Fire alarm system on Deepwater Horizon intentionally disabled before Gulf spill
Written by Editor
Friday, 23 July 2010 11:47
The fire alarm system on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was disabled prior to the catastrophic explosion that caused the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a rig worker said Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The rig's chief electronics technician told a federal panel Friday that the Horizon's fire alarm system and indicator light were deliberately set in "inhibited" mode so the alarms would not wake up sleeping rig workers in the middle of the night.
Michael Williams told the panel that he believed the alarms had been inhibited for over a year before the disaster, a decision made by leadership aboard the rig, the Washington Post reported.
The April 20 explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 people and unleashed one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.
The disabling of the alarm system was not unique -- federal records show that rig operators have paid frequent fines for bypassing safety systems that interfere with routine operations aboard, the Post reported.
Williams, a retired Marine, survived the fire by jumping from the burning rig into the Gulf of Mexico.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to roll out sophisticated electronic ID tags to track individual pairs of jeans and underwear, the first step in a system that advocates say better controls inventory but some critics say raises privacy concerns.
Starting next month, the retailer will place removable "smart tags" on individual garments that can be read by a hand-held scanner. Wal-Mart workers will be able to quickly learn, for instance, which size of Wrangler jeans is missing, with the aim of ensuring shelves are optimally stocked and inventory tightly watched. If successful, the radio-frequency ID tags will be rolled out on other products at Wal-Mart's more than 3,750 U.S. stores.
"This ability to wave the wand and have a sense of all the products that are on the floor or in the back room in seconds is something that we feel can really transform our business," said Raul Vazquez, the executive in charge of Wal-Mart stores in the western U.S.
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"There are two things you really don't want to tag, clothing and identity documents, and ironically that's where we are seeing adoption," said Katherine Albrecht, founder of a group called Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering and author of a book called "Spychips" that argues against RFID technology. "The inventory guys may be in the dark about this, but there are a lot of corporate marketers who are interested in tracking people as they walk sales floors."
Obama administration demands obesity ratings on all Americans by 2014
Written by Editor
Saturday, 17 July 2010 18:35
As the Obama administration sets its sights on overweight Americans, demanding obesity ratings for all citizens by 2014, the White House has promoted the Obamas' personal cook to a senior advisory position.
Sam Kass, the 20-something Chicago chef, is now the White House "Food Initiative Coordinator," Kass' title reportedly was upgraded last month from food initiative coordinator to senior policy adviser for food initiatives. His duties have not changed.
The change comes as the Health and Human Services announced this week that under the stimulus law, health care providers must establish "meaningful use" of electronic health records to qualify for federal subsidies or risk seeing their Medicare and Medicaid payments slashed. The electronic health records must include Americans' body mass index, or BMI, height and weight.
Critics say the BMI is unreliable and the ratings will lead to more government intrusion.
Supporters say the ratings will serve as motivation for weight loss.
"The fact we're now tracking BMIs', I think knowledge is power for us," nutrition expert Mitzi Dulan told Fox News."There are a lot of people that don't know their BMI and it's denial.
Over 1,000,000 homes expected to be seized by banks this year.
More than 1 million American households are likely to lose their homes to foreclosure this year, as lenders work their way through a huge backlog of borrowers who have fallen behind on their loans.
Nearly 528,000 homes were taken over by lenders in the first six months of the year, a rate that is on track to eclipse the more than 900,000 homes repossessed in 2009, according to data released Thursday by RealtyTrac Inc., a foreclosure listing service.
"That would be unprecedented," said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac.
By comparison, lenders have historically taken over about 100,000 homes a year, Sharga said.
The surge in home repossessions reflects the dynamic of a foreclosure crisis that has shown signs of leveling off in recent months, but remains a crippling drag on the housing market.
News that a discharge petition in the House of Representatives has gathered half the names necessary to force a vote repealing Obamacare has spurred an online petition campaign to rally the public to the cause.
"Who would have thought we might have a chance to repeal Obamacare – this term?" exclaimed Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND, in response to the plan by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. "This movement has already gained half the support it needs in the House of Representatives. Now it's time for the public to turn up the pressure on the other half."
Louisiana Sen. David Vitter on Sunday warned that the Obama administration's offshore drilling moratorium could end up costing more jobs than the BP oil spill.
The Republican senator, one of several local officials who's been outspoken in opposition to the suspension on Gulf drilling, told "Fox News Sunday" that 140,000 jobs or more are on the line as the administration continues to fight for a six-month drilling ban.
The Obama administration last week issued a revised plan to halt deep-water offshore drilling after a federal appeals court struck down the original six-month moratorium. The administration claims it needs time to review safety measures to ensure there are no more disasters like the deadly Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that triggered the BP leak on April 20.
But industry officials and Gulf Coast lawmakers say local workers can't take that kind of hit and that by the time the ban is over, some companies will have moved their business overseas.
Obama czar urges U.S. to surrender to global government
Written by Editor
Monday, 12 July 2010 14:37
White House science czar John Holdren has called for the U.S. to surrender sovereignty to a "planetary regime" armed with military power to enforce population limits upon nations and prevent perceived dangers from global eco-disasters, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.
Red Alert obtained and reviewed a copy of the 1970s college textbook, "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment," that Holdren co-authored with Malthusian population alarmist Paul R. Ehrlich and Ehrlich's wife, Anne.
The authors argued that involuntary birth-control measures, including forced sterilization, may be necessary and morally acceptable under extreme conditions, such as widespread famine brought about by "climate change."
They recommended the creation of a "planetary regime" created to act as an "international superagency for population, resources, and environment."
"Such a Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, at least insofar as international implications exist," they argued.
"Thus, the Regime could have the power to control pollution not only in the atmosphere and the oceans, but also in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes that cross international boundaries or that discharge into the oceans."
BP said the cost of cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill - the biggest in US history - has risen to around $3.5bn.
The announcement about rising costs came as engineers worked to replace a cap over the well that ruptured a mile below the surface following an explosion on April 20 that killed 11 workers and sank the Deepwater Horizon rig.
More than 52,000 payments have been made out of 105,000 claims, totalling almost $165m.
Engineers are taking advantage of fine weather to install a new system - or 'Top Hat' - with the potential to capture all the leaking crude as it continue to drill relief wells.
