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To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	6/4/2010 3:49:57 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

BP’s Mr. Sunshine truthdig.com Posted on Jun 3, 2010 By Eugene Robinson How is it possible that BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward hasn’t been fired? At this point, how can anyone believe a word the man says? If he told me my mother loves me, I’d want a second source. Hayward has apologized for his one lapse of candor—the now-famous whine last Sunday that “I’d like my life back.” It must be a nice life indeed: According to Forbes, Hayward’s total compensation from BP in 2009 was about $4.6 million. The Louisiana fishermen who’ve been put out of work by the oil spill are accustomed to getting by on considerably less. In a Facebook posting, Hayward said his callous words “don’t represent how I feel about this tragedy, and certainly don’t represent the hearts of the people of BP.” Within hours, though, Hayward’s foot was firmly lodged in his mouth yet again. The effort to contain the oil and keep it away from the Gulf Coast has been “very successful,” he told the Financial Times. “Considering how big this has been, very little has got away from us.” This sunny assessment came as television networks broadcast images of oil-soaked Louisiana marshes, where hazmat-suited workers—who said they were under orders from BP not to talk to the media, on pain of getting fired—were trying to sop up the mess with what looked like rags, as if this were a gargantuan kitchen mishap. Meanwhile, mousse-like clumps of “weathered” oil were being washed onto beaches in Alabama, and authorities in Florida were watching the approach of a menacing, oily sheen. Scientists have not even begun to assess the potential long-term effects of the oil spill on human health, marine life and coastal ecology. Carol Browner, the president’s chief adviser on energy and the environment, said that the Deepwater Horizon incident is already the worst environmental disaster in United States history. Give yourself another pat on the back, Tony. Adm. Thad Allen, who is directing the response effort, is a nice guy—in terms of his public handling of BP, too nice. On Thursday, as BP proceeded with its latest attempt to cap the flow, Allen praised the company for providing several different camera views of the action on the sea floor. But for weeks, BP refused to make public any television images of the oil leak, and relented only under pressure from U.S. officials. Hayward’s statements about the effort to plug the well have been consistently unreliable, and it hardly matters whether he’s being deliberately misleading or just overly optimistic. The giant containment dome was going to work; it didn’t. The second, much smaller containment dome would do the job; it was never even deployed. The “top kill” procedure was surely going to stop the flow, and early indications, according to Hayward, showed it was succeeding. Yet oil industry veterans such as T. Boone Pickens said the top kill was a long shot at best, and they were right. And as for those giant underwater oil plumes that scientists and journalists keep discovering? Hayward denies they exist. His position is that of a philanderer caught in the act by an irate spouse: “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?” Since the explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon rig six weeks ago, BP’s stock has lost more than a third of its value. Two ratings firms, Fitch and Moody’s, have downgraded the company’s long-term debt, and estimates of what it will finally cost BP to stop the leak and clean up its mess range from $3 billion to $30 billion. All this happened on Hayward’s watch. Somebody, please, give the man his life back. But once that’s done, let’s turn our ire on the real villains. This exercise will require a mirror. An accident like the Deepwater Horizon blowout was bound to happen sooner or later. There are nearly 4,000 oil rigs off the Gulf Coast, and those pumping most of the crude are in deep waters—where, as we now know, state-of-the-art safety procedures are inadequate. President Barack Obama’s moratorium on deep-water drilling will last only long enough for some sort of technological Band-Aid to be devised. Then we’ll crank up the drills once again. We know that our dependence on oil is ultimately ruinous, yet we refuse to take measures—a meaningful carbon tax, for example—to ease it. Long after Tony Hayward answers for his sins, we’ll be paying for our own. Eugene Robinson’s e-mail address is eugenerobinson(at)washpost.com. © 2010, Washington Post Writers Group

To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	6/10/2010 9:36:07 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Healthrageous Inc., a Boston-based maker of a personalized health technology platform that helps individuals shed unhealthy habits, has raised $6 million in Series A funding. North Bridge Venture Partners led the round, and was joined by Egan Managed Capital and Long River Ventures. PRESS RELEASE June 10th, 2010 -- Healthrageous, Inc., a personalized health technology company, announced today that it has completed a $6 million Series A financing led by North Bridge Venture Partners (Boston, MA/San Mateo, CA) along with investment partners Egan Managed Capital (Boston, MA) and Long River Ventures (Amherst, MA). Proceeds will be used to commercialize a proven health technology platform that provides personalized, interactive, motivational self-management tools which help individuals shed unhealthy habits, improve their adherence to medical advice, and embrace healthy lifestyles. Healthrageous facilitates outstanding results by combining wireless biometric sensors, smart phones, individualized coaching, incentive programs and social network support in a real-time, interactive, feedback-rich experience that keeps individuals involved and motivated to achieve their personal health and wellness goals. Healthrageous’ innovative technologies were developed and tested at the Center for Connected Health, a division of Partners HealthCare, founded by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. The Center, located in Boston, Massachusetts and affiliated with Harvard Medical School, is an internationally-recognized leader in the design and development of mobile health and telemedicine solutions. Healthrageous’ launch builds on three plus years of successful product development, testing and piloting at major corporations. Beta customers included large employers such as EMC Corporation, where the success of the initial pilot led EMC to initiate the integration of remote monitoring with Personal Health Records currently available to U.S. based employees and their family members. “To date, the solutions have enjoyed highly-visible industry attention. Our core platform demonstrates clinical effectiveness and a strong value proposition by improving health outcomes, reducing healthcare costs and creating a measurable return on investment for our customers,” said Rick Lee, Chief Executive Officer, Healthrageous, Inc. “Our key focus is supporting healthy lifestyles. More than half of all chronic medical conditions develop as a result of unhealthy behaviors. These conditions represent hundreds of billions of dollars in avoidable healthcare costs annually.” Bill Geary, North Bridge Venture Partners, Jack Egan, Egan Managed Capital, and Will Cowen, Long River Ventures, have joined the company’s Board of Directors. It is expected that Dr. Joe Kvedar, Founder and Director of the Center for Connected Health at Partners Healthcare and thought leader in the health technology field, will also join the Board of Directors. “This is an entrepreneurial management team with a novel yet scientifically validated approach that we believe will make a tremendous difference in helping people stay healthy, while delivering value for customers, employers, employees, and investors,” noted Geary. Healthrageous’ technology platform is designed to interface with most major manufacturers of biometric sensors and telemedicine devices, smart phone operating systems, popular social network media, leading direct-to-consumer outbound telephonic call systems, and emerging Web-based personal health record (PHR) systems. “It is exciting to find new ways to empower patients to be more involved in measuring, managing and improving their health outcomes and quality of life while, at the same time, better utilizing our healthcare resources,” added Dr. Kvedar. “At the Center, we are firm believers that, given the right tools and the right information, individuals can be their own best care providers.” In a 2008 randomized clinical trial, the Center for Connected Health validated its model to improve clinical outcomes associated with hypertension, using a wireless blood pressure cuff and automated behavior coaching. The results were statistically significant. 69.2% of employees who received the blood pressure cuff and coaching intervention achieved improvement in their blood pressure; 54.9% improved their hypertensive state to a controlled state; and 28.7% achieved a clinically significant decline in diastolic blood pressure, which can reduce the risk of stroke. Similar studies have also been conducted in weight management and diabetes. “Healthrageous brings together the right mix of technology expertise, consumer marketing, clinical leadership and business savvy to effectively address the urgent need to engage individuals in the management of their health by leveraging technology,” added Egan. “We look forward to helping the company with strategic guidance and the resources they need to help fill this need in the marketplace.” The Company’s target customers are large employers, health plans and insurers, specialty care and disease management companies, provider health systems, pharmaceutical makers and clinical trial sponsors, pharmacy benefit managers, device makers, and consumer wellness retail and fitness brands. Customers may license Healthrageous’ core platform to design their own custom solution, or may purchase Healthrageous’ solutions off-the-shelf on a turn-key basis for deployment under their own brand or under the Company’s Healthrageous brand. The Healthrageous leadership team includes Rick Lee, CEO, a veteran healthcare executive specializing in specialty managed care, most recently president of Employer Solutions at Magellan Health Services, Inc.; Doug McClure, Chief Technology Officer, who oversaw technology research and platform development for remote monitoring and patient self-management at the Center for Connected Health; Mary Beth Chalk, Chief Strategy Officer, an innovative healthcare strategist with multi-industry experience in consumer marketing and data-driven decision support systems, who previously served as a director of Business Development for Pfizer Health Solutions; and Kevin Naughton, Chief Financial Officer, who was previously head of finance at three venture-backed health IT start-up companies. About the Company Launched in 2010, Healthrageous, Inc. designs and delivers highly effective, personalized, interactive, motivational self-management solutions that help individuals shed unhealthy habits, improve their adherence to medical advice, and embrace healthy lifestyles. Healthrageous achieves its success by combining wireless biometric sensors, smart phones, individualized coaching, incentive programs and social network support in a real-time, interactive, feedback-rich experience that keeps individuals involved and motivated toward achieving their personal health and wellness goals. The company’s solutions are based on technologies developed at the Center for Connected Health, a division of Partners HealthCare, founded by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, teaching affiliates of Harvard Medical School. Healthrageous, Inc. is headquartered in Massachusetts. Visit healthrageous.com. About North Bridge Venture Partners North Bridge Venture Partners is an active, bi-coastal, early-stage venture capital firm based in Boston, Massachusetts and San Mateo, California. Established in 1994, North Bridge provides seed-to-growth financing and company-building expertise. Together with North Bridge Growth Equity, the firm’s mid-market focused growth capital fund, North Bridge manages over $3 billion. For North Bridge Venture Partners, success is derived through a partnership with entrepreneurs that produce industry-leading companies in large emerging markets. Historically, the firm’s partners have played a significant role in organizing, starting and building successful companies. Working in concert with entrepreneurs, North Bridge adds value by providing strategic guidance, sharing operating experience, industry specific knowledge, team-building skills and an in-depth understanding of both private and public financings. North Bridge’s sector focus includes Software, Communications, Healthcare Technology, Digital Media, and Materials. For more information about North Bridge visit northbridge.com. About Egan-Managed Capital Egan-Managed Capital, founded in 1997, has provided funding for nearly 50 early-stage high-technology start-ups, typically situations where the firm can provide tactical and strategic assistance in areas such as technology, finance, and go to market. Some of the region’s most promising startups have been funded by the firm, including Currensee, UTest, Network Intelligence, and OnePIN. For more information on Egan-Managed Capital and its team please visit egancapital.com. About Long River Ventures Long River Ventures invests in seed and early stage companies in healthcare, IT, and other technology-driven sectors. Formed by a group of experienced entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, Long River is designed and structured to invest smaller amounts of capital with typically initial investments of $500,000 to $1MM. Long River has offices in Western MA (Amherst), Central MA (Worcester), and a satellite office in Boston. For more information, please visit longriverventures.com.

To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	6/10/2010 10:24:58 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Obama Can’t ‘Plug the Damn Hole,’ But He Can Seize the Damn Crisis thenation.com By Katrina vanden Heuvel \| June 7, 2010 There’s no question that the Obama Administration was slow to get on top of the BP Oil Disaster. But not because President Obama didn’t show enough emotion or anger—a lame line pushed by too many pundits—or because this crisis has hijacked his legislative agenda [1] (which it hasn't—yet). Where Obama screwed up was in ceding the lead in the recovery effort to an oil company—a private corporation that was never going to see protecting the public interest as its top priority. That decision was a blown call [2] akin to umpire Jim Joyce’s denying Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga a perfect game in the final out of the ninth--only with far more severe consequences, obviously. Indeed given BP’s ugly record of environmental, safety, and antitrust abuses, entrusting them with this cleanup was like outsourcing human rights policy to Dick Cheney. But the problem is greater than just BP, as Michael Klare writes [3] in The Nation, it’s “a corporate culture that favors productivity and profit over safety and environmental protection.” There are signs in these last few days that the Administration now gets it. President Obama seems to have a new sense of urgency—and action. There's a movement to begin criminal and civil investigations. The President has started to make the case for a more active and less corrupt government, and ending tax breaks for oil and gas companies. (He should also end all Big Oil and Gas subsidies so that more governmental resources are available for R&D in renewable energy technologies.) His call to raise fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, and to work on higher standards for 2017, is a step toward ending our addiction to oil. He also seems to better understand the bigger picture—that there was a systems breakdown [4] that led to this disaster and now must be fixed. Regulations didn’t keep pace with the risks posed by deepwater drilling; and drilling technology outpaced advances in safety equipment (if it’s too deep to fix, it’s too deep to drill). Obama has the capacity to take on that corroded system. Breaking up Mineral Management Services into three parts is a start, but much more needs to be done if we’re to avoid these disasters in the future. What Obama really needs to do isn’t get mad at BP; he needs to get even on behalf of the American people—especially the workers who lost their lives, those injured, and the Gulf Coast residents who will be hugely impacted by this disaster for years to come, if not generations. He must seize this crisis as a transformative moment to lay out a new and sane energy policy—one that will protect environmental and public health, create jobs and break our addiction to fossil fuels. If he has the political will and courage ( the emotion this nation needs most right now), the legislation just introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders is a good starting point. The Senator’s bill [5] would set fuel standards at 55 miles per gallon by 2030, and prohibit drilling in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and along Florida’s gulf coastline. A moratorium on drilling in those areas was approved by Congress every year since 1982 and lapsed in 2008. Sanders points out [6] that his fuel efficiency standards “would eliminate the need for 3.9 million barrels of oil per day, more than double the amount we now import from Persian Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia.” He also argues that it is in line with what other nations are achieving—the EU currently gets forty-two miles per gallon and has set its sights on achieving 65 miles per gallon by 2020. China, Canada, Japan and South Korea all have stronger fuel economy standards than the United States. It’s certainly no radical idea to reinstate a ban on drilling that was in place until 2008. What was radical (and reckless) was to open new areas to offshore drilling in the hope of winning over Republicans—who were never going to move—on climate change. Like umpire Joyce after his blown call in Detroit, Obama now has a chance to reassess the facts and say, “We need to chart a new course, and I’m going to lead it.” “If we take bold action in energy efficiency, public transportation, advanced vehicle technologies, solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal,” Senator Sanders writes, “we can transform our energy system, clean up our environment, and create millions of new jobs in the process.” I think Sanders gets it. The question remains: does President Obama have the conviction and courage to correct his blown call?

To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	6/16/2010 12:21:24 PM
From: stockman_scott	1 Recommendation Respond to of 89467

The $600 billion challenge: Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett are asking the nation's billionaires to pledge to give at least half their net worth to charity, in their lifetimes or at death. If their campaign succeeds, it could change the face of philanthropy... features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com

To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	6/18/2010 12:16:03 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Lessons From the Gulf: Too Many 'Black Swans' To Handle finance.yahoo.com

To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	6/22/2010 2:50:11 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Pat Tillman’s mother tried to warn Obama of McChrystal thepoliticalcarnival.net

To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	6/22/2010 3:45:41 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Is Gen. Stanley McChrystal someone the president can afford to fire? By Greg Jaffe and Ernesto Londoño Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, June 22, 2010; 1:27 PM Is Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal someone the president can afford to fire? Even some of McChrystal's staunchest backers in Afghanistan said the derisive comments the general and his staff made about the Obama administration to a Rolling Stone reporter leave him open to dismissal. "I say this as someone who admired and respects Stan McChrystal enormously. The country doesn't know how much good he's done. But this is a firing offense," said Eliot A. Cohen, who served as a counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the latter days of the Bush administration. The sentiment that McChrystal and his staff had crossed an almost sacred line in criticizing the civilian chain of command was almost universal. McChrystal quickly apologized for his remarks and was summoned to Washington to further explain them. "This is clearly a firing offense," said Peter Feaver, a former official in the Bush White House and strong backer of a fully resourced counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. But relieving McChrystal of his command on the eve of a major offensive in Kandahar, which White House and Pentagon officials have said is the most critical of the war, would be a major blow to the war effort, said military experts. The president has set a July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, creating massive pressure on the military and McChrystal to make progress in stabilizing Afghanistan this summer and fall when troop levels are at their peak. "My advice is to call him back to Washington, publicly chastise him and then make it clear that there is something greater at stake here," said Nathaniel Fick, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and is now chief executive of the Center for a New American Security. "It takes time for anyone to get up to speed, and right now time is our most precious commodity in Afghanistan." If Obama believes the current counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan is the right one, then he cannot afford to jettison McChrystal, Fick said. Much of McChrystal's career was spent in the military's secretive special operations community, which has little experience dealing with the press and often views outsiders -- even those within the military -- with suspicion. Some of the most damaging statements in the Rolling Stone article were from McChrystal's staff officers, who are also drawn heavily from the special operations community. The general's relationship with the press contrasts significantly with that of Gen. David Petraeus, who spent a far larger segment of his career in Washington and is far more practiced in dealing with reporters and the civilian leadership. Petraeus's staff officers also tended to have extensive Washington experience, as well as background fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Petraeus and his staff would never put itself in this situation," said Cohen. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates issued a statement saying that McChrystal made "a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment" in the Rolling Stone profile. It was Gates's decision to recall McChrystal to Washington to discuss the incident with him, according to the statement. The general is also expected to be summoned to the White House. One big question will be whether the current team in Afghanistan, which includes Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and special representative Richard Holbrooke, can continue to function as a team. There have been repeated reports of tension among the three men going back to last year's review of the war strategy. The statements by McChrystal criticizing both Eikenberry and Holbrooke could make the relationship difficult to repair. "I think the administration really needs to think about the whole team they have got," Cohen said. "It is a dysfunctional team." If White House officials are contemplating ousting McChrystal, they are likely to consider the damage that would do to the relationships McChrystal has built with senior Afghan and Pakistani officials. In Kabul, McChrystal has earned a reputation for his candid, unscripted style and a strong work ethic; Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday issued a statement in support of the general. Meanwhile, a strong working relationship with the top U.S. general and Islamabad is seen as a central part of the war strategy. A senior Pakistani government official said Monday that many in Pakistan already believe the Americans lack a long-term strategy in Afghanistan. The possibility of McChrystal's being removed only deepens Pakistan's skepticism about chances for a U.S. victory in Afghanistan, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive policy assessment. "Now, the person who helped craft that strategy, if he's not on the scene, how will you take this process forward?" the official added. The statements by McChrystal and the reaction from the White House also reflect a deeper tension between the civilians and the military that dates back to last fall. Recently those tensions were revisited in a book, by Newsweek reporter Jonathan Alter, in which senior administration officials seemed to question the military's tactics in boxing in the civilian leadership. "It was a foolish interview that McChrystal gave," Feaver said. "But this is the umpteenth round going back and forth." The tension isn't unique to the Obama administration. President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also faced criticism from uniformed military and retired generals who called for Rumsfeld's ouster in 2006. Some military analysts said that the increasing politicization of the military is a product of the fact that such a small portion of the force is being summoned for repeat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The strain has created a sense of entitlement and frustration with a civilian world that hasn't made significant sacrifices. "A lot of the blame falls on the military," Fick said. "The military has been too willing to look the other way when officers make political statements." -Londoño reported from Kabul. Staff writer Karin Brulliard in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	6/23/2010 1:31:16 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Seven Days in June nytimes.com By MAUREEN DOWD Op-Ed Columnist The New York Times June 22, 2010 So this general with the background in intelligence who is supposed to conquer Afghanistan can’t even figure out what Rolling Stone is? We’re not talking Guns & Ammo here; we’re talking the antiwar hippie magazine. Military guys are rarely as smart as they think they are, and they’ve never gotten over the fact that civilians run the military. Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his hard-bitten, smart-aleck aides nuked the president, vice president and other top advisers as wimps, losers and clowns in a Rolling Stone profile meant to polish the general’s image. It was a product of the warrior-god culture, four-star generals with their own public-relations teams, that came from Gen. David Petraeus. And the towel-snapping was intensified by the fact that McChrystal used to be a tough special-ops, under-cover-of-the-night, rules-don’t-apply-to-us military guy. It was bad enough to infuriate even the placid president, who had already told McChrystal to keep his head down once after the infamous London speech, and who was left wondering where those military core values of loyalty, commitment and patriotism were. As he summoned his top commander in Afghanistan to explain himself, President Obama said that his general used “poor judgment” in the derisive way he spoke, and let his aides speak, to writer Michael Hastings. But aren’t we relying on McChrystal’s good judgment, putting more lives and billions on the line, to get us out of our ghost war? It’s just another sign of the complete incoherence of Afghan policy. The people in charge are divided against each other. And the policy is divided against itself. We’re fighting a war against an enemy that we’re desperately trying to co-opt and win over in a country where Al Qaeda, which was supposed to be the enemy, is no longer based. Even our corrupt puppet doesn’t think we can prevail. As Dexter Filkins recently reported in The Times, Hamid Karzai told two former Afghan officials that he had lost faith in the Americans and was trying to strike his own deal with the Taliban and Pakistan. Afghanistan is more than the “graveyard of empires.” It’s the mother of vicious circles. McChrystal’s defenders at the Pentagon were making the case Tuesday that the president and his men — (the McChrystal snipers spared Hillary) — must put aside their hurt feelings about being painted as weak sisters. Obama should not fire the serially insubordinate general, they reasoned, because that would undermine the mission in Afghanistan, and if that happens, then Obama would be further weakened. So the commander in chief can be bad-mouthed as weak by the military but then he can’t punish the military because that would make him weak? It’s the same sort of pass-the-Advil vicious circle reasoning the military always uses. McChrystal publicly pressured Obama to do the surge, warning that without it, Afghanistan would be “Chaos-istan.” But the president did do the surge and Afghanistan is Chaos-istan. The surge isn’t working. But if it did start working, Hastings’s article suggests, the military might ask for a new surge next summer. McChrystal warns his troops about “insurgent math” — for each innocent you kill, you make 10 enemies. Yet we keep killing and making more enemies. The Taliban, McChrystal told Hastings, no longer has the initiative — “but I don’t think we do, either.” After nine years, more than a thousand troops dead, and hundreds of billions spent that could have been put toward developing new forms of fuel so that all our miseries and all our fun doesn’t derive from oil, we’ve fought our way to a stalemate. McChrystal painted a vicious circle around his commander in chief. As Stars and Stripes summed it up: “Fire Gen. Stanley McChrystal and risk looking like he’s lost control of the war in Afghanistan. Or keep him and risk looking like he’s lost control of his generals.” The lean McChrystal, who was dubbed a Jedi warrior by Newsweek, prides himself on his Spartan style. He banned alcohol and Burger King from the Kabul headquarters compound and only eats one meal a day. But he has met his match in Afghan warriors, who have clobbered every foreign invader since Alexander the Great. The average Afghan fighter lives on grain, a bowl of rice, a bottle of water. How much does it cost by comparison to have a foreign soldier in Afghanistan? McChrystal never should have been hired for this job given the outrageous cover-up he participated in after the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman. He was lucky to keep the job after his “Seven Days in May” stunt in London last year when he openly lobbied and undercut the president on the surge. But with the latest sassing, and the continued Sisyphean nature of the surge he urged, McChrystal should offer his resignation. He should try subordination for a change.

To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	6/25/2010 12:04:48 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Health IT in the cloud: A long road masshightech.com Cloud computing finds its niche in biotech/pharma masshightech.com CTP co-founder Greendale finds next venture in cloud computing masshightech.com

To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	6/25/2010 3:28:06 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Tony Hayward may not get a golden parachute if he leaves BP finance.yahoo.com

To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	6/26/2010 1:06:55 AM
From: stockman_scott	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Worse Than a Nightmare ______________________________________________________________ By BOB HERBERT Op-Ed Columnist The New York Times June 25, 2010 President Obama can be applauded for his decisiveness in dispatching the chronically insubordinate Stanley McChrystal, but we are still left with a disaster of a war in Afghanistan that cannot be won and that the country as a whole will not support. No one in official Washington is leveling with the public about what is really going on. We hear a lot about counterinsurgency, the latest hot cocktail-hour topic among the BlackBerry-thumbing crowd. But there is no evidence at all that counterinsurgency will work in Afghanistan. It’s not working now. And even if we managed to put all the proper pieces together, the fiercest counterinsurgency advocates in the military will tell you that something on the order of 10 to 15 years of hard effort would be required for this strategy to bear significant fruit. We’ve been in Afghanistan for nearly a decade already. It’s one of the most corrupt places on the planet and the epicenter of global opium production. Our ostensible ally, President Hamid Karzai, is convinced that the U.S. cannot prevail in the war and is in hot pursuit of his own deal with the enemy Taliban. The American public gave up on the war long ago, and it is not at all clear that President Obama’s heart is really in it. For us to even consider several more years of fighting and dying in Afghanistan — at a cost of heaven knows how many more billions of American taxpayer dollars — is demented. Those who are so fascinated with counterinsurgency, from its chief advocate, Gen. David Petraeus, all the way down to the cocktail-hour kibitzers inside the Beltway, seem to have lost sight of a fundamental aspect of warfare: You don’t go to war half-stepping. You go to war to crush the enemy. You do this ferociously and as quickly as possible. If you don’t want to do it, if you have qualms about it, or don’t know how to do it, don’t go to war. The men who stormed the beaches at Normandy weren’t trying to win the hearts and minds of anyone. In Afghanistan, we are playing a dangerous, half-hearted game in which President Obama tells the America people that this is a war of necessity and that he will do whatever is necessary to succeed. Then, with the very next breath, he soothingly assures us that the withdrawal of U.S. troops will begin on schedule, like a Greyhound leaving the terminal, a year from now. Both cannot be true. What is true is that we aren’t even fighting as hard as we can right now. The counterinsurgency crowd doesn’t want to whack the enemy too hard because of an understandable fear that too many civilian casualties will undermine the “hearts and minds” and nation-building components of the strategy. Among the downsides of this battlefield caution is a disturbing unwillingness to give our own combat troops the supportive airstrikes and artillery cover that they feel is needed. In an article this week, The Times quoted a U.S. Army sergeant in southern Afghanistan who was unhappy with the real-world effects of counterinsurgency. “I wish we had generals who remembered what it was like when they were down in a platoon,” he said. “Either they never have been in real fighting, or they forgot what it’s like.” In the Rolling Stone article that led to General McChrystal’s ouster, reporter Michael Hastings wrote about the backlash that counterinsurgency restraints had provoked among the general’s own troops. Many feel that “being told to hold their fire” increases their vulnerability. A former Special Forces operator, a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, said of General McChrystal, according to Mr. Hastings, “His rules of engagement put soldiers’ lives in even greater danger. Every real soldier will tell you the same thing.” We are sinking more and more deeply into the fetid quagmire of Afghanistan and neither the president nor General Petraeus nor anyone else has the slightest clue about how to get out. The counterinsurgency zealots in the military want more troops sent to Afghanistan, and they want the president to completely scrap his already shaky July 2011 timetable for the beginning of a withdrawal. We’re like a compulsive gambler plunging ever more deeply into debt in order to wager on a rigged game. There is no victory to be had in Afghanistan, only grief. We’re bulldozing Detroit while at the same time trying to establish model metropolises in Kabul and Kandahar. We’re spending endless billions on this wretched war but can’t extend the unemployment benefits of Americans suffering from the wretched economy here at home. The difference between this and a nightmare is that when you wake up from a nightmare it’s over. This is all too tragically real.

To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	6/26/2010 1:32:40 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

The firing of Gen. Stanley McChrystal this week capped a string of pessimistic dispatches from Afghanistan — from a spike in casualties to reports that the offensive in Marja is not going well. The counterinsurgency strategy recommended by McChrystal and supported still by President Obama remains controversial. In this, the ninth year of what has become America’s longest war ever, can we say we’re any closer to success? In this extended web interview, Need to Know’s Alison Stewart talks to Andrew Bacevich, a professor of history at Boston University and a retired army colonel, about President Obama’s strategy for winning the war in Afghanistan. Bacevich served 23 years in the Army, some of them in Vietnam. His latest book is “Washington Rules: American’s Path to Permanent War.” Listen to the interview here: pbs.org

To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	6/30/2010 5:05:37 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Humedica poised for success in health data sector masshightech.com

To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	6/30/2010 6:07:37 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

DNA test over a love child. FBI on his trail. ANOTHER blonde on his arm. Good luck with trying to win Elin back, Tiger dailymail.co.uk

To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	6/30/2010 2:48:57 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Volcker Said to Be Unhappy With New Version of Rule (Update1) By Yalman Onaran June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Paul Volcker is disappointed with the final version of the rule that bears his name. As first envisioned, the Volcker rule would have banned banks from running private-equity and hedge funds, an attempt to curb risk-taking that fueled the financial crisis. Last-minute congressional negotiations aimed at winning Republican support led to a compromise that allows banks to invest up to 3 percent of their capital in such funds. Volcker, the 82-year-old former Federal Reserve chairman, didn’t expect the proposal to be diluted so much, said a person with knowledge of his views. He’s content with language that bans banks from trading with their own capital, the person said. “The Volcker rule started out as a hard-and-fast rule on risky trades and investments,” said Anthony Sanders, a finance professor at George Mason University School of Management in Fairfax, Virginia. “But through negotiations, it was weakened and ended up with many loopholes.” Democratic Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Jeff Merkley of Oregon were also dissatisfied with the result, for the same reasons as Volcker, according to two people with knowledge of negotiations, speaking anonymously because they weren’t authorized to comment to the press. The two lawmakers introduced language that decreased the ability of regulators to water down a final version of the rule and provisions to prevent banks from bailing out failed hedge funds. ‘Particular Interest’ Lobbying by banks and congressmen sympathetic to Wall Street’s views, as well as some administration members in the banks’ defense, trampled the views of Volcker and others who favored a stronger proposal, the people said. President Barack Obama introduced the rule in January with Volcker, now one of his economic advisers, standing beside him. That was after the House had already passed its version of the financial reform bill, and so the rule was only included at first in the Senate package. In the final version, U.S. banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. may have as long as a dozen years to reduce stakes in hedge funds and private-equity units, lawyers say. Volcker said in a statement released June 28 that the bill agreed upon by congressional negotiators “provides a constructive legal framework for reform of the financial system.” Among its provisions “are strong restraints on proprietary trading by commercial banking organizations, a point that has been of particular interest to me,” Volcker said, without mentioning the hedge-fund side of the rule. He declined to comment beyond the statement. Brown’s Request Scott Brown, the Massachusetts senator who was among four Republicans voting in favor of the Senate bill, demanded some of the changes to the Volcker rule. Lawmakers yesterday reconvened the House-Senate conference on the financial-overhaul bill to eliminate a $19 billion bank fee that drew objections from Brown and other Republicans. JPMorgan Chase & Co., the second-largest U.S. bank by assets, operates the world’s biggest hedge fund, according to the 2009 rankings of AR magazine, an industry trade publication. The New York-based firm’s hedge funds had $50 billion of assets under management as of Jan. 1, the magazine reported in March. Goldman Sachs’s hedge funds, which ranked ninth on the list, had $21 billion. To contact the reporters on this story: Yalman Onaran in New York at yonaran@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: June 30, 2010 12:31 EDT

To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	7/1/2010 1:47:58 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 89467

The Good Driller Award _______________________________________________________________ By JODY FREEMAN Editorial The New York Times June 30, 2010 Boston -- The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico should make us reconsider how we regulate industries like drilling and mining that pose risks to people and the environment. To that end, many argue that we need tougher safety standards, as well as higher liability caps and more severe civil and criminal penalties for polluters. Others believe that we need to reform our regulatory system: the Minerals Management Service is being restructured, and Congress may give the Environmental Protection Agency and the Coast Guard more robust regulatory power over offshore drilling. All agree that lax enforcement of regulations must stop. Overlooked in this debate is the fact that regulators need carrots, not just sticks. That’s why we should start rewarding companies that have exemplary safety records, exceed pollution standards and produce exceptional disaster response plans. Such incentives should never replace fines and penalties, which can often take years to work their way through the courts, but they could be a helpful complement. Here’s an example of how we might provide incentives for good behavior. Right now, royalty rates for offshore leases end up promoting dangerous deep-water drilling — the deeper you drill, the less you have to pay the government in royalties. Under the Deepwater Royalty Relief Act of 1995, Congress even waived royalties on millions of barrels of oil for certain deepwater leases from 1996 to 2000. This and other royalty relief programs have deprived the Treasury of billions of dollars in revenue, while rewarding the riskiest drilling in the deepest waters. Instead, royalty rates should be pegged to performance: those firms with excellent safety records should pay fewer royalties for offshore leases, and those with a history of accidents, safety lapses and penalties should pay more. Likewise, we should speed up the permit process as an incentive for companies that go beyond the legal minimum requirements, pay for backup safety systems and provide superior worker training for spill response. Providing such rewards would encourage continuous improvement in technology and disaster planning. Industry leaders would be recognized for outpacing their competitors. The Environmental Protection Agency tried this kind of approach during the Clinton administration, back when Carol Browner, now the White House energy and climate adviser, was the administrator. Companies that found innovative ways of going above and beyond baseline air and water pollution limits got rewarded with faster permitting. The program, called Project XL, was largely viewed as a success, but it ended in 2002. In addition to devising new incentives, the government should make better use of information already at its disposal. After Union Carbide’s release of toxic gases in 1984 killed thousands in Bhopal, India, Congress passed a law requiring a wide variety of industrial companies that produce significant volumes of toxic chemicals to publish an annual inventory of the dangerous substances they emit. This database, which is maintained by the E.P.A., is easily available to the public. But we should consider taking this a step further. Why not warn consumers, when they fill up at a BP station, of the company’s annual safety record, in terms of lives lost and penalties paid? A little shaming might go a long way for a company that cares about its public image. We will be dependent on oil and coal for our energy use for some time, even if we begin now, as President Obama has urged, to move aggressively to cleaner energy. But as long as we continue to drill for oil and mine for coal, we must do everything we can to make those industries safer. That includes not just tough, well-enforced regulations, economic liabilities and criminal penalties for companies that prove too dangerous, but also positive incentives and public rewards for those that put safety first. *Jody Freeman, a professor at Harvard Law School, was the counselor for energy and climate change in the White House from January 2009 to this past March.

To: altair19 who wrote (80851)	7/8/2010 9:22:12 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Buffett recounts the best advice he's ever received news.yahoo.com