Census: Multiracia U.S. Becoming Ever More Diverse

Associated Press

The nation's minority population is steadily rising and now makes up 35 percent of the United States, advancing an unmistakable trend that could make minorities the new American majority by midcentury.

As white baby boomers age past their childbearing years, younger Hispanic parents are having children — and driving U.S. population growth.

"The aging of baby boomers beyond young middle age will have profound impacts on our labor force, housing market, schools and generational divisions on issues such as Social Security and Medicare," said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. "The engine of growth for the younger population in most states will be new minorities."

New Census estimates show minorities added more than 2 percent in 2009 to 107.2 million people, boosted by a surge in Hispanic births and more people who described themselves as multiracial. During this time, the white population remained flat, making up roughly 199.9 million, or 65 percent, of the country.

By comparison, whites comprised 69 percent of the total population in 2000, and minorities 31 percent.

Currently four states — Hawaii, New Mexico, California and Texas — as well as the District of Columbia have minority populations that exceeded 50 percent. That's one state more than in 2000, when Texas was not on the list.

About 311 of the 3,143 counties — one in 10 — have minority populations of 50 percent or greater. That's up from around 250 counties in 2000.

The Census estimates released Thursday documented a widening age and race divide. They are the last government numbers before completion later this year of the 2010 census, which could change the balance of political power when legislative districts are redrawn based on population and racial diversity.

A key factor in the demographic transformation is aging baby boomers, a predominantly white group now shepherding college kids instead of starting young families. Since 2000, the number of whites under age 45 decreased by 8.4 million, while the number of whites over that age rose by 12.6 million.

The result is that the number of white younger adults and children fell in 42 states. Fifteen states, led by California, New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan, have lost more than 10 percent of their younger white population since 2000.

Locally, the changing race dynamics were widespread.

Seven U.S. counties last year saw their minority populations become the majority: Gwinnett County, Ga.; Titus and Victoria counties in Texas; Finney County, Kan.; Saguache County, Colo.; Contra Costa County, Calif.; and Yakima County, Wash.

The rise in the minority population is due to recent sharp increases in minority births, especially among Hispanics, who accounted for more than half of total U.S. population gains last year. There are now roughly 9 births for every 1 death among Latinos, compared to a roughly one-to-one ratio for whites.

Based on current rates, data from the 2010 census could show a new "tipping point" in which babies born to minorities outnumber that of babies born to whites. About 1 in 4 counties now have more minority children than white children or are nearing that point.

"Fertility is playing a critical role in reshaping the racial and ethnic structure of the country," said Kenneth Johnson, a sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire.

Multiracial Americans, the fastest growing U.S. demographic group, are also adding to minority gains. About 5.3 million last year were identified as being of multiple race or ethnicity, up 3.2 percent from the previous year.

Among racial and ethnic groups, Hispanics grew by 3.1 percent to 48.4 million and Asians increased 2.5 percent to 13.7 million. They now represent about 15.8 percent and 4.5 percent of the U.S. population, respectively.

Blacks, who make up about 12.3 percent of the population, increased less than 1 percent last year to 37.7 million.

Other findings:

_The median age for Hispanics and Asians edged lower — to 27.4 and 35.3 respectively — compared to 36.8 for the total population. The median age for blacks was unchanged at 31.3, while whites rose slightly to 41.2, due mostly to an aging boomer population.

_Utah had the youngest residents, with 1 in 10 people who were younger than five. Florida was the oldest, with nearly 1 in 5 residents who were 65 or older.

_Charlotte County, Fla., was the nation's "oldest" county, with 34 percent of its population age 65 or older, due to retirees seeking warm winters, golf courses and the county's lower costs. It was followed by La Paz County, Ariz.; Highlands County, Fla., and Lancaster County, Va.

The 2009 Census estimates used local records of births and deaths, tax records of people moving within the U.S., and government statistics on immigrants. The figures for "white" refer to those whites who are not of Hispanic ethnicity.

Results from the official 2010 head count will be published beginning in late December.

Gates, Doerr Issue Warning about America's Future

Computer World

Join GE CEO Immelt in effort to help U.S. gain an innovation edge in the push for clean tech

 

The ever expanding BP oil spill, in a sense, provides Bill Gates the perfect backdrop for selling Congress and the White House on a proposal to increase annual U.S. spending on clean energy research and development from $5 billion to $16 billion.

Gates, General Electric Co. CEO Jeff Immelt and venture capitalist John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer, are among the well-known business people involved in high-level lobbying effort on clean energy.

The trio discussed the need for clean energy investment at a press conference here today, and are slated to discuss it further with President Barack Obama this afternoon.

Today's message, and a related American Energy Innovation Council report listing a number of energy policy recommendations, didn't cite BP oil spill. It was about which country will lead in what may easily be the world's next big industrial push.

Gates, Immelt and Doerr are all members of the energy innovation council.

This business-driven push for a better energy plan already has some congressional support, principally from U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), who heads the House Committee on Science and Technology. He said Thursday that he plans to work with the group on legislation that implements its proposals.

At an earlier meeting with congressional leaders on the BP oil spill, Obama made note of today's planned meeting today with Gates and others.

"We can't keep our eye off the importance of having an energy policy that meets the needs of the next generation and ensures that the United States is the leader when it comes to energy policy," said Obama. "We are not yet that leader, and that's what I want us to do."

The U.S. isn't the worldwide leader in clean technology today, agreed Doerr during the press conference. America is a worldwide leader in biotechnology and information technology, he said, but "that's not the case in today's energy technologies."

Of the top 30 new energy technology companies worldwide that produce batteries, solar technologies and advanced wind energy, only four are headquartered in the United States, Doerr said.

"It's very sad that Americans spend more on potato chips than we do on investment in clean energy R&D," said Doerr.

Gates said more federal research spending is needed to spur investment in clean technologies. "The incentives aren't there to make it happen," said Gates.

"In the same way that the U.S. has led in health care, the same way we have led in IT, it takes an upfront investment," said Gates.

U.S.-based General Electric is one of the top companies on Doerr's list, and Immelt said that its revenue from clean energy products has gone from $5 billion to $20 billion.

"It's created jobs, and it's created competitive advantage," said Immelt, adding that the company plans to increase R&D spending in this area.

The timeline for producing results is years away.

It will take a decade to bring a number of technologies in the pilot stage, and perhaps take 20 years before there is a clear idea what the winning technologies look like, according to those involved in this effort.

Edmonton Man in Contest to be World's Greatest Salesman

Vancouver Sun

EDMONTON — The salesman in Todd Herman was born when he was a little boy walking along the railway tracks with his cousin near the family ranch outside Medicine Hat.

Scattered throughout the tracks' rock bed were gold-coloured rocks of varying sizes.

Herman and his cousin hauled a bunch of the pyrite to the side of the road and set up a cardboard sign that read: "Big gold $25. Little gold $15."

An older couple came by and plunked down $15 for a piece of the mineral, often called fool's gold. Herman and his cousin spent their hard-earned profits at the local joke store.

Now, the 34-year-old Edmontonian is in the running to be the world's greatest salesman, after a friend tweeted him about a contest by advertising giant OgilvyOne to sell one red brick. The friend knows Herman is a huge fan of the company's founder, David Ogilvy.

"As soon as I saw it, I knew immediately how I would sell a red brick," said Herman, who owns two online businesses. One is a sports psychology and mental toughness coaching company called thepeakathlete.com.The other is trafficbakery.comwhich helps local businesses use the Internet to market their companies.

"My idea was if you can be first in a category, you usually win. So I wanted to be first in the video category because I thought I can dictate the bar that other people have to try to reach and the terms," he said.

Within eight hours of learning of the contest, Herman had the two-minute video shot, uploaded to OgilvyOne and a website created. He sold the brick, bought at Home Depot for 61 cents, on EBay using PayPal and donated the proceeds to aid the rebuilding of Haiti. He has actually sold the brick three times for a grand total of $53.91. Those who have bought the brick have told him not to bothering shipping it because they just want to donate to a worthy cause.

"I think the hallmark of a good salesperson is taking advantage of opportunity," said Herman, who believes the world rewards momentum.

In his video, he pitches a single, red brick as a symbol of something that can used as the first step in building something great, which is why all the proceeds are donated to the rebuilding of Haiti.

Herman said much of his philosophy when it comes to the art of selling comes from being a voracious reader of motivational mentors such as Ogilvy, Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn and Steven Pressfield, whose book The War of Art, he carries with him all the time.

"People always think of sales as the in-your-face-used-car salesman. But selling happens all the time. Really great selling is never noticed," Herman said.

"You should feel like you just bought something, not like you just got sold."

Being a great salesperson is also about communication and people skills. "And sometimes it is about just shutting up and really listening to the person speaking," he said, laughing.

As one of the three finalists selected out of more than 230 entries from 12 countries, Herman will travel to France for the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival on June 21. The three finalists will do a two-minute pitch live on stage of a software product from one of OgilvyOne's current clients and be judged by an audience.

The winner of the coveted "World's Greatest Salesperson" will receive a three-month fellowship with Ogilvy-One to help craft the sales guide to the 21st century.

"We've been blown away by the creativity, enthusiasm and digital savvy that we've encountered on our quest to find the World's Greatest Salesperson," Mat Zucker, OgilvyOne's executive creative director in New York said in a release.

"Choosing only three finalists from such an impressive field has been the most challenging part for us so far -- but what impressed us the most about the finalists was their approach to the changing nature of sales," Zucker said.

Herman is looking forward to getting a chance to experience the Cannes advertising festival.

"I'm just more thrilled because it is Ogilvy's namesake advertising agency and I just think the world of it," he said.

Labor Disputes Spread in China

NY Times

Striking workers outside a Honda factory in Zhongshan, China on Thursday.

HONG KONG — Scattered strikes have started to ripple into Chinese provinces previously untouched by the recent labor unrest, while striking workers at a giant Honda auto parts factory here in southeastern China said they were ready for a possible showdown on Friday.

There were fresh reports on Thursday of strikes at foreign-owned factories in at least five other cities. But all of these strikes appeared to have ended quickly as managers, faced with an acute labor shortage, sought to address workers’ demands.

Chinese-owned companies tend not to disclose when strikes have occurred, and it is not clear how many strikes have taken place in recent days at these businesses.

The demands of striking workers have been overwhelmingly economic, mainly for sharp increases in pay. But while there has been no sign of any political demands, the work stoppages have potential political overtones as well.

Large groups of workers filled a lane next to a muddy canal in front of the Honda auto parts factory here on Thursday afternoon and criticized not just the company but also the local government for supporting the company. The workers said that large numbers of the police had been positioned in the factory on Wednesday and Thursday in an attempt to intimidate them, and added that their resolve to remain on strike had not changed.

Workers described an organizational structure that seemed unusually democratic for China. Each factory department’s workers gathered, discussed who would be their most persuasive representative and then selected that individual to represent them on a factorywide council that has held negotiations with management, they said.

Large groups of workers repeatedly gathered around a foreign reporter even though clean-cut men in crisp shirts, probably plainclothesmen, were hovering nearby. The workers, who insisted on anonymity because of lingering concerns about retaliation, said that a company manager had announced over loudspeakers late Thursday afternoon that all workers would be asked on Friday morning to sign a new contract and would be dismissed if they failed to do so.

Asked if they would sign, the workers replied with a chorus of “no”, and said that they would gather outside the factory gates on Friday morning to express their displeasure. After going on strike on Wednesday morning, the workers have marched around inside the factory shouting slogans through the day on Wednesday and Thursday, before going home to cramped apartments in nearby buildings each evening.

The Chinese government strongly discourages large outdoor protests, and it is unclear how the local authorities would respond to one at the factory on Friday morning.

The workers voiced skepticism that the company would meet their demands, mainly an 89 percent increase in their pay, currently 900 renminbi a month, or $132.

Workers said that they had read news reports on the Internet that Honda had already granted pay raises of 500 renminbi a month in settling other strikes. Honda has not confirmed the percentage, while indicating it was large.

A municipal official standing with a group of private security guards outside the factory said that there was no evidence that Honda had broken any employment laws. The workers “just want more money, they’re inspired by the other Honda strikes,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity.

A Honda spokesman declined to comment on the details of the strike in Zhongshan.

The Chinese authorities have allowed some media coverage in the past two weeks of labor unrest, while Li Keqiang, the deputy prime minister and the heir apparent to Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, voiced support early this week for higher wages. The government even allowed national television coverage for two days of the strike at the Honda transmission factory two weeks ago, before abruptly barring further domestic media coverage.

But there have been signs lately of a more restrictive attitude. Workers here complained that when they posted comments on the strike here on the Web sites of Baidu, a big Chinese Internet company, the comments were quickly expunged.

The workers also described seeing at least two Chinese reporters politely escorted away by the police when they tried to cover the strike Wednesday.

The strike started Wednesday morning when a woman employee showed up with her identity card improperly attached to her shirt and was denied entry by a security guard. The women criticized the guard, who responded by shoving her to the ground, the workers said.

The workers provided a copy of what they said was a flier distributed by management Thursday morning. The flier offered an increase of 100 renminbi a month for workers’ food and housing allowances, which are currently 300 renminbi a month.

But the flier did not include any increase in base pay, and said that the woman involved in the altercation with the guard had been adequately compensated by the company with a payment of 10 renminbi.

Many workers said that a strike for higher wages was inevitable even if the woman had not been pushed, and that the incident was only the final spark for a walkout.

Brother Industries of Japan said that strikes had stopped work for the past week at two sewing machine factories in Xi’an in central China’s Shaanxi Province. Production resumed Thursday morning after what Zhao Wei, the president of the government-approved union at the factories, described as “concessions” by the company; he refused to be more specific and the company said that negotiations were continuing.

There were reports Thursday as well of strikes at several Taiwanese-owned factories. These included a sporting goods factory in Jiangxi Province in east-central China, a liquid crystal display components factory in Shanghai, a plastic factory at another city near Shanghai, and an audio components factory across the Pearl River from Zhongzhan in Shenzhen.

Honda has already reached settlements in the past two weeks at a transmission factory and an exhaust factory in Foshan, about two hours’ drive northwest of Zhongshan.

The latest strike to close a Honda supplier involves 1,700 workers who have stopped work at a sprawling, two-story factory next to a muddy canal lined by imported eucalyptus trees in Zhongshan. The factory makes rear and side mirrors, door locks and a wide range of other auto parts for Honda assembly plants all over the world, and the strike by its workers is beginning to raise larger issues for Honda, for the city of Zhongshan and for China.

The factory is 65 percent owned by Honda Lock, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honda, and 35 percent owned by a local Chinese partner, said Takayuki Fujii, a Honda spokesman in Beijing.

SEC Approves 'Circuit Breaker'

The Wall Street Journal

Trading exchanges as early as Friday will implement rules designed to tame the volatility of individual stocks by temporarily halting trading during dramatic price changes, even as market participants are bracing for stiffer rules.

Members of the Securities and Exchange Commission signed off on the stock market "circuit breaker" Thursday, the agency said.

The New York Stock Exchange said it will begin a phased rollout on Friday. BATS Global Markets and Direct Edge also have said they expect to begin implementation Friday.

The rule will be in effect on a pilot basis for six months.

The cross-market trading pause was proposed last month in response to the May 6 "flash crash" that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummet almost 1,000 points before partially recovering.

All exchanges will halt trading for five minutes in an individual stock when its price moves 10% or more, up or down, in the previous five minutes. The pause is designed to give traders time to catch their breath and assess whether a stock's price change stems from a real shift in value or an unrelated market hiccup.

"These new rules will ensure that all markets pause simultaneously and provide time for buyers and sellers to trade at rational prices," said SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro.

The SEC considers the stock-by-stock circuit-breaker rule to be the first step of several to curb damage caused by unusual market fluctuations like those seen May 6. Regulators haven't pinpointed a single cause for the incident and are saying it was caused by a confluence of events.

The financial industry generally supports the circuit breaker, but most observers and regulators agree that it alone won't stop another flash crash from occurring.

Right now, the circuit breaker applies only to stocks contained in Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. It doesn't cover smaller cap stocks or index-based products such as exchange-traded funds, which were some of the stocks most dramatically affected on May 6.

"It is my hope to rapidly expand the program to thousands of additional publicly traded companies," Ms. Schapiro said.

In a letter to the SEC, Rep. Melissa Bean (D., Ill.) said, "I am concerned that by limiting the rules to the issuers in the S&P 500, other issuers will be vulnerable to continued market volatility."

The Issuer Advisory Group suggested that regulators include an "opt-in" provision that would permit non-S&P 500 companies to elect to participate.

Other people commenting about the rule are concerned about the market disruptions outside of the 9:45 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. EDT window when the circuit breaker would be in effect. TD Ameritrade Inc. said 10% to 15% of its trades on any given day are placed overnight to be executed at market open, leaving those stocks vulnerable for 15 minutes.

As a next step, the SEC is looking to ban "stub quotes," which are placeholder prices that tend to be far from an actual market price. Normally, those trades won't get executed. But investigators believe that on May 6 some trades were executed unintentionally at stub-quote prices.

The SEC also is working with exchanges to create a unified and predictable policy for breaking erroneous trades.

Regulators and exchanges have said they are dissatisfied with the decision to cancel hundreds of trades that occurred during the height of market volatility on May 6. After the flash crash, the exchanges decided to cancel all trades executed at prices that were more than 60% above or below those printed before 2:40 p.m.

The SEC is eyeing certain types of buy and sell orders for further regulation. Ms. Schapiro has identified two of these types: market orders (orders to buy or sell at market price without regard to fluctuations) and stop-loss orders (orders to sell when a stock falls to a certain price). Investigators of the flash crash believe those types of orders could have accelerated the market drop.

Regulators also will be keeping an eye on different exchanges' rules to curb market volatility. NYSE Euronext has a protocol that halts trading in stocks under certain circumstances. Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. last week announced a similar system that it says is designed to complement the stock-by-stock circuit-breaker rule.

Knight Capital Group Inc. said in a letter to the SEC that the NYSE and Nasdaq protocols, combined with SEC rules on market pauses, "could all be triggered during volatile market periods, creating a great deal of confusion and uncertainty."

The NYSE will undergo a phased rollout of the circuit-breaker pilot program, with the circuit breakers for some stocks starting Friday and the remainder being added early next week, according to Raymond Pellecchia Jr., vice president of corporate communications at NYSE Euronext.

By Wednesday, the circuit breakers will be functioning for all affected stocks, he said.

This weekend, the NYSE will provide scripted halt messages during a testing period that will allow member firms to ensure they receive them properly. The exchange hosted a similar testing session last weekend as well. Mr. Pellecchia said firms can participate in the testing remotely, and so it won't necessarily require traders to be on the floor on a weekend.

Stanford Students' Electric Car Breaks the Mold, not the Bank

Stanford University News

In a matter of weeks, Stanford graduate students have built an electric car they hope will make daily travel more environmentally friendly, efficient and fun. The stylish Weng is built for short-range, low-speed drives and may be the cool new way to get around neighborhoods and cities.

Meet the Weng, an open-air electric vehicle created by Stanford graduate students. Short for "Where everyone needs to go," the Weng is designed for local transportation with a style that gets people interacting with the community while they drive.

It's the antidote to the fully enclosed automobile. "I think it'll make neighborhoods feel a lot more friendly if everyone isn't enclosed in those steel cans," said Karen Shakespear, one of the students on the project.

Shakespear and her fellow grad students created the car to fulfill the master's thesis project requirement for the Joint Program in Design, a collaborative program between the departments of Mechanical Engineering and Art and Art History. The program's goal is to produce designers who can synthesize technology and aesthetics in the service of human needs.

John Stanfield and David Goligorsky came up with the idea to build a vehicle late in the Winter 2010 quarter. Fellow grad students Brian Ng, Shakespear, and Andrew Murphy joined Stanfield and Goligorsky to form the core team and develop the idea.  "Paul Karplus found out about the project in the last phase of the build and quickly became a critical part of the project's execution," Goligorsky said.

In just one academic quarter, the team conceived the design, drew up the blueprints, gathered materials, found discounted and donated parts, and assembled the vehicle. Plans are in the works to market the car in the near future.

"People are more accepting of owning electric vehicles these days," said Goligorsky. "The proverbial road is paved for electric vehicles and we're interested in how people change the nature of car ownership as they become more environmentally aware."
It's eco-friendly and turn heads

Goligorsky says most daily errands and commutes are less than 30 miles on roads with speed limits of only 35 miles per hour.

"Why use a 200-horsepower car to go to the grocery store on roads you can only go 35 miles per hour on anyway?" said Goligorsky.

The Weng would be an environmentally friendly alternative that the team thinks could become the cool way to go to the grocery store, get the kids from school and even go to work.

"We want people to buy into the culture and image of an eco-friendly neighborhood vehicle," said Shakespear. "It's not just about the technology or functionality, it's an image, too."

The car is completely open to the air. A frame made of tubular steel sits on four wheels. Two leather-covered seats on the wooden floor are each long enough to sit two people motorcycle style. Passengers hold onto bicycle-like handlebars; the driver's side has a steering joystick and throttle.

The car's mechanics are simple and transparent. Almost all the moving parts are visible and include the motors, which are in the car's rear wheels, the throttle, speed control, batteries and brakes. There are fewer parts to wear out than on a traditional car, and the Weng will be easier and less expensive to work on, maintain and update.

"You want to make it go faster or have more power, you just change out the back wheels," said Stanfield. "It's really easy – just two bolts and a couple wires and you're done."

The Weng is efficient, too. Like several hybrid cars on the market, it has regenerative braking that recharges the automotive batteries while slowing down the car. When braking, rather than the electric motors turning the wheels, the wheels turn the motors, creating an electric current to the rechargeable battery.
Zooming forward

This first version of the car takes four hours to charge and can go about 10 miles at 15 to 20 mph. But an optimized system with the best rechargeable batteries and appropriate motors available today could go 30 miles at 35 mph.
The basic design is customizable. Motor speed, frame color and size all could vary depending on the customer's needs. It also would be possible to add a convertible roof to shield passengers from the rain.

The team is working with second-year MBA student Graeme Waitzkin to look at the product from a business perspective. He thinks the car could be marketed as a shared or leased vehicle. It would cost from $5,000 to about $10,000; more than a golf cart, less than an electric automobile.

"This project makes electric vehicles cool and affordable so they're accessible to a wide range of people," said Waitzkin. "We want to hone in on a local transportation need that is poorly served by today's technologies."

The team got enthusiastic support from Sven Beiker, executive director of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford, who was able to provide some funds and good advice.

"They really understood how to combine efficiency, practicality and appeal in a very nice design," said Beiker. "It's easy to use, fun to drive, looks gorgeous and it's efficient. This is what a modern vehicle needs to be."

The students will demonstrate the Weng and welcome feedback at a launch party on Friday, June 4, at 6 p.m. in the atrium of Stanford's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, familiarly known as the d.school. The event is free and open to the public.

China Vows to Continue Blocking Internet Content

Chicago Tribune

 

BEIJING (AP) — China vowed Tuesday to keep a tight grip on the Internet, saying it would continue to block anything considered subversive or threatening to "national unity."

The "white paper" statement of government policy was released three months after a public dispute over censorship prompted Google Inc. to shut its mainland-based search engine.

It said there were 384 million Internet users in China at the end of 2009, about 29 percent of the population. The government aims to boost that to 45 percent in the next five years by pushing into rural areas where the white paper said there was a "digital gap."

It said the Internet had taken an "irreplaceable role in accelerating the development of the national economy" and would continue to impact daily work, education and lifestyles.

But China, which routinely blocks websites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, gave no sign there would be an easing of the "Great Firewall" — the nickname for the network of filters that keep mainland Web surfers from accessing material the government deems sensitive.

The official English translation of the white paper favorably mentions Twitter — an apparent glitch since the U.S. microblogging service has been banned in China since last year. The English version named Twitter as an example of a fast-growing service that allows people to express themselves, while the Chinese version mentions only micro-blogs.

The 31-page white paper did not give specific examples of what content would be banned, saying Chinese laws prohibit the spread of "contents subverting state power, undermining national unity, infringing upon national honor and interests, inciting ethnic hatred and secession" as well as such things as pornography and terror.

The white paper also put the onus on companies to block content deemed sensitive, saying China required Internet service providers to set up "Internet security management systems and utilize technical measures to prevent the transmission of all types of illegal information."

Google ran afoul of the government when it accused Chinese hackers of trying to plunder its software coding and of hijacking the Gmail accounts of human rights activists, and said it would stop self-censoring its search results in line with Chinese regulations.

It moved its search service to the freer Chinese territory of Hong Kong in March.

The white paper did not mention Google, but said anyone using the Internet in China had to respect its laws. "Within Chinese territory the Internet is under the jurisdiction of Chinese sovereignty. The Internet sovereignty of China should be respected and protected," it said.

CA Ready to take First Steps on Health Care Reform

Mercury News

 

SACRAMENTO — The debate over national health care reform has moved to the California Legislature, which this week will begin taking the initial steps to implement the complex series of overhauls prescribed by the federal government.

More than 20 bills have been introduced and as many as a dozen might be voted on this week as lawmakers face a deadline to pass bills out of their house of origin.

Because of California's sheer size, its implementation of the new law could serve as a model for other states. The state has 8.2 million uninsured residents, nearly equivalent to the population of New Jersey. The number has ballooned in recent years as Californians lost jobs and health insurance due to the recession.

The bills seek to enact reforms signed into law by President Barack Obama in March. Among other changes, they would prohibit health insurers from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions and create an exchange through which individuals could buy insurance.

A separate bill would take state reforms further than federal requirements by making insurance companies obtain state approval before raising their fees.

The bills are considered works in progress that will change over the course of the legislative session, as the state learns more from the federal government about specific requirements in the law.

Republican lawmakers say the flurry of legislative activity is premature because upcoming elections could shift the balance of power in Congress and result in a repeal of the federal reforms. They also say the exchange, a marketplace through which individuals and small-business owners can buy health insurance at affordable rates, could lead to higher insurance rates because fees will be imposed on insurers to recoup its operational costs.

Despite resistance from members of his own party, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has made health care reform a priority. He introduced his own plan in 2007, but it failed, in part because of concerns about runaway costs to the state in future years.

The Republican governor threw his support behind the national reform plan in April, and his office has been meeting with lawmakers to work through the details.

One of the first steps is to establish an exchange. The idea is to create a consumer-friendly website that could be used to compare California health insurance quotes and buy health insurance plans, similar to the packages offered by employers. It also would serve as a place to screen whether an individual is eligible for Medi-Cal, the state's health insurance program for the poor, or other state services. The state would use federal money to run the exchange. It would create a new entity to operate it or work with a nonprofit organization, said Jennifer Kent, Schwarzenegger's deputy legislative secretary.

Madoff Revered Behind Bars

NY Post

'F*** my victims. I carried them for 20 years, and now I'm doing 150.'

 

 

Bernie Madoff has a message from prison: F- - - you.

Madoff, 71, has become a folk hero to most of his fellow inmates -- but when one inmate lashed out at the disgraced Ponzi schemer for his $65 billion theft, Madoff barked: "F- - - my victims. I carried them for 20 years, and now I'm doing 150 years," New York magazine reports in its issue on sale tomorrow.

When another convict told Madoff that stealing from old ladies was "kind of f- - -ed up," Madoff coolly replied, "Well, that's what I did."

Another former convict told the magazine that Madoff once said he could spin a globe, put his finger anywhere on it, "and chances are he had a house there or he'd been there."

Yet another prisoner recalled watching a "60 Minutes" segment about Madoff with Madoff, and remarking, admiringly, that he'd bilked his clients for millions.

Madoff corrected him: "No, billions."

His massive scheme has some inmates virtually worshipping him as a criminal legend who ultimately wound up a success, according to their twisted worldview.

"If I'd lived that well for 70 years, I wouldn't care that I ended up in prison," one said.

He has since made 14 cents an hour sweeping the commissary floor of the federal pen in Butner, NC.

Colleagues, lawyers and inmates tell the magazine that Inmate No. 61727-054 generally seems content. His cellblock is known as "Camp Fluffy," and prisoners have use of a gym, library, pool tables and a sweat lodge. There are no bars on the windows.

Madoff likes to read novels by John Grisham and Dean Koontz, and once suggested he be put in charge of the budget for the prison landscaping crew, reminding one supervisor that he had run Nasdaq.

The response: "Hell, no."

Inmates ask him for autographs, which he refuses to sign because he thinks they'll wind up on eBay, and he doesn't think it's fair that others should make money off him.

Madoff thinks nothing of telling his fellow inmates that he regularly dropped as much as $200,000 on a wristwatch. In turn, drug dealers and other criminals who see themselves as entrepreneurs regularly solicit business advice from Madoff, who is happy to give it.

Now, says the magazine, Madoff lives on $290 a month. His favorite purchases are mac and cheese (60 cents), cans of Diet Coke (45 cents) and a Timex watch ($41.65).

One inmate does laundry for the others for $10 a month, but Madoff hustled him down to $8.

"You couldn't get an ice cream cone off of him," one ex-con said.

He misses his wife, Ruth, who still comes to visit. He knows he's never getting out: "I've got 150 years," the magazine says he told an inmate, "and I'm 71."

In Gulf, It Was Unclear Who Was in Charge of Rig

NY Times

NEW ORLEANS — Over six days in May, far from the familiar choreography of Washington hearings, federal investigators grilled workers involved in the Deepwater Horizon disaster in a chilly, sterile conference room at a hotel near the airport here.

The six-member panel of Coast Guard and Minerals Management Service officials pressed for answers about what occurred on the rig on April 20 before it exploded. They wanted to know who was in charge, and heard conflicting answers.

They pushed for more insight into an argument on the rig that day between a manager for BP, the well’s owner, and one for Transocean, the rig’s owner, and asked Curt R. Kuchta, the rig’s captain, how the crew knew who was in charge.

“It’s pretty well understood amongst the crew who’s in charge,” he said.

“How do they know that?” a Coast Guard investigator asked.

“I guess, I don’t know,” Captain Kuchta said. “But it’s pretty well — everyone knows.”

Looking annoyed, Capt. Hung Nguyen of the Coast Guard, one of the chief federal investigators, shook his head. The exchange confirmed an observation he had made earlier in the day at the hearing.

“A lot of activities seem not very tightly coordinated in the way that would make me comfortable,” he said. “Maybe that’s just the way of business out there.”

Investigators have focused on the minute-to-minute decisions and breakdowns to understand what led to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, killing 11 people and setting off the largest oil spill in United States history and an environmental disaster. But the lack of coordination was not limited to the day of the explosion.

New government and BP documents, interviews with experts and testimony by witnesses provide the clearest indication to date that a hodgepodge of oversight agencies granted exceptions to rules, allowed risks to accumulate and made a disaster more likely on the rig, particularly with a mix of different companies operating on the Deepwater whose interests were not always in sync.

And in the aftermath, arguments about who is in charge of the cleanup — often a signal that no one is in charge — have led to delays, distractions and disagreements over how to cap the well and defend the coastline. As a result, with oil continuing to gush a mile below the surface in the Gulf of Mexico, the laws of physics are largely in control, creating the daunting challenge of trying to plug a hole at depths where equipment is straining under more than a ton of pressure per square inch.

Tad W. Patzek, chairman of the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department at the University of Texas, Austin, has analyzed reports of what led to the explosion. “It’s a very complex operation in which the human element has not been aligned with the complexity of the system,” he said in an interview last week.

His conclusion could also apply to what occurred long before the disaster.


Exceptions Are the Rule

Deepwater oil production in the gulf, which started in 1979 but expanded much faster in the mid-1990s with new technology and federal incentives, is governed as much by exceptions to rules as by the rules themselves.

Under a process called “alternative compliance,” much of the technology used on deepwater rigs has been approved piecemeal, with regulators cooperating with industry groups to make small adjustments to guidelines that were drawn up decades ago for shallow-water drilling.

Of roughly 3,500 drilling rigs and production platforms in the gulf, fewer than 50 are in waters deeper than 1,000 feet. But the risks and challenges associated with this deeper water are much greater.

“The pace of technology has definitely outrun the regulations,” Lt. Cmdr. Michael Odom of the Coast Guard, who inspects the rigs, said last month at a hearing.

As a result, deepwater rigs operate under an ad hoc system of exceptions. The deeper the water, the further the exceptions stretch, not just from federal guidelines but also often from company policy.

So, for example, when BP officials first set their sights on extracting the oily riches under what is known as Mississippi Canyon Block 252 in the Gulf of Mexico, they asked for and received permission from federal regulators to exempt the drilling project from federal law that requires a rigorous type of environmental review, internal documents and federal records indicate.

As BP engineers planned to set certain pipes and casings for lining the well in place in the ocean floor, they had to get permission from company managers to use riskier equipment because that equipment deviated from the company’s own design and safety policies, according to internal BP documents obtained by The New York Times.

And when company officials wanted to test the blowout preventer, a crucial fail-safe mechanism on the pipe near the ocean floor, at a lower pressure than was federally required, regulators granted an exception, documents released last week show.

Regulators granted yet another exception when BP sought to delay mandatory testing of that blowout preventer because they had lost “well control,” weeks before the rig exploded, BP e-mail messages show.

The Minerals Management Service, which regulates offshore drilling, went along with these requests partly because the agency has for years had a dual role of both fostering and policing the industry — collecting royalty payments from the drilling companies while also levying fines on them for violations of law.

Its safety inspections usually consist of helicopter visits to offshore rigs to sift through company reports of self-administered tests.

Even Ken Salazar, the interior secretary, who oversees the minerals agency, has said that oil companies have a history of “running the show” at the agency, a problem he has vowed to correct.

The minerals agency shares responsibility for oversight of drilling in the gulf with many others. The Environmental Protection Agency and others review offshore drilling for potential damage to wildlife and the environment. The Coast Guard inspects vessels for seaworthiness and licenses crew members to work on the rigs. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration monitors dangerous weather conditions over deep seas.

And regulatory duties extend even past the federal government. Foreign countries, or “flag states,” where many oil rigs are registered, have their own sets of safety requirements and inspections.

Regulations have not kept up with the risks that deepwater drilling poses.

On the Deepwater Horizon, for example, the minerals agency approved a drilling plan for BP that cited the “worst case” for a blowout as one that might produce 250,000 barrels of oil per day, federal records show. But the agency did not require the rig to create a response plan for such a situation.

If a blowout were to occur, BP said in its plan, the first choice would be to use a containment dome to capture the leaking oil. But regulators did not require that a containment dome be kept on the rig to speed the response to a spill. After the rig explosion, BP took two weeks to build one on shore and three days to ship it out to sea before it was lowered over the gushing pipe on May 7. It did not work.

(The rig’s “spill response plan,” provided to The Times, includes a Web link for a contractor that goes to an Asian shopping Web site and also mentions the importance of protecting walruses, seals and sea lions, none of which inhabit the area of drilling. The agency approved the plan.)

More broadly, regulators have not required technology and strategies for dealing with deepwater spills to be improved.

Engineers trying to control the blowout are using the same tactics they used in 1979 when the Ixtoc I well blew up in the Bay of Campeche off the coast of Mexico. In the earlier blowout, they first tried lowering a containment dome over the leak. When that failed, they unsuccessfully tried to inject golf balls and other material in a move called a junk shot, which was also tried and abandoned for the Deepwater Horizon.

Questions of oversight also came up in the New Orleans hearings last month. For example, Michael J. Saucier, an official with the Minerals Management Service, said that his agency “highly encouraged” — but did not require — companies to have backup systems to trigger blowout preventers in case of an emergency.

“Highly encourage?” Captain Nguyen of the Coast Guard asked. “How does that translate to enforcement?”

“There is no enforcement,” Mr. Saucier answered.

Problems Early On

In some ways it was jinxed from the start.

As early as June 2009, BP engineers had expressed concerns in internal documents about using certain casings for the well because they violated the company’s safety and design guidelines. But they proceeded with those casings.

Mechanical problems started in March with the Deepwater, setting the stage for the April 20 explosion.

More than five weeks before disaster, the rig was hit by several sudden pulsations of gas called “kicks” and a pipe had become stuck in the well. The blowout preventer, designed to seal the well in an emergency, had been discovered to be leaking fluids at least three times.

Dealing with these problems required teamwork, a challenge to the throng of different companies with responsibilities on the rig. Of the 126 people present on the day of the explosion, only eight were employees of BP. The interests of the workers did not always align.

In testimony to government investigators, rig workers repeatedly described a “natural conflict” between BP, which can make more money by completing drilling jobs quickly, and Transocean, which receives a leasing fee from BP every day that it continues drilling.

Halliburton was also on hand to provide cementing services, while a subsidiary monitored various drilling fluids. A different company provided drilling fluid systems, another provided technicians to operate the remote-control vehicles that are they eyes of the rig crew deep underwater, and yet another provided the well casing.

Amid this tangle of overlapping authority and competing interests, no one was solely responsible for ensuring the rig’s safety, and communication was a constant challenge.

“I don’t have a feeling that there is somebody who has a handle on the coordination of all the activities on this vessel, going from routine to crisis,” Captain Nguyen said during one hearing. “BP is in charge of certain things, Transocean is in charge of certain things.”

Financial concerns added pressures on the rig.

BP had fallen behind schedule and over budget, paying roughly $500,000 a day to lease the rig from Transocean. The rig was 43 days late for starting a new drilling job for BP by the day of the explosion, a delay that had already cost the company more than $21 million.

With the clock ticking, bad decisions went unchecked, warning signs went unheeded and small lapses compounded.

On April 1, a job log written by a Halliburton employee, Marvin Volek, warns that BP’s use of cement “was against our best practices.”

An April 18 internal Halliburton memorandum indicates that Halliburton again warned BP about its practices, this time saying that a “severe” gas flow problem would occur if the casings were not centered more carefully.

Around that same time, a BP document shows, company officials chose a type of casing with a greater risk of collapsing.

Despite noticing cementing problems, BP skipped a quality test of the cement around the pipe. Federal regulators also gave the rig a pass at several critical moments. After the rig encountered several problems, including the gas kicks and the pipe stuck in the well, the regulators did not demand a halt to the operation. Instead, they gave permission for a delay in a safety test of the blowout preventer.

An initial investigation by BP points to a range of missteps.

Tests shortly before the well blew out found a buildup of pressure that was an “indicator of a very large abnormality,” BP concluded and disclosed to Congress in a preliminary report last month. Yet, the rig team was satisfied after another test was deemed successful, and it proceeded.

About 10 hours before the explosion, the challenges of trying to keep the pressure in the well under control led to an argument among the workers about how best to finish the well and move the rig to the next site.

Douglas Brown, a Transocean mechanic on the rig, told investigators that an unnamed BP official whom he called “the company man” had instructed rig workers to execute a new plan for removing the riser and sealing the well. Mr. Brown testified that workers thought the plan was too risky. But he could not hear details of the argument that ensued.

“The company man was basically saying, ‘Well, this is how it’s going to be,’ ” Mr. Brown told investigators at a hearing on May 26 near New Orleans, adding that the Transocean rig workers “reluctantly agreed.”

When the explosion occurred around 9:50 p.m. on April 20, there was pandemonium on the rig. Most workers headed for lifeboats. Others rescued shipmates trapped under equipment. On the bridge, Captain Kuchta gathered with at least eight other managers and crew members to decide on an emergency plan.

Steve Bertone, the chief engineer for Transocean, wrote in his witness statement that he ran up to the bridge where he heard Captain Kuchta screaming at a worker, Andrea Fleytas, because she had pressed the distress button without authorization.

Mr. Bertone turned to another worker and asked him if he had called to shore for help but was told he did not have permission to do so. Another manager tried to give the go-ahead, the testimony said, but someone else said the order needed to come from the rig’s offshore installation manager.

A Strained Partnership

After the spill, the government and BP were supposed to cooperate, partly a consequence of laws written after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill that were intended to make polluters more accountable for cleaning up their own messes.

One example of what was supposed to be a unified front was the Joint Information Center. Housed in a Shell-owned training and conference center in Robert, La., the center includes roughly 65 employees, 10 of whom work for BP. Together, they write and issue news releases and coordinate posts on a Web site, Facebook and Twitter.

But the partnership between BP and the government has strained along with the failure of efforts to plug the well. Mr. Salazar, for example, assured the public on May 2 that the administration was keeping its “boot on the neck” of BP. Next he was being publicly chastised by President Obama for using antagonistic language.

BP’s chief executive, Tony Hayward, told reporters at one point that the spill was “relatively tiny.” Federal officials soon released estimates indicating that the spill had far outpaced the Exxon Valdez disaster.

Under intense media scrutiny, at least a dozen federal agencies have taken part in the spill response, making decision-making slow, conflicted and confused, as they sought to apply numerous federal statutes.

In one stark example of government disputes, internal e-mail messages from the minerals agency obtained by The Times reveal a heated debate over whether to ignore some federal environmental laws about gas emissions in an effort to speed the drilling of relief wells.

One agency official, Michael Tolbert, warned colleagues on April 24 that emissions of nitrous oxide from the well were “pretty far over the exemption level,” an issue that his colleague Tommy Broussard said could result in “BP wasting time” on environmental safeguards in a way that would be “completely stupid.”

But a third colleague, Elizabeth Peuler, intervened to demand that the agency take “no shortcuts.”

“Not even for this one,” she said. “Perhaps even especially for this one.”

Debates over the speed — or lack thereof — of the government response have also played out in Louisiana, where state officials spent much of May repeatedly seeking permission from the federal government to construct up to 90 miles of sand barriers to prevent oil from reaching the wetlands.

For three weeks, as the giant slick crept closer to shore, officials from the White House, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Environmental Protection Agency debated the best approach.

They ultimately approved the use of only one barrier, called a berm, to be paid for by BP.

Comparing the federal government’s response to “telling a drowning man to wait,” Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana asked: If one berm is safe, then why not the 23 others that he had requested? Slowly, the federal government approved more berms.

From the start, BP had played down the extent of the problem in miscalculating the rate of the leak and in denying the existence of underwater oil plumes. By deferring to the company, federal officials underestimated the problem they were facing and thus what was needed to respond to it.

It took more than a week after the explosion for the homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, to declare, on April 29, “a spill of national significance” a legal categorization that was needed before certain federal assistance could be authorized.

Because of such delays, critics have charged, more coastline will be hit, more animals will die, more habitats will be ruined and more money will be lost in tourism, fishing and real estate.

And yet, the administration is limited in its ability to divorce itself from BP, because federal officials rely on the company for technology, personnel and financing for the cleanup. The relationship reached a turning point last week when the administration said the national incident commander, Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard, would start giving solo briefings. He will no longer share a podium with BP, which will offer its own briefings.

That move, however, does not resolve the matter of who is actually in charge in the gulf — of ensuring safety and regulating the dangerous extraction of vast riches under the deepest waters there, as well as of handling the continuing emergency.

The question is proving equally vexing as investigators try to place blame for events on the rig the day of the explosion— as was clear on Tuesday when Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced that he had begun a criminal investigation.

Citing “a wide range of possible violations,” Mr. Holder declined to specify the target of the investigation, because, he said, the authorities were still not clear on “who should ultimately be held liable.”

Electric Bikes on Display at Infineon

Mercury News

 

The question came early and often: "Excuse me, is this thing on?"

The answer was simple and silent as Kenyon Kluge sped his motorcycle down the straightaway at Infineon Raceway early this week. There was hardly a sound from the engine nor a sign of exhaust.

Look closely at the back of the bike and there's something missing.

There's no tailpipe.

This motorcycle is a zero-carbon, clean-emission electric prototype, one of a new generation of motorcycles designed for the city, highway and even off-road and race tracks.

"This is just the first step," said Jennifer Bromme, the rider and owner of San Francisco-based Werkstatt Racing and Repair.

Bromme and her crew hastily put together a team within the past month for this weekend's Time Trial Xtreme Grand Prix U.S. Championships, the first zero-carbon motorcycle race run in the United States.

The TTXGP is part of the West Coast Moto Jam at Infineon Raceway this weekend. Practice is today, with qualifying Saturday and an 11-lap feature race at 11 a.m. Sunday.

"The technology . . . it's really exciting to be part of something so new," Bromme said. "Everyone's experimenting. The development is incredible. There is room for really rapid growth."

Living and working near the epicenter of development for computer and alternative energy technologies, Bromme is convinced zero-carbon is the ride of the future.

"It's like mainframe computers or the Internet," Bromme said. "There will be a day when this is the standard. . . . There will be a place for internal combustion motorcycles, but they'll probably be considered vintage. I love vintage bikes, though. This won't happen right away, but in a few years."

The future is being crafted in shops and garages across the country — often on shoestring budgets. For the most part, these aren't university professors or NASA engineers pushing for new motorcycle technology. Bromme, Kluge and others learned their trade riding and working on race bikes.

"My regular gig is as an electrician. I worked for Zero Motorcycles and grabbed some spare parts," said Kluge, founder of K-Squared Racing. "I worked on a race bike to convert it. It took a little guess work. I combined my knowledge as an electrician and my experience working on bikes and it worked fine."

Kluge explained the difference between the two basic approaches to converting bikes to an electric motor. Both models have their trade-offs — a 300-pound motorcycle with lighter, smaller motorcycles batteries can reach speeds of 90 mph but might go farther. A 400-pound bike with a heavier battery can go faster — 120 mph, but might not be able to go as far before needing a recharge.

The typical street model can go 40 to 60 miles before it needs to be recharged and batteries can last up to seven years.

In a competitive environment, riders have to be concerned about speed and power consumption. After all, they can't recharge their batteries during a pit stop.

"It's interesting in a race. The fastest bike might not always be the first one across the finish line," said Bromme, whose bike has a KLM-based chassis powered by a lithium polymer battery pack.

TTXGP raced last year at the Isle of Man in Europe, where Chris Heath rode to an open-class victory for Oakland-based Electric Motorsport Inc's Native Racing. More than 10 race teams are expected to converge this weekend on the Sonoma Valley, including local entrants from San Francisco, Oakland, Sebastopol, San Mateo, Woodside, Palo Alto and Santa Rosa.

"The Bay Area is a building ground for alternative energy," Bromme said. "It's a matter of money. People don't want to spend so much on gas. We're always looking for new technology and this is a great way to promote it. The technology is finally catching up."

City of Maywood California Loses Insurance Coverage

LA Times

 

Citing the city's failure to hire a new city manager as well as recent officer-involved shootings, Maywood's California health insurance agency has terminated coverage because it views the municipality as too high a risk, according to city officials.

In a notice delivered to the city last week, the California Joint Powers Insurance Authority said it would end all general liability and workers' compensation coverage effective July 1, according to Interim City Manager Angela Spaccia.

"This termination potentially puts the city in the position where it cannot continue to operate its police department and provide other city services," a statement on the city's website announced.

The history of the Maywood-Cudahy Police Department has made it difficult for the city to obtain insurance coverage, officials say. Last year the state attorney general's office found widespread overuse of force and other gross misconduct. The department has reorganized in an effort to address those issues.

Since 2006, liability claims have gone down from $12 million to $266,000, Spaccia said. "The chief has made huge progress."

There have been at least two officer-involved shootings since the start of the year, according to the department. In April, officers shot and killed a knife-wielding man who was stabbing a woman, authorities said. In May officers shot and wounded a man, but the circumstances surrounding that shooting were not released. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is investigating the shootings.

In the workers' compensation case, an officer was hospitalized May 1 after a drunk driver crashed into her police cruiser, according to authorities.

The city has also been without a permanent city manager for more than a year. Officials say that some candidates have turned down job offers, while others have failed to meet qualifications for the position.

Calls made to the California Joint Powers Insurance Authority for comment were not returned Friday.

Maywood officials in recent months have been considering a plan to create a joint law enforcement agency with the city of Bell. The loss of insurance coverage added new impetus to those discussions, Spaccia said, as Maywood might find it easier to receive new California health insurance quotes and regain its coverage through such a partnership.