BP's"top kill" procedure to plug the hole did not work

At all. In the least. Still blowing thick, deep black oil. Not surprising, given the track of failures behind them:

The abandonment of the top kill technique, the most ambitious effort yet to plug the well, was the latest in a series of failures. First, BP failed in efforts to repair a blowout preventer with submarine robots. Then its initial efforts to cap the well with a containment dome failed when it became clogged with a frothy mix of frigid water and gas. Efforts to use a hose to gather escaping oil have managed to catch only a fraction of the spill.

And you know what? They aren't going to stop it until they drill a new well, which will take until August:

BP has started work on two relief wells, but officials have said that they will not be completed until August...

That's at least another 180 million gallons of oil that will blow out, making it top out at easily over 300 million gallons. But remember, as Tony Hayward said, the Gulf of Mexico is real big, so it doesn't matter much.

In the meantime, don't expect too much, as they are basically throwing things at it and seeing what sticks:

A technician who has been working on the project to stem the oil leak said Saturday that neither the top kill nor the “junk shot” came close to succeeding because the pressure of oil and gas escaping from the well was simply too powerful to overcome. He added that engineers never had a complete enough understanding of the inner workings of drill pipe casing or blowout preventer mechanisms to make the efforts work.

“Simply too much of what we pumped in was escaping,” said the technician, who spoke on condition of remaining unnamed because he is not authorized to speak publicly for the company.

Once again - "engineers never had a complete enough understanding of the inner workings of drill pipe casing or blowout preventer mechanisms to make the efforts work." Wow. They don't understand the equipment they are using. Good idea, especially when working with such a volatile and destructive material as petroleum.

Also, the New York Times is still lying about how much oil is coming out of there:

He said it would capture most but not all of the oil leaking from the well, which is believed to be gushing 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day.

We know it is much more than that. Much, much more.