Reihan Salam at the Daily Beast questions whether the United States could have performed better in negotiations with Russia:

"Given that the Russians haven't identified any bumbling American sleeper agents in Russia, at least as far as we know, one wonders what a better deal might have looked like. Would the Russians be willing to part with vast quantities of weapons grade plutonium? Or a best-and-the-brightest assortment of gifted ballet dancers and hockey players and computer programmers and avant-garde novelists?

"When we consider the extraordinary success of the hundreds of thousands of Russian emigres who've settled in the US since the legendary Senator Scoop Jackson came to the rescue of so-called Soviet refuseniks, you could say that we've already gotten the better end of the deal. But is it wrong to expect a little bit more? If nothing else, a bigger concession would convey due respect for the excellence of the FBI's counterintelligence team."

As the spy swap wraps up, Simon Shuster of Time.com writes the US and Russia seem to have both avoided the topic of the 11th suspect:

"Both sides also seem to have skirted the 11th alleged Russian spy named in the US indictment. He disappeared last week in Cyprus after authorities there granted him bail, and no public mention of his fate has been made amid the swap negotiations. On Thursday, Gennady Gudkov, deputy chairman of the Russian parliament's security committee, said the most important part of the deal was damage control, not details."

"And those mistakes were pretty embarrassing - like speaking with a thick Russian accent while pretending to be Irish and accepting bags of money from undercover agents of the FBI, according to the affidavit. Many more of their gaffes would surely have been revealed if their case had gone to trial, and that is something Washington as well as Moscow seemed keen to avoid."

Leon Aron of the American Enterprise Institute focuses his attention on the initial arrests of the Russian prisoners:

"On the one hand, it is most gratifying to spring four men from the hell of the Russian jails and hard labor camps. On the other, there is the grotesque inequity of the 'swap': full-fledged, deep cover 'moles' for Russian prisoners who almost certainly were victims of political repression. The main - if not, indeed, the sole - goal of their arrests (all in the first five years of Putin's presidency) was to signal the end of the post-Soviet freedom of contacts with foreigners: henceforth everyone in the "sensitive" areas of work needed to clear such contacts with their superiors, just as in the Soviet days."

Matt Spetalnick, on Reuters.com, warns that President Obama may face harsh criticism from the right for what unfolded during negotiations with the Russians:

"The flipside for Obama is that, by agreeing to a spy swap, he will give opposition Republicans an opening for further criticism that the Democratic president has been too soft on Russia and weak on national security."

Chris Stirewalt at the Washington Examiner feels we may be getting the bad end of the deal with Russia:

"We are sending them 10 Russians accused of living under false identities and actively trying to get information about American defense, industry and government. We are getting in return Russian citizens who were found - some a generation ago - to have had contact with the CIA or suspected CIA front organizations."

Robert Burns of the Associated Press agrees:

"It could be argued that the arrangement favored Moscow, since it was spared further embarrassment over the exploits of the 10 while washing its hands of an inconvenient prisoner: Igor Sutyagin, an arms control researcher who in 2004 was jailed on charges of passing information to the CIA."

On HuffingtonPost.com, Bob Franken has an optimistic outlook as the story wraps up:

"Whatever, it has been great beach reading. It'll be a terrific movie. Let's call it 'The Cul De Sac Capers'. It's so juicy the nervous producers and executives won't even emasculate the script. To those who would argue 'You can't make this stuff up', I would say 'Sure you can'. It's not that 'Truth is stranger than fiction', what's really strange is that we believe a word of it."

Jason Linkins at the Huffington Post says he had always thought rumours of a rift between the general and the president were wide of the mark, but now had to admit he might have been wrong.

"My instincts tell me that we're about to endure a fancy bit of White House shame-pageantry: McChrystal comes hat in hand, he and the President have a heart-to-heart, and in the end, everyone gets back to work."

Jenn Kepka, in her Saturn Smith blog on Open Salon, cannot see what the fuss is about, instead focusing on the general's record in Afghanistan.

Are there really still presidents (and vice presidents) who believe they are loved and feared completely on the fields of war? Are there really that many diplomats in Washington who have such fragile feelings that they must vent their displeasure in person, removing a general from the theater of war, to feel their honor has been adequately satisfied?

At the liberal firedoglake blog, national security writer Spencer Ackerman says that President Obama has an opportunity to sack General McChrystal, but probably won't:

"It'll be hard to fire McChrystal without ripping the entire Afghanistan strategy up, and I've gotten no indication from the White House that it's interested in doing that. On the other hand, if senior administration officials are and I just haven't picked up on it, McChrystal just gave them their biggest opportunity."

In the conservative journal National Review's The Corner blog, Rich Lowry writes President Barack Obama has a case for firing General McChrystal, but adds:

"The most important consideration should be what's best for the war. The commander-in-chief must have confidence in his field commander. But if the Obama-McChrystal relationship can be saved, obviously the least disruptive option is for McChrystal to stay."

The New York Times lays out what may well be the conventional wisdom on the matter:

"The piece seems destined to raise questions about General McChrystal's judgment, and to spark debate over the wisdom of Mr Obama's strategy, at a time when violence in the country is rising sharply and when several central planks of the strategy appear stalled. Two important American allies, the Dutch and Canadians, have announced plans to pull their combat troops from the country."

The Washington Post has a similar line:

"It also raises fresh questions about the judgment and leadership style of the commander Obama appointed last year in an effort to turn around a worsening conflict."

The Wall Street Journal writes that the piece may alarm the general's colleagues in Washington:

"The article, titled "The Runaway General," has already caused nervousness inside the Pentagon, where memories are still fresh of another blistering profile that got a top commander in hot water: an August 2008 cover story in Esquire on Adm William "Fox" Fallon, then commander of all US forces in the Middle East and Central Asia. The article eventually played a part in Fallon's resignation two years ago.

"In that Esquire piece, however, Fallon appeared to directly contradict White House policy on Iran and other parts of the Middle East; the Rolling Stone article makes no such allegation, but rather is full of jokey put-downs of important Washington players."

Politico is less optimistic about the general's future:

"It will be hard for the White House to get past this since the remarks appear to amount to some level of insubordination."

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder opens the punditry, wondering what the general was thinking:

"I don't think McChrystal intended to do this. Nevertheless, he did. And as for whether there was some miscommunication about attribution, or whether McChrystal thought no one would really notice, or whether he thought a tick-tock like this would help his cause ... those questions are unanswerable right now."

Links in full:

• Jenn Kepka | Open Salon | McChrystal's Rolling Stone comments: Really, that bad?
• Jason Linkins | Huffington Post | Stanley McChrystal Under Fire: What Does It Mean For Counterinsurgency Strategy?
• Spencer Ackerman | firedoglake | McChrystal apologises, but the question remains: defrock the pope?
• Rich Lowry | National Review's The Corner | A Couple of Points about McChrystal
• New York Times | McChrystal Apologizes for Remarks in Magazine
• Washington Post | Gen. Stanley McChrystal summoned to Washington following magazine profile
• Wall Street Journal | McChrystal on defensive for remarks
• Politico | Furious President Obama summons Gen. Stanley McCrystal to explain comments
• Marc Ambinder | The Atlantic | The Night Beat: What the Heck Was McChrystal Thinking?

In the Observer, Ruth Sunderland reflects on BP's involvement in British pensions and anticipates an increase in shareholder power:

"The average pension fund member is not an expert on finance, oil extraction or fund management. The system here, as in the US, relies on large shareholders to police boardroom behaviour and risk-taking. We now know how utterly they have failed in that duty. Most institutions are strangely timid about confrontations with company managements, despite the billions of pounds under their control."

In the Birmingham Post's Businessblog, John Clancy wants to see pensions no longer linked to companies like BP:

"Pensions funds shouldn't be investing in BP plc. They should be investing in UK plc. And West Midlands plc in particular.
 
"That takes a fundamental restructuring of banking and economic outlook which I think neither the Office of Fiscal Responsibility nor the Future of Banking Commission gets, because of their London-centric outlook."

In Bloomberg Businessweek, David Bogoslaw writes that "the tide has shifted with respect to how much thought mainstream investors are giving to environmental, social, and corporate governance":

"Reversals of fortune of this magnitude aren't as rare as we sometimes think. Recall how the tobacco giants wound up ceding enormous, profit-generating power to the U.S. government and how asbestos lawsuits forced such major industrial outfits as Johns-Manville into bankruptcy.
 
"The common denominator linking BP with these companies is growing clear: They all failed to anticipate risks that could threaten their business foundations."

In the Financial Times [^*registration required], Clive Crook argues that "British complaints that BP is being 'scapegoated' will not help reason to prevail":

"A US media frenzy is a disgusting thing to watch. Even so, in all this I have no sympathy for either BP or for those in Britain - such as Boris Johnson, London's mayor - who are complaining about a surge in anti-British rhetoric. That kind of whining does not play well in the US. If you want a real backlash against the UK, keep that up.
 
"Imagine that Exxon Mobil had spent weeks dumping 30,000 barrels of oil a day (the newest estimate, double the previous one: seven Exxon Valdez spills so far and counting) on the British shoreline, with no end yet in sight."

The New York Times editorial argues that the spill is "a test of President Obama's vision of government":

"He should have moved a lot faster to begin political and criminal investigations of the spill. If BP was withholding information, failing to cooperate or not providing the ships needed to process the oil now flowing to the surface, he should have told the American people and the world."

In the Independent, Stephen Foley says that President Obama's priority is to convince the nation that he is on top of the situation:

"[Mr Obama] is right that the technical expertise, as well as the financial responsibility, for plugging the leak and cleaning the mess, is all BP's, not that of the government.
 
"But the American public expects the White House to demonstrate control of the situation, and now polls put the government's response to the disaster as worse than the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, a failure from which Mr Obama's predecessor never recovered.
 
"Even the president's friends have moved from expressing understanding and sympathy to outright criticism".

Links in full

• Ruth Sunderland | Observer | Time to tame the boardroom titans
• John Clancy | Birmingham Post | The South East got us into this mess
• David Bogoslaw | Bloomberg Businessweek | Shareholder activists
• Clive Crook | FT | Britain should back down over BP
• New York Times | The President's moment
• Stephen Foley | Independent | Obama must convince American public

Anita Brooks of the Independent reports from Sitges about the atmosphere around the venue:

"The heavyweight weekend retreat kicked off yesterday with hordes of police security and a gag order for employees at the luxury Dolce, whose aptly-named presidential suites overlook the Mediterranean. None of the illustrious guests posed for photos or spouted prepared statements for the media. Instead, activists, journalists and bloggers attempted to stake out positions in the surrounding hills to catch glimpses of this year's participants, guerrilla-warrior style."

The Guardian has published a photo gallery of images taken by activists that purports to show delegates arriving at the conference, and is asking readers to identify them:

"[A] few interested souls have slipped past police patrols, clambered up cliffs, fallen off walls, dodged heatseeking helicopters and managed to capture, on film, the richest of the rich and the shyest of the shy.
 
"Have a flick through our gallery of hard-won mugshots and see whether you can spot anyone you know."

Caroline Baum in Bloomberg Businessweek looks at some of the speculation about the conference's agenda:

"One website said the agenda this year would include approaches to provoking the kind of economic breakdown that could 'justify the establishment of a full-scale world economic governance.' Another website said the group would discuss manufacturing a global depression to implement their dream of one-world government.
 
"That these assertions sound less wacky than they used to tells you to what extent public and private sectors have become enmeshed and to what degree governments have coordinated their national and regional bailouts."

In the Telegraph, Iain Hollingshead concludes that the conference may be more mundane than some suggest:

"The reality of these conferences appears to boil down to a group of willy-waggling old men comparing their security details and dreaming of past glories. Admittedly, they are efficient talent-spotters, inviting Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher and Bill Clinton before they were household names (and thereby fuelling further conspiracies)."

For Fox News, Glenn Beck argues that it is easy to anticipate what the delegates would be likely to discuss:

"You don't need a conspiracy site to know what these supposedly elite and powerful people were 'secretly' meeting about. They weren't talking about their golf handicaps; they're talking about the economic shape of the world. They're asking if the euro will survive. They're wondering if America will survive. What will the world look like a year from now?"

The Times imagines Henry Kissinger trying to get into the conference and being met by a reluctant policeman:

- You seem to know an awful lot, mister.
- Of course I do! That's why I'm here. The Bilderberg Group is designed for people who know a lot.
- But you, perhaps, know too much.
- A person cannot know too much, since the more you know, the more you realise how much you don't know. It's a kind of paradox. You see?
- So if you don't know things, why are you here?

Links in full

• Anita Brooks | Independent | What are the Bilderberg Group really doing in Spain?
• Charlie Skelton | Guardian | Bilderberg 2010: Who are the delegates?
• Caroline Baum | Bloomberg Businessweek | PPT's vanishing act
• Iain Hollingshead | Telegraph | The Bilderberg Group: fact and fantasy
• Glenn Beck | Fox News | Have our leaders abandoned common sense?
• Times | Shhh... It's Bilderberg Time

On Tech Brief today: Digg may be "deadd", internet scammers get scammed, and the perils of digital journey-planners.

• Whatever happened to Digg, the online service which lets users share stories and links they like, or "dig", with others? Mike Phillips thinks it has entered a state of terminal decline:

"According to the latest Compete.com data (April, 2010) Digg lost an astounding 13.8 million unique visits from March to April, 2010 -- a near 36 percent drop ... The fact is, people -- real people -- are beginning to tire. Submit this, upload that, vote on this, 'like' that, be my 'friend', check in here, suggest this, retweet that ... there's already so much to do. The only thing left to 'Digg' is a grave."

The creator of Digg, Kevin Rose has announced changes to the service, and a recently released video shows how a new version of Digg will work. But Mike Phillips thinks it has lost its relevance:

"By all accounts, it's another social network. An unnecessary one. The main focus is to make friends (starting by importing your social graph from sites like Facebook) and Digg stories. Then, your new Digg page will show the stories Dugg most by all your friends. Sound like something your friends 'liked' on Facebook? Or perhaps something retweeted on Twitter?"

• And now for something completely different. Fans of the British comedy group Monty Python will be very familiar with its famous Dead Parrot sketch. Bruce Sterling at Wired magazine has spotted a version purporting to be the product of a reverse sting on advance fee fraudsters in Nigeria.

Advance-fee scams are e-mails that read like this: "I'm the long lost nephew of Sani Abacha, and am looking for a home for his lost millions. Send me a cheque for £5,000 and I'll send you back £5m."

The characters in the sketch supposedly were promised fame and fortune by someone purporting to be a video producer, who they had tried to scam, if they were prepared to act out the Monty Python sketch.

Its authenticity can not be confirmed, as Bruce Sterling points out:

"I really don't know what to say. Maybe it's a scam. A fraud. A charade. Except it's free, and didn't ask me for money. I'm confused. Also, it's three years old and only had 57,000+ hits. Surely it oughta have at least fifty million."

But it is entertaining, and it definitely deserves a wider airing.

• Anyone who has used a satellite navigation system is familiar with getting sent down a cul-de-sac once in a while. But in the United States, a woman is suing Google, because she alleges that a Google Maps walking route led her to a busy road, where she was struck by a car.

Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land wonders:

"Are Google's bad guesses also dangerous? I suspect a court is going to find that despite getting bad directions from Google (or a gas station attendant, a local person or any source), people are also expected to use common sense."

But he adds:

"Here's to Google improving its directions and perhaps using more common sense of its own, understanding whether a street is a busy highway and maybe simply not offering routes when it doubt, rather than guessing."

• Lego bricks are famous the world over as a children's toy for building stuff. But prepare to be amazed. A person known only as "squirrelfantasy" has
turned a few bits of lego into a fully-fledged felt-tip pen 'printer'. Kevin Hall is impressed:

"Adorned with LEGO men and, really, only as pretty as it has to be to get the job done, the LEGO printer doesn't look like it's the fastest, though it does create a pretty unique printout. The pen slides back and forth, building images and text one line at a time. It'd probably have trouble with the finer details, though maybe it could just use a finer pen."

• Yesterday on Tech Brief, we heard about Google's move to keep new employees away from Microsoft software, owing to concerns about security. Microsoft wasted no time in hitting back, on its Windows team blog. Brandon LeBlanc from Microsoft is adamant:

"When it comes to security, even hackers admit we're doing a better job making our products more secure than anyone else. And it's not just the hackers; third party influentials and industry leaders like Cisco tell us regularly that our focus and investment continues to surpass others."

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to @bbctechbrief on Twitter, tag them bbctechbrief on Delicious or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

Links in full

• Mike Phillips | Website Magazine | Digg is deadd
• Bruce Sterling | Wired |
Showtime: 419 spammers perform the Monty Python Dead Parrot Sketch
• Danny Sullivan | Search Engine Land | Woman Follows Google Maps "Walking" Directions, Gets Hit, Sues
• Kevin Hall | Dvice | Working LEGO printer uses felt-tip pens to get 'er done
• Brandon LeBlanc | Windows Team Blog | Windows and Security: Setting the Record Straight

Caroline B Glick in the Jerusalem Post argues that Israel is under attack from the world's left-wing and Islamist activists. She says that, in order to win the "information war", Israeli leaders must be stronger with their responses to the storming of the flotilla. They must counter with the "unvarnished truth":

"Israel is the frontline of the free world. Its ability to defend itself and deter its foes is the single most important guarantee of international peace. A strong Israel is also the most potent and reliable guarantor of the US's continued ability to project its power in the Middle East."

Also in the Jerusalem Post, David Horovitz writes in an analysis piece that while everyone expects Israel to do badly in terms of of world public opinion over its actions in Gaza, it should not have done so badly in the technical aspects of the operation:

"Israel is concerned with eminently good reason about the smuggling of weaponry into Hamas-controlled Gaza. It may have felt it had no choice but to intercept a flotilla carrying it knew not what to the Hamas terror state. Why did it not anticipate that the activists and supporters of 'a violent, extremist organization that supports terrorism' would act precisely according to type?"

As news came out of the Israeli Defense Forces' action, the Jerusalem Post reported that it was under what it called a "cyber attack":

"Thousands of abusive e-mails were sent to newspaper staff members and general department addresses in an attempt to crash the system. The spam filter, used to separate junk mail and protect the network from viruses, showed 4,000 e-mails received in a matter of seconds. There were also attempts to hack the firewall, which can flood the network with useless data and allow entry to the newspaper's online operating system."

The Haaretz leader column argues that what it sees as the damage to Israel's image and diplomatic relations is "the price of a flawed policy" in its blockade of Gaza:

"Someone must be held responsible for this disgraceful failure. There is no way to convince Israel's citizens and its friends around the world that Israel regrets the confrontation and its results, and is learning from its errors, other than setting up a state inquiry committee to investigate the decision-making process, and to decide who should pay for this dangerous policy."

Ari Shavit, also writing in Haaretz, calls the incident "a fiasco on the high seas" and says the Israeli government has failed to learn the lessons of its own independence struggle from the British. Mr Shavit recalls the British army's attack on the Exodus, a boatload of Jewish refugees, shortly before the mandate crumbled in 1948:

"With a single foolish move, the Israeli cabinet cast the Muslim Brotherhood in the role of the victim and the Israel Navy as the villain and simultaneously opened European, Turkish, Arab, Palestinian and internal Israeli fronts. In so doing, Israel is serving Hamas' interests better than Hamas itself has ever done."

For Reuven Pedatzur in Haaretz, the raid was "a failure any way you slice it":

"The inefficiency and the panic that overwhelmed the commandos, leading to the deaths of so many, raises worrying questions about their skillfulness and operational capability."

David Kaufman, a US-based rabbi, writes about his support for the Israeli action on his blog, Rabbi's Reasons. He says the US administration should also announce its support for the IDF's raid:

"The violence on board the ship theoretically carrying non-violent protesters was instigated by the passengers, not by the soldiers who boarded out of a legitimate concern for Israel's security."

Kevin Clarke, who blogs at US Catholic, says that the US should turn its attention to the growing crisis in the Middle East:

"If history is a guide the Israeli military will conduct a thorough review of this morning's massacre before clearing itself on all counts and accusing any contradicting investigations of anti-Semitism."

Uri Avnery, a former member of the Israeli parliament, writing in the Gush Shalom blog, says the action has done terrible harm to Israel:

"This is a day of disgrace to the State of Israel, a day of anxiety in which we discover that our future was entrusted to a bunch of trigger-happy people without any responsibility."

The Israeli blogger Reb Mordechai blames Defence Minister Ehud Barak for what he calls a failure:

"Barak has caused a worldwide public disaster, perhaps Israel's worst. Only time will tell what damage to the State he has caused. He has handed a propaganda gift on a silver platter to Hamas and all the hostile world media. Will Barak now resign? Will he be fired?"

Robert Fisk in the Independent asks why British politicians are so reluctant to say anything about what happened:

"[I]t is ordinary people, activists, call them what you will, who now take decisions to change events. Our politicians are too spineless, too cowardly, to take decisions to save lives. Why is this? Why didn't we hear courageous words from Messrs Cameron and Clegg yesterday? For it is a fact, is it not, that had Europeans (and yes, the Turks are Europeans, are they not?) been gunned down by any other Middle Eastern army (which the Israeli army is, is it not?) there would have been waves of outrage."

The Daily Mail's Michael Burleigh suggests that the the organisers of the flotilla were aware of what Israel's reaction might be:

"For it is clear this escapade was less about aid than about PR. Indeed, on board one of the aid vessels was Swedish novelist Henning Mankell, who wrote the Wallander detective novels. He was primed to discuss his humanitarian odyssey with newscaster Jon Snow at this weekend's Hay Literary Festival. It is hard to imagine a more contrived form of 'debate'."

Melanie Phillips at the Spectator picks up on comments made by Foreign Secretary William Hague:

"[T]he Tories are now in coalition with the Israel-bashing LibDems, who would blame Israel even if jihadis were to sail a flotilla up the Thames and take the entire LibDem leadership hostage."

• The United States Food and Drug Administration has just approved a backpack-sized artificial heart.

Patients requiring a heart machine are normally stuck in hospital, attached to a device weighing close to 200kg, so the first user of the backpack-sized heart, 43-year-old Charles Okeke, was thrilled:

"I am about as happy of a person as you can have right now... to be able to sleep in my own bed after two years on a hospital bed, you can't imagine."

• There was a much-heralded launch for an Adobe Flash plug-in for smartphones, as well as a new Android smartphone operating system at Google's recent I/O developer conference.

Technology writer Gina Trapani shares screenshots of some of her favourite bits of Google's new Android Operating System 2.2 for mobile phones, codenamed Froyo.

But she also found that the Flash plug-in for smartphones does not yet work with media from the popular video sites Hulu or Vimeo:

"On Hulu I got a 'your device isn't supported' message, and Vimeo told me I needed to download Flash 10. So, Adobe's Flash 10 plug-in for Android 2.2 is indeed beta."

• While we're all used to watching clips on websites like YouTube, it seems watching entire movies is growing rapidly in popularity.

Research from Ipsos MORI indicates it trebled between late 2008 and late 2009. One in five US consumers streamed a full-length movie in October 2009. Brian Pickens, Senior Research Manager at Ipsos OTX MediaCT said:

"Video on the internet is no longer the domain of short, amateur clips, but has become a viable alternative for all forms of video, regardless of length."

• Is the Twitterverse like the Universe?

The web design studio Information Architects thinks so. And it's even identified a Big Bang, around which the team draw planet-shaped circles to show when and in what sphere Twitter's top 140 users started using the microblogging service.

Stan Schroeder at Mashable said:

"As hard as it is to determine the exact level of influence of individual Twitter users, the visualisation [1.14Mb PDF] is an amazing sight to behold. It's huge, complex, and beautiful."

• And apparently Twitter has transformed political reporting. John Rentoul says, for example, there is no other way he would have discovered this strange-sounding law:

"The Food (Jelly Mini-Cups) (emergency Control) ( Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2010"

That aside, he's quite serious about how Twitter has transformed his job:

"We who remember the waiting for dates, the missed phone calls and the microfiche libraries of the era before the Amstrad personal computer should recognise that Twitter completes the range of options available to writers."

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to @bbctechbrief on Twitter, tag them bbctechbrief on Delicious or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

Links in full

• CNET News | Man goes home with 'Total Artificial Heart'
• Gina Trapani | Smarterware | My Favourite Features in Froyo
• Ipsos MORI | Movie Downloading and Streaming Triples in 2009
• Stan Schroeder | Mashable | Twitter's Most Influential Users
• John Rentoul | The Independent | How Twitter transformed political reporting

Liz Sidoti, writing for the Huffington Post, weighs in on voters choosing outsiders over insiders:

"Future implications could be huge. Candidates like Paul and Rep. Joe Sestak, who defeated White House-backed Specter, owe little or nothing to their parties. Coalition building, already a lost art in Capitol Hill, could become tougher if more candidates come to Washington as insurgent free agents. Big-monied special interest groups could recruit and fund candidates, the domain of a strong Democratic and Republican parties."

Susan Milligan of the Boston Globe warns that winners of the primary election may be greeted by more experienced candidates in the general election:

"The primary winners may not be the strongest candidates going into the November general election, political specialists said. Primary voters tend to be party activists; general election voters draw from a broader pool that may favor a more moderate candidate. And while establishment candidates are an unappealing choice for many primary voters, they often have better campaign apparatus and experience. That gives veteran candidates an edge, especially in traditionally low-turnout mid-term elections, when get-out-the-vote efforts can make the difference between victory and defeat."

Andrew Malcolm and Johanna Neuman for the Los Angeles Times's Top of the Ticket blog question whether either party came away victorious:

"Yes, Specter's ouster did come at the hands of a real Democrat, Joe Sestak, who defied the White House's wishes.

"But here's what Tuesday really means: Both parties took it in the ear. Nationally.

"American voters are, for lack of a polite p-word, mad as hell and they're gonna dump on any incumbents they can find. (Can you say Harry Reid? Barbara Boxer?)"

Bruce Maiman of Examiner.com questions whether the outcome of the elections means Republicans will take control come November:

"Democrats remain on the defensive heading toward November, in large part because of divisions over Obama's agenda, the high jobless rate and the size of the federal budget deficit. The Kentucky race underscored the energy of anti-government conservatives who intend to shake up the capital. But the results in Pennsylvania's special House election will raise questions about whether Republicans will be able to take control of the House in November, as many of their leaders have predicted."

On Politico.com, John Harris and Jim Vandehei reflect on the anti-incumbent mood amid changes in political campaigning:

"This is a stark and potentially durable change in politics. The old structures that protected incumbent power are weakening. New structures, from partisan news outlets to online social networks, are giving anti-establishment politicians access to two essential elements of effective campaigns: publicity and financial support."

Michael Scherer, writing for Time.com, attempts to sum up the primary elections in one sentence:

"This is how it goes in 2010 at the ballot box: old orders are upended, political lions become roadkill, chosen successors get left behind and the outsider, riding a wave of discontent, becomes the new front-runner.

"In quick succession Tuesday night, the jittery inhabitants of Washington's marble halls found three more reasons to worry about their staying power."

Jay Whitehead, writing for Forbes.com's CSR blog, sees unforeseen trouble ahead for the oil industry:

"In the Gulf oil spill, two big lapses have combined into a perfect storm of irresponsibility. First, the black hole in drilling standards highlighted by my colleague Elliot Clark of Corporate Responsibility Magazine. Second, the reality that BP had no contingency plan for a catastrophic blowout, but will nevertheless be partially rescued by government clean-up operations and court limits on plaintiff settlements. That perfect storm will result in two mammoth, unexpected financial consequences."

In the Washington Post, Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin say that law firms with experience of previous big class-action lawsuits are now lining up all-star teams to sue over the spill:

"The prospects of getting big dollars in this case are good, too, lawyers say. They are eyeing BP, one of the five biggest publicly owned companies in the world; Transocean, the largest offshore driller in the world; Halliburton, the big oil services firm; and Cameron, maker of the well's failed blowout preventer. Anadarko Petroleum and Mitsui, BP's partners in the offshore lease, also are liable.

"Unlike the Exxon Valdez tanker accident, which happened in Alaska's remote Prince William Sound, the current spill could have a much bigger economic impact because the Gulf of Mexico is a busy home to valuable fisheries, tourism and shipping."

Writing in the New York Times's Green blog, Kate Galbraith highlights concern that as the slick spreads, gaps in international rules over liability may become apparent:

"In the event of a spill that affects multiple countries, a number of global conventions devised through the International Maritime Organization govern prevention and clean-up efforts. There are also regional agreements - the United States, for example, maintains agreements with Canada, Mexico, Panama, Russia and the British Virgin Islands, according to the State Department.

"But experts say there are large gaps in what the international agreements cover."

An editorial in the New Orleans-based Times-Picayune newspaper draws parallels between the handling of the oil spill and the events that followed Hurricane Katrina:

"Investigations into the cause, or causes, of the accident will take time to sort through what promises to be voluminous amounts of evidence.

"It is already clear, though, that federal oversight was virtually nonexistent, and safety suffered because of it. Going forward, the oil industry must be required to meet a high standard for safety and training, and government agencies need to ensure that they meet those standards.

"Twice in the past five years, South Louisianians have ended up in dire straits because institutions that were supposed to protect us didn't. That should never happen again."

Wendy Koch, in USA Today's Greenhouse blog, looks at how much responsibility the federal government bears for the spill:

"Does the US government deserve blame for the Gulf oil spill? It didn't build, own or operate the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that caused the spill, but new reports raise questions about its oversight."

Jason Dearen and Matt Sedensky, for the Associated Press, report that methods used to tackle the spill may increase the threat to the Gulf's underwater environment:

"Experts say the well's depth and Friday's decision by the US Environmental Protection Agency to allow BP to shoot massive amounts of dispersing chemicals deep underwater may help protect vital marshes and wetlands on the Gulf Coast. But the trade-off may result in significant effects on more sea life."

Commentator Peter Wehner, posting on Commentary magazine's blog Contentions, suggests President Barack Obama is too keen to shift the blame elsewhere:

"Here we have the most compulsive finger-pointing, blame-shifting, I'm-not-responsible-for-anything-that's-happening-on-my-watch president imaginable lecturing others about finger-pointing. He's like an alcoholic who sermonizes to his college-age son for drinking a Bud Light."

On Tech Brief today: reports suggest Google could be on the brink of joining the tablet party, Facebook answers questions about privacy, Orange and T-Mobile rebrand and Mozilla says goodbye to a long-serving member of the open source community.

• When the tech rumour mill turns, Apple is usually in the mix somewhere and the latest gossip is no exception, throwing in heavyweight Google for good measure. Verizon chief executive Lowell McAdam reportedly told the Wall Street Journal that Google is working with US network Verizon to develop an iPad rival:

"We're working on tablets together, for example. We're looking at all the things Google has in its archives that we could put on a tablet to make it a great experience."

Watch this space.

• Another tech heavyweight social networking site Facebook has been busy answering questions posed by readers of the New York Times.

Privacy was unsurprisingly top of the agenda with many angry that Facebook seems unable to stop fiddling with its settings.

David, from Illinois, asked why it couldn't just leave well enough alone. Elliot Schrage, vice president for public policy at Facebook, replied, somewhat apologetically:

"We know that changing Facebook - something people have demonstrated is important to them - can be unsettling. But we're always trying to be better and do more for our users. Clearly, we need to rethink the tempo of change and how we communicate it. Trust me. We'll do better."

If he isn't true to his word Tech Brief predicts that he might have another sort of demo on his hands.

• Don't you just love a good name change? T-Mobile and Orange have merged to create the biggest mobile firm in the UK. While Tech Brief would have thought Mobile Orange or Orange T were perfectly good names for the new company, these simple monikers have been rejected in favour of the more grandiose Everything Everywhere.

The Register reports that they picked the domain name for a bargain price from IT consultant Ted Kelly. A somewhat miffed Mr Kelly told the Reg:

"I'm a little shocked to see the news today... coincidentally, the day that this modest sale was completed! It seems that it was bought by 'an agent' who kept very quiet about the intentions for the domain. It was therefore acquired for a very nominal sum."

So, for Mr Kelly it is back to the drawing board for new lucrative domains. Maybe he should turn his attention to the new Googlepad.

• John Lilly, the popular boss of open source software foundation Mozilla is stepping down after five years in the job. He will remain at the firm until a replacement can be found but then he will move back into his old role as a venture capitalist. With Mozilla now reaching out to nearly half a billion people around the world, many of his fans will be eager to see what new start-ups he puts his money behind.

In his blog Mr Lilly writes

"I'm incredibly proud of the work we've done over the last several years, and very optimistic about what the future holds."

• And finally, with 3D the buzz word of 2010 it wasn't going to be long before the adult entertainment industry jumped on the bandwagon. CNN reports a 3D centrefold is due in the June issue, after Hugh Hefner decided that a naked lady is probably what people would most like to see in 3D. Proving himself to be an early adopter, Hefner first had the idea for 3D centrefolds back in the 1950s but rejected it when he found out how much it would cost.

Don't get your 3D glasses steamed up, boys.

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to @bbctechbrief on Twitter, tag them bbctechbrief on Delicious or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

Links in full

• Niraj Sheth | Wall Street Journal | Verizon, Google developing iPad rival

• New York Times blogs | Facebook executive answers reader questions

• Kevin Murphy, The Register | Man sold EverythingEverywhere domain

• John Lilly's blog | What's next for me

• Samuel Axon | Mashable | Playboy to publish 3D centrefold

A New York Times reporter offers this portrait of Mr Cameron:

Likable, quick on his feet, informal, self-assured, his easy charm a vivid contrast to the tortured, self-lacerating intensity of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mr Cameron seemed at times to be gliding into power, so effortlessly did he take to the cut-and-thrust of British parliamentary politics.

Deployed to London, Washington Post political columnist Dan Balz scratches his chin and ponders the future of the "special relationship":

Officials in and out of government here say Britain needs a more hard-headed relationship with the United States, in keeping with what they see as Obama's approach to Britain and the world. Some fear that the comfort of a "special relationship" can become a substitute for serious thinking about Britain's role.

Britain under David Cameron will remain one of America's most reliable and important allies. But the balance in the relationship may continue to change, as the new British government makes its way in the world.

On Foreign Policy magazine's blog, Joshua Keating says good-bye to Gordon Brown:

Never having been elected and serving only three unpopular years as prime minister after many more in waiting, Brown won't be remembered as one of Britain's great leaders, and that's probably deserved. All the same, the outgoing prime minister has a good case to claim that he's been a victim of historical circumstance. On the main factor that propelled David Cameron into 10 Downing Street, the global financial crisis, even Brown's opponents admit he has "mostly made the right decisions."

But after 13 years under what should probably no longer be called "New Labour," British voters are hungry for a change.

At The Atlantic, Clive Crook holds little hope for the Tory/Lib Dem coalition government holding:

A short and turbulent marriage, terminating in an early election, is a distinct possibility - and might not be the worst thing, from Cameron's point of view. Depending on the circumstances, the Tories could hope for re-election with a working majority: "This time, give us a chance to do the job." A brief and bitter experience of coalition government as the fiscal roof falls in could silence demands for proportional representation for the next 20 years.

Links in full

Sarah Lyall | New York Times | Cameron Faces Challenges Beyond His Coalition

Dan Balz | Washington Post | U.S., U.K. alliance questioned following British election

Joshua Keating | Foreign Policy's Passport blog | Goodbye Gordon Brown

Clive Crook | The Atlantic | Yes, Prime Minister

The New York Times fears Ms Kagan will lack the heft to challenge the Supreme Court's aggressive conservative wing. But its writers praise Obama for nominating an attorney with a background different from the eight other justices, who all ascended from federal appeals courts:

Whether by ambitious design or by habit of mind, Ms Kagan has spent decades carefully husbanding her thoughts and shielding her philosophy from view. Her lack of a clear record on certain issues makes it hard to know whether Mr Obama has nominated a full-throated counterweight to the court's increasingly aggressive conservative wing.

The White House undoubtedly hopes the ellipses in Ms Kagan's record will help her avoid a rocky confirmation hearing. That expedient approach, unfortunately, reflects the widespread sentiment that the right holds the upper hand in judicial debates, forcing the left to duck and cower.

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wonders if Senate Republicans can resist their typical knee-jerk opposition, because he argues she is not the fierce liberal she'll be caricatured as:

The nomination poses a challenge to Senate Republicans to see whether they can recognize Obama's conciliatory gesture and move beyond reflexive opposition. Conservative interest groups have already begun to holler about how Kagan plans on "reshaping the court" with a "leftist legacy."

That's nonsense. True, Kagan comes from the liberal side. (Was anybody expecting Obama to nominate a member of the Federalist Society?) But she is certainly not the nominee liberal groups wanted. Though the interest groups, now noncommittal, have little choice but to fall in line, writers at liberal outfits have called her an "ideological cipher" (Mother Jones) and a "seemingly principle-free careerist" (Salon).

In the journal Weekly Standard, James Pierson wishes for a justice who had been educated in state schools, not the Ivy League like all the rest:

The justices of the Court have attended the best schools where they received top grades, have gotten ahead in a competitive profession, and have constantly been told how intelligent they are. They represent a law school culture in which the law is conceived in terms of logical arguments alloyed with good intentions. The everyday world of most Americans is thoroughly foreign to such a culture. And thus it is naïve to think that, given where they came from, the justices would disdain the opportunity to make the law -and even to make it up when they can.

The Murdoch-owned New York Post says the nomination of Kagan, a native New Yorker, makes the Supreme Court a "sixth borough" of the city, after Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island:

If confirmed by the Senate, Elena Kagan - President Obama's choice to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens - would be the third native New Yorker now sitting on the high court, along with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor. (Plus, Antonin Scalia grew up in Queens.)

So New Yorkers certainly have reason to be proud - though it's too soon to say whether Kagan deserves confirmation.

A report in Politico says that even if Republicans have no hope of derailing the Kagan nomination, they still stand to gain politically from a bruising fight:

Republicans want to incite a national debate about the role of the judiciary, energizing their base ahead of November's midterm elections. Republicans plan to focus on Kagan's lack of judicial experience and her role in a 2003 controversy involving military recruiters on Harvard Law School's campus. And they're trying to paint her as someone more in tune with the workings of Washington insiders than with ordinary Americans.

And on the New York Times website, a graphical timeline of Kagan's life and career.

The Independent's editorial says that Mr Brown "with a brisk five-minute statement, changed the whole nature of the game":

"As Prime Minister, Mr Brown made many mistakes. He was elevated without a leadership contest; he ducked holding an election to legitimise his position, and he did not cede power when it could have improved Labour's election chances. But the manner of his departure suddenly opens up British politics. It is a timely and fitting bequest."

In the Daily Mail Quentin Letts celebrates Gordon Brown's departure:

"The only welcome piece of news: Brown is out. But not yet, alas. It was a day, for the politicians, of scrabbling for alliances. For the rest of us it was a frustrating day of having gates and doors slammed in our faces, of being moved on by the cops, and effectively being told we were not adult enough to know of the discussions being held in the name of those votes we cast last week. If this is the new politics, Nick Clegg, it stinks like a prop forward's jock strap."

The director of the Centre for Economics Policy Studies at the Hudson Institute, Irwin Stelzer, argues in the Guardian that Labour was wrong to get rid of Brown:

"Remember: Brown kept Britain out of the euro, and granted independence to the Bank of England - perhaps the two things that have kept the rating agencies from treating Britain as it is treating Greece. So far."

Rachel Sylvester says in the Times that Gordon Brown's resignation will lead to soul-searching in the Labour party:

"Labour must also decide whether it is a party of pragmatism or ideology. Through its leadership election it will have the first chance in more than a decade to define what it stands for. It could return to its traditional supporters, as the Tories did in 1997, and become a left-wing rump, or try to retain a broader-based appeal. The unions will fuel the latent desire to swing to the left. The prospect of a coalition with the Lib Dems could focus minds on the need to stay on the centre ground."

In his blog Alastair Campbell eulogises about his colleague:

"The way many in the media and public talk of politicians, all they see are self-serving plotters and schemers interested only in status, power and advancement. I think Gordon has genuinely been driven in politics by a deep belief in social justice, and in recent days by a clear commitment to seeking to make sense of the result in a way that serves the national interest."

In the Telegraph Mary Riddell says Mr Brown's "hairshirt tenacity" may be missed by more than many allow:

"If this deal succeeds, Gordon Brown, a colossal figure on the political stage, will have assured his place in history. He may also have called time on Sisyphus syndrome. In future, those pledged to social, global and electoral justice will not be cursed to push the rock of change uphill, only to watch it crash to earth again."

Josh Marshall of left-wing blog Talking Points Memo finds another reason to call the election result unprecedented:

The UK election turned out to be perhaps the only election I can think of where all three parties managed to lose at the same time. Each in a different way.

On The Daily Beast, Tina Brown writes that Gordon Brown's biggest enemy now is the "Tory press", especially Murdoch papers calling for his head:

The Tories are already bleating on about their "moral victory" and Labour's repudiation, but in fact the country hasn't elected the Tories and Gordon Brown can sit tight and will. He is tough, a Scottish bruiser when it comes to a knuckle fight. His biggest enemy now is the Tory tabloid press. Murdoch scion James has already been heard chewing the carpet at Times newspapers and girding for a battle that will end with Cameron in Number Ten. The nation is feeling even more bad tempered, broke and anxious than it did the weeks before. With images of incipient revolution in Greece flooding the TV screens on election eve, the City is baying for a "decisive," aka Tory, government.

Time's Catherine Mayer puts the election results down to Britain's disaffection with the traditional political parties:

As results rolled in across the country, it became clear that the first national election since revelations last year of widespread misuse of parliamentary expense accounts had provided voters with a chance to put the boot into the big parties.

On Newsweek's website, William Underhill writes that the measures necessary to right the UK budget may punish the party whose leader ends up in Number 10 for generations.

After a hard-fought campaign spent scurrying across the country in a last-minute effort to win undecided voters, David Cameron has probably won enough votes to become Britain's prime minister, assuming he can form a coalition with one of the other two parties. But why, again, does he want the job? The plain truth is that when Cameron moves into Downing Street, he'll inherit a financial mess that's almost unprecedented in peacetime Britain, and it carries nasty political implications. This is an election that, looking back, any sane leader might have preferred to lose.

Thomas M Defrank of the New York Daily News writes that no matter who becomes the next prime minister, expect a cooling of the "special relationship" between the US and the UK:

Britain's next prime minister, whoever he is, is well aware the Labor Party's decline after 13 years of rule is tied to the belief London has been too much in lockstep with a succession of American Presidents.

Labor has never recovered from the perception that former Prime Minister Tony Blair was so tight with Washington he was ridiculed as President George W Bush's "poodle".

The next PM won't repeat the mistake of cozying up with Barack Obama.

Karen DeYoung and Anne E Kornblut of the Washington Post question how Mr Shahzad arrived at JFK airport while being tracked by the FBI.

Most curious is how Shahzad, a suspected and potentially dangerous car bomber who was being tracked by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies since late Sunday, was able to drive to crowded Kennedy Airport, with a loaded 9mm handgun with extra clips in the car. It appears that the FBI and others watching Shahzad lost track of him for a period of time as he made his way toward the airport in Long Island.

Scott Shane of the New York Times reports that Emirates failed to check for an added name to the no-fly list.

In addition, the airline he was flying, Emirates, failed to act on an electronic message at midday on Monday notifying all carriers to check the no-fly list for an important added name, the officials said. That meant lost opportunities to flag him when he made a reservation and paid for his ticket in cash several hours before departure.

Eileen Sullivan and Matt Apuzzo of the Associated Press explain that Emirates worked from a no-fly list that was not current.

But when Emirates sold the ticket, it was working off an outdated list. Airline officials would have had to check a Web forum where updates are sent if it were to flag him. Because they didn't, law enforcement officials were not aware of his travel plans until they received the passenger list 30 minutes before takeoff, the official said.

Jennifer Rubin of Commentarymagazine.com suggests that security lapses are a common occurrence since 9/11.

We have benefited from the relative ineptitude of two terrorists - one who could have incinerated a plane-load of people and another who could have killed scores of people and created havoc in Times Square. The administration calls these "failed" incidents and thereby skates from incident to incident, never quite coming clean on its shortcomings. We should be pleased Shahzad was quickly apprehended, but we should demand a full explanation as to how he got on the plane.

Mark Hosenball of Newsweek suggests that Mr Shahzad's name should have been more swiftly entered into an airline reservation system.

While Homeland Security, often blamed for aviation security lapses and gaffes, can take credit for spotting and grabbing the suspect, officials concede not all of its procedures worked perfectly either. Once Shahzad's name had been entered on the "no-fly" list due to his status as a suspect in the bombing case, the alert on him should have been entered into all airline reservation systems so that he would be denied a ticket and authorities would be alerted if and when he tried to buy one. According to a knowledgeable official, fearing that the "no-fly" listing would move too slowly through the system, Homeland's Transportation Security Administration did put out a special alert related to Shahzad and asked airlines to check their passenger lists by hand to see if his name was on them. But this emergency procedure didn't work and he still wasn't taken off the plane until what was essentially the 59th minute of the 11th hour.

Nsenga Burton of Theroot.com asks why a one-way ticket paid for in cash did not indicate foul play.

What exactly is the point of a no-fly list if wannabe terrorists are going to be allowed on the plane anyway? How is it that us regular folks get searched and seized for things like mascara, lipstick, hand lotion and belt buckles? Suspected terrorist Faisal Shahzad reserved a one-way ticket on his way to JFK airport, paid for it in cash and coasted through security to secure a seat on his Emirates flight. We're not security experts, but even we know that one-way tickets bought in cash is an indicator of terrorist behavior. How do we know? September 11, 2001. We're just saying.

Times Online reports that the mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, agrees that Shahzah should not have been on the plane.

White House officials have praised the handling of the investigation, pointing out that Mr Shahzad was arrested before he could leave the country. But questions have been raised about the glaring security lapses on the part of government agencies and the airline that almost allowed him to flee the country. Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York, said: "Clearly the guy was on the plane and shouldn't have been. We got lucky."