So what the heck is going on down there in the Gulf of Mexico, anyhow? How can a fire on a big steel platform that’s standing above the water lead to an oil leak of apocalyptic proportions under the water?

If you, too, have been asking these timely questions, check out this handy video that explains such mysteries in only about one minute:

Well, I thought that was pretty interesting. I guess I imagined the oil was leaking directly from the wellhead, and never considered the associated piping, which of course makes for a much bigger problem.

One interesting sidenote: that video came from Al Jazeera, the Middle Eastern news network. It seems they have an English-language division, which I did not know. I’m learning all sorts of things today. My thanks to Sullivan for posting the video and sending me down that particular rabbit hole.

Getting back to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, if you’re interested in some numbers, check out this chart at Information is Beautiful. Among other fascinating — if deeply sobering — factoids: The spill already covers an area roughly the size of Jamaica, and we may have less than 30 years of easily obtainable oil remaining to us. I don’t know about you, but I don’t relish the idea of adopting a Mad Max-style existence for my 70th birthday.

One final link: For a peek into the bowels of hell itself, here’s a gallery of incredible photos showing the final hours of the Deepwater Horizon’s fight for existence. I have to confess a perverse attraction to disasters like this. I imagine watching that thing heel over and fall into the sea would’ve been an awesome — in the original, non-1980s sense of the word — spectacle…