Umbria, just east of the Tiber River. Both saints were born into well-to-do families, but forsook their privileged status to embrance Christian monasticism. Today, the town includes churches dedicated to both.
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Today’s travelogue entry will be short, just a few pics from the Altesino winery, near the town of Montalcino. After touring the facilities, we got to taste several of their wines, along with some prosciutto, cheese and biscotti. And of course, a chance to buy some wine to bring back home, which I certainly did not pass up.
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As announced a few posts ago, I got to spend the last week of June in Italy. The home base for the tour I joined was the town of Cortona, situated on a hill overlooking the Val di Chiana in the region of Tuscany. Like many cities and towns in Tuscany and the adjacent region of Umbria, Cortona started out as an Etruscan hill town, then declined in importance after the Romans took over, and later re-emerged during the Middle Ages when Italy was politically divided.

More recently, Cortona gained some notoriety due to the book Under the Tuscan Sun, by Frances Mayes. The title is quite appropriate, since the weather is indeed very sunny, including during most of my stay. There was, however, one notable exception, which will be explained later.
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Ace’s place is somewhere I really enjoy reading. And lately one of the posters over there, Monty, started doing a “financial briefing” just about every day, linking to stories dealing with the financial issues going on.

It’s good to get to see another side than the administrations “rose colored glasses” attempts to persuade the American populace that they’re actually turning things around.

Here is one that I found, in particular, to be worth reading. Called “Is there life after debt“, it is spot on in its analysis by stating:

For a long time debt in the rich world has grown faster than incomes. As our special report this week spells out, it is not just government deficits that have swelled. In America private-sector debt alone rose from around 50% of GDP in 1950 to nearly 300% at its recent peak. The origins of the boom go even further back, reflecting huge changes in social attitudes. In the 19th century defaulting borrowers were sent to prison. The generation that lived through the Great Depression learned to scrimp and save. But the wider take-up of credit cards in the 1960s created a “buy now, pay later” society. Default became just a lifestyle choice. The reckless lender, rather than the imprudent debtor, was likely to get the blame. (emphasis mine)

I agree. The politicians most definitely don’t want to blame the borrower, nor do those pathetic “We’ll fix your credit” companies who are so sympathetic to these people who found themselves with 10,000+ dollars in non-secured consumer debt, sometimes even more. I do blame the credit card companies as well. I remember all to well their presence on college campuses offering T-shirts or some other trinket if you’d sign up for their credit card, stupid college students, low on cash and seeing some “free money” were easy marks.

But the important thing is to remember, that whether you are a consumer, or a government, you can get so far into debt that you will not be able to get back into the black.

The federal government, and the state governments, are learning this lesson. Well, the state government are since they can’t borrow from foreign entities or print more money….