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Jon Stewart on the 911 Responders Bill
"There's people stranded on the 89th floor, but before I rush in
you gotta promise me, McClusky -- you gotta promise me and my
family that this will not effect the Swiss pharmaceutical
companies' offshore tax status."
http://www.americablog.com/2010/08/jon-stewart-on-911-responders-bill.html
AMA report on CIA physicians' role in torture
Vol. 304 No. 5, August 4, 2010
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/304/5/569
Roles of CIA Physicians in Enhanced Interrogation and Torture of Detainees
Leonard S. Rubenstein, JD; BG (ret) Stephen N. Xenakis, MD
JAMA. 2010;304(5):569-570. doi:10.1001/jama.2010.1057
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.
Secrecy has restricted scrutiny of the role of physicians and other medical personnel in the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA’s) "enhanced" interrogation program, begun in 2002. The program, also labeled "physical and psychological pressure," was designed to "psychologically ‘dislocate’ the detainee, maximize his feelings of vulnerability and helplessness, and reduce or eliminate his will to resist" efforts to obtain intelligence.1-3(appendix F) In 2009, the Obama Administration released guidelines on enhanced interrogation written in 2003 and 2004 by the CIA Office of Medical Services (OMS).1-3(appendix F) The OMS guidelines, even in redacted form, and opinions from the US Department of Justice's (DOJ’s) Office of Legal Counsel show that CIA physicians, psychologists, and other health care personnel had important roles in enhanced interrogation.
Enhanced interrogation methods were applied in escalating fashion. Interrogators typically began by removing the detainee's clothes, limiting food, and depriving him of . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Author Affiliations: Center for Public Health and Human Rights, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland (Mr Rubenstein); and Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland (Dr Xenakis).
The Republican Plan to Commemorate Ground Zero
via boingboing
EXECUTIVE ORDER No. 2010 - 7
DECLARATION OF STATE OF DISASTER
CALHOUN COUNTY OIL PIPELINE SPILL
WHEREAS, Section 1 of Article V of the Michigan Constitution of 1963 vests the executive power of the State of Michigan in the Governor;
WHEREAS, under Section 51 of Article IV of the Michigan Constitution of 1963, the public health and general welfare of the people of this state are declared to be matters of primary public concern;
WHEREAS, under Section 52 of Article IV of the Michigan Constitution of 1963, the conservation and development of the natural resources of this state are declared to be of paramount public concern in the interest of the health, safety and general welfare of the people;
WHEREAS, under the Emergency Management Act, 1976 PA 390, MCL 30.401 to 30.421, and 1945 PA 302, MCL 10.31 to 10.33, the Governor is responsible for coping with dangers to this state or the people of this state presented by a disaster or emergency and may issue executive orders, proclamations, and directives having the force and effect of law;
WHEREAS, under Section 3 of the Emergency Management Act, 1976 PA 390, MCL 30.403, the Governor shall, by executive order or proclamation, declare a state of disaster if the Governor finds that a disaster has occurred or that the threat of a disaster exists;
WHEREAS, an oil spill occurred from an oil pipeline in Calhoun County near Marshall, Michigan on Monday, July 26, 2010;
WHEREAS, although the pipeline has been shut down, a substantial amount of oil has leaked from the pipeline and has entered Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River;
WHEREAS, local states of emergency have been declared by the City of Battle Creek and Calhoun County, and state, local, and federal emergency response agencies have been activated to assist in containing the spill and assure that all possible steps are taken to minimize the impact of this incident on the public;
WHEREAS, I find that a disaster has occurred in Calhoun County that threatens the area downstream along the Kalamazoo River and that immediate action is necessary to protect the public health, safety, and welfare, to safeguard the environment and interests of this State, and to respond to this disaster;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JENNIFER M. GRANHOLM, Governor of the State of Michigan, by virtue of the power and the authority vested in the Governor by the Michigan Constitution of 1963 and Michigan law, including the Emergency Management Act, 1976 PA 390, MCL 30.401 to 30.421, order the following:
1. A State of Disaster is declared in Calhoun County and potentially affected areas along the Kalamazoo River downstream of Talmadge Creek.
2. The Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division of the Department of State Police shall coordinate and maximize all state efforts that may be activated to state service to assist local governments and officials in the affected areas and may call upon all state departments and agencies to utilize available resources to assist in the affected areas focusing on public health and safety concerns consistent with the Michigan Emergency Management Plan.
3. The State of Disaster is terminated at such time as disaster conditions no longer exist and appropriate programs have been implemented to recover from the effects of the disaster conditions but in no case later than Tuesday, August 24, 2010.
This Order is effective upon filing.
Given under my hand and the Great Seal of the State of Michigan this 27th day of July in the year of our Lord, two thousand and ten.
____________________________________
JENNIFER M. GRANHOLM
GOVERNOR
BY THE GOVERNOR:
____________________________________
SECRETARY OF STATE
http://www.michigan.gov/gov/0,1607,7-168-21975-241302--,00.html
New spill in Gulf area after barge crashes into abandoned oil well
July 27, 2010
Oil and mud spew from busted La. well
Pictured here is an aerial photo of smoke billowing from a wellhead after a towing vessel's dredge barge allided with the structure in Barataria Bay, La., as the vessel and barge exited Mud Lake, July 27, 2010. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Wayne Alleyene. )
http://www.fox8live.com/news/local/story/New-Video-Oil-and-mud-spew-from-busted-La-well/c5kCQQyVmkSkck41A3QnbA.cspx
Jefferson Parish - It's not the kind of news Jefferson Parish was prepared to hear.
"There's about a 100 foot plume of natural gas and oil spewing from the well head. And it appears to be the well head is spewing both natural gas, contaminated water and some light crude, not very heavy crude," said Jefferson Parish Emergency Manager Deano Bonano.
Around 1 a.m. Tuesday, a barge being pushed by a tug boat ran into an abandoned well head.
The tug captain smelled gas and called the Coast Guard, which planned to visit the site at daybreak.
Before Coast Guard investigators got there another boat captain called in and reported natural gas and oil leaking.
"We have investigators going over the incident and conducting interviews with the captain to find out exactly what happened," said Coast Guard Captain John Arenstan.
Governor Bobby Jindal and local officials surveyed the site, which is in Bayou St. Dennis, 15 miles south of Lafitte.
The Coast Guard has a two mile radius around the leak closed to traffic and has hired a contractor that was already working on the BP spill to also clean up this one.
"You know the bad part here is that over the weekend we had to take down some of the assets that were out in the water trying to protect from the initial spill and yesterday and today focus has been trying to get the boats and the boom back out following the tropical system that threatened us this weekend and then the main waterway here is blocked off," said Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts.
It's not clear yet how much oil and gas is leaking, but whatever the amount this spill is one more woe on the water Jefferson Parish doesn't need.
"We thought once we got Barataria Bay cleaned up and they have a temporary cap on the well, looks like they're gonna try to kill it next week, we felt comfortable," said Councilman Elton Lagasse.
The Coast Guard says the well head should have been lit, but the tug captain says it was not lit.
The well is owned by a Houston company called Cedyco, which is no longer in business so the federal government is dipping into the country's Oil Spill Trust Fund to cover the cost of the clean-up.
13-year-old knuckleballer Chelsea Baker hasn’t lost a single sanctioned game in four straight seasons,
and is widely believed to be the best Little Leaguer in the country.
This is her story.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/e60/news/story?id=5386830
Afghanistan Field Report: Losing the Arghandab They Never Had
Monday, Jul 26 2010, 4:21AM
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2010/07/afghanistan_fie/
This is a guest note by Al Jazeera correspondent Clayton Swisher who is currently embedded with US troops fighting in Afghanistan. This essay originally ran on Al Jazeera's "The Asia Blog."
(The photo below is of 82nd Airborne soldiers in Arghandab; Photo by Tom Nicholson; reprinted with permission.)
Losing the Arghandab They Never Had
Last night we got a 0345 wakeup call from Spooky. For those of you who play Call of Duty-type video games, you'll know what I'm talking about. For those who don't, Spooky is the Vietnam-era call sign for the AC-130U Gunship, a massive airplane that blasts 105mm artillery and 40mm shells from its fuselage.
It was raining death and destruction on a position just a few kilometres from us across the Arghandab River. The Taliban have virtual free reign west of the river and have made a mockery of American forces setting up Forward Operating Bases in their midst.
There aren't too many Spooky Gunships here in this country. They are flying collateral damage machines, used by the Air Force Special Operations to support commandos on the ground. But their employment over the skies of Arghandab signals a reality that most soldiers here understand: that conventional army tactics have failed to wrest this real estate from the Taliban.
Fighting the Taliban in Arghandab - where much of its history is based - is like taking on the Crips in LA's Compton or the Italian Mafia in Sicily. As far as war goes in Afghanistan, the Arghandab and neighbouring Panjwaye and Zahri Districts remain the toughest areas of fighting. From Arghandab it is an easy ride to Kandahar, where insurgents stage and conduct attacks against the Afghan government and Isaf forces in the country's second largest city.
As I fell back asleep, I couldn't help but trust that the Taliban would have the final answer. Since we started this embed on July 14th, their attacks have been as harassing a presence as the blazing hot, 45 degree Celsius temperatures. Rocket launches during our check in at the Kandahar Airfield. Small arms fire at the Forward Operating Base once we arrived. The unmistakable sound of roadside bomb detonations - every day since we've been here - somewhere in the tangle of Arghandab's lush orchards and mud villages.
The soldiers getting hit the hardest are a replacement unit near our perch at Forward Operating Base Sarkari Bagh. A few kilometres across the river, at Combat Outpost Nolen, a platoon of men from the 101st Airborne have gone to "combat ineffective" after just weeks of being here. They arrived in Arghandab in early July with 17 men. Only 9 remain.
Thus the late night calls from Spooky. Though pummelling the villages around Western Arghandab will hardly bring a solution, however good the vengeance feels.
The unit we've embedded with, Delta Company of the US Army's 82nd Airborne, 2-508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, seem to get that. They're short timers here in Arghandab.
They have just a few weeks left in their year-long deployment. They're not thinking much about policy discussions back in Washington over whether this country should split along the predominantly Pashtun South and more ethnically-mixed North. Soldiers we've joined out on patrol here have told me bluntly that as soon as the Isaf packs up "this country will go straight to civil war," which might anyhow bring that partitioned outcome, policymakers be damned.
For most US troops here, the goal is to get home alive, after so many dozens from their Regiment have been sent home crippled, or worse, from the Taliban's lethal tactics, supported by many here in the South.
This is a snapshot of the war being fought here in Arghandab. Men lacing up their boots to fulfil their required patrols, thankful to come back alive, falling asleep to the sound of exploding ordinance. They hope it's the Taliban blowing themselves up while seeding their bombs.
But oftentimes they learn the next day it is not. Whenever their Internet access is cut - which has been often, since summer fighting season began - they know the dead includes someone from within their unit, sprawled out in this area. It's a paltry measure aimed at preventing fellow members of their unit from emailing home about casualties before the families of the fallen have been formally and properly notified.
Thousands of miles away, no doubt Washington politicians and America's foreign policy elite are readying their minivans for August vacation or re-election campaigning.
The soldiers here feel out of sight-out of mind, and one has to wonder after visiting the Arghandab if they might be right.
From neighbouring barracks, the sombre metal lyrics have droned all day with Alice in Chains' "The Rooster." It aptly sums their sentiment, helping others either to sleep, or in this case, through one more night on patrol:
Ain't found a way to kill me yet
Eyes burn with stingin' sweat
Seems every path leads me to nowhere
Wife and kids, household pet
Army green was no safe bet
The bullets scream to me from somewhere
As we finish our day and settle down once again to sleep, the sound of Spooky returns. The bass shakes the ground as its cannons belch rounds. Bright orange chaff drops, as Spooky makes its slow left banking turn repeatedly while firing on the Arghandab villages. A full moon gives away the madness of it all.
Desperation, really, for a coalition that has little chance of winning after nine years of conflict.
-- Clayton Swisher
Update: This is a video report by Swisher from Arghandab as well.
SP 500 moment of truth
SP 500 chart analysis ;
1) My trading system is still in a "neutral" mode on both short & long term signals.
2) People, we are facing a key moment of truth .... expect a wild move !
3) Current channel pattern (down) suggests we are heading down ....
4) This last "tight channel" will be our moment of truth
5) Focus on those "key triggers"
6) Short term trigger : long above 1100
7) Long term signal : long above 1130
PS : a break below 1050 could cause some serious damage .... a break below 1010 .... mmm
Posted by Moise Levi at 7:57 PM
http://gicharts.blogspot.com/2010/07/sp-500-moment-of-truth.html
Forty-ton whale lands on yacht during Cape Town sailing trip
A couple who took a yacht for a quiet sailing trip were stunned when a 40-ton whale crash-landed on their boat off Cape Town.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7901247/Forty-ton-whale-lands-on-yacht-during-Cape-Town-sailing-trip.html
Teabaggers Welcome White Supremacist, running for governor in Arkansas
“I don’t want non-whites in my country in any form or fashion or any status,” he says.
Jul. 15, 2010 11:37 PM
Billy Roper is a write-in candidate for governor of Arkansas and an unapologetic white nationalist.
“I don’t want non-whites in my country in any form or fashion or any status,” he says.
Roper also is a tea party member who says he has been gathering support for his cause by attending tea party rallies.
Snips ~~
“We go to these tea parties all over the country,” Roper said. “We’re looking for the younger, potentially more radical people.”
Accusations about racism within the tea party have rumbled for a year, but they suddenly exploded this week with a resolution at the NAACP convention in Kansas City saying the party is attracting people and groups hostile to minorities.
More facts on 'Billy Roper'
Roper, a former organizer for the neo-Nazi National Alliance and now chairman of White Revolution, said he has been attending tea party rallies to recruit members and garner support for his 2010 write-in campaign for Arkansas governor.
Roper, a member of the ResistNet.com tea party, said in an interview that he sees tea parties as a base of support.
--------------------
Ron Wight, who stood with dozens of tea party activists at the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain in April, complaining about the Obama administration, its socialist agenda and being called a racist.
Those like him who complain about President Barack Obama are accused of racism, lamented the semi-retired music teacher from Lee’s Summit.
Then he added: “If I was a black man, I’d get down on my knees and thank God for slavery. Otherwise, I could be dying of AIDS now in Africa.”
------------------------
Another concern — even within the tea party — is the actions of some who are in leadership positions.
A photo circulating on the web shows Dale Robertson, founder and president of Houston-based TeaParty.org — also called the 1776 Tea Party — at a 2009 rally carrying a sign that said: “Congress = Slave Owner, Taxpayer = Niggar.”
Robertson also sent a fundraising e-mail that contained a picture depicting Obama as what some describe as a stereotypical black pimp with a thin mustache and wearing a zebra-striped fedora trimmed in white fur with a black feather on top.
----------
The Council of Conservative Citizens, a St. Louis-based group that promotes the preservation of the white race, has sponsored its own tea parties in some Southern states.
The council’s website has referred to blacks as “a retrograde species of humanity” and said non-white immigration would turn the country into a “slimy brown mass of glop.”
Gordon Baum, the group’s founder, told The Star that the council encourages members to participate in tea parties.
He described the tea party rallies as “mainly a white thing, because there’s not a whole lot of blacks that participate, and the ones that do get to be speakers.”
“They have black speakers, and sometimes when they can’t get one lined up, they just get some poor devil that’s on their side, black guy, in the audience and drag him up on stage,” he said.
---------------------
Some other white supremacy groups also see tea parties as recruiting grounds.
Roper, a former organizer for the neo-Nazi National Alliance and now chairman of White Revolution, said he has been attending tea party rallies to recruit members and garner support for his 2010 write-in campaign for Arkansas governor.
--------------
Watchdog fears
Those who monitor hate groups are worried about racism in the tea party.
“There are probably close to a couple thousand of these local tea party chapters now,” said Devin Burghart, vice president of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, which is finalizing a special report on tea parties.
“A number of these groups have been either thoroughly infiltrated by more hard-core folks, or at least those more hard-core folks are allowed to swim in that same ocean.”
As examples, Burghart cited Robertson, as well as some speakers promoted by tea parties, such as Red Beckman, an anti-Semite who was once evicted from his land by the Internal Revenue Service for refusing to pay taxes.
The racism isn’t coming only from the fringe, Burghart said.
“This is not just a nut showing up in the audience with a crazy sign,” Burghart said. “It’s someone who they vetted and decided to give a platform to.”
Zeskind said racist tendencies may be broader within the party than even critics realize.
------------------
“Liberals think these are all poor, angry, working-class whites, but that’s not true,” said Zeskind, who helped draft the NAACP resolution. “It’s a solid middle class. The belief that these are people hit by the economic downturn is a myth. It’s people who have what they want and don’t want it taken away. They’re defending white privilege. Their slogan is ‘We want our country back.’ ”
there's more
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/07/15/2087023/tea-party-rejects-racist-label.html
Are the teabaggers racist ?
This Year's Deficit Just Topped $1 Trillion
by Jacob Goldstein
July 14, 2010
Just a quick update, courtesty of the Treasury Department: So far this fiscal year, the government has brought in $1.6 trillion in revenue, while spending $2.6 trillion.
That's a big deficit by historical standards — but still lower than last year at this point, when the deficit was roughly $1.1 trillion. Compared to last year, spending has fallen a bit this year, and revenues have climbed, according to the CBO.
The fiscal year runs from October through September; we're on track for a deficit of roughly $1.3 trillion for the current fiscal year, the second-highest on record after last year's all-time high of $1.4 trillion, the AP notes.
That's as measured in absolute terms, by the way — when measured as a percent of GDP, deficits now are still far lower than they were during World War II — roughly 10 percent of GDP per year now, compared to 20 to 30 percent per year during World War II, according to this spreadsheet.
Shadow Banking Is Still Bigger Than Traditional Banking
July 14, 2010
by Jacob Goldstein
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/07/14/128511585/shadow-banking-is-still-bigger-than-traditional-banking#more
In recent decades, a parallel universe sprung up in American finance — a new way for the finance industry to perform its traditional role of linking savers with borrowers. It's often referred to as the shadow banking system.
This system was at the heart of the financial crisis — and, according to a new paper from the New York Fed, it's still bigger than the traditional banking system.
In all, there's still some $16 trillion sloshing around the shadow-banking system, more than the entire gross domestic product of the U.S.
Shadow banking involves lots of the arcane stuff that came to define the crisis — securitized loans, CDOs, the repo market. But it also involves the money-market mutual funds that have long been familiar to ordinary investors, and that provide much of the cash that keeps the system flowing.
While the housing bust was the catalyst for the financial crisis, the acute phase of the crisis was defined by a run on the shadow banking system: All of the savers/lenders wanted their money back, all at once.
Banks can't survive when that happens — particularly if they're heavily dependent on short-term loans. That's why Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns ceased to exist.
In the heat of the crisis, to stop the run on the shadow banking system, the Federal Reserve issued guarantees to key parts of system, including money-market mutual funds.
Since then, there have been lots of questions about why the Fed and other regulators let the shadow banking system become so precarious in the first place.
In its new paper, the New York Fed argues that regulators should focus on what financial institutions actually do, rather than on whether or not institutions are officially designated as banks.
In other words, the paper suggests, shadow banking is subject to bank runs just like regular banking, and should be subject to some of the same kind of regulations.
The finance bill Congress is about to pass seems to dovetail with this conclusion: It gives officials the power to regulate non-bank financial institutions whose failure could cause widespread economic problems.
Hat Tip: Economist
Skimmer takes Big Gulp from spill
Reported by: John Snell, Anchor
http://www.fox8live.com/news/local/story/Skimmer-takes-Big-Gulp-from-spill/_QrKsluz9UWRpUrm-y4oPg.cspx
video at link
"The Big Gulp," as BP has nicknamed it, is the brainchild of Lee Dragna, the president of LAD Services, a Morgan City barge builder.
"They give us the coordinates of where they saw (the oil) in the morning and we go chase it down," Dragna said.
His invention had a surprising genesis. His 10 year old son, who wanted to go fishing again, started pestering Dragna to "fix the spill."
"He told me, 'Daddy, you can fix anything.' I said, 'son, I can't fix this one. I'm sorry.'"
Dragna explains that, after a his son moped around for a couple of days, "I said, 'okay, I'll work on it.'"
His solution came to him rather easily.
"Once I started putting pencil to paper, it really wasn't that hard," Dragna said.
He teamed up with James Cashman, who runs a worldwide fleet of barges..
"Don't ask me how he did it because there's 50,000 people trying to get in to see (BP) each day and Lee managed to get through there," Cashman said.
BP turned out to be a phone call away for Dragna, who called the company hotline.
Judi Paul, one of the BP executives in charge of vetting ideas, was rotating back to the Houston headquarters, when an engineer asked her to check into an idea that had peaked his interest.
"The idea did look good on paper," Paul said. "But at the same time, we can't bring out every idea that looks good on paper. We need ideas that are going to add real value to the mission."
BP agree to test the barge, but with a huge catch: Dragna and Cashman would have to foot the cost of converting the first one on their own dime.
"Oh, there was a huge risk," Cashman said. "We had millions at risk."
Dragna, who says, in business, he always looks at the bad first before looking at the good, saw "too much good in it."
BP set a requirement for the test, which the Big Gulp easily exceeded.
Paul says the barge worked, "much more quickly than we anticipated it would."
Since then, BP has paid for seven more barges, three Big Gulps and four smaller barges, dubbed "Little Gulps.
In a storyline featuring one failure after another, the company is anxious to show off this asset, which now collects up to 210,000 gallons of oil per day.
"In my opinion, this has been one of the biggest success stories we've had, yet the least publicized," Paul said.
A tug boat guides the barges-turned-skimmers into a patch of oil, often near the spill site itself.
Oil enters the skimmers through a big mouth cut into the bow of the barge, building up against a bulkhead and finally spilling over into a holding tank.
From there, oil is pumped into two holding tanks, where gravity separates the oil from the heavier water. Crew members open a valve, sending clean water back into the gulf, while capturing a mix that is 98 percent oil.
The barges, while larger than the fleet of skimmers at work on the spill, can also turn on a dime.
They can work in shallow water, only a few feet, or because of their bulk, in seas up to six feet.
"We try to stay out here to be the last ones," Dragna said.
The Deepwater Horizon blowout caught government and industry flatfooted, exposing the need for more equipment to be perhaps be stationed permanently.
Dragna and Cashman have big plans for the Big Gulp once BP finally contains this spill.
"We're thinking about teaming up and creating this kind of international response for the oil companies," Cashman said.
Slouching Toward a Double Dip or a Lousy Recovery at Best
Saturday, July 3, 2010
http://robertreich.org/post/764586220/slouching-toward-a-double-dip-or-a-lousy-recovery-at
Agency Agreed Wildlife Risk From Oil Was ‘Low’
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/us/06wildlife.html?_r=1
The federal agency charged with protecting endangered species like the brown pelican and the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle signed off on the Minerals Management Service’s conclusion that deepwater drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico posed no significant risk to wildlife, despite evidence that a spill of even moderate size could be disastrous, according to federal documents.
By law, the minerals service, before selling oil leases in the gulf, must submit an evaluation of the potential biological impact on threatened species to the Fish and Wildlife Service, whose responsibilities include protecting endangered species on land. Although the wildlife agency cannot block lease sales, it can ask for changes in the assessment if it believes it is inadequate, or it can insist on conducting its own survey of potential threats, something the agency has frequently done in the past.
But in a letter dated Sept. 14, 2007, and obtained by The New York Times, the wildlife agency agreed with the minerals service’s characterization that the chances that deepwater drilling would result in a spill that would pollute critical habitat was “low.”
As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Subsidies
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/04bptax.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
When the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform set off the worst oil spill at sea in American history, it was flying the flag of the Marshall Islands. Registering there allowed the rig’s owner to significantly reduce its American taxes.
The owner, Transocean, moved its corporate headquarters from Houston to the Cayman Islands in 1999 and then to Switzerland in 2008, maneuvers that also helped it avoid taxes.
At the same time, BP was reaping sizable tax benefits from leasing the rig. According to a letter sent in June to the Senate Finance Committee, the company used a tax break for the oil industry to write off 70 percent of the rent for Deepwater Horizon — a deduction of more than $225,000 a day since the lease began.
With federal officials now considering a new tax on petroleum production to pay for the cleanup, the industry is fighting the measure, warning that it will lead to job losses and higher gasoline prices, as well as an increased dependence on foreign oil.
But an examination of the American tax code indicates that oil production is among the most heavily subsidized businesses, with tax breaks available at virtually every stage of the exploration and extraction process.
According to the most recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, released in 2005, capital investments like oil field leases and drilling equipment are taxed at an effective rate of 9 percent, significantly lower than the overall rate of 25 percent for businesses in general and lower than virtually any other industry.
And for many small and midsize oil companies, the tax on capital investments is so low that it is more than eliminated by var-ious credits. These companies’ returns on those investments are often higher after taxes than before.
“The flow of revenues to oil companies is like the gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico: heavy and constant,” said Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, who has worked alongside the Obama administration on a bill that would cut $20 billion in oil industry tax breaks over the next decade. “There is no reason for these corporations to shortchange the American taxpayer.”
Oil industry officials say that the tax breaks, which average about $4 billion a year according to various government reports, are a bargain for taxpayers. By helping producers weather market fluctuations and invest in technology, tax incentives are supporting an industry that the officials say provides 9.2 million jobs.
The American Petroleum Institute, an industry advocacy group, argues that even with subsidies, oil producers paid or incurred $280 billion in American income taxes from 2006 to 2008, and pay a higher percentage of their earnings in taxes than most other American corporations.
As oil continues to spread across the Gulf of Mexico, however, the industry is being forced to defend tax breaks that some say are being abused or are outdated.
The Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday announced that it was investigating whether Transocean had exploited tax laws by moving overseas to avoid paying taxes in the United States. Efforts to curtail the tax breaks are likely to face fierce opposition in Congress; the oil and natural gas industry has spent $340 million on lobbyists since 2008, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors political spending.
Jack N. Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, warns that any cut in subsidies will cost jobs.
“These companies evaluate costs, risks and opportunities across the globe,” he said. “So if the U.S. makes changes in the tax code that discourage drilling in gulf waters, they will go elsewhere and take their jobs with them.”
But some government watchdog groups say that only the industry’s political muscle is preserving the tax breaks. An economist for the Treasury Department said in 2009 that a study had found that oil prices and potential profits were so high that eliminating the subsidies would decrease American output by less than half of one percent.
“We’re giving tax breaks to highly profitable companies to do what they would be doing anyway,” said Sima J. Gandhi, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research organization. “That’s not an incentive; that’s a giveaway.”
Some of the tax breaks date back nearly a century, when they were intended to encourage exploration in an era of rudimentary technology, when costly investments frequently produced only dry holes. Because of one lingering provision from the Tariff Act of 1913, many small and midsize oil companies based in the United States can claim deductions for the lost value of tapped oil fields far beyond the amount the companies actually paid for the oil rights.
Other tax breaks were born of international politics. In an attempt to deter Soviet influence in the Middle East in the 1950s, the State Department backed a Saudi Arabian accounting maneuver that reclassified the royalties charged by foreign governments to American oil drillers. Saudi Arabia and others began to treat some of the royalties as taxes, which entitled the companies to subtract those payments from their American tax bills. Despite repeated attempts to forbid this accounting practice, companies continue to deduct the payments. The Treasury Department estimates that it will cost $8.2 billion over the next decade.
Over the last 10 years, oil companies have also been aggressive in using foreign tax havens. Many rigs, like Deepwater Horizon, are registered in Panama or in the Marshall Islands, where they are subject to lower taxes and less stringent safety and staff regulations. American producers have also aggressively exploited the tax code by opening small offices in low-tax countries. A recent study by Martin A. Sullivan, an economist for the trade publication Tax Analysts, found that the five oil drilling companies that had undergone these “corporate inversions” had saved themselves a total of $4 billion in taxes since 1999.
Transocean — which has approximately 18,000 employees worldwide, including 1,300 in Houston and about a dozen in Zug, Switzerland — has saved $1.8 billion in taxes since moving overseas in 1999, the study found.
Transocean said it had paid more than $300 million in taxes so far for 2009, and that its move reflected its global scope, with only 15 of its 139 rigs located in the United States. “Transocean is truly a global company,” it said in a statement.
Despite the public anger at the gulf spill, it is far from certain that Congress will eliminate the tax breaks. As recently as 2005, when windfall profits for energy companies prompted even President George W. Bush — a former Texas oilman himself — to publicly call for an end to incentives, the energy bill he and Congress enacted still included $2.6 billion in oil subsidies. In 2007, after Democrats took control of Congress, a move to end the tax breaks failed.
Mr. Menendez said he believed the Gulf spill was devastating enough to spur Congress into action. But one notable omission in his bill shows the vast economic reach of the industry. While the legislation would cut many incentives over the next decade, it would not touch the tax breaks for oil refineries, many of which have operations and employees in his home state, New Jersey.
Mr. Menendez’s aides said the senator thought it was legitimate to allow refineries to continue claiming a manufacturing tax credit that he wants to eliminate for drillers because refining is a manufacturing business and because refineries do not benefit from high oil prices. Mr. Menendez did not consult with New Jersey refineries when writing the bill, his aides said.
Being Street Smart
Sy Harding
Will Q2 Earnings Create a Rally? July 2.
The stock market is down 16% since its April peak, getting close to a decline of 20%, the threshold of entering a bear market. The S&P 500 is already back to its level of early September, having given back 38% of the entire bull market off the March low last year.
Yet, while investor sentiment has turned more pessimistic, it has held up surprisingly well in the face of the market decline, the steady stream of negative U.S. economic reports, and the continuation of troubling news from Europe and Asia.
This week’s poll of its members by the American Association of Individual Investors showed a rise in the percentage of investors who are bearish, but at 42.0% still well below the 50% to 60% bearish level almost always reached before corrections end.
As each disappointing economic report for May and June came out, although it sent the market lower, there was always another report yet to come that investors could hang hopes on, keeping them bullish.
When it was reported that retail sales fell in May, Wall Street provided assurances that consumer confidence would be up for June, which would indicate the May decline in retail sales was just a blip. When consumer confidence instead showed an unexpected drop in June, there was still Durable Goods Orders and the ISM Manufacturing Index due out in a few days that would show that manufacturing growth was still strong. When those reports also showed declines, there was hope the employment reports would show a healthy pick up in new jobs created in June. When the first of those reports, the ADP report, was released on Wednesday and was a disappointment there was still hope that Friday’s BLS jobs report would be encouraging. But it was not.
Even the most bullish economists have expected economic growth to slow in the second half of the year. But the onslaught of negative economic reports for May and June provide considerable evidence that the economy is slowing sooner and faster than previously expected. That has raised concerns that it may be a more serious slowdown, perhaps back into recession, that the best hope might be for a W bottom rather than the previously expected V bottom.
My original projection in the spring was that the market would experience a significant decline of 15% to 19% in its unfavorable season this year, but probably not a new bear market.
But here we are, with the S&P down 16% and the Nasdaq down 17%, and looking like the market has further to go on the downside.
My biggest concern is the collapse of the housing industry in May once the rebates to home-buyers expired, but also that global economic problems seem to only be in their beginning stages, their effects still to reach our shores, while the U.S. economy is slowing faster than expected on its own.
Keeping investors’ hopes alive now is the expectation that second quarter earnings reports, due to begin next week, will be impressive and provide support for the market.
Wall Street and corporations have become experts at keeping their estimates and guidance low enough that they are not huge hurdles, and the comparisons will be easy since they will be comparisons to the second quarter of last year, which was just about at the trough of the recession.
But then I look back at the last two earnings reporting seasons, and there is cause for concern.
The January/February correction earlier this year began mid-January when the impressive earnings reports for the fourth quarter of last year began coming out. The stocks of many of the companies reporting the best sales and earnings gains actually ran into the most selling and profit-taking.
Similarly, the current market correction began in mid-April just as the first quarter earnings reports began coming out. Once again, even though the reports were positive, and for the most part exceeded Wall Street’s estimates, the market rolled over into this even more serious correction. And again many of the companies with the most positive reports ran into the heaviest selling and profit-taking.
As second quarter earnings reports begin next week it’s even more obvious the economy is slowing, so even more possible that the top for earnings growth has arrived.
The market is again short-term oversold, and probably due for another short-term rally attempt, which will bring hopes for a summer rally. But I’m not ready to turn bullish yet. Let’s see those Q2 earnings reports and how the market reacts to them.
Myths of Austerity
By PAUL KRUGMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/opinion/02krugman.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print
When I was young and naïve, I believed that important people took positions based on careful consideration of the options. Now I know better. Much of what Serious People believe rests on prejudices, not analysis. And these prejudices are subject to fads and fashions.
Which brings me to the subject of today’s column. For the last few months, I and others have watched, with amazement and horror, the emergence of a consensus in policy circles in favor of immediate fiscal austerity. That is, somehow it has become conventional wisdom that now is the time to slash spending, despite the fact that the world’s major economies remain deeply depressed.
This conventional wisdom isn’t based on either evidence or careful analysis. Instead, it rests on what we might charitably call sheer speculation, and less charitably call figments of the policy elite’s imagination — specifically, on belief in what I’ve come to think of as the invisible bond vigilante and the confidence fairy.
Bond vigilantes are investors who pull the plug on governments they perceive as unable or unwilling to pay their debts. Now there’s no question that countries can suffer crises of confidence (see Greece, debt of). But what the advocates of austerity claim is that (a) the bond vigilantes are about to attack America, and (b) spending anything more on stimulus will set them off.
What reason do we have to believe that any of this is true? Yes, America has long-run budget problems, but what we do on stimulus over the next couple of years has almost no bearing on our ability to deal with these long-run problems. As Douglas Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, recently put it, “There is no intrinsic contradiction between providing additional fiscal stimulus today, while the unemployment rate is high and many factories and offices are underused, and imposing fiscal restraint several years from now, when output and employment will probably be close to their potential.”
Nonetheless, every few months we’re told that the bond vigilantes have arrived, and we must impose austerity now now now to appease them. Three months ago, a slight uptick in long-term interest rates was greeted with near hysteria: “Debt Fears Send Rates Up,” was the headline at The Wall Street Journal, although there was no actual evidence of such fears, and Alan Greenspan pronounced the rise a “canary in the mine.”
Since then, long-term rates have plunged again. Far from fleeing U.S. government debt, investors evidently see it as their safest bet in a stumbling economy. Yet the advocates of austerity still assure us that bond vigilantes will attack any day now if we don’t slash spending immediately.
But don’t worry: spending cuts may hurt, but the confidence fairy will take away the pain. “The idea that austerity measures could trigger stagnation is incorrect,” declared Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, in a recent interview. Why? Because “confidence-inspiring policies will foster and not hamper economic recovery.”
What’s the evidence for the belief that fiscal contraction is actually expansionary, because it improves confidence? (By the way, this is precisely the doctrine expounded by Herbert Hoover in 1932.) Well, there have been historical cases of spending cuts and tax increases followed by economic growth. But as far as I can tell, every one of those examples proves, on closer examination, to be a case in which the negative effects of austerity were offset by other factors, factors not likely to be relevant today. For example, Ireland’s era of austerity-with-growth in the 1980s depended on a drastic move from trade deficit to trade surplus, which isn’t a strategy everyone can pursue at the same time.
And current examples of austerity are anything but encouraging. Ireland has been a good soldier in this crisis, grimly implementing savage spending cuts. Its reward has been a Depression-level slump — and financial markets continue to treat it as a serious default risk. Other good soldiers, like Latvia and Estonia, have done even worse — and all three nations have, believe it or not, had worse slumps in output and employment than Iceland, which was forced by the sheer scale of its financial crisis to adopt less orthodox policies.
So the next time you hear serious-sounding people explaining the need for fiscal austerity, try to parse their argument. Almost surely, you’ll discover that what sounds like hardheaded realism actually rests on a foundation of fantasy, on the belief that invisible vigilantes will punish us if we’re bad and the confidence fairy will reward us if we’re good. And real-world policy — policy that will blight the lives of millions of working families — is being built on that foundation.
US to accept offers of foreign help to contain BP oil spill
http://www.france24.com/en/20100630-oil-spill-rig-bp-accept-usa-foreign-help-countries-foreign
"The United States will accept 22 offers of assistance from 12 countries and international bodies, including two high speed skimmers and fire containment boom from Japan," a US State Department statement said.
"We are currently working out the particular modalities of delivering the offered assistance," it said, adding that details would be "forthcoming once these arrangements are complete."
Offers of boom to contain oil and collect it off the surface of the water have been accepted from Canada, Mexico, Norway and Japan, said a spokeswoman from the Unified Area Command, an entity headed by the US Coast Guard that is coordinating with BP on the oil spill response.
Skimmers have been accepted from Mexico, Norway, France and Japan and a sweeping arm system has been accepted from the Netherlands, spokeswoman Gina Ruoti told AFP.
Worried About The Deficit? Blame Health Care
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/06/30/128219374/worried-about-the-deficit-blame-health-care#more
by Jacob Goldstein
The big debate these days is when to move away from stimulus spending and toward cutting deficits.
But the debate is only about the when: Everybody agrees that some combination of higher taxes and lower spending needs to come sooner or later.
The latest long-term forecast is out today from the CBO. It's a reminder that, unless something changes, rising federal deficits in the coming years will be driven largely by government spending on health care.
(It's also a reminder that the big health-care bill didn't do much to change the basic economics of health care in this country — CBO estimates from last year look pretty much the same.)
A few graphs from the report tell the story.
First, here's government health-care spending as a share of GDP.
Health spending
Of course, an aging population is bound to drive higher health-care costs. But, as the next graph shows, it's not just aging — it's also the fact that the cost of health care is rising faster than the cost of almost everything else.
Source of health costs
Finally, here's a graph that shows the government's revenues (the dotted line) versus costs, over time. The CBO uses different models for these estimates; the estimate below is based on a model that "incorporates several changes to current law that are widely expected to occur."
Drinking beetroot juice dramatically lowers risk of heart disease and strokes
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1290434/Drinking-beetroot-juice-dramatically-lowers-risk-heart-disease-strokes.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0sMcrA99Z
You'll look a little bloodthirsty while slurping it down.
But don't let that put you off beetroot juice - because it could save your life.
The bright-red juice contains the chemical nitrate, which dramatically reduces blood pressure, cutting the risk of heart disease and strokes.
Beetroot
Patients who drank a glass of beetroot juice a day were found to have significantly lower blood pressure just 24 hours later.
The findings, published in Hypertension, the journal of the American Heart Association, could now see beetroot juice being used as a treatment.
Researchers at William Harvey Research Institute at Queen Mary University in London compared patients who were given a 250ml glass of beetroot juice a day with those who took nitrate tablets.
They found that the two methods were equally successful in reducing blood pressure.
The researchers concluded that the nitrates which naturally occur in beetroot are the cause of its beneficial effects.
They produce a gas known as nitric oxide in the blood which widens blood vessels and arteries and lowers blood pressure.
High blood pressure, or hypertension, affects 16million Britons - one in five - and is a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke and kidney failure.
Amrita Ahluwalia, Professor of Vascular Biology at the William Harvey Research Insti tute, said: 'We showed that beetroot and nitrate capsules are equally effective in lowering blood pressure indicating that it is the nitrate content of beetroot juice that underlies its potential to reduce blood pressure.
'We also found that only a small amount of juice is needed - just 250ml - to have this effect, and that the higher the blood pressure at the start of the study the greater the decrease caused by the nitrate.
'Our previous study two years ago found that drinking beetroot juice lowered blood pressure; now we know how it works.'
Scientists have already showed how drinking beetroot juice can boost stamina.
Last year researchers from the University of Exeter and Peninsula Medical School found that it could have as much effect as a punishing training regime.
They found that healthy young men were able to increase their stamina by up to 16 per cent after drinking a glass of beetroot juice for a week.
Beetroot juice is found in most health food shops and usually costs around £2 a bottle.
Though very good for your body, it has one rather alarming side-effect.
Those who consume large amounts are likely to experience purple urine, or beeturia as it is known to scientists.
Volcker Said to Be Disappointed With Final Version of His Rule
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-30/volcker-said-to-be-disappointed-with-final-version-of-rule-named-after-him.html
Paul Volcker is disappointed with the final version of the rule that bears his name.
As first envisioned, the Volcker rule would have banned banks from running private-equity and hedge funds, an attempt to curb risk-taking that fueled the financial crisis. Last-minute congressional negotiations aimed at winning Republican support led to a compromise that allows banks to invest up to 3 percent of their capital in such funds.
Volcker, the 82-year-old former Federal Reserve chairman, didn’t expect the proposal to be diluted so much, said a person with knowledge of his views. He’s content with language that bans banks from trading with their own capital, the person said.
“The Volcker rule started out as a hard-and-fast rule on risky trades and investments,” said Anthony Sanders, a finance professor at George Mason University School of Management in Fairfax, Virginia. “But through negotiations, it was weakened and ended up with many loopholes.”
Democratic Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Jeff Merkley of Oregon were also dissatisfied with the result, for the same reasons as Volcker, according to two people with knowledge of negotiations, speaking anonymously because they weren’t authorized to comment to the press. The two lawmakers introduced language that decreased the ability of regulators to water down a final version of the rule and provisions to prevent banks from bailing out failed hedge funds.
‘Particular Interest’
Lobbying by banks and congressmen sympathetic to Wall Street’s views, as well as some administration members in the banks’ defense, trampled the views of Volcker and others who favored a stronger proposal, the people said.
President Barack Obama introduced the rule in January with Volcker, now one of his economic advisers, standing beside him. That was after the House had already passed its version of the financial reform bill, and so the rule was only included at first in the Senate package.
In the final version, U.S. banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. may have as long as a dozen years to reduce stakes in hedge funds and private-equity units, lawyers say.
Volcker said in a statement released June 28 that the bill agreed upon by congressional negotiators “provides a constructive legal framework for reform of the financial system.”
Among its provisions “are strong restraints on proprietary trading by commercial banking organizations, a point that has been of particular interest to me,” Volcker said, without mentioning the hedge-fund side of the rule. He declined to comment beyond the statement.
Brown’s Request
Scott Brown, the Massachusetts senator who was among four Republicans voting in favor of the Senate bill, demanded some of the changes to the Volcker rule. Lawmakers said yesterday they plan to reconvene the House-Senate conference on the financial- overhaul bill to eliminate a $19 billion bank fee that drew objections from Brown and other Republicans.
JPMorgan Chase & Co., the second-largest U.S. bank by assets, operates the world’s biggest hedge fund, according to the 2009 rankings of AR magazine, an industry trade publication. The New York-based firm’s hedge funds had $50 billion of assets under management as of Jan. 1, the magazine reported in March. Goldman Sachs’s hedge funds, which ranked ninth on the list, had $21 billion.
Betting on an Economic Recovery
"The world's rich countries are now conducting a dangerous experiment. They are repeating an economic policy out of the 1930s -- starting to cut spending and raise taxes before a recovery is assured -- and hoping today's situation is different enough to assure a different outcome."
"In effect, policy makers are betting that the private sector can make up for the withdrawal of stimulus over the next couple of years. If they're right, they will have made a head start on closing their enormous budget deficits. If they're wrong, they may set off a vicious new cycle, in which public spending cuts weaken the world economy and beget new private spending cuts."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/business/economy/30leonhardt.html
The Billionaire And The Tire Repairman
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/06/29/128195395/the-tuesday-podcast-the-billionaire-and-the-tire-repairman
Wayne Disowney runs a tire repair shop in Kingston, Jamaica. He took scrap parts from an old Lincoln and turned them into a machine that retreads tires. It works great.
His shop is a shack. He's totally outside the formal economy. If he wanted to get a loan — say, to expand his business — he'd be out of luck.
Michael Lee-Chin's a billionaire. He's the chairman of a big Jamaican bank, a guy who flies in on a helicopter for an interview.
On today's Planet Money, we talk to both guys. And we explain why it's so rare for guys like Disowney to get loans from guys like Lee-Chin.
Michael Lee-Chin came by helicopter for his Planet Money interview.
BP Slick Covers Dolphins and Whales.mov
From: hccreekkeeper | June 26, 2010 | 161,264 views
"This was the most emotionally disturbing video I have ever done!
A flight over the BP Slick Source where I saw at least 100 Dolphins in the oil, some dying.
I also photographed a Sperm Whale covered in oil all around it's blow hole.
Please spread this around the world. Send me any links to places it gets posted so I can follow.
I want to piss off the world. Who will answer for these gentle creatures?"
The end of Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) ?
Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) chart analysis ;
1) Clear double top ("big picture")
2) Clear main trend broken (note that the last top was slighly higher than the previous one, that is why my trend line goes from the lowest low to the low prior to the higher high.
3) Fake move was quite clear, followed by a price/volume/news action
4) Ex support is now our key resistance channel
5) Possible oversold condition could bring in value players
Gut feeling ; The end of Microsoft ? Well, at least not yet ..... but this crisis will/could cause some serious damage to well known Tech names ......
The clear winner ? Apple Inc (AAPL) !
If Microsoft gets back over $28 in the next 2 weeks, I'll change my mind
Posted by Moise Levi at 9:15 AM
http://gicharts.blogspot.com/2010/05/end-of-microsoft-corporation-msft.html
The end of Microsoft Corporation (MSFT), part 2
Part 1 of the End of Microsoft (MSFT) was posted here
I urge you to pay attention to part 1 ; it shows you the "bigger picture"
Now back to this current chart of Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) ;
1) Fake moves are quite clear
2) Support break down (confirmed by volume action)
3) All patterns confirm a major SELL signal (stop loss @ $26 if you are shorting).
Posted by Moise Levi at 11:05 PM
http://gicharts.blogspot.com/2010/06/end-of-microsoft-corporation-msft-part.html
Bull or Bear Market Rules?
by Carl Swenlin
(This is an excerpt from Friday's blog for Decision Point subscribers.)
This week I wrote the following article for the Learning Center in response to a question from a subscriber.
We use the relationship of the 50-EMA and 200-EMA to define bull and bear markets. When the 50-EMA is above the 200-EMA, we consider the market to be in a long-term bull phase, and vice versa. This is an important definition because we will want to bias our medium-term analysis in favor of the long-term trend. As a reminder, we will often state that, "Bull (or Bear) market rules apply." In the general sense, this means that ambiguous medium-term situations will most likely resolve in the direction of the bull or bear phase, so we should perform our analysis and draw our conclusions with that in mind.
More specifically, let's look at the common occasion when the market is overbought or oversold. In a bull market oversold conditions are seen as a buying opportunity and will usually result in a rally to relieve the condition. When a bull market becomes overbought, it is not usually cause for concern, because corrections from these conditions are often small, and sometimes the market will continue to rally, while the overbought conditions are relieved internally.
The opposite is true with bear markets. Overbought conditions are most often a setup for a new down leg, while oversold conditions should be considered as being "thin ice," not a solid base of compression from which a rally will emerge. For example, buying into bear market declines is a dangerous practice.
Chart formations are another area where the long-term market bias should be considered. For example, a bearish head and shoulders pattern in a bull market is less likely to execute by violating the neckline, or, if it does execute, the decline may abort into an upside reversal before price reaches the minimum downside target. The same would be true of a bullish reverse head and shoulders in a bear market.
As you have no doubt concluded, the bull/bear bias that we apply to our analysis is a purely subjective judgment, albeit based on a purely objective EMA crossover. Further, the amount of confidence we have in the long-term bull/bear signal should be influenced by whether the 50/200-EMAs are converging or diverging. When the EMAs are diverging, it means that price is in front of both EMAs and they are confirming the strength of the move. When the EMAs are converging, it means that price is either between the EMAs or is running behind them. In either case, converging EMAs are a sign that price is performing in a direction opposite of the crossover signal.
Bottom Line: We should temper our expectations of technical information based upon the long-term trend of the market. In a bull market, expect bullish outcomes. In a bear market, expect bearish outcomes.
.......
This brings us to the present and begs the question of what rules should we be using now? On the chart below, we can see that the last 50/200-EMA crossover generated a long-term buy signal on 8/11/2009, so in the broadest context bull market rules apply. However, the 50- and 200-EMAs have been converging for a few months, and the price index is below them, so on a scale of zero to 100 (100 being strongest), I'd have to say that my bull market confidence level is about 60.
Even though my confidence level is getting low because of the convergence, it doesn't mean that a 50-200-EMA downside crossover is going to happen. Convergences happen (see the one in June 2008), and we have to ride them to their eventual resolution. That is not to say we would be holding stocks based solely on the long-term signal. The long-term signal is intended to provide a bull/bear market context within which we perform our analysis and draw conclusions. Our current medium-term market posture is still neutral based upon the Thrust/Trend Model.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Technical analysis is a windsock, not a crystal ball.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Being Street Smart
Sy Harding
Beware of Defensive Stocks! June 25.
Just the thought of a double-dip less than a year after the economy began pulling out of the last recession is agonizing. Just the thought of another bear market in stocks so soon, with the S&P 500 still 30% below its peaks of 2000 and 2007, is unbearable for many.
Illustrating the emotional problem, in a recent e-mail dialog, the well-known anchor of a financial TV show explained to me why he is constantly arguing with analysts trying to warn investors, rather than letting them have their say, why he is trying to present a positive outlook for the market. He said, “My portfolio is still 36% below where it was ten years ago, and I am probably in a state of denial, unable to contemplate the possibility of another lost decade.”
It’s likely that many investors are in the same boat, still scarred by the back-to-back bear markets and hoping if they ignore the present threat that it will go away.
Unfortunately, the unpopular early warnings I have been planting in this column for several months are beginning to bear fruit. The S&P 500 is down 12% from its April top. In last week’s column I noted that a double-dip recession is no longer considered crazy talk, but has now become the expectation of a number of credible economists, successful hedge-fund managers, and analysts. The possibility of a double-dip became more obvious in the last two weeks, with reports that retail sales unexpectedly declined in May, while real estate sales collapsed.
The outlook was not improved by the report Friday morning that economic growth in the first quarter, originally reported at 3.2% (down from 5.6% in the fourth quarter of 2009) was revised down to just 2.7%. The consensus forecasts had already been that economic growth will slow in the second half of the year. The downward revision of first quarter GDP, combined with the dismal economic reports for May, will force economists to revise their expectations for the second quarter, which ends next week, and for the rest of the year.
So this week has produced still more evidence that investors need to at least be careful and take protective action to preserve their assets.
Wall Street cannot bring itself to even recommend selling and moving substantially to cash to preserve capital, let alone providing advice on how to make profits in declining markets.
The most common advice for declining markets is to simply hold through whatever comes along. Those who have tried that in the past recognize the folly of attempting it after giving up and bailing out with large losses each time.
Wall Street’s backup advice is to move to defensive stocks, typically defined as companies that pay high dividends, and the big blue chip companies with international operations, and companies with the wind at their backs because even in recessions people still have to eat, drink, and take their medicines. Wall Street says they won’t go down as much as the overall market.
But is losing only 25% or 30% rather than 50% a credible way to handle a bear market?
And even Wall Street’s assurance that such ‘defensive’ stocks will lose less in a bear market is not based on facts. Just look at what happened to Alcoa, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, in fact almost all defensive Dow and S&P 500 stocks, in the last two bear markets. Losses of as much as 65%.
Utility stocks are also often defined as defensive stocks since they typically pay high dividends. But the DJ Utilities Average plunged 61% in the 2000-2002 bear market, and 48% in the 2007-2009 bear market, about the same as the overall market.
Wall Street will have to change its bias if it expects investors to begin to trust its advice again. Constant bullish advice to buy only works in bull markets.
When serious corrections or bear markets threaten, investors need to pay attention and get their heads out of the sand. A good beginning would be to look into ‘inverse’ etf’s and ‘inverse’ mutual funds, which are designed to move up when the market moves down. There are close to a hundred available, each tied to different market indexes and sectors. Inverse etf’s include DOG, EFZ, PSQ. Inverse mutual funds include POTSX, BRPIX, RYURX. There are also leveraged ‘inverse’ etf’s like QID, SDS, DXD, and leveraged inverse mutual funds like URPIX, USPIX, RYTPX, which are leveraged and designed to move up twice as much as the underlying market index or sector moves down.
Making gains in down markets is a much better feeling than simply losing less by buying ‘defensive’ stocks.
Danger at sea: Toxic metals threaten whales
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100624/ap_on_sc/whaling
Whales face new threats deadlier than whaling
AGADIR, Morocco – American scientists who shot nearly 1,000 sperm whales with tissue-sampling darts discovered stunningly high levels of toxic and heavy metals in the animals that they say could affect the health of both ocean life and the millions who eat seafood.
A report Thursday noted high levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium in the mammals, according to samples taken over five years during a research expedition that traveled 87,000 miles (140,000 kilometers).
Analysis of cells from the sperm whales showed that pollution is reaching the farthest corners of the oceans, from deep in the polar region to "the middle of nowhere" in the equatorial regions, said biologist Roger Payne, founder and president of Ocean Alliance that conducted the research.
"The entire ocean life is just loaded with a series of contaminants, most of which have been released by human beings," Payne said in an interview on the sidelines of the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting.
"These contaminants, I think, are threatening the human food supply. They certainly are threatening the whales and the other animals that live in the ocean," he said.
Ultimately, he said, they could contaminate fish, which are a primary source of animal protein for 1 billion people.
"You could make a fairly tight argument to say that it is the single greatest health threat that has ever faced the human species. I suspect this will shorten lives, if it turns out that this is what's going on," he said.
U.S. Whaling Commissioner Monica Medina informed the 88 member nations of the whaling commission of the report and urged the commission to conduct further research.
"This provides new and very important information about the hazards and the problem of these sorts of contaminants in the ocean, both for the whales and their habitat," Medina told the audience of hundreds of government officials, marine scientists and environmentalists.
The report "is right on target" for raising issues critical to humans as well as whales, Medina told The Associated Press. "We need to know much more about these problems."
Payne, 75, is best known for his 1968 discovery and recordings of songs by humpback whales, and for finding that some whale species can communicate with each other over thousands of miles.
Payne called it the most comprehensive report ever done on ocean pollutants. "We knew that something is out there, but nobody's gone out and looked. We finally did," he said of the $5 million project.
The 93-foot (28-meter) sail-and-motor ketch "Odyssey" set out in March 2000 from San Diego, California, to document the oceans' health by taking tissue samples from the free-ranging sperm whale, which venture from the poles to the tropics. Like humans, they stand at the top of the marine food chain.
By August 2005 it had collected pencil-eraser sized samples from 955 whales using a low-impact dart gun.
The samples were sent for analysis to marine toxicologist John Wise at the University of Southern Maine. DNA was compared to ensure the animals were not tested more than once. The most startling results of the voyage, the findings on chromium, were published last year in the scientific journal Chemosphere.
The original objective of the voyage was to measure chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants, and the study of metals was an afterthought.
The researchers were stunned with the results. "That's where the shocking, sort of draw-dropping concentrations exist," Payne said.
Though it was impossible to know where the whales had been, Payne said the contamination was embedded in the blubber of males formed in the frigid polar regions, indicating that the animals had ingested the metals far from where they were emitted.
"When you're working with a synthetic chemical which never existed in nature before and you find it in a whale which came from the arctic or Antarctic, it tells you that was made by people and it got into the whale," he said.
How that happened is unclear, but the contaminants likely were carried by wind or ocean currents, or were eaten by smaller ocean creatures. Whales feed on all kinds of fish, even sharks.
"The biggest surprise was chromium," Payne said. "That's an absolute shocker. Nobody was even looking for it."
Chromium, a corrosion-resistant material, is used in stainless steel, paints, dyes and the tanning of leather which can cause lung cancer in people who work in industries where it is commonly used.
It was impossible to say from the samples whether any of the whales suffered diseases. But Wise applied chromium to healthy whale cells in the laboratory to study the effect. He found that the concentration of chromium found in whales was several times higher than the level required to kill healthy cells in a Petri dish, Payne said.
The report said that mercury, ranging from one part per million to 16 ppm, were found in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. "All mercury levels are higher than the maximum U.S. figure" considered safe, Payne said.
Another surprise was the high concentration of aluminum, used in packaging, cooking pots and water treatment, although its effects are unknown.
Payne said whales absorb the contaminants and passed them on to the next generation when a female nurses her calf. "What she's actually doing is dumping her lifetime accumulation of that fat-soluble stuff into her baby," he said, and each generation passes on more to the next.
The consequences could be horrific for both whale and man, he said.
"I don't see any future for whale species except extinction. This not on anybody's radar, no government's radar anywhere, and I think it should be."
(This version CORRECTS that the research vessel's trip was 87,000 miles, not the whales'; )
Kubrick vs Scorsese
http://vimeo.com/12432238
25 days, 34 films, and 1 tribute.
Editor's note: Many friends after seeing my video "Tarantino vs Coen Brothers" requested me to do a new video duel of directors, so I decided to do now a tribute to my two favorite directors, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese, were 25 days re-watching 34 films, selected more than 500 scenes, and a hard work editing. Leave a comment, tell me who your favorite, suggest new duels.
This video was purely non-profit and not Aimed at breaking copyright laws.
Editor's note #2: I know that they are different in many ways, this is not necessarily a comparison or "fight". It's just a tribute for two of my favorite directors.)
Lists of films used ...
Dir.: Stanley Kubrick
Day of the Fight (1951)
Fear and Desire (1953)
Killer's Kiss (1955)
The Killing (1956)
Paths of Glory (1957)
Spartacus (1960)
Lolita (1962)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
The Shining (1980)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Dir.: Martin Scorsese
Mean Streets (1973)
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)
Taxi Driver (1976)
New York, New York (1977)
Raging Bull (1980)
The King of Comedy (1982)
After Hours (1985)
The Color of Money (1986)
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Goodfellas (1990)
Cape Fear (1991)
The Age of Innocence (1993)
Casino (1995)
Kundun (1997)
Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
Gangs of New York (2002)
The Aviator (2004)
The Departed (2006)
Shutter Island (2010)
Audio Copyright Notices:
'I'm Shipping Up to Boston' performed by band Dropkick Murphys remains courtesy Hellcat Records, ® 2005
'Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing' by Chris Isaak remains courtesy Warner Music Group Corp, ® 1996
'Nude' by Radiohead remains courtesy XL Recordings, ® 2008
oh i have tons of em, LOL
ihub's little delete police pussies
dumbshit assholes who kiss the ass of corporate crooks
oh yes .....
who are you kidding? they are
Obama's tar balls! BP conributed the most to his campaign.
So who is this Dick Cheney guy? LOL
..........rotf......(deleted) not mine
Internet 'kill switch' proposed for US
By Declan McCullagh, CNET.com on June 15th, 2010
A new US Senate Bill would grant the President far-reaching emergency powers to seize control of, or even shut down, portions of the internet.
The legislation says that companies such as broadband providers, search engines or software firms that the US Government selects "shall immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" by the Department of Homeland Security. Anyone failing to comply would be fined.
That emergency authority would allow the Federal Government to "preserve those networks and assets and our country and protect our people," Joe Lieberman, the primary sponsor of the measure and the chairman of the Homeland Security committee, told reporters on Thursday. Lieberman is an independent senator from Connecticut who meets with the Democrats.
Due to there being few limits on the US President's emergency power, which can be renewed indefinitely, the densely worded 197-page Bill (PDF) is likely to encounter stiff opposition.
TechAmerica, probably the largest US technology lobby group, said it was concerned about "unintended consequences that would result from the legislation's regulatory approach" and "the potential for absolute power". And the Center for Democracy and Technology publicly worried that the Lieberman Bill's emergency powers "include authority to shut down or limit internet traffic on private systems."
The idea of an internet "kill switch" that the President could flip is not new. A draft Senate proposal that ZDNet Australia's sister site CNET obtained in August allowed the White House to "declare a cybersecurity emergency", and another from Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) would have explicitly given the government the power to "order the disconnection" of certain networks or websites.
On Thursday, both senators lauded Lieberman's Bill, which is formally titled Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, or PCNAA. Rockefeller said "I commend" the drafters of the PCNAA. Collins went further, signing up at a co-sponsor and saying at a press conference that "we cannot afford to wait for a cyber 9/11 before our government realises the importance of protecting our cyber resources".
Under PCNAA, the Federal Government's power to force private companies to comply with emergency decrees would become unusually broad. Any company on a list created by Homeland Security that also "relies on" the internet, the telephone system or any other component of the US "information infrastructure" would be subject to command by a new National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC) that would be created inside Homeland Security.
The only obvious limitation on the NCCC's emergency power is one paragraph in the Lieberman Bill that appears to have grown out of the Bush-era flap over wiretapping without a warrant. That limitation says that the NCCC cannot order broadband providers or other companies to "conduct surveillance" of Americans unless it's otherwise legally authorised.
Lieberman said on Thursday that enactment of his Bill needed to be a top congressional priority. "For all of its 'user-friendly' allure, the internet can also be a dangerous place with electronic pipelines that run directly into everything from our personal bank accounts to key infrastructure to government and industrial secrets," he said. "Our economic security, national security and public safety are now all at risk from new kinds of enemies — cyber-warriors, cyber-spies, cyber-terrorists and cyber-criminals."
A new cybersecurity bureaucracy
Lieberman's proposal would form a powerful and extensive new Homeland Security bureaucracy around the NCCC, including "no less" than two deputy directors, and liaison officers to the Defense Department, Justice Department, Commerce Department, and the Director of National Intelligence. (How much the NCCC director's duties would overlap with those of the existing assistant secretary for infrastructure protection is not clear.)
The NCCC also would be granted the power to monitor the "security status" of private sector websites, broadband providers and other internet components. Lieberman's legislation requires the NCCC to provide "situational awareness of the security status" of the portions of the internet that are inside the United States — and also those portions in other countries that, if disrupted, could cause significant harm.
Selected private companies would be required to participate in "information sharing" with the Feds. They must "certify in writing to the director" of the NCCC whether they have "developed and implemented" federally approved security measures, which could be anything from encryption to physical security mechanisms, or programming techniques that have been "approved by the director". The NCCC director can "issue an order" in cases of non-compliance.
The prospect of a vast new cybersecurity bureaucracy with power to command the private sector worries some privacy advocates. "This is a plan for an auto-immune reaction," says Jim Harper, director of information studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. "When something goes wrong, the government will attack our infrastructure and make society weaker."
To sweeten the deal for industry groups, Lieberman has included a tantalising offer absent from earlier drafts: immunity from civil lawsuits. If a software company's programming error costs customers billions, or a broadband provider intentionally cuts off its customers in response to a federal command, neither would be liable.
If there's an "incident related to a cyber vulnerability" after the President has declared an emergency and the affected company has followed federal standards, plaintiffs' lawyers cannot collect damages for economic harm. And if the harm is caused by an emergency order from the Feds, not only does the possibility of damages virtually disappear, but the US Treasury will even pick up the private company's tab.
Another sweetener: a new White House office would be charged with forcing federal agencies to take cybersecurity more seriously, with the power to jeopardise their budgets if they fail to comply. The likely effect would be to increase government agencies' demand for security products.
Tom Gann, McAfee's vice president for government relations, stopped short of criticising the Lieberman Bill, calling it a "very important piece of legislation".
McAfee is paying attention to "a number of provisions of the Bill that could use work," Gann said, and "we've certainly put some focus on the emergency provisions."
Could Natural Gas Replace Coal Power?
BY Ariel SchwartzWed Jun 16, 2010
http://www.fastcompany.com/1660922/natural-gas-a-viable-replacement-for-coal-power
As much as many of us wish it were possible, we can't just uproot aging coal plants and replace them with intermittent sources like wind and solar--we do still need reliable sources of energy that are guaranteed to work 24/7. That's where natural gas come in.
Modern natural gas-fired generators produce the same amount of energy (or more) compared to coal-fire generators while reducing CO2 emissions by 60% and eliminating sulfur dioxide emissions per kilowatt hour generated. These generators can also be easy installed on former coal plant sites that that are zoned for industrial use and already have access to both cooling water and the electrical grid. "A combination of stringent environmental regulations, concerns about carbon dioxide emissions and the fact that natural gas prices seem to be stable--all of that says that the market will want to have more gas turbine generation," explains Phil Ratliff, the director of next generation gas turbines at Siemens.
All of which is why Siemens is rapidly taking orders for its high-efficiency gas-powered plants. The company announced this week that Florida Power and Light has contracted for six of Siemens' 60-Hz H-class gas turbine-generator packages to replace old oil and gas-fired generators. Progress Energy also contracted for five gas-powered plants to replace coal-fired generators in North Carolina. Siemens is reportedly also exploring deals with other utilities as well.
There are downsides, of course. Natural gas isn't an unlimited source of energy, and while prices may be stable for now, some analysts believe that costs will soon begin to rise as resources dwindle. But for now, Siemens expects that natural gas-fired plants will only gain in popularity. With increased intermittent generation from renewables, customers have greater needs for fast startup capabilities," says Ratliff. "We feel like we've understood the market, and the time is right for a machine like this."
http://birding.typepad.com/gulf/2010/06/oil-goes-from-zero-to-1040-on-grand-isle-overnight.html
As with the bird response, the clean up response seems just as chaotic and ineffective. From prison crews in Grand Isle lounging in the sand, or contractors here on Dauphin Island literally picking up oil with children's sandbox toy shovels and pales is infuriating.
A BP contract worker "playing" on the beach on Dauphin Island, 6/4/10
I could have cleaned the entire area that I surveyed for Ghost Crabs today, by myself in much less time than it took the crew of 15 workers ambling down the beach to not even come close to cleaning. In fact, I'm going to prove that tomorrow. Before our very eyes, our gulf is dying, fishermen are going broke, the tourism industry plummets and this is the response our nation is given. This is not a political rant, this is an impassioned appeal for sanity from someone who has seen the mismanagement of this disaster first hand. For far too many people working on this spill, it is a 9-5 job, a quick money grab when people who love this place and feel deeply for it and want to help are excluded under the premise that they are unqualified.
So, I will count the birds and the crabs, and pound my fist into the mattress in my air conditioned hotel room, and cry by myself in my truck for the thousands of birds that will die because of this, but mostly I cry for a nation that can seemingly allow it all to happen as long as they see the pretty images on the news of crews walking the beaches in their white suits, and the workers scrubbing "Lucky" the Pelican with their dawn detergent. An oil disaster on this scale is NOT like a plane crash or a failed mission to space. When a plane crash occurs, several hundred people who made the choice to be on that plane die, and their families are sad. When a deep water oil well explodes, millions of people are affected. People lose their jobs, fisheries disintegrate, ecosystems collapse, and perhaps millions of birds will lose their homes and food sources, not to mention the thousands that will be oiled and die directly. If anyone feels that I went overboard with this, I invite you to join me on a tour of the gulf, and please bring me a new computer with literoom pre-installed and a tent, there's only room for me in my truck.
Pattern of Poor Response Repeated in Alabama
06/06/2010
http://birding.typepad.com/gulf/2010/06/pattern-of-poor-response-repeated-in-alabama.html
I know that no person can be everywhere at one time, and that there is a limit to the resources that are accessible to any one entity. I also know that somewhere around 20,000 barrels of oil per day has been flowing for 46 days from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Well, and that every day NOAA planes survey the spill area and provide trajectory maps, which millions of people look at daily. These maps show the movement of surface oil, and coupled with local weather readings, they provide even a novice like me a way to predict where the oil will land next. This being the case, I am still flabbergasted that I encountered heavy oil in a very ecologically sensitive area completely ignored by response efforts.
Gerry Miller holds back the tears as she surveys the fresh oil on Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge
Today, I have seen more of the same lackadaisical, half-hearted and inefficient cleanup response, and I have met people across the entire coast of Alabama, who along with a growing movement of Americans, (I think) are appalled with the way the onshore response has been handled thus far.
Today, I have seen more of the same lackadaisical, half-hearted and inefficient cleanup response, and I have met people across the entire coast of Alabama, who along with a growing movement of Americans, (I think) are appalled with the way the onshore response has been handled thus far.
Contractors work 20 minutes on 15 minutes off, due to the heat. They will spend over four hours of the day under this tent.
I have seen hundreds of cleanup workers focused around high profile areas, in the public eye, spots that have very little oil, and I have seen heavy oil wash up in an off the beaten path location without any notice by the cleanup contractors. It's not that these areas are just out of sight, but they are also the most important and sensitive bird habitat in this region. The Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge is one of the only places that supports breeding Cuban Snowy Plovers in small numbers here. This subspecies of Snowy Plover has been on the decline for some time, and their population in 2000 was estimated at 500 birds (Brown 2000). It seems, once again, that it is more important for the public to see the showmanship of the work effort than it is for the work effort to respond to where it is most important and most efficient.
Snowy One of around 500 resident Gulf Snowy Plovers with oil caked on its feet today at Bon Secour.
This morning I found moderate amounts of small tar balls and nasty, oily, foam washing up on Dauphin Island. I paid close attention to the workers technique and speed, and re-cleaned an area already cleaned by four contract workers and recovered nearly a pound of tar balls in 25 meters that they had left behind. I also collected oily foam by hand from the beach that was neglected by the contract workers. A simple sorbent pad applied to this foam would clean the oil and leave behind the water, in a simple swipe. I know that it seems kind of ridiculous to expect that every drop of oil be cleaned on some of these beaches, but today on Dauphin Island it was totally possible, and the numbers of workers on site would have had no problem keeping up with it, especially if they spent some time out from under the break-time tents.
I then took the ferry across the mouth of Mobile Bay to Fort Morgan, where another major cleanup effort is taking place. The beach at Fort Morgan has a mix of tar balls and moderate liquid oiling. It also has a presence of hundreds of contract workers, and sealed off areas with Wackenhut Private Security Guards. This area is about 8 or so miles from where I entered the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge and found heavy oil and no sign of any response effort. What I did find at Bon Secour was a local in tears. A local who re-canted stories of using stethoscopes to listen to the hatching Loggerhead Sea Turtles on full moon August nights, and Snowy Plovers nesting on the beach. The subspecies of Snowy Plover here is in serious peril, and this spill could be the proverbial camelback straw for them. I saw a loan female scurrying along the shoreline in between gooey gobs of oil, and her feet were already caked with the sticky substance.
I am at a loss, and don't know how to affect this situation for the better. All I know is that I see birds and their habitat taking more of a toll than is necessary for the sake of rules, regulations and net profit gain, once again.
Gulf Shores, Alabama is just 10 miles to the east from here, and moderate amounts of oil washed up on its shores today as well. One of the most alarming things that I saw here was that the oil was sticking onto and around mats of Sargassum, a type of seaweed. Sargassum is a common and normal component of the wrack line, and a very important resource for shorebirds. When this seaweed is on the shore most shorebirds concentrate their feeding efforts around this stuff, as many organisms are in and around it. Since the oil is sticking directly to this stuff, I fear that shorebirds like Ruddy Turnstones, Semipalmated Sandpipers and even the Snowy Plover will be more likely to be exposed to the oil. It is of utmost importance to get this oil off of the sand as it comes in, especially as it seems that the people power is here, just poorly managed.
Brown Pelicans cruise over oil soaked mats of Sargassum, as it washes toward shore.
At the main beach in Gulf Shores, I had 3 oiled birds; one Willet, one Ruddy Turnstone, and one Laughing Gull. At the state pier, I saw a Laughing Gull roosting on a sand dune that was pretty heavily oiled, and not flying very well.
I called these birds in to the BP hotline in Texas, and after a lesson in southern Alabama geography, the phone operator hung up, saying that she would print out a report which would go to her supervisor. When we hung up, I was highly discouraged, but shortly after, I received a phone call from someone in Alabama who then referred the case to a US Fish and Wildlife Agent who then called me back promptly, as they were on their way to check out the situation. I have to admit that I was a bit surprised, but happy with the response, and hope that it's indicative of a strong structure in place to deal with the potential of large amounts of oil-affected birds. Fingers crossed.
Cleanup on Dauphin Island
From: AmericanBirding | June 06, 2010 | 222 views
Drew Wheelan documents the clean up "effort", on Dauphin Island on 6/5/10 as a result of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Locals express their feelings about the situation.
Day 51 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill from Grand Isle, Louisiana
From: AmericanBirding | June 10, 2010 | 4,908 views
A short video of new, heavy oil hitting the state beach on Grand Isle. The number of oiled birds is on the rise, and Bottle-nosed Dolphins are swimming through the oil with no where else to go.
Drew Wheelan from the American Birding association demonstrates the lack of environmental oversight associated with the Deepwater Horizon clean up response. Sensitive Least Tern nests are literally driven over by clean up crews, and failed nests discovered.
SP 500 resistance
http://gicharts.blogspot.com/2010/06/sp-500-reversal.html
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