Tarpon are some of the toughest fish on the Gulf waters. What do you expect of a fish that belongs to the genus, Megalops? The fishers of the Gulf Coast have had their battles with these great beasts, but that's no reason not to celebrate. Starting today, the Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo returns after the Big Oozy put the giant pole party on hiatus last year. Even if you don't want to trawl and tame, the festival features plenty of music, and there's a chance to watch the big ones get weighed in. Check out the full schedule here.

Ken Feinberg may have a fancy resume and a multimillion-dollar salary, but he is no special master. The Big Oozy claims chief is now facing more than the shouts of people at public meetings. Gulf Coast residents and business owners are calling for the feds to appoint someone to oversee Feinberg. In legal terms, a special master reports to a judge about the fairness of a proceeding. But why does it sound more like BDSM?

The former coastal policy advisor to five governors and founding editor of LaCoastPost, follows up his recommendations to Bobby Jindal on how to spend BP's forthcoming coastal restoration money with a breakdown of the political intersts behind the governor's recently unveiled list of uses for the cash.

After the Deepwater Horizon blew, all the blame was laid at the doorstep of that giant house on top of the well - the blowout preventer. Even while the oil was still flowing, the feds began a criminal investigation of the device, and it was mysteriously whisked away to Michoud. Investigators suspect that the BOP could never have stopped the well. But, according to an in-depth look at the investigation by Fuel Fix, the world may never know for sure. Read it here.

By now, we know the Big Oozy scarred the wetlands and the fishing industry, but what happened to the people who were breathing in oil toxins? There's been a Louisiana Bucket Brigade study here, a few words about air quality monitoring there, but nothing that attempted to definitively track how the oil affected people's health. Thanks to a couple grants, Tulane University and LSU researchers will get a chance to buck that trend in the coming years. The universities received a combined $10 million to study how the oil affected women and children in the areas where the oil hit.

During the Big Oozy, BP promised to "Make Things Right" on the Gulf Coast. Turns out, they just forgot to mention that they wanted to define when this state of "Right" occurred. Today, with a shake of the magic 8-ball, the oil giant declared that they shouldn't have to pay anymore claims to workers to make up for money they will lose in the future. In BP's mind, the recovery is going swimmingly, so they don't need to pay anything else out, the AP reports. In BP's checkbook, they've paid less than $5 billion in claims of the original $20 billion the company set aside. So much for Ken Feinberg's quest to get angry fishermen to stop yelling at him.

Once, Transocean and BP were a match made in heaven. While the drilling Colossus' Deepwater Horizon rig bore into the Gulf floor, the British oil behemoth collected the crude. Then, Transocean's famed rig exploded, and the pair's visions of a long life together slipped through their fingers like an oiled pelican.Signs point to an ugly divorce. After BP blamed everyone for the explosion but BP, Transocean struck back yesterday with their own report that pins the whole thing on BP. Guess they should've signed a prenup.

During the locally-staged, nationally watched Republican Leadership Conference, Michael T. Martin sat down with David Spielman, a member of one of the most influential organizations in the Tea Party faction.

The legal mess left by the Deepwater Horizon explosion saw its first big ruling yesterday. Judge Carl Barbier dismissed a batch of claims by enviornmental groups that wanted the judge to declare the offshore oil drillers that caused the Big Oozy in violation of the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act and a host of other laws. The groups didn't want any money, just a ruling that said companies were running afoul of the laws. Barbier said he couldn't determine whether the companies were violating the law because the oil was done leaking, the oil rig already sank, and the oil itself is already being cleaned up. Or, at least, that's what he was told.

Turns out the Yes Men were onto something. On the first anniversary of the Big Oozy, news outlets were sent into a frenzy when a team of enviro-hucksters sprung a fake press event announcing a ban on that Palmolive of the sea, dispersant. A little more than a month later, Sen. A.G. Crowe seems to have taken a liking to the evironmentalistas' idea. The local Republican introduced a bill to ban the oil-separating chemicals from use in Louisiana, and even saw it passed in committee with no objections yesterday. Crowe will only find solace in a study released yesterday by the University of West Floridal that concludes dispersant doesn't really get rid of the oil.