From CNN.com this evening:

According to an internal BP document released Sunday by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, BP believed that the worst-case scenario could be as high as 100,000 barrels, or 4.2 million gallons of oil per day.

The figure is the highest yet to surface regarding the leaking oil well.

Hmm. “Highest yet to surface” and “higher worst-case scenario than previously reported” in the paragraph above that. Yet— I could swear I’ve seen that number somewhere before…

I’ve never been too worried about being a Cassandra— but getting Laocoön-ed sticks in my head as a threat. When I was in middle and high school, I had a recurring elaborate dream about surviving a nuclear apocalypse by convincing a cadre of followers to retreat into underground Seattle. In thanks for having convinced them to hunker down before the war, the CHUDs elect me mayor of Sewertown— a position I reluctantly accept on the condition they promise to stay deep enough in our new subterranean home to avoid the surface radiation.

Flash forward several years. Two young postbellum sewer tots wander into the hot zone and die horrible prolonged deaths. Enraged, Sewertown blames, turns on and ultimately lynches their previously Honorable Mayor, yours truly.

It was, uh, not a pleasant dream.

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