While still drilling a relief well in the Gulf of Mexico, BP has been adding up the total cost of its environmental catastrophe this summer. Of the $8 billion BP has spent so far, $399 million went to claims.

Google, because it can, calculated the number of books in the world, and came up with a number: 129,864,880. If you read one a day, you could finish in 356,000 years. So, you know, better get started.

First the company lied was wrong about how much oil was leaking into the Gulf. Now it is saying that the siphoning tube being used is recovering over 30% less oil than was previously claimed. Surprised? [Guardian, Getty]

We've been mildly obsessed with the New Republic's page count ever since Editor-in-Chief Marty Peretz made that ridiculous pronouncement that the newly redesigned book would have 80 pages each issue. Which, of course, has yet to happen, and in the meantime, we've heard bitching from various people at the magazine that we're being unfair, that they're actually publishing very interesting stuff these days. So when the latest issue arrived in the mail (48 pages, ahem), we started trying to actually read the damn thing.