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Environmental News Network: An oil drilling rig that had burned for 36 hours in the Gulf of Mexico sank on Thursday as hopes dimmed for 11 missing workers and the risk of a major oil spill loomed, officials said.

The fire went out as the Deepwater Horizon, operated by Transocean Ltd, sank below the surface at 10:21 a.m. CDT (1521 GMT), about 42 miles off the Louisiana coast.

The rig was drilling BP Plc’s Macondo project with 126 workers on board when it was ripped by an explosion and fire on Tuesday night. Some 115 workers escaped, including 17 helicoptered to New Orleans area hospitals with injuries.

Search and rescue operations turned up two empty lifeboats, and officials cited dim hopes that the 11 workers missing since the blast about 10 p.m. CDT Tuesday night would be rescued.

“We do continue with search and rescue activities,” the 8th District Coast Guard Commander Rear Admiral Mary Landry said. “As time passes, however, the probability of success in locating the 11 missing persons decreases.”

Transocean, based in Zug, Switzerland and the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor, said some of the missing may not have been able to escape the rig.

“Based on reports of crew members, at the time of the incident, they believe they may have been on board and not able to evacuate,” said Adrian Rose, a vice president of Transocean.

U.S. lawmakers called for the Coast Guard and Minerals Management Service to investigate the incident.

“It is critical that these agencies examine what went wrong and the environmental impact this incident has created,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat.

The explosion comes almost three weeks after President Barack Obama unveiled plans for a limited expansion of U.S. offshore oil and gas drilling.

It was unclear whether the rig sank to the bottom in about 5,000 feet of water, or how much oil still flowed or had spilled from the well, officials said.

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Here’s a lecture Steven Johnson gave last night at Columbia about the future of text. (Steven has a transcript here.) Lo and behold, that degree in semiotics twenty years ago makes a lot of sense now!

We’re a little closer to getting this beautiful tablet in our hands. Amazon is now taking pre-orders for the Archos 7 tablet. You can place your order now for a very pocket friendly $199 for this 8GB model. The 2GB model is expected to be priced at $179. Amazon may be the first of many retailers to carry this device, now shipping date has been set but it’s expected to start at the end of this month.

Product Features

* Your movies, music and photos will look great on the 7″ high-resolution touch-screen. You can even watch your favorite HD movies (720p) on the ARCHOS 7 home tablet.
* With the Android application framework you can now get your favorite Android apps on a 7″ device.
* Stay in touch with your family and your friends with the pre-installed email application. If you need to reach them right away, you can use the chat application or visit your favorite social networking sites.
* Use the USB host connection to connect a mouse, keyboard or external mass storage so you can surf the web or access your office documents easily and quickly. With the home tablet you won¿t need to start up your PC.
* With an 800 pixel wide resolution and a 7″ screen, you can comfortably surf the web in full width. No need to zoom in and out because the web pages are fully displayed on the ARCHOS screen.

As you can see from the specs above, this has a 7 inch screen, 720p playback and an ARM processor clocked at 600 MHZ. It will ship with Android 1.6.

[via liliputing]

Today, my daughter put my old iPod Mini into the iHome clock radio in her room and was surprised to see it spring to life.  Surprised, but not nearly as surprised as I was. Astonished is probably a more accurate word for my reaction. Not only had that iPod lasted me for years in my car, at the gym, at work, and at home, I had used it until the battery no longer held a charge.   The Mini came with me on trips around the country, driving and flying, my constant companion. At one point I loaded Linux on it, just because I could, became tired of it and set it back to factory defaults.

After the battery gave up the ghost, the Mini continued to work great, as long as it was plugged in, for a couple more years. After the Mini refused to power on when plugged in, (or so I thought) I put it up, and generally forgot about it until my two year old son somehow found it and decided that he needed it.  Since it was busted anyway, I let him have it, and that’s when the real abuse began.

My son dropped it on the concrete, used it as a hammer, and may have even taken a dive in the tub with it once or twice.  I don’t think I’ve ever had a device as throughly beaten as this old Mini. For months, what was my companion became my son’s, inside and out. So, imagine my surprise when, after months of neglect and mistreatment, the Mini powered on and filled my daughter’s room with music once more. My old iPod is not without its scars, the click wheel doesn’t work, and the black and white display is a little patchy, but it still accepts the buttons on the iHome.

Have you had a similar, jaw dropping, “it still works” moment with your Apple gear?  I’d love to hear about it, sound off in the comments!

Image courtesy of Flickr user mfajardo

By Phil Mattera, Dirt Diggers Digest

Goldman Sachs, which has long prided itself on being one of the
smartest operators on Wall Street, has apparently decided that the best
way to defend itself against federal fraud charges is to plead incompetence. The
firm is taking the position that it is not guilty of
misleading investors in a 2007 issue of mortgage securities because it
allegedly lost money — more than $90 million, it claims — on its own
stake in the deal.

In fact, Goldman would have us believe that it took a bath in the
overall mortgage security arena. This story line is a far cry from the
one put forth a couple of years ago, when the firm was being celebrated
for anticipating the collapse in the mortgage market and shielding
itself — though not its clients. In a November 2007 front-page article headlined “Goldman Sachs Rakes in
Profit in Credit Crisis,” the New York Times reported that the
firm “continued to package risky mortgages to sell to investors” while
it reduced its own holdings in such securities and bought “expensive
insurance as protection against further losses.” In 2007 Goldman posted a
profit of $11.6 billion (up from $9.5 billion the year before), and CEO
Lloyd Blankfein took home $70 million in compensation (not counting another $45 million in
value he realized upon the vesting of previously granted stock awards).
Some bath.

Goldman is not the only one rewriting financial history. Many of the
firm’s mainstream critics are talking as if it is unheard of for an
investment bank to act contrary to the interests of its clients, as
Goldman is accused of doing by failing to disclose that it allowed hedge
fund operator John Paulson to choose a set of particularly toxic
mortgage securities for Goldman to peddle while Paulson was betting
heavily that those securities would tank.

In fact, the history of Wall Street is filled with examples in which
investment houses sought to hoodwink investors. Rampant stock
manipulation, conflicts of interest and other fraudulent practices
exposed by the Pecora Commission prompted the regulatory reforms of the
1930s. Those reforms reduced but did not eliminate shady practices. The
1950s and early 1960s saw a series of scandals involving firms on the
American Stock Exchange that in 1964 inspired Congress to impose
stricter disclosure requirements for over-the-counter securities.

The corporate takeover frenzy of the 1980s brought with it a wave of
insider trading scandals. The culprits in these cases involved not only
independent speculators such as Ivan Boesky, but also executives at
prominent investment houses, above all Michael Milken of Drexel Burnham.
Also caught in the net was Robert Freeman, head of risk arbitrage at
Goldman, who in 1989 pleaded guilty to criminal charges. When players
such as Freeman and Milken traded on inside information, they were
profiting at the expense of other investors, including their own
clients, who were not privy to that information.

During the past decade, various major banks were accused of helping
crooked companies deceive investors. For example, in 2004 Citigroup agreed to pay $2.7 billion to settle such charges
brought in connection with WorldCom and later paid $1.7 billion to former Enron investors. In 2005
Goldman and three other banks paid $100 million to settle charges in connection
with WorldCom.

In other words, the allegation that Goldman was acting contrary to
the interest of its clients in the sale of synthetic collateralized debt
obligations was hardly unprecedented.

What’s not getting much attention during the current scandal is that
in late 2007 Goldman had found another way to profit by exploiting its
clients, though in this case the clients were not investors but
homeowners.

Goldman quietly purchased a company called Litton Loan Servicing, a
leading player in the business of servicing subprime (and frequently
predatory) home mortgages. “Servicing” in this case means collecting
payments from homeowners who frequently fall behind in payments and are
at risk of foreclosure. As I wrote
in 2008, Litton is “a type of collection agency dealing with those in
the most vulnerable and desperate financial circumstances.” At the end
of 2009, Litton was the fourth largest subprime servicer, with a
portfolio of some $52 billion (National Mortgage News
4/5/2010).

Litton has frequently been charged with engaging in abusive
practices, including the imposition of onerous late fees that allegedly
violate the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. It has also been
accused of being overly aggressive in pushing homeowners into
foreclosure when they can’t make their payments.

Many of these complaints have ended up in court. According to the Justia database,
Litton has been sued more than 300 times in federal court since the
beginning of 2007. That year a federal judge in California granted class-action status to a group of plaintiffs, but
the court later limited
the scope of the potential damages, resulting in a settlement in which
Litton agreed to pay out $500,000.

Meanwhile, individual lawsuits continue to be filed. Many of the more
recent ones involve disputes over loan modifications. Complaints in
this area persist even though Litton is participating in the Obama
Administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program and is thus
eligible for incentive payments through an extension of the Toxic Assets
Relief Program.

There seems to be no end to the ways that Goldman manages to make
money from toxic assets.  On Wall Street, as in Las Vegas, the house
always wins.

BONUS FEATURE: Federal regulation of business leaves
a lot to be desired, but it is worth knowing where to find information
on those enforcement activities that are occurring. The Dirt Diggers
Digest can help with our new Enforcement
page, which has links to online enforcement data from a wide range
of federal agencies. The page also includes links to inspection data,
product recall announcements and lists of companies debarred from doing
business with the federal government.

Design guy Seth Aaron Henderson sewed up victory on the seventh season finale of Project Runway on Thursday. Judges Heidi Klum, Nina Garcia, Michael Kors, and special guest Faith Hill chose Henderson over fellow finalists Emilio Sosa and Mila Hermanovski on the final episode of the current season of Lifetime’s reality fashion design competition.

Throughout the season, Henderson presented a collection of high-collared dresses and professional separates, inspired by 1940s German and Soviet military. His looks were accentuated by thick leather belts, leather gloves, and patterned leggings.

“I’m a risk taker,” says Henderson, a 38-year-old stylist and designer from Vancouver, Washington. “I feel you have to push the envelope all the time, otherwise you’re going to blend in. I’m ready to start a large clothing line. I’m ready to conquer the fashion industry….”

After out-designing the competition, Seth will take home this year’s Runway grand prizes: an editorial feature in an issue of Marie Claire, a cash prize of $100,000 to start his own line, an opportunity to sell the line on Bluefly.com, and a $50,000 technology suite from Hewlett-Packard to create, design, and run his design business.

About a year ago, in 2009 Shell Oil started injecting nitrogen into their gasoline. According to Shell, “Nitrogen is a key element of the active cleaning molecule in the new fuel, making it significantly more stable at higher temperatures common in modern engines, such as direct fuel-injection gasoline engines.”

But, this leads me to the question of doesn’t this enrichment lead to more nitrous oxide coming out the tailpipe? Now this laughing gas (N2O) is no laughing matter as it is also one of the greenhouse gases contributing to global warming.

So, a company called ACTA SpA is taking a different approach by injecting hydrogen into diesel fuel to help long haul truck drivers increase mileage by 17-percent. This hydrogen injection unit pays for itself in 6 months and not only will it cut down on fuel consumption (thereby greenhouse gases) but it will save money at the pump as well.

According to ACTA about its new hydrogen injection unit, “The tests took place in Verona at Car Diesel S.p.A., one of the largest independent test centres for fuel consumption and engine performance in Northern Italy. A new Volvo earth mover truck, fitted with a 7.2-litre capacity, 280HP engine (D7E280), compliant with Euro 5 emission standards, was tested at 80-percent of its power with hydrogen gas injected to enrich the fuel, and the fuel consumption was compared to the same test conditions without hydrogen injection.

“The Company estimates that the reduction achieved in consumption represents a net fuel saving of over €6,000 per annum for an average long-distance HGV, which would represent a payback period of only six months, based upon Acta’s anticipated commercial pricing for this system. These results are an important technical validation of the data obtained by the Company in its own laboratory, in a previous independent engine performance test, and in road tests.”

Unlike many emerging technology companies, ACTA is starting to see a profit on its hydrogen generators which are being used to both produce and store renewable energy on a large scale and to help diesel trucks attain higher mileage.

Sure there will be skeptics to this new technology. But, validation from independent lab tests from a center with an excellent reputation is a good start where even a denier will find a hard time in quibbling with the results.

Late last year, we created a presentation on some of the greatest trades of all time. It featured men who had achieved billions of dollars through their financial aptitude, brilliant investment strategies, and some luck.

However, with every winning trade comes a loss to another party, and today we focus on… the losers.

Here are the individuals and institutions that lost hundreds of millions, to billions, of dollars. All by letting one group or individual gamble with their money.

Be it excessive leverage, poor decision-making, or outright illegal activity, this is a story of epic failure.

See The Worst Trades Of All Time ->

Robert Citron: The man who brought California to its knees with 292% leverage.

In 1994, Robert Citron was Treasurer-Tax Collector and the only Democrat to hold office in Orange County, California. Through a series of highly-levered deals that included repo agreements and floating rate notes, Citron was able to at one point achieve leverage of 292%. The funds he managed were worth around $8 billion and if interest rates went up, he stood to lose big time due to his collateral which consisted almost primarily of US Treasury bonds.

Well guess what? Interest rates rose and as a result, Citron lost Orange County lost a boatload of money. From Wikipedia:

“The county’s finances were not suspect until February 1994. The Federal Reserve Bank began to raise US interest rates, causing many securities in Orange County’s investment pools to fall in value. As a result, dealers were requesting extra margin payments from Orange County. These extra margin payments were funded in part by another bond issue made by Orange County; the size of that bond issue was $600 million. However, this fix proved to be only temporary. In December 1994, Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) realized what was going on and blocked the “rolling over” of $1.25 billion in repos (“rollover” essentially means issuing of another repo when the previous one ends, but, at the new prevailing interest rate).

At that point Orange County was left with no recourse other than to file for bankruptcy.”

Jerome Kerviel: Derivatives arbitrage totaling over $60 billion

Kerviel made headlines last year as the trader at “a french bank,” which ended up being Societe Generale, He lost approximately $6.5 billion just like Leeson and others in this list through arbitrage of equity derivatives. Unauthorized trades totaled as high as $66.7 billion. Kerviel was ultimately charged with creating fraudulent documents and making attacks on an automated system.

Nick Leeson: Wiped out the world’s oldest bank, Barings

Leeson is most likely the most popular guy on the list. He started his career trading derivatives at Barings Bank and was eventually moved to Singapore where he enjoyed a lavish lifestyle and made plenty of money. That is, because he hid mounting losses in a special account known as the “five eights” account. He was eventually caught and sentenced to five years in a Singaporean prison where he acquired cancer and his wife left him.

Tim Geithner: Plowed $6.6 billion into a dead, unpopular automaker

Consider this: when was the last time Chrysler made a car you would actually buy? I’m dead serious. Who buys a new Chrysler, excluding the Jeep brand? Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner must not have thought of this when he wrote Chrysler a check for $6.6 billion to keep the company afloat via a new company.

This isn’t the first time Chrysler has needed help. In 1979, then-President Jimmy Carter approved a $1.5 billion loan package for the automaker called the Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee.

Since 2009, Chrysler has yet to fully recover and continues to be a money-losing business. Kyle Bass once said that this country needs to consolidate its auto industry. There is no longer room for three major players and perhaps, not even two. Ford will stick around, but it remains to be seen if Chrysler and GM can survive despite their divine intervention.

John Rusnak: Lost $691 million and thousands of jobs trading FX

Rusnak was a currency trader at Allfirst Bank who placed bets he couldn’t handle. He was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison for bank fraud and lost Allfirst a total of $691 million. As a result, Allfirst was sold by parent company AIB Group to M&T Bank. Over 1000 employees lost their jobs as a result of the case.

Joseph Jett: The hacker who lost it all

After GE purchased investment firm Kidder Peabody, it ended up finding out the company was more trouble than it was worth. Joe Jett, an MIT and Harvard Business School graduate, worked for Kidder in its fixed income department. He exploited a weak computer system to emulate trades to appear as if he was making sums of money. He appeared to have made $264 million when in reality, he had $75 million in losses that he covered up.

After becoming a rising star in the company, he was fired for reportedly causing over $250 million in losses according to then-GE CEO Jack Welch. As a result, the SEC charged him with record-keeping violations and ordered him to forfeit $8.2 million in bonus pay in addition to a $200,000 fine.

John Meriwether: The hedge fund that almost blew up the entire global economy.

This story is one that’s appeared in many a book about finance. It goes something like this:

Back in 1998, John Meriwether’s hedge fund, Long-Term Capital Management, had levered up 100:1 on Russian bonds. Russia defaulted and as a result, the fund lost $4.8 billion in a matter of months. A consortium of Wall Street banks was brought together by the New York Fed in order to bail out the hedge fund and save the economy. Firms like Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse were all forced to post hundreds of millions of dollars to keep the firm afloat. Over $1.9 billion in principal was completely wiped out, making Meriwether the laughing stock of The Street.

Yasuo Hamanaka: Attempted to corner the copper market and lost

This Japanese copper trader used to be employed by the Sumitomo Corporation, which was one of the larger trading firms in Japan. Back in 1996, Mr. Hamanaka attempted to corner the copper market and was unsuccessful. At stake? $1.8 billion in authorized trading with losses as high as $2.6 billion. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and was released in 2005.

Andy Fastow: Enron’s CFO Cooks The Books, Funnels Money, And Cheats His Way To Riches

The downfall of Enron will forever be known as one of the greatest crimes (and tricks) in modern finance. As Enron’s Chief Financial Officer, Fastow was responsible for unloading balance sheet debt into special investment vehicles, including the famous JLM and Raptor vehicles. He also set up off shore entities, directed traders on how they should make money, and lied to investors all in the name of Enron.

When the government went after Enron, he was able to cop a plea agreement that required him to serve a maximum 10-year prison sentence and forfeit $23.8 million in assets. He got six years and is awaiting release in 2011. His losses? Billions of dollars, wiping out shareholders completely, and costing thousands their jobs.

Peter Young: 80,000 investors get cheated

Young was a fund manager at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell (DMG) and had access to quite a bit of capital. He was known for making big, speculative bets in European markets. He set up shell companies so that he could circumvent financial regulation and place big bets on specific companies. After these bets, regulators came looking for answers and trading was shut down temporarily. Parent company Deutsche Bank was forced to offer DMG a $300 million cash infusion, only to have $400 million withdrawn from its funds in the ensuing weeks.

DMG was forced to pay a $1 million fine and investors profits were cut short after the bank announced to 80,000 investors that money was lost due to trading irregularities. Together, the three European funds Young managed were worth a combined $2.5 billion.

Bernard Madoff: The greatest Ponzi scheme of all time

You know the story by now, so let’s review:

• Former head of NASDAQ starts up Madoff Securities in mid-1980s.
• For years showed investors great returns, told them to keep their money in the fund.
• Turned out he didn’t have anywhere near as much money in the fund as he claimed he did, bilked investors out of billions when it was discovered he was running a Ponzi scheme.
• Goes to jail for the rest of his life, assets and cash divested to claimants in case.
• New York Post has a field day with its headlines.

David Lee: An explosive natural gas play

Lee, a natural gas trader for Bank of Montreal, ended up losing his bank $237 million due to his trading in natgas derivatives. He originally lost up to $853 million using a scheme to disguise his losses – a recurring theme in our presentation.

According to Reuters, it went down like this:
“Lee overvalued the positions on BMO’s books by regularly recording inflated values that were then purportedly validated by Optionable Inc,” the SEC suit said.

It said the three Optionable traders “schemed with Lee to have Optionable simply rubber-stamp whatever inflated values Lee recorded.”

Love stories on the underbelly of Wall Street? Then check out…

10 Awesome Tales of Wall Street Excess ->

Join the conversation about this story »

Author and friend-of-the-site Craig Johnston let us know that his new book My Palm Pre (co-written with Joe Hutsko) from Que is now available for preorder (you should pardon the expression) at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  It should also be hitting actual bookstore shelves between May 10th and 20th. It looks to be a useful guide for new webOS users.

Look forward to a full review once it is released!

Hyundai today unveiled the new 2011 Verna at the 2010 Beijing Motor Show. The subcompact model, known as the Accent in other places of the world, gets a Sonata influenced design with a sloping roofline that gives it a more dynamic and sportier look – heck, it looks a lot better than the current model.

Powertrain choices (in China) include two new Gamma gasoline engines with multiport fuel-injection. The base Verna is powered by a 1.4L engine making 106-hp and 100 lb-ft of torque. When mated to a 5-speed manual, the base Verna can return 41.2 mpg (in U.S. terms). The second powertrain choice includes a 1.6L 4-cylinder making 121-hp and 114 lb-ft of torque. It will only come with a 4-speed automatic transmission.

The 2011 Verna will be produced at Hyundai’s Beijing plant starting July and will go on sale in the second half of this year. Hyundai will launch it in the Chinese market first, then introduce it to other regions.

2011 Hyundai Verna (Accent):

Press Release:

Hyundai Unveils All-New Verna at Beijing Show

– All-new Verna is Hyundai’s 3rd China-exclusive model
– Hyundai holds world premier in China

(Beijing, China) Hyundai Motor Co. staged the world-premiere of its all-new Verna at the 2010 Beijing Automotive Exhibition today. With its eye-catching sloping roofline, the new sub-compact, Hyundai’s third China-exclusive model, projects a coupe-like dynamic image that is at once sporty, stately and futuristic.

Developed over a five-year period expressively for the Chinese market, product planners conducted exhaustive market research of Chinese consumer tastes and trends to ensure every detail meets local requirements. Built on an all-new platform at the company’s highly automated plant in Beijing, Verna is targeted at China’s strategically important C1 segment and fully reflects Hyundai’s philosophy of quality.

“Today is a really special day for us, not only because we’re launching a new car, but because it’s one of the very few times we’ve done a world-premiere outside of Korea: And we chose to do it right here in China because it’s our way of recognizing how important our Chinese customers are to us,” Euisun Chung, Vice Chairman of Hyundai Motor said today at the Beijing auto show.

“In 2009 we posted a 94 percent Y-o-Y growth in China and have sold over 2 million cars since arriving in 2002. We are not losing any momentum, continuing to expand our lineup in China with our most stylish and advanced models like the all-new Verna and our compact SUV “ix35.”

To minimize fuel consumption without sacrificing performance, Verna is powered by the new generation Gamma gasoline engine, featuring multiport fuel injection. Verna delivers best-in-class fuel economy, in keeping with Hyundai’s pledge to be the industry’s eco-leader. And it fully satisfies China’s Step 3 fuel economy regulations — two years ahead of schedule.

Featuring all-aluminium construction for weight-saving, the 1.6L DOHC Gamma delivers 90.4Kw@6300rpm and 155Nm of peak torque @ 4200rpm through a smooth-shifting four-speed automatic transmission.

For cost-conscious car buyers, the base Verna is offered with the 1.4L DOHC edition of the Gamma which puts out 78.7Kw@6300rpm and 135.4Nm@5000rpm and comes with the choice of a five-speed manual gearbox or four-speed automatic. Fuel economy is rated 5.7ℓ/100km with the manual; 6.2ℓ/100km with the automatic (1.4L with Fuel Economy Package).

Such impressive performance was made possible by a variety of enhancements to the engine including Continuously Variable Valve Timing, a smart alternator and air conditioning compressor plus the adoption of motor-driven power steering.

Verna hugs the ground with a new low-floor platform and a sloping roofline both of which contribute to Verna’s impressive aerodynamics and superior fuel economy.

Special ultra-high tensile strength steel has been applied to the car to enhance the overall stiffness of the body structure for superior crash protection: Verna achieves best-in-class safety, aiming to satisfy the CNCAP 5★ rating. Thanks to the highly rigid body, the suspension is more securely anchored thus enhancing ride and handling characteristics and eliminating vibration and booming noise.

Verna’s wheelbase—longest-in-class—and its low overall height, give it extra stability and a very stylish look but without incurring a penalty in cabin size. In fact, the overall cabin dimensions are bigger than any rivals. And the trunk, measuring a spacious 454L can easily accommodate as many as four golf bags plus three small tote bags. So not only does it look great, but it’s very practical.

The Verna will be built at the company’s highly automated Beijing plant from July and will go on sale in the second half of this year. Hyundai will launch it in the Chinese market first, then gradually introduce it to other regions.

– By: Kap Shah

A Belgian bishop resigned on Friday after admitting to abusing a young man decades ago. The resignation came one day after an Irish bishop was forced to step down for failing to report pedophile priests when he was in Dublin.

Both men were made bishops – considered successors of the apostles in Catholic teaching – by Pope John Paul II.

Pope Benedict accepted the resignation of Bishop Roger Joseph Vangheluwe of Bruges, Belgium, and Vangheluwe issued a statement saying he profoundly regretted what he had done to the young man, a minor at the time.

“Over the course of these decades I have repeatedly recognized my guilt towards him and his family, and I have asked forgiveness,” the bishop’s statement said, “but this did not pacify him, and it did not pacify me.”

Vangheluwe, 73, steps down two years before the normal resignation age of 75, admitting that the victim “is still marked by what happened.”

The Archbishop of Brussels, Andre-Mutien Leonard, said that with the resignation, the Catholic Church wants to turn a new page “with respect to the not-so-distant period in which the Church, and others, preferred the solution of silence or concealment.”

After two bishops stepping down this week, more could be on the way. Other Irish bishops are expected to resign because of the scandal, and a German bishop has offered his resignation after admitting to physical, not sexual, abuse in an orphanage decades ago.

While Benedict has found himself under fire for allegedly mishandling abuse cases, both as Archbishop of Munich and as a Vatican official, the bishops being forced to step down bring the scandal closer and closer to his predecessor.

Most of the bishops serving now were named during the 27-year papacy of John Paul II. Vangheluwe, for example, was made a bishop on 1984, six years into the papacy of John Paul II. The Irish bishop who stepped down Thursday, James Moriarty, was also a John Paul II appointment, having been made a bishop in 1991.

Reader GdI wrote in the comments to yesterday’s post:

All very interesting but I miss Roissy, whose near-daily offerings were that rarest of things online: unique. Funny, pithy, deeply irreverent, yet also profoundly based on a coherent and totally counterrevolutionary (and utterly reality-based) worldview. As Ken Tynan said, “Write heresy, pure heresy …” And so it was.

Occasional forays into paleo-punk politics and HBD-istan are are well and good, but Citizen Renegade ain’t doing it. This Roissy-lite-by-committee thing ain’t working.

Bring back The Dark Lord!

I see his point. This blog has been missing satan’s spittle lately. Henceforth, the dude who’s been writing the mid-week posts has been reassigned temporarily to Vladivostok. Now let’s get down to business.

Got mistress? If your woman finds a pair of earrings in your bedroom that aren’t hers, simply tell her:

“I was doing some spring cleaning and I found those. I figured they were yours.”

This is an impenetrable defense. The phrasing leads her to think the earrings are from a girl many years ago. You get the double plus goodness of insta-absolution plus the resume booster of female preselection.

Real Men of Genius called; they want this blog’s knowledge.

***

There’s this scene in “Death at a Funeral” that involves Uncle Russell, Norman, a toilet, a hand, and a runny shit deflected mid-expulsion. When I think of marriage, this is the scene that comes to mind — trapped under the maelstrom of an agitated anus. And yet, despite my words of warning, some of you will be damnfool enough to go ahead and get married.

Ok, then, if you want to march into the iron maiden with a dopey grin on your face, at least nudge the very bad odds slightly in your favor.

Rule #1 for men who insist on marrying the pussy they’ve been getting for free:

Make her propose first.

Yeah, this won’t be easy. How many women do you know who proposed marriage to their recalcitrant boyfriends? I know one. ONE. But that one gives all men hope, for where there is one, there can be many.

What’s the big deal about getting her to propose, you ask? Oh man, you have no idea how much misery you’d be saving yourself. Every time there’s an argument, and wifey is tempted to play that favorable divorce card with all the gatling guns of the misandrist industrial complex pointed squarely between your eyes, she’ll remember that time she dropped to one knee to ask — or more likely to beg for — *your* hand in marriage, and her rationalization hamster will whisper in her brain that the argument must have been her fault, because why on earth would she have proposed to an annoying loser? No, it must be that there’s something wrong with her, not you.

When a woman proposes, it is she who invests in the marriage. She becomes the chaser instead of the chased. It is her ego on the line; her judgement. A woman in this psychological lockbox will be a lot more apprehensive about walking away from the marriage. She will autonomically defer always and forever to the premise that all bitter arguments and all traveling tingles must be unfair to her husband somehow. After all, she proposed marriage to a WINNER. What girl in her right mind would propose to a chump?

Unfortunately, steering a girl to do the humiliating work of proposing is not easy. She has to be head over heels in love, for one thing. And she has to feel acutely the dread of loss. Hints at marriage won’t cut it. She has to say the words “Will you marry me?”. Variations such as “Let’s get married” or “I feel we should be married” are acceptable.

Only masters of the game should attempt the parallel universe proposal. Newbs will get dumped.

***

Need a quickie conversation boosting routine? Tell a chick you’re thinking about getting a dog. Then segue… smoothly, like a single malt… into an observation about how people’s dogs match their personalities. Tell her she looks like the type who would own a jack russell terrier. When she asks why, you say “Oh, you know, always jumpy, kinda funny in an accidental way, and full of energy.” (When negging a chick hard, Uzi style, you’ll want to pair two negative connotations with one positive connotation. You want to deflate her bloated ego, not crush it into a powder that can be snorted.)

This is a powerful neg that serves the dual purpose of giving you reams of conversational material so you don’t run into the dreaded wall of awkward silence.

The hotter she is, the gayer/nastier/goofier the dog to which you will compare her. If she’s a 9, tell her she’s a chinese crested kind of girl. If she’s a 10, she’s the type to own a fat, farting basset hound. Save the noble dogs like german shepherds for the 7s and below. If a hot chick gives you a hard time about being compared to the personality of an incontinent chihuahua, accuse her of ignoring the beautiful parts of a chihuahua’s personality, like its fierce loyalty and big dog syndrome. She will start to feel bad for being mean to chihuahuas. Pat her hand as she reconsiders her malevolence.

***

Chicks who read comic books are slutty. They will bang on the first night. Don’t ask me why this is, it just is.

***

If you haven’t touched a girl on the forearm within ten minutes of meeting her, disengage. Your pickup is toast. If you haven’t touched a girl on the thigh within thirty minutes of meeting her, cut your losses and start fresh with a new girl.

Let me explain. In every one of my successful pickups, sensual touching occurred sometime within the first half hour. If you find yourself talking to a girl for longer than ten minutes without any touching taking place, you are perched over the LJBF abyss. Her erotic charge has been drained to less than 50%. And don’t be fooled by her smiling and laughing along with your witticisms and cutesy quips. Her lips may be curled in a smile, but her untouched body is withering into a cloistered nunnery of pussy dust.

Kino is king. Escalation is eminent. Zap these golden maxims into your wet head ham.

***

You can catch a lot of pretend-pious SWPL chicks off guard with this simple line:

“So how are you helping the environment for earth day?”

If she’s a status-jockeying hipster, expect a glorious apologia of defensive posturing. And where are tingles birthed? In the defensive crouch, of course!

If she’s Dana, expect her to laugh in your face. Then grab her and give her a deep, penetrating kiss. Sneak in a little tongue.

Filed under: Game, Guy Rules, Marriage Is For Chumps, The Id Monster

YouTube is turning five (again) today. While the video site’s official birthday is in February, the very first video was uploaded to YouTube on April 23rd, 2005. At the time, the site was still in private beta and the 18-second clip features YouTube founder Jawed Karim, at the San Diego Zoo. The clip, dubbed “Me at the zoo,” … (read more)

Con semejante vehículo ha sorprendido Lamborghini a los visitantes al Beijing Auto Show, una edición especial que sólo será ofrecida a los coleccionistas de coches deportivos en China y que sólo fabricará 10 unidades. El fuerte crecimiento de la marca italiana en China hace que sus directivos estén volcados con este mercado en expansión.

Esta edición especial está rebajada 100 kilos respecto a la tradicional y mantiene los 670 caballos que desarrolla su 6,5 litros V12, mejorando la ratio de caballos-por-kilo a sólo 2,3 kilos por caballo. Así esta edición exclusiva sólo necesitará 3,2 segundos para llegar a los 100 kilómetros y rondará los 350 de velocidad máxima.

Además el Gallardo LP 570-4 Superleggera se presentó en el continente asiático. Como su nombre indica una de sus características es ser tremendamente ligero, 1.340 kilos, lo que marca un nuevo récord en el exclusivo mercado de coches superdeportivos extremos. El uso de la fibra de carbono se ha ampliado para lograr reducir 70 kilos a este vehículo, equipado con un V10 5.2 litros de 570 caballos de potencial que sólo necesita 3,4 segundos para llegar a los 100 y 10,2 para llegar a los 200.

Un 11% de crecimiento en China avalan las apuestas de esta marca en el país asiático. El octavo concesionario está apunto de abrirse en Xiamen y se acaba de cerrar un acuerdo para vender en Shenzhen, así que Lamborghini y otras marcas siguen su expansión en el suculento mercado chino.

Fuente | Lamborghini

Está sendo apresentado no Salão de Pequim a criação da montadora chinesa BAW (Beijing Auto Work), o C60, sedan inspirado no Saab 9-3 com algumas pequenas mudanças na carroceria. O carro é muito parecido com o 9-3, mas tem um porém.

Não devemos dizer que esse carro é mais um “clone do Saab 9-3″, porque há um tempo atrás, a GM vendeu os direitos intelectuais desse veículo para a companhia BAIC (Beijing Automotive Industry Holdings Co.), empresa parceira da BAW e que passaram a integrar as tecnologias (e formas) adquiridas em seus carros.

Parece que as intenções de comercializar o C60 poderão começar em 2011, com um modelo 1.8 a gasolina nas versões turbo e aspirado. Outro carro que será apresentado vai ser a geração anterior do Saab 9-5, feita pela BAW. Mais informações serão ditas em breve.

Imagens do Sedan Chinês

Via | Carscoop

While praised by many immigration reform proponents, the law passed in Arizona that seeks to limit illegal immigration by making it a crime to be in the state without documentation has stirred controversy among many ethnic organizations.

Last week, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce criticized the law, saying it will result in the racial profiling of Latinos. It has now been joined by The Hispanic National Bar Association, whose representatives claim that the legislation raises "grave constitutional issues."

In addition to racial profiling, the alleged constitutional violations include freedom from unreasonable seizures and lack of due process guarantees, according to the association.

HNBA National President Roman D. Hernandez said that "if enacted, this law will create an impediment to effective police enforcement of major crimes."

He cited local law enforcement officials as saying that "Hispanics in general and undocumented persons in particular will be less willing to cooperate in providing information to police."

The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhood Act was passed earlier this month and it makes it a state misdemeanor to fail to comply with Federal law requiring that foreign nationals register and carry their documents with them.

Moreover, it directs police officers to inquire as to immigration status on a "reasonable suspicion" that an individual is undocumented.

Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Don’t Eat This

Suppose you’re not feeling at the top of your game, but you don’t really know why. Maybe you feel crampy or gassy or bloated after you eat. Maybe you get migraines, or you’re always exhausted, or you’re having weird allergic-type reactions. So you do … Read more

 

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