Almighty Oil!

A videotape posted on the Russia Today news site shows an amateur cameraman filming oil-slicked streets in River Ridge, a suburb of New Orleans.

The camera pans across oil running down the streets and into storm drains. The videographer, who isn't identified at the RT Web site, describes it as "the same brown bubbly stuff we saw yesterday in the Gulf under the Bay St. Louis Bridge."

He continues: "You can see it. It's raining oil. It is literally raining oil in River Ridge. ... Is this not crazy, dude?"

Because oil generally doesn't evaporate, it shouldn't be possible, under normal circumstances, for it to rain down from the skies. But Charlie Paxton of the National Weather Service tells WTSP in Tampa that "a water spout could pick up some oil and carry it a short distance."

Another possibility is that the dispersant BP has been using to thin the oil, Corexit, may have made some of it light enough to be absorbed in the atmosphere.