Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Realtime Severe Weather Warnings

You can view all of the current realtime severe weather warnings in the United States at http://robwire.com  The Active Warnings box on the right side constantly updates with the latest storm warnings.

Robwire

 

Red Flags Popping Up All Over Bank of America - CNBC

The largest bank by deposits just lost its chief financial officer and just hired one of the most connected regulatory lawyers in the U.S.

Both events are alarming.

The bank says that Charles Noski requested to step aside due to family illness. There’s no doubt some truth in this: a family member is ill, and Noski probably volunteered his resignation. But it comes on the back of some very troubling developments:

  • Earlier this month we learned that Bank of America’s announcement that the government had denied its insane request to raise its dividend had not been reviewed by Noski before it was made public. No one has offered a credible explanation for this lapse in internal controls.
  • Bank of America recently announced that it was going to start charging some 5 percent of its credit card customers a brand new $59 annual fee. This is a breathtakingly obvious attempt to drive $180 million in profits through a loophole in Dodd-Frank—which prohibited interest rate increases unless customers were seriously delinquent, but left open the possibility of random fee hikes.
  • Bank of America has been estimating for three quarters that it is more than two-thirds through the wave of repurchase requests on soured home loans, and that the total losses will not amount to more than $10 billion. This quarter it provided for just $1 billion in mortgage repurchase and litigation expenses—compared with $2.2 billion for JP Morgan Chase in the first quarter. Does anyone believe that the bank with exposure to Countrywide’s loans is better off than JP Morgan?

AppleInsider | Android fans accuse Apple of copying Samsung first

Immediately after Apple filed suit against Samsung over patent and trade dress infringements, Android enthusiasts have countered that it was Apple that actually copied Samsung from the beginning.

The claim, distributed virally on message boards in the form of a graphic comparing the 2007 iPhone against the Samsung F700, is titled "LOL @ Apple: suing someone you stole the design from to being [sic] with," and portrays an early Samsung phone with a black front, rounded corners and grid of icons, all elements of the complaint by Apple which claims infringement upon its iPhone design by various Samsung products.

Republicans attack D

Republicans attack Donald Trump as he mulls 2012 run | Reuters: via reuters.com http://twurl.nl/w4cxg2

Yemen protester: ‘

Yemen protester: ‘They shot at us directly;’ at least 3 dead – CNN.com: Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) — Government force... http://twurl.nl/e1cx1a

BP's Secret Deepwater Blowout | Truthout

Only 17 months be­fore BP's De­ep­wat­er Horizon rig suf­fered a de­ad­ly blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, an­oth­er BP de­ep­wat­er oil plat­form also blew out.

You've heard and seen much about the Gulf dis­ast­er that kil­led 11 BP work­ers. If you have not heard about the ear­li­er blowout, it's be­cause BP has kept the full story under wraps. Nor did BP in­form Con­gress or US safety re­gulators, and BP, along with its oil in­dust­ry partn­ers, have pre­fer­red to keep it that way.

The ear­li­er blowout oc­cur­red in Sep­temb­er 2008 on BP's Centr­al Azeri plat­form in the Cas­pian Sea.

As one memo mar­ked "sec­ret" puts it, "Given the ex­plosive poten­ti­al, BP was quite for­tunate to have been able to evacuate every­one safe­ly and to pre­vent any gas ig­ni­tion." The Cas­pian oil plat­form was a spark away from ex­plod­ing, but luck was with the 211 rig work­ers.

It was eeri­ly similar to the Gulf cat­astrop­he as it in­vol­ved BP's con­trover­si­al "quick set" drill­ing ce­ment.

The ques­tion we have to ask: If BP had laid out the true and full facts to Con­gress and re­gulators about the ear­li­er blowout, would those 11 Gulf work­ers be alive today - and the Gulf Coast spared oil-spill poisons?

The bi­gg­er ques­tion is, why is there no clear law to re­quire dis­closure? If you bump into an­oth­er car on the Los An­geles freeway, you have to re­port it. But there seems no clear re­quire­ment on cor­pora­tions to re­port a dis­ast­er in which know­ledge of it could save lives.

Five months prior to the De­ep­wat­er Horizon ex­plos­ion, BP's Chief of Ex­plora­tion in the Gulf, David Rainey, tes­tified be­fore Con­gress against in­creased safety re­gula­tion of its de­ep­wat­er drill­ing op­era­tion. De­spite the com­pany's know­ledge of the Cas­pian blowout a year ear­li­er, the oil com­pany's man told the Sen­ate En­er­gy Com­mit­tee that BP's met­hods are, "both safe and pro­tec­tive of the en­viron­ment."

Rea­l­ly? BP's quick-dry ce­ment saves money, but other drill­ers find it too risky in de­ep­wat­er. It was a key fac­tor in the Cas­pian blowout. Would US re­gulators or Con­gress have per­mit­ted BP to con­tinue to use this ce­ment had they known? Would they have in­ves­tigated be­fore is­su­ing per­mits to drill?

This is not about BP the in­dust­ry Bad Boy. This is about a sys­tem that con­dones sil­ence, the with­hold­ing of life-and-death in­for­ma­tion.

Even BP's oil com­pany partn­ers, in­clud­ing Chev­ron and Exxon, were kept in the dark. It is only through WikiLeaks that my own in­ves­tiga­tions team was able to con­firm in­sid­er tips I had re­ceived about the Cas­pian blowout. In that same con­fiden­ti­al memo men­tioned ear­li­er, the US Em­bas­sy in Azer­baijan com­plained, "At least some of BP's [Cas­pian] partn­ers are similar­ly upset with BP's per­for­mance in this epi­sode, as they claim BP has sought to limit in­for­ma­tion flow about this event even to its [Cas­pian] partn­ers."

In de­fen­se of its be­havior, BP told me it did in fact re­port the "gas re­lease" to the re­gulators of Azer­baijan. That's small com­fort. This form­er Soviet re­pub­lic is a police state di­ctatorship pro­pped up by the BP group's oil royalt­ies. A pub­lic in­ves­tiga­tion was out of the ques­tion.

In De­cemb­er, I traveled to Baku, Azer­baijan's capit­al, to in­ves­tigate BP and the blowout for British televis­ion. I was ar­rested, though, as a foreign re­port­er, quick­ly re­leased. But my eye wit­nesses got the mes­sage and all were too af­raid tell their sto­ries on camera.

BP has, in fact, never ad­mitted a blowout oc­cur­red, though when con­fron­ted by my net­work, did not deny it. At the time, BP told curi­ous press that the work­ers had mere­ly been evacuated as a "pre­cau­tion" due to gas bubbles "in the area of" the drill­ing plat­form, im­ply­ing a be­nign natur­al gas leak from a crack in the sea floor, not a life-threatening sys­tem failure.

In its 2009 re­port to the US Securit­ies and Ex­chan­ge Com­miss­ion (SEC), BP in­ched clos­er to the full truth. Though not men­tion­ing "blowout" or "ce­ment," the com­pany placed the leak "under" the plat­form.

This points to a cruel irony: the SEC re­quires full dis­closure of events that might cause harm to the per­for­mance of BP's fin­an­ci­al securit­ies. But re­port­ing on events that might harm humans? That's not so clear.

Howev­er, the sol­u­tion is clear as could be. In­ter­nation­al cor­pora­tions should be re­quired to dis­close events that threat­en peo­ple and the en­viron­ment, not just the price of their stock.

As radia­tion wafts ac­ross the Pacific from Japan, it is clear that threats to health and safety do not re­spect nation­al bord­ers. What hap­pens in Fukus­hima or Baku af­fects lives and pro­per­ty in the USA.

"Re­gula­tion" has be­come a dirty word in US politics. Cor­pora­tions have con­vin­ced the pub­lic to fear lit­tle bureauc­rats with thick rulebooks. But let us re­memb­er why govern­ment began to re­gulate these crea­tures. As An­drew Jackson said, "Cor­pora­tions have neith­er bod­ies to kick nor souls to damn."

Kick­ing and damn­ing have no ef­fect, but rules do. And after all, when in­ter­nation­al re­gula­tion pro­tects pro­fits, as in the case of patents and co­pyrights, cor­porate America is all for it.

Our re­gulators of re­sour­ce in­dust­ries must im­pose an af­firmative re­quire­ment to tell all, es­pecial­ly when peo­ple, not just song lyrics or stock of­fer­ings, are in mort­al dang­er.

Yemen protester: 'They shot at us directly;' at least 3 dead - CNN.com

Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) -- Government forces in Taiz and Sanaa fired on crowds of people protesting the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, leaving dozens wounded and at least three dead, eyewitnesses and medical sources said Tuesday.

Eyewitnesses described enormous demonstrations, numbering hundreds of thousands, in the two cities as the ongoing protests against Saleh's longtime rule of the country appeared to gain strength.

Republicans attack Donald Trump as he mulls 2012 run | Reuters

Malaco Records to rebuild bigger, better after tornado | The Clarion-Ledger

Is BlackBerry PlayBook Dead On Arrival? - PCWorld

The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet from Research In Motion goes on sale today, with what seems to be little consumer interest, mediocre reviews and few chances to match the success of Apple's iPad.

Starting at $499 for a 16GB WiFi model, the PlayBook will cost you $599 for the 32GB variant and $699 for the 64GB model. The tablet runs on a 1GHz dual-core processor, has a 7-inch display and dual cameras (5MP on the back and 3MP on the front).

Opinion: AT&T/T-Mobile merger hurts poor - Malkia Cyril

Google’s ‘Map Maker’ Now Lets You Edit Google Maps In The United States

It’s hard to believe, but for the last few years Google Maps users in the United States have been missing out on a pretty important feature (though there’s a decent chance you’ve never heard of it). It’s not particularly sexy, and many of the people reading this post will probably never take advantage of it, but we’ll all reap the benefits over the coming months. Meet Google Map Maker.

Five hidden tools and tricks for Google Calendar | Topics | Working Mac | Macworld

Many of us would be lost without our calendars—they're where we schedule meetings, pencil in appointments and set project deadlines. And without the proper tools, managing a calendar can become a headache.

Governor vetoes birther, campus gun bills | Reuters

(Reuters) - Arizona's Republican Governor Jan Brewer on Monday vetoed two controversial bills, one mandating proof of U.S. citizenship to run for president, the other allowing guns on college campuses, in a clear setback for conservatives who control the state legislature.

Brewer, who grabbed headlines a year ago when she signed a get-tough state law cracking down on illegal immigrants, vetoed the bills in an announcement late on Monday.

The so-called "birther bill," would have made Arizona the first state in the nation to require presidential candidates prove U.S. citizenship by providing a long form birth certificate, and other forms of proof including baptismal or circumcision certificates, to be placed on the state ballot

Fidel Castro Says He Won’t Be Part of Communist Party Committee - The Washington Post

April 19 (Bloomberg) -- Former Cuban President Fidel Castro said that he won’t be part of the Communist Party’s Central Committee.

New Poll Shows Obama Falling, But Not Below GOP Contenders - Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Economic anxiety is driving President Obama’s approval rating to nearly its lowest level yet, a new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows, but he still edges out any possible GOP opponent for 2012.

The president’s 47 percent approval rating is down seven points from January, but he would get a majority of the vote against every potential Republican White House candidate except former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, whom he leads by a 49 to 45 percent margin.

Results prove a direct correlation between the faltering economy and Obama’s grade: “Despite signs of economic growth, 44 percent of Americans see the economy as getting worse,” the Post reported, and Americans demonstrate particular concern for rising gas prices; meanwhile, 57 percent disapprove of Obama’s handling of the issue.

Still, another factor at work could eclipse the economic punch, in Obama’s favor: a general dissatisfaction with the GOP field.

Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee each trail Obama by only four and six points, respectively (all other contenders slack by double digits), but when Republicans and right-leaning independents were asked which candidate they would vote for in a primary or caucus, the only names volunteered were Romney, Huckabee, real estate mogul Donald Trump, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin—the latter three of whom have not shown significant motion toward entering the race.

But it’s not all good news for the president. Among the independent base that largely carried him to his victory in 2008, poll numbers show that both Romney and Huckabee run “a touch higher” than Obama.