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[JURIST] The US government on Friday charged two Brooklyn men with conspiracy to provide material support to al Qaeda. The two men allegedly received at least $50,000 for providing al Qaeda with “computer advice and assistance, services, and currency,” among other acts, between November 2007 and March 2010. The charges were filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has been advocating using the criminal justice system as a counter-terrorism tool.
In March, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism Martin Scheinin urged the Obama administration to hold civilian trials for accused 9/11 conspirators, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The week before that, lawmakers introduced a bill that would require the military interrogation and trial of those taken into US custody who are suspected of links to terrorism. While the Obama administration is keeping the option of military commissions open, JURIST contributing editor Jordan Paust has discussed the option of courts-martial as another option for prosecuting members of al Qaeda and the Taliban.

by Brad Johnson

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

Cross-posted from Wonk Room.

The catastrophic gusher of oil unleashed by the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig last week is on track to quickly exceed the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, an independent expert warns. An explosive burst of oil destroyed the exploratory rig 41 miles off the Louisiana coast on the eve of Earth Day, killing 11 workers. After the shattered hulk of the rig sank to the ocean floor a mile down, the pipeline continues to spew oil that has now reached shore, with an end weeks or months away. John Amos, the president and founder of the nonprofit firm SkyTruth, “which specializes in gathering and analyzing satellite and aerial data to promote environmental conservation,” estimated from satellite photos that the calamity is increasing at a rate of 850,000 gallons (20,000 barrels) a day:

That’s right: more than 6 million gallons spilled into the Gulf of Mexico so far. This, and other radar images that SkyTruth is getting, confirm what we’ve seen on the NASA/MODIS images so far, and support our conservative calculations showing that in the first week of this spill at least 6 million gallons have entered the Gulf. That’s a spill rate of at least 850,000 gallons (20,000 barrels) per day, 20 times larger than the official Goast Guard estimate of 42,000 gallons per day.

By today, about 7 million gallons will have been spilled, taking the Deepwater Horizon disaster more than halfway to the 1989 wreck of the Exxon Valdez, which dumped 11 million gallons into Alaska’s Prince William Sound — one of the nation’s worst environmental disasters. This catastrophe — which occured as Halliburton was cementing the well — will exceed the scale of the Exxon Valdez within a week.

The sea of oil spewing from the mangled pipeline is already larger than 31 nations. After the Montara oil platform blew up in Australia’s Timor Sea last August, it took 10 weeks to stop the flow of oil. If recent history is any guide, it may be months before the sea of oil stops growing.

On April 22, the U.S. Coast Guard estimated the flow rate to be 336,000 gallons of crude a day, but BP officials claimed on Sunday that the rate was only 42,000 gallons a day.  By Thursday, officials admitted that the disaster is increasing at least 210,000 gallons a day, much closer to the Coast Guard’s original estimate. Amos called that estimate a “bare-bones limit.”

Update: On ABC’s Good Morning America, White House adviser David Axelrod makes it clear that the White House will not support new domestic drilling until this disaster is resolved:

No additional drilling has been authorized and none will until we find out what happened here and whether there was something unique and preventable here. No domestic drilling in new areas is going to go forward until there is a adequate review of what’s happened here and of what is being proposed elsewhere.

Related Links:

Wake up, Obama. The Gulf spill is our big chance

Big Oil continues to see big profits, pollution while Americans get robbed at the pump

Obama puts offshore drilling on hold as Gulf of Mexico oil slick reaches U.S. coast

EFF will be attending PrivacyCamp SF on Friday May 7th after the end of the Web 2.0 Expo, and we hope you will join us. The topic of the day will be Privacy and Social Networks.

This first annual PrivacyCamp in San Francisco will be a day-long user-generated “unconference” of engineers, privacy advocates, professors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and social network users that will focus on the privacy implications of social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Google Buzz. If you will be in the Bay Area and want to engage in smart conversation with experts in tech and policy about what social networks mean for privacy and to brainstorm about how social networks can be designed to better protect privacy, register now.

What:	PrivacyCamp SF 2010
When:	Friday May 7, 2010 from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM
Where:	UC Hastings, Alumni Reception Center (ARC)
	200 McAllister Street, San Francisco, CA 94102

On the heels of the second annual PrivacyCamp DC and just a week after Facebook rolled out it’s latest changes reducing Facebook users’ privacy, the first annual PrivacyCamp SF will bring together interested parties for smart and topical conversation about what a privacy-respecting social network would look like.

What is an unconference? Well, there’s no pre-planned agenda, no keynotes, no panels, and no “Q&As,” just a space to meet, discuss, debate, and share knowledge with others who are interested in a particular topic–in this case, Privacy and Social Networks. We at EFF certainly have a lot to say on that topic, and we hope you’ll join us to help define the dialogue. Helping us with that will be Craig Newmark of Craigslist, who’s planning to speak with conference participants before lunch, and we hope to see representatives from other Web 2.0 companies participating in the discussion as well.

Since there’s no pre-planned agenda, the topics of discussion will be collaboratively defined the morning of the conference (for example, here‘s the agenda that was settled on for the DC PrivacyCamp, which focused on privacy and government policy). But to give you an idea of possible topics for discussion, here are a few initial ideas and questions suggested by the PrivacyCamp blog:

• Privacy by Design: Where in the design process should privacy be addressed? How far have we come and in what direction are we heading? What are the biggest obstacles to designing a private network, and what are some ways to overcome them?
• All Out in the Open: How can privacy exist on a public network? In an age that seemingly embraces oversharing, are privacy controls a futile exercise? What are users’ expectations and how can they be addressed?
• The Money Question: Does privacy work against the very tenets of social networking monetization? Can networks emphasize privacy and still be profitable? Is it possible to compete on privacy?
• Too Much Control: Are granular controls the answer to privacy? How detailed can controls get before they become too complicated? How sophisticated is the “average user” and how can sites encourage users to educate themselves about the full functionality of privacy controls?
• Update Headaches: What works when you change your site’s privacy controls? What doesn’t?

What would you like to see discussed at PrivacyCamp SF? Register now to get in on the conversation. You can also participate in or follow the discussion on Twitter via @privacycampdc and hashtags #privacycamp and #privacy2010, on the PrivacyCamp Facebook page, and on the PrivacyCamp blog.

Filed under: Coupe, Crossover, BMW

Were you, like us, just thinking that BMW‘s U.S. lineup would be fully complete if only it had just one more crossover utility Sports Activity Vehicle that slotted in somewhere between the small X3 and midsize X5? If so, we have good news. Just such a vehicle – logically and tentatively named the X4 – is rumored to be in development. Again.

Just as the X6 was designed as a sportier take on the more traditional SUV-shaped X5, the new X4 would inject a bit more Bavarian flavor into the plain ol’ X3. Citing an unnamed source within the company, Autocar reports, “We haven’t made any firm decision… however, the X6’s success shows there is a continued demand for sporty off-roaders.”

Yes, we’ve heard this rumor before, but not since 2008. Why the possible change of heart? Despite drawing ire from what seems to be a vocal minority, BMW reports that the X6 is handily outpacing its own initial sales projections. In fact, it’s 80,000 sales worldwide is twice what the automaker had expected to sell. And one good turn deserves… something.

[Source: Autocar]

Report: BMW X4 back on the table? originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Impact Teen Drivers, a California-based nonprofit organization dedicated to saving lives, have partnered with OTTER App, an Android App geared towards curbing the texting while driving habit, to help teen drivers reduce distractions on the road. This comes at the cusp of Oprah launching “No Phone Zone” campaign raising awareness and today April 30th is the national day. Plus the month of May is National Youth Traffic Safety Month.

“The new OTTER app is a tool that will enable teens and parents to easily put their phone into a mode that is safe while driving, without losing the connectivity that teens crave,” said Dr. Kelly Browning, Executive Director of Impact Teen Drivers.

While activated in GPS or Parental Control Mode, OTTER will silence all incoming texting and phone call ringtones while the user is in a moving vehicle, plus initiate a response telling others they are driving. This eliminates the temptation for a teen to read or respond to a text or phone call while driving, therefore removing substantial risk of death or injury that is associated with those distractions.

A unique feature the app has is that it deters the habit in a non-invasive way, it does not lock down the phone and you can still text and make calls if necessary. If you’re a concerned parent and your teen driver has an Android phone, take a look at our Android app review of OTTER to see if it’s suitable for your family.

This is one of many programs and apps geared toward delivering the message, we’ll keep you posted on them.

A bill that would extend the statute of limitations in child sexual abuse cases was officially withdrawn Friday – ending an emotional debate at the Capitol for this year.

The measure’s chief proponents were unable to garner enough support in the House of Representatives and the Senate, but they said they will try again in the future.

Sen. Mary Ann Handley, a Manchester Democrat who is not seeking re-election, said she could not say how many votes she had in the 36-member Senate.

“You’re running a marathon, not a sprint,” Handley said. “I’m retiring, but I’ll be back on this issue. I’ll tell you that.”

The bill was directly related to the allegations of child sexual abuse against Dr. George Reardon, who worked at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford from 1963 to 1993. The bill, though, never mentioned either the hospital or Reardon by name.

“I’m happy that it is withdrawn because we thought it was a horrendous bill,” said Michael Culhane, a spokesman for the Connecticut Catholic Conference, which represents the bishops at the state Capitol. “The retroactivity of the bill is just terrible. It would be my hope that an effort would be made to resolve these issues, but I’m not part of that process.”

During a public hearing on March 17, an attorney for the Catholic Church said the bill was unconstitutional.

The bishops had said publicly that the passage of the bill would have had a devastating financial impact on the church and parishes around Connecticut.

“It is a fact that there are seven or eight dioceses across the country that have filed for bankruptcy because of this issue, so that’s a possibility, not a fact going forward,” Culhane said. “Based on the experience of the church dealing with those dioceses, that was a possibility.”

Neither Culhane nor any of the legislators could provide a definitive answer Friday on whether there will be a settlement or resolution of the lawsuits against St. Francis Hospital before they are scheduled to go to trial.

The bill has now failed for two consecutive years at the Capitol. A version last year never made it out of committee, but this year’s version was approved, 23 to 20, by the judiciary committee. But insiders knew that the bill was in trouble because highly controversial bills traditionally need a wider margin of support in the judiciary committee if they are going to be approved by the full legislature.

State Rep. Beth Bye, a co-sponsor of the bill, declined to reveal the exact vote count in the House, where 76 votes are needed for passage,

While some said that the bill had 58 votes in favor about 10 days ago, Bye said she had “certainly more” than 58.

House Republican leader Lawrence Cafero of Norwalk, who has handled zoning cases as an attorney, said the bill was so narrowly written that it would only affect St. Francis Hospital.

“Spot zoning is illegal,” Cafero said Friday. “It was carefully crafted to affect one particular case.”

If a victim had been molested by a doctor at Norwalk Hospital and there were no other pending cases or claims, then “they are shut out from suit” in the bill, Cafero said. “That’s wrong.”

Cafero, who had previously described Reardon as “a piece of garbage,” said Friday that he was “an animal.”

Reardon died in 1998, but the case arose when evidence surfaced in 2007 after a homeowner renovating Reardon’s former West Hartford home discovered a cache of more than 50,000 slides and 100 movie reels of child pornography.

While the case and the bill focused on Reardon and the hospital, other groups that are not directly involved in that case have lobbied against the bill and contributed to its defeat. Among them are the Insurance Association of Connecticut and the American Tort Reform Association, which raised concerns about changing the statute of limitations. The judiciary committee’s influential co-chairman, Sen. Andrew McDonald, voted against the bill at the committee level because of his concern about the statute.

The defeat of the bill does not end the cases of the 56 plaintiffs who are aged 48 or older. Plaintiff attorneys are pursuing various legal theories in an attempt to get around the statute of limitations for those cases, but those arguments could be difficult to win.

Barbara Blaine, President of SNAP, which is the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said lawmakers had made the wrong move by opposing the bill.

“Even if every single person who was sexually assaulted by Reardon in childhood gets some kind of settlement, that doesn’t absolve lawmakers of the duty to protect children by giving victims the chance to warn families about predators through the justice system,” Blaine said in a statement. “We commend the courageous and compassionate abuse victims who have worked so long to safeguard the vulnerable and heal the wounded through this legislative effort and hope they will have the strength and persistence to push even harder next session.”

SNAP notes that, although the word “priest” is mentioned in the group’s title, it includes “members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations,” including rabbis, Protestant ministers and bishops.

For a detailed account of the bill’s problems in an earlier Capitol Watch post, click here.

As Congress continues to negotiate unemployment benefits legislation, Bloomberg has a story this week noting what few others have: that the so-called extension of benefits isn’t really an extension of benefits at all. Rather, it’s an extension of the filing deadline to apply for existing benefits, which have been capped at a maximum 99 weeks since last fall. And Congress has no plans to lengthen that span.

That, Bloomberg writes, spells bad news for a growing group of long-term unemployed workers who have exhausted all available help.

[Lawmakers] are quietly drawing the line at 99 weeks of aid, a mark that hundreds of thousands of Americans have already reached. In coming months, the number of those who will receive their final government check is projected to top 1 million.

As we noted recently, there’s really no group keeping a tally of how many Americans are exhausting their benefits. The Labor Department, for example, defines “long-term unemployment” as anything beyond 27 weeks, meaning that some workers falling into that category could have 18 months of benefits remaining. And a recent study from the Pew Charitable Trusts revealed that roughly 3.4 million people have been out of work for at least a year — which again, does nothing to indicate how many folks have exhausted their government benefits.

Bloomberg, for its part, based its estimates on state figures, which paint a pretty dismal portrait of the long-term unemployment problem.

Interviews with state officials found that in New York, 57,000 people have received their last check. In Florida, 130,000 are no longer eligible as are about 30,000 Ohioans.

Those numbers will grow, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc, which projects that more than 400,000 may soon begin losing benefits every month.

For all the uncertainty surrounding the economic recovery, this much seems clear: Congress has no plans to extend unemployment benefits beyond their current length.

“You can’t go on forever,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, of Montana, whose panel oversees the benefits program. “I think 99 weeks is sufficient,” he said.

“There’s just been no discussion to go beyond that,” said Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat.

State Rep. Stephen Dargan, a veteran West Haven Democrat who often makes predictions, says the legislature will not reach a budget deal before the General Assembly’s mandated adjournment at midnight May 5.

“I’ve got a better chance of picking the winner of the Kentucky Derby this Saturday than that happening,” said Dargan, a longtime horse-picker who often heads up to the Saratoga Race Course during the hot days in August.

 

GUANTANAMO BAY — A youthful-looking woman in a gray suit with long brown hair is known only to us as Interrogator Number 11. She was a military interrogator at Guantanamo Bay who interrogated the detainee she refers to as “Omar” from October 28, 2002 until November 14, 2002. The timeline indicates she was the first interrogator, and certainly the first military interrogator, to interrogate Omar Khadr after FBI Special Agent Robert Fuller queried Khadr in Bagram. The thrust of her testimony is simple: Not only did Khadr talk to her voluntarily, he was personally warm to her.

Far from the picture of coercion painted by Khadr’s attorneys, Number 11 testified, “It was a very relaxed, open, very friendly atmosphere. He smiled a lot. Always willing to talk.” As part of what was called a Tier Three interrogation team, she interrogated Omar twelve times, first in a hospital ward and later in one of 20 interrogation rooms in two trailers in the detention facility’s early days. Number 11 said she was specifically assigned to Khadr because she could be “more of a mother figure for him, and he could relate to me.”

In Number 11’s telling, it worked. She said Khadr told her, “I would rather be with you than bored in my cell … anytime, call me.” She said she never heard a thing about Khadr being in any way abused, and specifically talked about seeing what she called the “Rumsfeld Memos” authorizing more abusive treatment for detainees — and said she specifically forswore using any. In return, she said Khadr provided “detailed information” about al-Qaeda’s training camps, guest houses and chain of command. “He would always say to me his father was fourth in command for UBL,” the military acronym for Osama bin Laden. “He’s met Osama bin Laden. He’s met his wives, his children, at the Jalalabad compound. … He played with his children.”

“Omar,” she said, was a cooperative and talkative interlocutor, even correcting spellings, pronunciation and timelines when she misstated them in her notes or mis-recited them to him. On several occasions, Number 11 testified, she would “not even have to ask follow-up information because he [gave] such detailed information. He was very alert.”

Lamar Advertising Co. will start retrofitting all billboards across Florida with wind and solar energy systems. The company intends to complete the operation by 2012 at the cost of about $12.5 million — the Department of Energy will provide $2.5 million while the remaining cost will be borne by Lamar.

The project will cover 1,370 billboards across eight markets throughout Florida with most of the billboards located along interstates and at thoroughfares. Not only will the billboards be powered by wind and solar energy systems, they will also function as small power generating hubs feeding the surplus electricity to the grid. The combined capacity of the billboard energy systems will be about 1 MW. (more…)

Wilma is a domestic violence survivor.

She said she dealt with physical and mental abuse for 15 years. She eventually filed for divorce, and she said her husband had her arrested and thrown in jail on false charges.

Wilma, who declined to reveal her last name or her hometown, said her divorce proceedings were messy and required court appearances because there were children involved.

When she filed for divorce, Wilma said she told her employer about her personal life, asking the human resources department to keep the information confidential. From then on, Wilma said work was difficult. 

“Everyone treated me like I had leprosy,” Wilma said, adding that she was eventually fired from her job as a store clerk despite good performance reviews.

Wilma is an example of someone who lives to tell about her experiences, and she shared her story at a press conference Friday. There, however, are many domestic violence victims who don’t live to tell their stories, such as Tiana Notice, who was allegedly stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend last year.

Notice’s father, Alvin Notice, joined Wilma Friday at the press conference.  

The high number of domestic violence deaths prompted House Speaker Christopher Donovan, D-Meriden, to establish a task force to come up with ways to improve how the state responds to domestic violence incidents. The task force’s work resulted in three sweeping domestic violence bills that touch on everything from education to creating a pilot program for the electronic monitoring of high-risk domestic violence offenders.    

Wilma and Notice stood along side Donovan and others Friday to encourage lawmakers to pass the bills. The bills were passed by the House earlier this week and are expected to be approved by the Senate before the legislature adjourns May 5.   

“It’s all on the Senate’s shoulders now,” said Sen. Andrea Stillman, D-Waterford. “We’ll do it.”

Also at Friday’s press conference was Richard Graziano, president and chief executive officer of The Hartford Courant and Fox 61. Graziano spoke about his assistant, Alice Morrin, who was slain by her husband in June.

“These are troubling times, and it’s really refreshing to see legislation that would make a difference,” Graziano said.   

Two hundred thousand gallons per day of Gulf crude are leaking from a hole 5000 feet under the water’s surface in the wake of the still mysterious destruction of British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform last week . How and when it will be stopped is entirely unknown. The mayonnaise-like oil is being blown ashore into the nursery for shrimp for the whole region and the home of hundreds of the other species. Welcome to what may turn out to be the worst single human-caused environmental disaster ever. (Unless you regard global warming in general as a single event. Semantics.)

This thing is going to need a name. The Exxon Valdez incident was a spill – there was a finite amount of oil aboard the ship. A lot of oil: 11 million gallons (40 million liters). The new one in the Gulf of Mexico could blow past that, depending on whether present efforts to close the valve or drill a relief well work.

The fact that we called it the “Exxon Valdez” incident clearly indicates the responsible (if not guilty) party involved. So, though I like the moniker “Spill, Baby, Spill” from a political point of view, it doesn’t lay any blame and this thing is not a spill. It’s a leak, and BP leased the rig from Transocean LTD, the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor. I think the responsibility has yet to be determined. If you rent a car, and wipe out a family in an accident because the steering was faulty, is it your fault or the car manufacturer’s? It may take some time, or even never be known, what happened a week ago to cause this tragedy.

The name of the rig was the Deepwater Horizon, but that doesn’t convey ownership or responsibility. Will this become known as the “BP Deepwater Horizon Spill”? The “Transocean/BP Leak”? The media seem to be stuck on “spill” and so I bet that will be in the name long term…and it will take a very long time to assess responsibility here.

My heart goes out to the families of the 11 lost on the rig, and to the thousands of fishermen and others whose livelihoods are in peril.

We’ve suspended new offshore drilling until we have understood this incident better. And no doubt a new debate about offshore drilling will ensue. This has certainly put the lie to those who claim that new modern drilling rigs are far safer than in the past, something even President Obama was saying as recently as April 2. Sigh.

Within the debate about the deficit, there is another debate about timing. If public debt does trigger a financial crisis, it won’t be tomorrow. It won’t be next year. It probably won’t be in five years. So what is everybody doing running around screaming about the fierce urgency of VAT?

Here’s Bruce Bartlett’s answer:

What I expect is that when there is the inevitable flare-up in
financial markets as bond prices crash, the dollar takes an unexpected
dip, the price of oil shoots up or whatever that Congress and the White
House will solemnly vow to cut the deficit because it will be the one
thing that everyone will be able to agree upon that might help and at
least won’t hurt. Everyone will go out to Andrews Air Force Base and
after weeks of intense negotiations announce that a deal has been
struck to deal with the crisis.

Republicans will inevitably agree
to some modest tax increases, Democrats will agree to trim Medicare and
Medicaid, and both sides will promise that discretionary spending will
be slashed.

A VAT could take a decade to set up and index until you’re locked in at a long-term rate of 8 or 10 percent. But America’s not very good at dealing with slow-moving crises, even with slow-moving solutions. We’re much better at waiting until a crisis happens, acting quickly, and then putting together commissions to find out why nobody saw it coming.

This week’s NYT Magazine cover story, penned by Wired’s Gary Wolf, is about people who obsessively collect data on themselves—how much they eat or sleep, how happy they feel, etc. Are numbers the path to a happier life? More »

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

The big news in local academic circles this week is that University of Washington president Mark Emmert is leaving after almost six years to become head of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), based in Indiana, effective November 1. The move surprised many in the academic and business communities.

Emmert, 57, has a reputation as a charismatic leader who has been successful at fundraising and recruiting top faculty. He is also a sports enthusiast, and has put major resources into improving the UW football program, among other things. One of his main responsibilities at the NCAA will be meeting with university presidents on athletic policies.

But what about his impact on the Seattle business community? As the news starts to sink in, Luke and I have begun asking local leaders what Emmert’s legacy will be on the innovation scene around Seattle and in Washington, and how the region will move forward.

Emmert was instrumental in providing support for the unorthodox hiring of an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Linden Rhoads, to be the UW’s senior-most commercialization officer in the summer of 2008. Emmert has also been using his bully pulpit to educate community leaders on UW’s potential to become an “entrepreneurial university,” over the past 12 months.

Earlier this week, at the UW’s Business Plan Competition, Connie Bourassa-Shaw of the UW’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship noted that Emmert’s leadership helped provide a vital endorsement that said startup activity was not just OK, but desirable, on campus. Under Emmert’s watch, there haven’t been any major controversies that put the academic traditions of research and teaching in conflict with the desire to make those ideas into practical products that create jobs and economic growth.

“Mark has been an excellent president in many ways. He will be a superb head of the NCAA. This is a huge loss for UW,” said Ed Lazowska, a professor of computer science and engineering at the school, in an e-mail. “At the same time, I feel jilted. Those of us who have spent large parts of our careers at UW feel a great loyalty to the institution—it’s about UW, not about us.”

He continued: “Mark had a good relationship with the VC/entrepreneurship community. He clearly ‘got it’ and he liked hanging out with those folks. It used to be that I was the only UW person at the holiday parties hosted by Jon Roberts, Nick Hanauer, etc. Then there was Mark. Now there’s Linden [Rhoads] too.”

Rhoads, the vice provost of the UW Center for Commercialization, says Emmert’s impact is measured by the people he has helped recruit.

She wrote in an e-mail: “President Emmert will leave a university led by new and talented leaders with the critical mass to adapt to a changing environment and keep the UW vital, and on the vanguard of even the most prestigious research universities. These appointments ensure a legacy that will be serving UW well for years after President Emmert starts sitting courtside at the Final Four. Our commercialization team has been able to make big changes quickly with support from relatively new Deans of Engineering, Law, Nursing, and energetic and sophisticated leadership in the Office of Research, Sponsored Projects, and Advancement. This month, Provost [Phyllis] Wise is in the midst of recruiting three new deans, including a Dean for the new College of the Environment. She’s led a campus-wide survey and dialogue on our values and what we need to do to position the UW to be an increasingly important, relevant place over the next decades. Everyone knows about the UW’s successful fund-raising campaign and President Emmert’s accomplishments with respect to our endowment. President Emmert is also leaving the UW with great people in place.”

I’m sure many others in the innovation community outside of UW will have thoughts on what the transition will mean for entrepreneurship, and state and local businesses. I hope to have more on this soon.

UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

Erin Kutz wrote:

Idenix Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IDIX), a Cambridge, MA-based developer of anti-viral drugs, has priced an offering of 6.46 million shares of its common stock at $4.35 per share, an SEC filing revealed. Thomas Weisel Partners is acting as the sole book-running manager of the deal, which will bring in net proceeds of about $26.2 million to Idenix, according to a company announcement. The funding will go to general corporate purposes, research and development expenses, and potential acquisitions.

by Daniel J. Weiss

This post was co-authored by Susan Lyon.

I was out
driving/just a taking it slow
Looked at my tank/ it was reading low
Pulled
in a Exxon station/out on Highway One
Held up without a gun
Held up
without a gun

– Bruce
Springsteen

Springsteen’s
song could not be more true today. Big Oil is once again riding high oil prices
to large profits (see below) while American consumers get stuck with a $2.7
billion gasoline bill in the first quarter of 2010 due to higher oil prices.
But the problems with oil go beyond these companies’ profits. Rising oil prices
also add more filthy lucre to the coffers of
hostile regimes, including Iran.

Meanwhile,
the Gulf of Mexico is suffering a huge oil
spill while taxpayers spend billions of dollars paying for tax
loopholes for Big Oil. And Big Oil spends record
amounts of money to pressure Congress to cement these loopholes in place and
defeat clean energy legislation. Adding injury to insult, big oil opposes energy
and global warming legislation that would reduce our reliance on
oil.

Enough is
enough. We need Congress to stand up to Big Oil and pass legislation that
addresses the problems with oil profits and oil use. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.),
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) are working on legislation that
would reduce oil dependence and put a declining limit and rising price
on carbon. These measures would reduce our dependence on oil, increase
national security, create jobs, and cut pollution.

Mo’
prices, mo’ problems

U.S. crude
oil prices rose from $31.76 per
barrel in January 2009 to $85.17 by April 29, 2010 after a price slump at
the end of 2008. This is an increase of nearly 160 percent over a 15-month
period. The Energy Information
Administration recently predicted that oil prices will rise to above an
average of $81 per barrel by this summer while average gasoline prices will
likely exceed $3.00 per gallon this spring. Drivers will pay 17 percent more for
gas compared
to summer 2009—$174 million per day, or an average of $602 per household
annually. Energy price volatility like this hurts
consumer and business investments, causing families to delay buying a car
and spend less on buying or upgrading their homes. Businesses also cut
investments, while profits surge in the oil and gas
industry.

While higher
prices brought higher profits to Big Oil, they also brought higher gasoline
prices that cost American consumers millions during the first quarter. A CAP
analysis determined that higher oil and gasoline prices forced Americans to
spend $2.7
billion more on gasoline during the first quarter compared to what they
would have spent had prices remained steady after the first
week.

Big Five:
We’re in the money

Much of the
U.S. economy is slowly recovering from a deep recession, but oil companies
continue to prosper. The big five oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips,
ExxonMobil, and Shell—announced huge first quarter profits—four of the five
companies announced profits larger than analysts predicted.
As the chart below shows, big oil saw profits in the first quarter of 2010 that
far eclipse analysts’ projections and are significantly higher than 2009 profits
as well.

Big five
oil company profits for the first quarter of 2010 vs. first quarter
2009

bp’s quarter report

BP’s
2010 first quarter profits were $5.6 billion, a 135 percent increase over
the first quarter of 2009. This profit was 50 percent higher than predicted by
The Financial Times. Shell announced that its profits had risen by 49 percent since the first quarter of
2009. Chevron’s profit was $4.6 billion, a 156 percent increase, while
ConocoPhillips had $2.1 billion in profits. The world’s largest private oil
company, ExxonMobil, had a first quarter profit of $6.8 billion, which was 38
percent more than 2009.

Iran:
Thanks for high oil prices

Higher oil
prices also benefit nations that are hostile to U.S. interests—even if we don’t
purchase any oil from them—such as Iran. Every $1 increase in the price of oil
provides an additional $1.5 billion to Iran annually.

Conversely,
adoption of a shrinking limit on carbon pollution that reduces it by 80 percent
by 2050 would reduce the use of oil and lower its price, costing
Iran approximately $1.8 trillion in lost oil revenues over the next 40
years—over $100
million a day. These petrodollars fund and prop up unfriendly
regimes, enabling them to support
terrorists in other nations.

Sea of
fire

Oil companies
deserve to earn a profit since oil exploration and development can be
financially and technically risky business. At the same time, though, they must
produce this oil in a safe and environmentally sustainable manner. Yet despite
rhetoric
to the contrary about advances in environmental safeguards, the spill off
the Louisiana coast shows that offshore oil development still poses a threat to
its workers and risk to the ocean and coastal
environment.

BP owns the
oil rig that exploded and sunk in the Gulf of Mexico last week, causing what CNN reports officials say “could become one of worst spills in U.S. history.”
Tragically, there are 11 missing rig employees who are presumed dead. The well continues to
leak 210,000 gallons of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico—five times the original
estimate. This growing oil slick already covers an area
larger than West Virginia and oozed
onto the Louisiana shore early this morning. A major portion of the oil
slick looms only five miles offshore. This major oil spill could be the worst
environmental disaster since the Exxon Valdez
spill in 1989, and it is a tragic reminder that we must dramatically reduce
our oil use.

The Exxon
Valdez spill cost Alaska’s fishermen an estimated $800 million in damages to
their livelihood. This oil spill could bring an economic Armageddon to the gulf
coast seafood industry. Bloomberg
reports:

Louisiana is
the largest seafood producer in the lower 48 states, with annual retail sales of
about $1.8 billion, according to state data. Recreational fishing generates
about $1 billion in retail sales a year, according to the
state.

BP should be
required to place its first quarter profit of $5.6 billion in an escrow account
to provide compensation to the fishermen whose livelihoods are threatened. These
funds should also be used for cleaning up the soon to be blighted
shores.

Oil tax
loopholes: More money for the misbegotten

Despite high
prices and profits, big oil companies still want taxpayer-funded loopholes even
though some conservative oil men believe they are unnecessary. In 2005, former oil man
and President George W. Bush noted that with higher oil prices big oil does
not need tax breaks to explore and develop oil
fields.

I will tell
you with $55 oil we don’t need incentives to the oil and gas companies to
explore. There are plenty of incentives. What we need is to put a strategy in
place that will help this country over time become less
dependent.

Yet even with
today’s prices more than 50 percent higher than $55 per barrel, Big Oil
companies want
to maintain tax loopholes that siphon additional billions of dollars from
U.S. taxpayers. Taxpayer money pays for the tax breaks claimed by Big Oil, but
the industry claims that closing these loopholes is really a new energy tax on
them. American Petroleum Institute President Jack
Gerard stated:

With America
still recovering from recession and one in ten Americans out of work, now is not
the time to impose new taxes on the nation’s oil and natural gas industry. New
taxes would mean fewer American jobs and less revenue at a time when we
desperately need both. A robust U.S. oil and gas industry is essential to the
recovery of the nation’s economy.

Contrary to
this assertion, cutting the subsidies to Big Oil would help our economy while
shrinking the federal budget deficit. In fact, a state-by-state
analysis indicates that taxpayers would actually save money if the
subsidies and tax breaks were lifted. A recent CAP analysis found that the effective
federal income tax rate in the United States for major oil companies is
lower than the effective tax rates they face abroad—sometimes close to 50
percent lower. The report also determined that subsidies to the oil industry
will cost the U.S. government about $3 billion in lost revenues next year and
nearly $20 billion over the next five years.

These
estimates are only the initial assessment—they still vastly underestimate the
help that the oil industry receives from the government via extensive hidden tax
code benefits as well.

Big Oil
squeezes the Capitol

Given the
generous subsidies Big Oil receives, it should come as no surprise that this
industry is fighting hard to keep their loopholes and block reform. There was record
oil and gas industry lobbying in 2009. These companies spent at least $154
million on squeezing Congress that year-more than 16 percent higher than 2008.
Big Oil’s lobbying and political arm—the American Petroleum Institute—alone
spent at least $7.3
million on lobbying in 2009 and another $1.3 million more in 2010 to kill
legislation. API has also spent millions of dollars running expensive print, TV, and radio ads to do the
same. The American Petroleum Institute alone “doled out $75.2 million for public relations and advertising” in
2008.

Congress
must act

In short, Big
Oil’s profits climb higher and higher as American consumers feel more and more
pain at
the pump. This needs to stop.

Sens. John
Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) are developing
bipartisan comprehensive energy legislation that would reduce oil dependence and
put a declining limit and rising price
on carbon. These provisions would increase American energy independence (and
our national
security), create jobs, produce “Made in the USA” clean energy technologies,
and cut pollution. The bill should also establish much stricter safeguards for
existing offshore oil production.

Additionally,
Congress should cut subsidies
to big oil and level the playing field for safe, clean energy sources.
Further, we need to curb the economic, social, and environmental damage that our
consumption of dirty fuel causes. To achieve these many goals, Congress must act
swiftly to pass bipartisan comprehensive energy and climate
reform.

Methodology

We used the
weekly price and quantity data supplied by the EIA’s U.S. prices and consumption
database to calculate how much more Americans spent on gas in the first quarter of 2010
relative to what they would have spent had prices remained steady after the
first week of January 2010. Using their data from the “Finished Motor gasoline
product supplied” and “Conventional retail gas prices” sections, we multiplied
the average weekly product supplied value times that week’s recorded price,
doing this separately for each week of the first quarter. From here, the initial
week’s value was subtracted from each other weeks to obtain how much more was
spent each week relative to the first. Aggregating this column resulted in the
final figure.

See
also:

Big Oil
Awash in Profits by Daniel J. Weiss and Susan Lyon
Quenching
Our Thirst for Oil by Susan Lyon, Rebecca Lefton, and Daniel J.
Weiss

Related Links:

Wake up, Obama. The Gulf spill is our big chance

Oil rig disaster could soon be worse than Exxon Valdez

Obama puts offshore drilling on hold as Gulf of Mexico oil slick reaches U.S. coast

 

Whoa!  The WiFi Alliance certified the (likely Android) Motorola MB810 today for IEEE Standard 802.11 b/g/n.  Yes, that’s the Shadow, and I know a lot of us have been waiting for more info about this screamer.  Still no concrete details or specs, but in case you forgot here’s what we think we know:-

• Full Qwerty landscape slider
• 4.3-inch capacitive screen
• 1080p playback
• Android 2.2
• Bluetooth 2.1
• 8MP autofocus camera
• microSD slot
• AT&T 3G GSM radio

If you’re an AT&T subscriber, start gathering up the change from your ashtray and from deep down in the couch.  This is one you don’t wanna miss out on. [via Phonedog]