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For memory, it offers a 2 GB DDR2 RAM along with a 320 GB SATA hard disk drive. This HCL Laptops integrates Bluetooth (version 2.0) with a 2 mega pixel web camera and a Dual Array Internal Mic for the multimedia support. It weighs around 2.4kg, and embeds an on board 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet, 56K modem, and inbuilt speaker system.

Inspiron 13 is a Dell Laptops that features MBT Women’s Shoes an 8X CD/DVD Burner that comes along a Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive. It features a 2.1 Ghz Intel Pentium Dual Core T4300 processor with an 800 Mhz along a 1MB cache. For operating system it features a Genuine Windows Vista Home Basic Edition with Service Pack 1. As an added security feature it offers McAfee Security Center, with a 30-Day Trial period. A 2GB DDR2 memory along with a 160GB hard drive gives you plenty of space to store your favorite MBT Kisumu Shoes music, videos, and games. This Dell Laptop features a 13.3 inch display, which is capable of delivering a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels in a HD (High Definition) format.

For Internet browsing, this device offers Wifi facility (Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini-Card), and a 2 mega pixel web camera that gives you the convenience MBT Men’s Shoes of video chat. The Dell Laptops also integrates Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 to handle graphic related concerns.

Timeline 1810T is an Acer laptops, which features 3D graphics and a 16:9 HD display that delivers superior viewing experience. Now with travelling you might also need a good battery backup, this device justifies the statement, and offers a comprehensive 8 hour long battery life. It features a 1.30 GHz Intel Pentium processor SU4100 (2 MB L2 cache), supporting Intel® 64 architecture (1810TZ) for efficient multitasking. For memory this Acer Laptop Finding Legitimate Work from Home Benefits of becoming a work at home transcriber features a 4GB DDR2 SDRAM support along with a 320GB SATA hard disk drive. The 11.6 inch display is capable of delivering a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels.

1.Target: A lot of people know that they need a sign but don?t know what they want the sign to achieve for them. It goes back to simply knowing who your target markets are and appealing to them. If you are a Newsagent then primary colour schemes work well and simplicity is often the key, if you are a woman?s high end fashion shop then branding is important and you shouldn?t cut corners on the production of the sign.

2.Get noticed for the right reasons: Some business try to get noticed at all costs with flashing neon signs and some businesses are so low key that you wouldn?t MBT Men’s Shoes even know that they are there. Getting the balance right is important, use a variety of signage solutions such as projecting signs, fascia signs and window graphics to convey information to your ?would be? customers. MBT Lami

3.Light up: Use lighting effectively, there are a multitude of different options for illuminating your sign such as neon, LED?s or fluorescent tubes. Each has there own benefits and choosing the right type can help your sign to be highly effective. For example if your sign is likely to be a permanent fixture and on 24 hours a day LED lit would be the best option as it uses the least amount of electricity and is the longest lasting. You can also use lighting in different ways to give different types of illumination such as halo illumination or face illumination.

4.Brand: Get the branding right for the sign seems obvious but a lot of people fall down on this. This is where the design aspect comes in, you should try to have a clear vision of what you want your sign to look like but take advice from the experts when it comes to manufacture as if you can get them involved early on in the design stage it LoudMo Increases Affiliate Payouts With New 2 00 Thursdays Program can save you a lot of time and money come the end of the project.

5.Be Unique: Don?t be scared to be unique and try something different, at the end of the day being in business is often all about standing out from the crowd and don?t try to copy your competitors but be bold and be different.

The NB30 Touch features an Atom N450 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB or 250GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Starter Editionhas, a 10.1-inch matte LED touchscreen has a resolution of 1024×600 and is viewable outdoors. The MBT Women’s Shoes 6-cell 48Wh battery lasted for around 7 hours. A few negatives included the low brightness of the display, poor touchpad buttons, no swivel hinge and a reasonably large price premium to get the touch model over the standard Samsung NB30.

To ensure full mobility, The Samsung NB30 Touch adopts the most advanced communication technologies: Wireless LAN 802.11b/gper superfast Internet access mode, 10/100 Ethernet card, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, integrated webcam, ideal for sharing information and communicating with colleagues via chat or video conference. There is also Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, a 3-in-2 memory card reader and three USB 2.0 ports.

The hard drive is protected from MBT Lami shocks and vibrations, thanks to the solution Antishock, the fall sensor that protects data stored in an emergency. The chassis is robust and resistant to deflate, thanks to a reinforced structure. The keyboard is liquid-resistant. NB30 Samsung touchscreen NB30 also has the solution Battery Extender Manager to further extend battery life, improving performance and reducing fuel consumption netbook. The anti-glare screen, opaque, not only is fully visible outdoors or in bright environments, but does not retain fingerprints. The Samsung NB30-JT01IT Using Catalogs To Grow Your Business price about 164 more than the NB30?s base price, which reaches the equivalent of 380 in Europe.

1.Target: A lot of people know that they need a sign but don?t know what they want the sign to achieve for them. It goes back to simply knowing who your target markets are and MBT Men’s Shoes appealing to them. If you are a Newsagent then primary colour schemes work well and simplicity is often the key, if you are a woman?s high end fashion shop then branding is important and you shouldn?t cut corners on the production of the sign.

2.Get noticed for the right reasons: Some business try to get noticed at all costs MBT Sport with flashing neon signs and some businesses are so low key that you wouldn?t even know that they are there. Getting the balance right is important, use a variety of signage solutions such as projecting signs, fascia signs and window graphics to convey information to your ?would be? customers.

3.Light up: Use lighting effectively, there are a multitude of different options for illuminating your sign such as neon, LED?s or fluorescent tubes. Each has there own benefits and choosing the right type can help your sign to be highly effective. For example if your sign is likely to be a permanent MBT Lami fixture and on 24 hours a day LED lit would be the best option as it uses the least amount of electricity and is the longest lasting. You can also use lighting in different ways to give different types of illumination such as halo illumination or face illumination.

4.Brand: Get the branding right for the sign seems obvious but a lot of people fall down on this. This is where the design aspect comes in, you should try to have a clear vision of what you want your sign to look like but take advice from the experts when it comes to manufacture as if you can get them involved early on in the design stage it can save you a lot of time and money come the end of the project.

5.Be Unique: Can Anyone Start to trade Forex with FapTurbo Don?t be scared to be unique and try something different, at the end of the day being in business is often all about standing out from the crowd and don?t try to copy your competitors but be bold and be different.

Rules of the ringer game

The game can be played with either 2 or 4 players divided into 2 separate teams. The game boards must be 18 feet apart(measured from center peg to center peg.

2 players

The players stand together at one game board. The youngest players starts by throwing a quoit(ring) at the opposite game board using an underhand toss. Play MBT Women’s Shoes alternates between the two players until all of the quoits have been thrown. Players the walk to the other board, tally the score, and begin play again.

4 players

Teams split apart, standing at opposite game boards. You will be standing at a game board with your opponent. Each of you will have 2 quoits. The youngest players starts by throwing a quoit toward the opposite MBT Kisumu Shoes game board using an underhand toss. Play alternates between the two players until all of the quoits have been thrown. The players at the opposite game board will tally the score, remove the quoits MBT Sport and begin the next round of play.

The winner in the 2 or 4 player is the first person or team with 21 points.

Scoring a game of ringers

Ringer: A quoit that completely encircles the peg is worth 3 points. If both teams score a ringer then only the top ringer counts. If the same player scores more than one ringer they are worth 3 points each.
Leaner: A quoit that lands leaning against the peg is worth 1 point.
Dead: A quoit that lands off the board or touches the ground in any way. No points are awarded and the quoit must be removed.
If there are no ringers or leaners, the quoit closest to the peg is worth 1 point.

Hopefully, you have a full understanding of the rules and scoring of the ringer game. If you happen Samsung NB30 Touch NB30 JT01IT review to have any questions about the game of ringers, contact the guys at theringergame.com.

Barack Obama did not descend from the clouds. Polling was involved, as were focus groups and the usual marketing machinery. You didn?t hear much about number crunching in 2008; you don?t hear much about it now. Obama couldn?t, and can?t, be seen as unsoiled and sui generis if his handlers talk too much about mechanics. But that does not mean they aren?t busy. In fact, they are nearly frantic, as Democrats face the possibility MBT Sport of losing not only the House but the Senate.

Obama?s lead pollster, Joel Benenson, and veteran Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin have zeroed in recently on one particular slice of the 2010 electorate: what Obama senior counselor David Axelrod calls ?indie men??independent male voters. Obama won over these voters in 2008, and they may be all that stands between Democrats and catastrophe this fall. But this time he?ll have to use a completely different strategy to lure them back.

It?s easy enough to understand the arithmetic of the midterms. Republicans are united and motivated, if only by their almost pathological fear of the president. They will turn out. Staunch Democrats, by contrast, are long past the giddy high of Obama?s historic victory. Minorities and other liberals are disappointed by what they regard as Obama?s lack of zeal?and he isn?t on the ballot in any case. These deep-fried Democrats will not show up to vote at anywhere near the record levels of 2008, and neither will young and/or first-time voters, who rarely come out for midterms. So if Democrats are to avoid a wipe-out, they need to protect some of the big gains they made two years ago among self-described independents, who, in some polls, make up 40 percent of likely voters in November. And most independents (51 percent) are males. ?They?re a significant number,? says Mark Mellman, the polltaker for Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, ?and a decisive number.?

As Butch Cassidy once asked, who are those guys? They don?t differ much from the country as a whole in income and education, though they are slightly younger on the average. They are overwhelmingly white (87 percent in the Benenson-Garin poll). There MBT M.Walk are few evangelical Christians among them, but more Catholics than in the overall electorate. Most important, they?re not a parliament of Solomons, respectfully weighing the platforms of the two parties. ?They are highly disdainful of both parties,? Garin told me. ?They kind of hate everybody in positions of power, including government and big corporations.? They do not like ideological rhetoric, and they focus on concrete results. In other words, they?re Americans, but more so.

The Democrats? support among this group has fallen to as low as 35 percent in some polls. The reasons are clear. They do not believe that Obama?s actions have produced results?and for these practical voters, nothing else matters. The 787 billion stimulus bill is widely regarded as an expensive, unfocused dud, even when measured against the cautious claims the Obama camp originally made for it. Health-care reform remains, for most voters, a 2,000-page, impenetrable, and largely irrelevant mystery. The BP oil spill has hurt Obama?s ability to fend off GOP charges that he?s ineffective as a leader.

Democrats are hoping to win back this group with one strategy: attacking the Republicans, individually and as a group. Asked the standard generic question about which party?s congressional candidates they are likely to support in November, ?indie males? prefer The Highest-Paid White House Staffers the GOP by a margin in the teens. But after pollsters bombard these voters with negative information about GOP proposals, the margin drops to only 2 percent. In the Dems? favor is the fact that these voters believe, by 52 to 34 percent, that Obama is dealing with economic problems he mostly inherited. ?They understand that most of this is not his fault,? Garin says.

The plan is not to blame George W. Bush, or to seem to be blaming anyone about the past, but to warn that a return to the GOP brand?which isn?t popular either?would be a disaster. ?The key is to be specific,? says Mellman. That means a lot of talk about how Republicans favor tax cuts for the rich, tax subsidies for global corporations, lax supervision of consumer banks?in other words, the familiar approach Democrats have used for decades. The goal, if not to win over these guys, is to keep them away from the polls. It is not a strategy for which Obama is temperamentally suited, but at this point it may be his only hope. Just don?t expect him to mention the polls.

Howard Fineman is also the author of The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Define and Inspire Our Country.

It was hard to believe BP when it announced oil had stopped gushing into the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, July 15. It had taken 87 days. There was relief but little jubilation: it will take many years to clean the shores and the birds, and for the sea to begin to repair itself from the onslaught of poisonous oil. Surely MBT Women’s Shoes we can no longer call it a ?spill??it seems too light and trite a word.

What?s even more troubling is that in Nigeria, the country that has arguably suffered most from oil drilling, oil ?accidents??large and small?occur almost weekly, and we hear little about it. A lethal combination of sloppiness, corruption, weak regulation, and lack of accountability has meant that each year since the 1960s, there has been a spill the size of the Exxon Valdez?s into the Niger Delta. Large purple slicks cover once fertile fields, and rivers are clogged with oil leaked decades ago. It has been called the ?black tide?: a stain of thick, gooey oil that has oozed over vast tracts of land and poisoned the air for millions of Africans. In some areas fish and birds have disappeared: the swamps are silent.

Americans consume a quarter of the world?s oil?and 10 percent of the oil we consume comes from Nigeria. Why are we not worried and angry about this? Or at least demanding global accountability from companies we support? Especially now that we can see how destructive it is for those who depend on the sea for their livelihood, how foul the impact is, and how devastating the results of poor decisions and ill-equipped response teams are.

Many Nigerians watched, amazed, as Americans berated BP for the Deepwater Horizon spill, then saw progress: our president visited the site and demanded immediate action and compensation. Not so in Africa. According to a group of independent experts, between 9million and 13million barrels of oil have been spilled in the Niger Delta since drilling began in 1958. Cleanups have been halfhearted, and compensation has been paltry. The Nigerian government estimates that 7,000 ?spills,? large and small, occurred between 1970 and 2000. Locals complain of sore eyes, breathing problems, and lesions on their skin. It?s sickening stuff: MBT Kisumu Shoes a 2009 Amnesty International report found many have lost basic human rights?health, access to food, clean water, and an ability to work. Today about 2,000 oil-polluted sites still need cleaning up.

There are many reasons this has occurred: sabotage, faulty equipment, corroded infrastructure. The regulations are weak, rarely enforced, and there are few punitive measures to ensure that spills are managed, MBT M.Walk monitored, and cleaned up. The oil companies are, effectively, asked to self-regulate. The new Nigerian president, aptly named Goodluck Jonathan, has promised to hold them accountable, but the regulatory agencies are toothless, weakened by decades of rule by corrupt dictators who acted in concert with oil companies and siphoned off much of the oil wealth (80

For a brief moment, Naoto Kan looked like the anchor who could end Japan?s drift. Where his predecessor, Yukio Hatoyama, was a patrician dogged by corruption scandals and perceived as incapable of leading his own government, Kan came into the premiership stressing his own middle-class background. He pledged to recommit the governing Democratic Party of Japan to its ambitious agenda: reversing the country?s long decline by reforming its bureaucracy and social safety net while jump-starting the economy. Moreover, his commitment to replace an aging U.S. air base on Okinawa signaled a possible end to a dispute that had soured relations with Washington and led to Hatoyama?s resignation.

A mere month later, Japan is once again mired in political confusion. In July the DPJ fell well short of a majority in the upper-house elections. It will now have to find either permanent coalition partners or, failing that, parties willing to cooperate on an issue-by-issue basis. Kan has survived his party?s defeat but faces a party leadership election in September that looks certain to MBT Lami be contentious. The result is that the DPJ government will have little choice but to moderate its goals. Accordingly, for U.S. policymakers interested in strengthening the relationship often described as ?the cornerstone of peace and security? in East Asia, Japan?s domestic political environment will continue to serve as an obstacle. For the foreseeable future, no government will be in a position to advance major new initiatives, especially those pertaining to Japan?s security policy. And the sad reality is that even if the DPJ had won a convincing victory, Washington?s interest in a more active security partnership?in which Japan would spend more on its armed forces, participate more in overseas operations, and perhaps even revise or reinterpret its Constitution to permit self-defense within the alliance?would continue to face serious obstacles.

As the government?s fiscal situation worsens, it becomes less and less likely that Tokyo will take up an ambitious security policy agenda. Fixing the government?s finances is a key step to addressing the other pocketbook issues with which voters are concerned. It is unlikely that a government implementing controversial budget cuts and tax increases would also take up the contentious question of how it should contribute to the defense of Japan and security in East and Central Asia. Its fear would be that the public would punish leaders perceived as focused on problems far from Japanese shores as it implements policies that hurt Japanese households. Moreover, for a cash-strapped government, the status quo, in which Japan limits its defense spending while subsidizing U.S. bases in Japan, continues to suit Japan?s interests. The logic of the Yoshida doctrine?which North Korea Report Alleges Amputations Without Anesthesia was formulated during the early postwar period, and which called for low defense spending combined with an alliance founded on U.S. bases in Japan?remains relevant today: Japanese leaders once saw the doctrine as the key to postwar economic development, and now the same policies provide resources for shoring up Japan?s social safety net and halting economic decline.

The irony, then, is that despite the DPJ?s desire for a more equal relationship with the United States, the political and economic logic of austerity suggests that Japan will likely grow even more dependent on the U.S. for its security, with the difference being that the relationship will be more fragile. For Japan, every U.S. initiative toward China will be scrutinized for signs that the U.S. is abandoning Japan in the region. Similarly, for Washington, every initiative to deepen cooperation within East Asia that excludes the U.S. will be questioned and may prompt grumbling about Japanese free-riding. In other words, these are the makings of a tumultuous decade for the alliance.

What can Washington do to minimize the friction? To a certain extent, the Obama administration has already taken several steps in the right direction. Unlike its predecessor, the current administration is less wedded to Japanese military contributions and gladly accepted a sizable Japanese financial contribution to the reconstruction of Afghanistan. When not feuding over Okinawa, the administration has made clear that it wants to work with Tokyo in areas like climate change. But the U.S. needs to be patient?especially on Okinawa. It needs to accept that in the months and years to come, anything beyond a limited military alliance focused on the defense of Japan is a nonstarter for Japan?s beleaguered politicians.

Harris, a doctoral student in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, writes the blog Observing Japan.

Barack Obama did not descend from the clouds. Polling was involved, as were focus groups and the usual marketing machinery. You didn?t hear much about number crunching in 2008; you don?t hear much about it now. Obama couldn?t, and can?t, be seen as unsoiled and sui generis if his handlers talk too much about mechanics. But that does not mean they aren?t busy. In fact, they are nearly frantic, as Democrats face the possibility of losing not only the House but the Senate.

Obama?s lead pollster, Joel Benenson, and veteran Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin have zeroed in recently on one particular slice of the 2010 electorate: what Obama senior counselor David Axelrod calls ?indie men??independent male voters. Obama won over these voters in 2008, and they may be all that stands between Democrats and catastrophe this fall. But this time he?ll have to use a completely different strategy to lure them back.

It?s MBT Women’s Shoes easy enough to understand the arithmetic of the midterms. Republicans are united and motivated, if only by their almost pathological fear of the president. They will turn out. Staunch Democrats, by contrast, are long past the giddy high of Obama?s historic victory. Minorities and other liberals are disappointed by what they regard as Obama?s lack of zeal?and he isn?t on the ballot in any case. These deep-fried Democrats MBT Sport will not show up to vote at anywhere near the record levels of 2008, and neither will young and/or first-time voters, who rarely come out for midterms. So if Democrats are to avoid a wipe-out, they need to protect some of the big gains they made two years ago among self-described independents, who, in some polls, make up 40 percent of likely voters in November. And most independents (51 percent) are males. ?They?re a significant number,? says Mark Mellman, the polltaker for Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, ?and a decisive number.?

As Butch Cassidy once asked, who are those guys? They don?t differ much from the country as a whole in income and education, though they are slightly younger on the average. They are overwhelmingly white (87 percent in the Benenson-Garin poll). There are few evangelical Christians among them, but more Catholics than in the overall electorate. Most important, they?re not a parliament of Solomons, respectfully weighing the platforms of the two parties. ?They are highly disdainful of both parties,? Garin told me. ?They kind of hate everybody in positions of power, including government and big corporations.? They do not like ideological rhetoric, and they focus on concrete results. In other words, they?re Americans, but more so.

The Democrats? support among this group has fallen to as low as 35 percent in some polls. The reasons are clear. They do not believe that Obama?s actions have produced results?and for these practical voters, nothing else matters. The 787 billion stimulus bill is widely regarded as an expensive, unfocused dud, even when measured against the cautious claims the Obama camp originally made for MBT Lami it. Health-care reform remains, for most voters, a 2,000-page, impenetrable, and largely irrelevant mystery. The BP oil spill has hurt Obama?s ability to fend off GOP charges that he?s ineffective as a leader.

Democrats are hoping to win back this group with one strategy: attacking the Republicans, individually and as a group. Asked the standard generic question about which party?s congressional candidates they are likely to support in November, ?indie males? prefer the GOP by a margin in the teens. But after pollsters bombard these voters with negative information about GOP proposals, the margin drops to only 2 percent. In the Dems? favor is the fact that these voters believe, by 52 to 34 percent, that Obama is dealing with economic problems he mostly inherited. ?They understand that most of this is not his fault,? Garin says.

The In Apple’s iPhone 4 Blunder, Form Trumped Function plan is not to blame George W. Bush, or to seem to be blaming anyone about the past, but to warn that a return to the GOP brand?which isn?t popular either?would be a disaster. ?The key is to be specific,? says Mellman. That means a lot of talk about how Republicans favor tax cuts for the rich, tax subsidies for global corporations, lax supervision of consumer banks?in other words, the familiar approach Democrats have used for decades. The goal, if not to win over these guys, is to keep them away from the polls. It is not a strategy for which Obama is temperamentally suited, but at this point it may be his only hope. Just don?t expect him to mention the polls.

Howard Fineman is also the author of The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Define and Inspire Our Country.

Eighty four days after it began, with probably180 million gallons spilled, the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico may be at an end. BP?s new cap should stop the flow. But the questions over the oil giant?s record endure. Company insiders, past and present, say the Deepwater Horizon disaster was all too foreseeable. They describe a culture of arrogance and risk-taking spanning decades. Profits, it seems, always come before safety and whistle-blowers are intimidated, pressured out, or fired. Though CEO Tony Hayward promised to make the company safer when he took over in 2007, the pressure to cut costs intensified as he struggled to please shareholders amidst an economic downturn.

Hayward started at BP as a rig geologist in 1982. That same year, almost three decades before the gulf spill and six years before the Exxon Valdez coated the Alaskan coastline with 11 million gallons of oil, James Woodle had just taken a job with the Alyeska oil consortium at Valdez in Alaska?majority-owned by BP. Among other responsibilities, the retired Coast Guard captain was in charge of spill recovery.

COMPLETE COVERAGE: Deepwater Horizon Spill »

But when Woodle arrived, he tells NEWSWEEK, he was appalled. ?They had cut back on equipment, on staff.? When he asked about the cuts, he was told very pointedly: ?safety doesn?t make money.?

In early April 1984, after arguments with his superiors, Woodle wrote a letter to the head of Alyeska, George Nelson: ?Due to a reduction in manning, age of equipment, limited training and lack of personnel, serious doubt exists that Alyeska would be able to contain and clean up effectively a medium- or large-size oil spill,? he said, according to testimony given to Congress in 1991 [PDF].

A few weeks later he was notified that there was mail waiting for him, registered delivery. ?It was a very short letter,? says Woodle. ?Just a couple of lines. It indicated there had been rumors of an affair between me and the terminal secretary and that this was a written warning for insubordination.? He says he assumed that, as he wasn?t conducting an affair with anyone, he could just continue as usual and ?it would go away.? But a few weeks later Woodle was called to his boss?s office on a Friday afternoon and fired without explanation, beyond ?insubordination.? An Alyeska spokesperson said he could not confirm or deny Woodle?s account. Nelson, who retired in 1989, could not be reached for comment.

Five years later, on March 24 1989, Woodle?s phone rang. It was an old colleague from Alaska. The Exxon Valdez had run aground on the Bligh Reef, and was leaking oil. Though the disaster came to be tagged with Exxon?s name, Alyeska, and the BP operatives who helped run it, were the designated first responders. ?I knew it would be a disaster [if a spill happened]?they didn?t have the equipment or the men,? he says.

Reports he hears about the Deepwater Horizon in the media and from his sources in the Coast Guard are, Woodle says, eerily familiar. The spill contingency MBT Women’s Shoes plans for the Valdez terminal were useless, he says. ?The attitude was that you don?t have to worry about spills, because they will probably never happen. The only important thing was the number of pages in the plan. The more pages the better. It was huge, but cut-and-pasted and padded with a lot of images of the shoreline.? As NEWSWEEK has noted, the BP plan for Gulf of Mexico operations was long on verbiage, at 583 pages, but short on specifics and looked like it had been repurposed from previous projects: It cited an expert who had been dead for four years, and one section even laid out plans for saving walruses in the event of a spill. The animals do not live anywhere near the Gulf of Mexico.

In 1984, Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation official Dan Lawn was hearing similar corner-cutting stories from other employees too scared to report their concerns to their oil-company bosses. When he wrote them up in memos to his superiors, the attitude toward him at the terminal changed, he says.

Guards from Wackenhut, the Florida-based security firm that manned the gates at Valdez, began preventing him from entering the facility. ?They?d say I would have to notify them in advance, get permission from the right person,? Lawn tells NEWSWEEK. ?But they wouldn?t tell me who that was.? Journalists from The Guardian, New York Times, PBS and other outlets have reported similar frustrating tactics in the Gulf of Mexico.

Though Lawn didn?t know it at the time, he was also under surveillance by Wackenhut. The company, at the direction of Alyeska, was going through his credit records, his trash, and his mail and having him followed [PDF]. He and five other whistle-blowers, who had also been spied on, sued; and reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with Wackenhut and Alyeska in 1993. The federal judge in the case, Stanley Sporkin, described the actions as ?horrendous? and ?reminiscent of Nazi Germany.? A spokesperson for Wackenhut declined to answer any questions about its work for BP, past or present, saying the company was ?unable to comment on specific operational matters.?

Less than five months after the Alaska spill, Lawn was reassigned from his position at the DEC, accused of being unprofessional and unobjective ?towards those we regulate,? according to a memo obtained by the Anchorage Daily News at the time. Staffers suspected Alyeska had exercised its influence. A similar relationship between government and Big Oil surfaced in 2002, when an Alaskan regulator resigned in protest. [PDF] Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a group that advocates for state and federal environmental employees, conducted a damning survey of 132 DEC employees shortly afterward. The majority felt that the DEC viewed its ?primary ?customer? to be the individuals and businesses that seek permits rather than the public or the [environmental] resource.? [PDF]

Little had changed, it seems, by the time of Deepwater Horizon. Some reports have suggested that the Minerals Management Service, part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, allowed oil companies to pencil in their own inspection reports, to be gone over with a pen by officials. Strong-arm tactics like those employed against Woodle and Lawn have not been reported in the Gulf of Mexico. But Stephen Stone, a roustabout injured on the Deepwater Horizon rig, told the House Judiciary Committee that he was asked to sign a document, in exchange for 5,000 compensation for the loss of his personal possessions, that stated that he had ?suffered no injury.? He refused. [PDF]

BP’s most deadly disaster happened three years after regulators warned of safety issues in Alaska. On the morning of March 23, 2005, pressure buildup at the company’s Texas City refinery led to a ?flammable liquid geyser? that was ignited by backfire from an idling diesel pickup truck, according to a Chemical and Safety Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) report. An explosion tore through the large facility. Fifteen people were killed and 170 were injured. Houses were damaged almost a mile away.

The CSB conclusions were damning. The disaster ?was caused by organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation. Warning signs of a possible disaster were present for several years, but company officials did not intervene effectively to prevent it. The extent of the serious safety culture deficiencies was further revealed when the refinery experienced two additional serious incidents just a few months after the March 2005 disaster.?

In the aftermath of the Texas City incident, BP officials told the Houston Chronicle that Hayward?s leadership had ?fundamentally changed? the culture at the company. Cost-cutting efforts, they said, ?launched with the arrival of CEO Tony Hayward in 2007, have not come at the expense of safety. Rather, they say, they have elevated the role of safety in operations.?

But recent statistics show that BP is still among the least safe companies in the industry. Not including the 11 who died on the Deepwater Horizon rig when it exploded in April, 18 employees lost their lives at BP facilities last year. The company?s nearest peer, Exxon Mobil, had eight deaths. In the past three years BP has had 760 ?wilful egregious safety violations? at its refineries, according to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration. Exxon Mobil, which operates a similar number of refineries, has had just one.

A tension between safety and a need to boost profits was hinted at in a meeting Hayward called in early 2008. In that year BP was bottom of the six major oil companies in terms of growth. In March a Morgan Stanley analyst, Neil Perry, was called to a company gathering in Phoenix to give an outsider?s perspective to Hayward and the leaders of BP?s major divisions. Perry?s review was grim: he called for deep cuts in expenses.

Perry, according to a report in the May 2008 issue of Horizon, BP?s internal publication [PDF], told leaders that ?BP has failed consistently on upstream project delivery and downstream reliability. But that the organization was ?sitting on a goldmine? of assets that could help it close the gap on competitors.? By the end of the cost-cutting that followed, more MBT M.Walk than 6,500 jobs were eliminated?almost 10 percent of BP?s workforce?according to The Wall Street Journal. Insiders are reported to have spoken of ?draconian? measures and a heavy emphasis on production targets.

In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, multiple reports have found that BP managers pushed on with drilling on the project, to meet completion deadlines, despite serious safety concerns about the well. Stone, the roustabout injured in the explosion, later told the House Judiciary Committee that he was angry because the companies involved with the well were ?needlessly rushing to make money faster, while cutting corners.?

Brent Coon, a lawyer who is representing Stone in a legal action against BP and has investigated the company over several years, says the push for profits was a wider problem. He criticizes BP?s recent cost cuts and ?skewed? employee bonus incentives for creating a culture that puts dollars before safety. Money at BP is directed at ?early completions, production, and saving money,? he says. ?The thing about safety is that it represents no return on your investment.? Indeed, reports suggest that those aboard the Deepwater Horizon stood to get an early completion bonus.

Coon?s views, and the reported incentives in the Gulf of Mexico, echo Woodle?s experiences at Valdez 25 years ago: each senior employee then, Woodle says, was rated on how much they reduced costs. ?It was how you got ahead. They go in like gangbusters when there?s dollars to be made, but they soon cut back. And safety goes first.?

Toby Odone, a spokesperson for BP, confirmed that the company does require employees to sign individual performance contracts and awards bonuses based on those targets, but strongly denied accusations of a culture of recklessness. ?It?s clearly nonsense,? he says. ?Why on earth would anyone put profit before safety?? Odone also denied that efforts to keep journalists from reporting on the spill and limiting the public relations damage to BP?s stock price, were officially sanctioned. ?It is BP?s policy,? he says, ?that people have the right to talk to the press if they wish to.?

Wackenhut, the firm that kept Dan Lawn out of the Valdez terminal, is now part of Danish security firm G4S. It is providing guards for BP in the gulf region. Journalist Naomi Klein, on assignment for The Guardian, and her husband Avi Lewis, host of Al Jazeera English?s Fault Lines, had made repeated requests to talk to staff at the Unified Command Center, where efforts to combat the spill are coordinated. In late May they drove up to the compound?s gates. They were confronted by Wackenhut security guards, and recorded the encounter in a video provided here by Al Jazeera English.

Al Jazeera English

?It was almost funny,? Klein tells NEWSWEEK. ?They told us we needed permission from the right person to enter. We asked who we should talk to, and they said they couldn?t tell us. When we said we just wanted the right name, they called for backup,? she said. It is, as NEWSWEEK reported a month after the spill, by no means the only report that suggests a tacit policy to keep reporters away.

Freelance photographer Michael Appleton was on assignment for The New York Times in the region. He was shooting a cleanup team in hazmat suits combing a beach on Dauphin Island in Alabama, he tells NEWSWEEK. ?They were picking their way among a lot of beachgoers, people in bikinis, little kids, and it made for great, kind of absurd, pictures.?

A man and a woman in black T shirts pulled up in a four-wheeler. ?You?re not allowed to photograph here,? said the man, who did not identify himself. ?You can?t photograph these crews and you can?t talk to them.? Appleton replied that it was a public beach, and that they had no right to tell him to leave. They drove away, only to return 10 minutes later. ?You can?t do this,? said the woman this time, ?you have to get out of here.? The man chimed in, ?this is your last warning.?

The police eventually arrived. ?The officer was understanding,? said Appleton. ?He said I had every right to be on the beach and to photograph what I wanted. But that he was afraid for my safety if he or other officers were not around.?

At about the same time Appleton was trying to report on the spill, Hayward was asked, on ABC News, about the many safety violations his company had accrued under his leadership. ?Much of that record,? he said, ?relates to a prior period and our absolute focus the last three or four years has been on safe and reliable operations.? In response to a question about Hayward?s leadership and allegations of a culture of recklessness, BP spokesperson Odone tells NEWSWEEK that the company has reduced injury rates and spills 75 percent since 1999, planned safety changes since the Texas City explosion, and appointed an independent expert to oversee their implementation.

On Tuesday, May 25, not long before Hayward?s ABC interview, there was Who Is Al-Shabab? another, scarcely reported, leak on the Alyeska Trans-Alaska Pipeline, still majority-owned by BP. Reports suggest that 200,000 barrels of crude oil escaped. Assurances were given. ?We will not start back up,? said an Alyeska spokesperson, echoing many of her predecessors, ?until we are absolutely comfortable that it?s safe.? The pipeline was restarted on May 28.

As the cap settles over one of America?s greatest environmental disasters, deepwater-drilling operations also continue. BP expects an ambitious project in Alaska?the company will drill two miles down, and then sideways for six to eight miles, to reach 105 million barrels of oil?to be online by 2011.