Producing Fair Results From An Unfair Process

October 14, 2011

Feinberg seeks fairness as he doles out BP’s $20 billion. The oversize fund leaves BP on the hook, while other parties have paid nothing.

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The Global Cone Of Uncertainty

February 2, 2011

When weather forecasters predict the path of a hurricane, they use what is known as a “cone of uncertainty” to show the area where the storm could possibly hit. The cone gets wider as it moves farther from the hurricane’s present location. Technology has made us very good at measuring current weather conditions, but our ability to forecast storms still has room for improvement. Theoretically, if we could measure every …

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The Gulf’s Uncontrolled Money Spill

November 8, 2010

The failed Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico has stopped gushing oil, but the flow of money resulting from the disaster is still uncontrolled. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, had it right when he apologized to BP’s former CEO Tony Hayward for the government’s response. Barton called the White House’s decision to demand $20 billion from the company “a shakedown.” Barton later retracted his comments after party leaders pointed out …

Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing?

August 6, 2010

There’s still a lot of anger in this country about the BP oil spill, and rightfully so. Words like “outrage,” “fury” and “indignation” have been used in news reports on the topic for months. President Obama faced criticism early in the fiasco for not being angry enough. Though BP’s “static kill” operation has stopped the flow of oil into the Gulf and federal scientists report that the majority of the …

Energy Policy? What Energy Policy?

June 15, 2010

Some dish detergent and hot water is all it takes to clean up a pelican that is being smothered by spilled crude. Nobody knows how to clean up the Obama administration’s energy policy, which is likewise floundering in goo. The president is back on the Gulf Coast this week to show everyone how involved he is in managing the problem, and how very, very angry he is about the ongoing …

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To Err Is Human, Except When It’s A Crime

June 11, 2010

Catastrophic accidents often are the product of an “error chain.” The 1986 Challenger explosion began with a faulty O-ring design and ended with a launch in severely cold weather that exposed the design’s defects. The RMS Titanic had too few lifeboats, which became a lethal flaw when its captain ordered full speed through iceberg-filled waters. In both cases, and in countless others, there were many intervening points at which disaster …

Looking For A New Fall Guy

June 1, 2010

With unemployment as high as it is, you would think somebody would be interested in the Obama administration’s help wanted ad seeking a new national intelligence chief. But, having seen the way the president and his lackeys treated the recently departed Dennis C. Blair, nobody is rushing to take the job. What the president really seems to want is someone unsullied by past failures who can take the fall the …

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Diving Deep Into The Unknown

May 26, 2010

As we prepared to hit the water, the dive master told our small group that if we wanted to spot big game like a stingray or a whale shark, we’d probably have to look up, toward the sunlight. Then he led us into the Caribbean off Puerto Rico’s south coast to the La Parguera Wall on my first deep-water dive. The wall is a sharp plunge from about 60 feet …

The Dog That Did Not Bark

May 20, 2010

Something pretty significant did not happen yesterday, and because it did not happen, not many people paid attention to it. But it is pretty significant nonetheless. Greece did not default on a public debt of €8 billion that came due yesterday. It had the cash to pay its creditors on time, courtesy of the massive rescue package that its fellow members of the euro zone made available earlier this month. …

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Mess In The Gulf? Blame Cheney

May 6, 2010

Well, at least we now know who was responsible for the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico. An opinion piece in The New Republic tells us we can blame former Vice President Dick Cheney for pushing the federal Minerals Management Service (MMS) to let those oil companies drill, baby, drill. Or maybe the guilty party was the MMS itself, which could have imposed stricter rules …

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