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Thursday, June 10, 2010

News The Morning News: BP's Blunders, Good News about Jobs, and the Cell Phone Law That Goes into Effect Today

Posted by Christopher Frizzelle on Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 8:59 AM

More Evidence Emerges That BP Had No Real Response Plan in Case Anything Went Wrong: "Glaring errors and omissions in BP's oil spill response plans have exposed a slapdash effort to follow environmental rules... A professor is listed in BP's 2009 response plan for a Gulf of Mexico oil spill as a national wildlife expert. He died in 2005. The plan lists cold-water marine mammals including walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals as 'sensitive biological resources.' None of those animals live anywhere near the Gulf..."

Finally, Some Good News on Jobs: "The tally of laid-off workers continuing to claim jobless benefits fell by the largest amount in almost a year, suggesting that more unemployed workers may be finding work."

More Than 2,000 People Arrested: Law enforcement agencies go after a drug trafficking organization tied to meth, coke, heroin, and marijuana.

Meanwhile in Afghanistan: "The Taliban have been stepping up a campaign of assassinations in recent months against officials and anyone else associated with local government in an attempt to undermine counterinsurgency operations in the south."

$3 Billion Washington State Deficit: "State lawmakers will likely begin next year's legislative session staring at an even bigger deficit than the one that caused them to raise taxes on things like bottled water, booze, soda and cigarettes this year."

That'll Be a $124 Fine: "Starting Thursday, texting or using a handheld cell phone while driving becomes a primary offense in most Washington cases, meaning police can use that as the sole reason for stopping a driver."

As Much As $42,682: "Embezzlement charges have been filed against the former treasurer of a Seattle Children's Hospital charity aimed at assisting parents of newborns in intensive care."

Seattle University's Incoming Class of Freshman: The largest ever.

And Then There Were Two: One of the three candidates for Seattle police chief has backed out.

Comments (17) RSS

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When BP goes under (which is very likely to happen sooner rather than later) who is going to be left holding the tag for clean up?

Oh that's right....us.

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger on June 10, 2010 at 9:13 AM

From the Jobless stats article "Some of those recipients may have exhausted the 26 weeks of benefits customarily provided by most states."

I want to know how many of those people's benefits expired vs how many found a job. That would be a measure of the job market. This blanket statistic says nothing.

Posted by sammielu on June 10, 2010 at 9:19 AM

$124 fine for using a cell phone while driving. Hmmm. So is the purpose of the new law to get people to stop using cell phones while driving, or is the purpose just to collect a little bit more money for the state coffers?

I already know the answer, actually.

Posted by Urgutha Forka on June 10, 2010 at 9:36 AM

Is there no more news on Braziel's dropping out than a Slog post that hasn't been updated since the promised press conference?

Posted by Levislade

on June 10, 2010 at 9:51 AM

#3, Asking people nicely to stop using handheld phones while driving didn't work. 28% of collisions happen while someone is holding their phone. Texting while driving increases your collision risk by 2700% which is higher than even drunk driving.
Unless you can install a mandatory cell phone jammer in every single car, the fine looks like the best way to cut this crap out.

Posted by SPG on June 10, 2010 at 10:04 AM

$3Billion deficit (again)-

your Liberal Welfare State in it's death throes....

Posted by Let the Riots begin..... on June 10, 2010 at 10:49 AM

Also going into effect today is WA state's new 911 Good Samaritan Law, which provides immunity to both the caller and the victim in a drug overdose situation.

Two people die every day from overdoses in Washington state -- call 911 to save a life! I've been surprised this law, which has been a ridiculously long time coming, isn't getting more press, to be honest. Here's hoping it's the first in a long line of steps towards better harm reduction laws in our state.

For more information about the new law, see http://stopoverdose.org (web site sponsored by the UW Alcohol & Drug Abuse Institute and the ACLU, among other agencies).

Posted by Meg on June 10, 2010 at 10:51 AM

BP has almos' $300billion in assets. They won't be going under anytime soon.

Posted by Keekee on June 10, 2010 at 10:55 AM

@8 Unless it takes $301 billion to clean the mess up. ( ; =

Posted by subwlf on June 10, 2010 at 10:57 AM

Sorry, Keekee - they're already making plans to file for bankruptcy. No shit.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty

on June 10, 2010 at 10:58 AM

Is your key in the ignition and is it turned on?

Then you're driving.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on June 10, 2010 at 11:03 AM

@3,

That's fine by me. I'm happy to fund services by fining people too self-centered to take even the most basic steps to drive safely.

Posted by keshmeshi on June 10, 2010 at 11:15 AM

And based on what I've seen, this new fine is going to rake in the $$, because it'll take getting pulled over and cited for some drivers out there to get a clue about their talking/texting-while-driving habit.

Posted by COMTE

on June 10, 2010 at 11:20 AM

@6 We'll be fine. Thanks for your concern.

Posted by McGee on June 10, 2010 at 12:07 PM

@5,
If the state is concerned about crashes due to cell phone use (which is a completely valid concern), then they should levy fines larger than 124 dollars or hit them with jail time.

124 dollars isn't going to stop anyone from this behavior, it will only cost them some money. The crashes will still continue, of course.

So I guess the state is more concerned with making a few extra bucks instead of trying to legitimately improve road safety?

Posted by Urgutha Forka on June 10, 2010 at 1:12 PM

@2 - exactly what I'm wondering, especially after reading last week's NY Times article about how people who were laid off at the very beginning of the recession are just now reaching the end of their benefits.

Posted by scharrera on June 10, 2010 at 1:16 PM

@2&16- It's even worse than that. The number was 3,000 lower, but only because last week's number was revised higher by 6,000. So the unrevised number is actually worse by 3,000. Either way you look at it, however, the total difference up or down is less than 1%, which means all the major news organizations are breathlessly reporting a change that amounts to statistical noise.

Posted by Furcifer on June 10, 2010 at 4:51 PM