Midday Open Thread

• The RNC's Michael Steele has been taking so much heat from fringe conservatives that he shut down his blog.
• Jeffmd has put together some very cool precinct-level maps of the IL-05 special election. - DavidNYC
• Good news for the environment, bad news for Dow Chemical:

  In one of her first actions as director of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson has ordered the Great Lakes office of EPA to stop negotiations with the Dow Chemical company — begun in the last days of the Bush administration — over controversial dioxin cleanup in the Saginaw Bay watershed.

  Bush's EPA negotiations would have likely lead to the contaminated area being labeled a "Superfund Alternative Site", which, as a watchdog group said, "would constitute a precedent-setting abdication of public health protection to a polluter", due to vague oversight.

  Ms. Jackson is off to an excellent start. Think Progress has more.

  -- Plutonium Page

• NASA's Kepler telescope blasted off late last night in search of other Earth-like planets.
• Are you enjoying the tweets from Congress critters, pundits, bloggers, and so-called opinion makers? If you see a particularly funny or pathetic tweet, send it to [e-mail].
• File this under, you can't make this shit up. - BarbinMD