* "The first firm evidence of what likely caused the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil blowout — a devastating sequence of equipment failures — drives home a central unsettling point about America's oil industry: key safety features at tens of thousands of U.S. offshore rigs are barely regulated."
* Interesting. FiveThirtyEight.com on the value of a replacement justice.
* Chris Cillizza on possible strategies for incumbents.
* Yes, the original Constitution was defective. That's why we have amendments.
* Israel faces a welfare crisis.
* Credit where it's due: Wal-Mart to donate billions in aid to food banks.
* Dana Milbank on Congress and 'potty parity.'
* Inauspicious. Russia considers what to do with Lake Baikal.
* Robin D. Laws on a movie poster by the late Frank Frazetta.