Remember Abdel Baset al-Megrahi?

He was the Lockerbie bomber. Released last year because he was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer and doctors gave him three months to live.

Well, he is still alive. And doctors now say Abdel Baset al-Megrahi “could survive for 10 years or more”.

Is there a twist to this story? Maybe.

BP admits that in 2007 it “told the U.K. government . . . it was concerned that a delay in concluding a prisoner transfer agreement with the Libyan government might hurt” the deal it had just signed.

Strangely enough Libya formally ratified its deal with BP, but it was then subject to bureaucratic delays until Megrahi’s release last year.

Did the oil giant profit from the Lockerbie bomber’s release? Bret Stephens at Wall Street Journal asks.

Yes, of course they did. And it gives us another good reason for hating this company.

Read Bret’s article here.

When Obama and Medvedev met this week, both leaders took a limo to Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington, Virginia. The two had cheeseburgers and even shared a plate of fries, eating among the regular crowd.

I am not sure what our president is trying to say. That budget is tight those days? That we are just regular guys? That we are tired of the crappy food you get at fancy dinner parties?

But I do like the picture of my president.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

Got old cell phones? Rather than chucking them in a landfill, artists in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, used them to decorate this giant cell phone sculpture as part of the city’s film festival.

Photo by: Csont Zsombor

Source: 11even.wordpress.com

In the wake of prosecutions against swim coaches who abused their athletes, USA Swimming will work with Child Welfare League of America.

CWLA, the nation’s oldest and largest organization dedicated wholly to child welfare, will work with USA Swimming on the creation and expansion of its athlete protection efforts. Additionally, CWLA will work with USA Swimming to conduct an annual audit of its policies and programming, to see that the program remains consistent with industry best practices.

Source: swimnews.com

Black and white photo of US today, by Katie Falkenberg (United States).

About the photo: “At the Remote Area Medical (RAM) clinic in southwestern Virginia, thousands of people gathered outside of the fairgrounds gate each morning before dawn, waiting for their number to be called so they could enter into the clinic to receive free dental, vision, and medical treatment. The people in this photograph were still outside of the gate in the afternoon, hoping to be called before they stopped accepting patients. The family to the left of the photo said that this was a “once-a-year effort to get their eyes and teeth worked on,” so they were willing to wait as long as it took to get in. Most of the people who came to the clinic said that if it were not for RAM, they would go without this vital care. People drove hundreds of miles and waited for hours, even days, sleeping in their cars and tents outside the fairgrounds gate, hoping to make the cut-off of those admitted. Still, at the end of the weekend, some people had to be turned away as time ran out.”

Katie Falkenberg is a freelance photographer based in Los Angeles, California. She began her career photographing the 2004 presidential campaign, which led her to Washington, D.C., where she covered the White House, Capitol Hill, and other stories throughout the nation’s capital. In the fall of 2006, Katie joined the staff of The Washington Times where assignments took her from the hollows of West Virginia to the mountains of Pakistan. Her photography and multimedia work have been awarded by Pictures of the Year International, the White House News Photographers Association, Editor & Publisher, and the NPPA. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, TIME, Rolling Stone, GQ, and Vanity Fair, among others.

Source: vervephoto.wordpress.com

Suddenly, hot coffee got a new meaning.

Federal regulators told a Florida paper Monday that Magic Power Coffee contains a drug similar to that in the best-selling Pfizer pill Viagra.

In fact, the company makes no secret of this. On their website you can read the following: “Magic Power Coffee is the world’s first Passion Coffee. Imagine an incredible coffee that not only tastes great, but magically has an effect on both men and women! With Magic Power Coffee, your special moments can increase to a level you only dreamed.”

The instant coffee, marketed as a dietary supplement, contains a substance similar to sildenafil, the active ingredient in the prescription erectile dysfunction drug Viagra. Sildenafil can interact with nitrate-type medications commonly taken by patients with hypertension, causing dangerous drops in blood pressure.

“Consumers may assume its harmless and poses no health risk,” said Deborah Autor, director of the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research’s compliance office. “In fact, Magic Power Coffee can cause serious harm.”

So be careful out there!

Source: extragoodshit.phlap.net

Life published a collection of hot sexy sex World Cup babe photos. Not really from this year’s world cup, and some probably not even from a World Cup at all. And some not even sexy.

But who cares?

Tony Hayward, BP’s CEO, is driving down BP’s goodwill even further.

On Saturday, he was in Britain’s Isle of Wight Saturday taking in a yacht race.

Raymond Canevari, 59, of Pensacola, Fla., an artist says he is insulted by Hayward’s attendance at the race.

“I think everyone has the right do what they want in their free time, but he doesn’t have the right to have free time at all,” says Canevari. “Not until this crisis is resolved…”

Sources: Telegraph.co.uk  npr.org  Svd

Is this the guy who promised that he will “make things right“? And wasn’t this fooling around with boat races mr. Svanberg’s thing?

World Cup in soccer can to lead to international demand for the noisy vuvuzela horns.

Neil van Schalkwyk, who began mass-producing vuvuzelas in South Africa, said the popularity of the horns at the games will bring international demand among fans of the sport, especially in Britain.

For those of you who don’t care much about soccer, you are in good company with the british fans. They very often find other distractions at soccer games. Like beer and fighting.

Source: tumblr.com

OkCupid.com analyzed over 500,000 first contacts on their dating site. They looked at keywords and phrases, how they affected reply rates, and what trends were statistically significant. The result: a set of rules for what you should and shouldn’t say when introducing yourself. Online dating advice at its best?

As an example, they took a close look at salutations. After all, the way you choose to start your first message to someone is the “first impression of your first impression.”

The top three most popular ways to say “hello” (Hi, Hey, Hello) were all actually bad beginnings. The slangy “holla” and “yo” performed slightly better. But the more informal standard greetings: “how’s it going“, “what’s up“, and “howdy” all did very well.

Maybe they set a more casual tone that people prefer.

The quote from Carl-Henric Svanberg should speak for itself.

“[Obama] is frustrated, because he cares about the small people. And we care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don’t care, but that is not the case in BP. We care about the small people.”

Svanberg later apologized for his clumsy choice of words, and a BP spokesman attributed it to an error in translation. But BP’s chairman really should have known better.

In my humble opinion, Svanberg is a typical example of a man who became CEO just because he had some nice buddies. He was never a good leader. And he is definitely not suited to be the chairman in a big international company.

Swedish Reactions: SVD,  Expressen,  DN,  GP

American media: Washington Post,  NY Daily News,  News Tribune

Columnist Matthew Lynn argues that BP should tell whiny Americans to take a hike.

He gives three reasons why BP’s current tactics will never work, and why they should just pack up and go somewhere else.

First, the U.S. is guilty of crazy double standards. Who refused to do anything about climate change, or even to put sensible taxes on gas? If US insist on being addicted to cheap oil, the country has to recognize there are risks attached. So grow up, and stop acting like children!

Second, BP likely is finished in the U.S. There is no form of apology that will make any difference. The average American consumer now hates BP. So, BP should fight every lawsuit. Refuse every claim above the bare minimum.

Lynn urge BP not to waste a lot of money on an army of advertising agencies and PR consultants trying to restore company image. It’s not going to work, so there is no point even trying.

Third, Lynn says, BP’s job is to look after the owners of the company, not make itself acceptable to a country that doesn’t want it anymore.

Fortunately, BP has a very weak chairman in the Swedish Carl-Henric Svanberg.

Svanberg is the former CEO of Ericsson, a Swedish telecom company, where he was only noted for playing around with sailboats. He knew little, if anything at all, about the telecom business. And he, of course, thought that his smooth ride in life would continue that way. Right now, he probably doesn’t even know what hit him, and he doesn’t know how to act. In Britain he is now called “the invisible man”.

He will not be able to take the tough decisions that would help BP as a company. Meaning, he will drag BP shareholders down with him. Until he is replaced. Which must happen sooner or later.

Then, I have no doubt, the will do just what Lynn says they should do. Just pack up and leave.

Swedish media: DN  Expressen

British Media: The Indipendent  The Guardian

Lynn’s Column in Dallas News

Today, June 12, it is somewhere between 40 million and 110 million gallons of oil that have gushed into the Mexican Gulf since April 20. 11 workers were killed and it the accident triggered the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Now hitting the Alabama beaches hard.

Officials from BP say the only way to permanently stop the well is drilling a relief well. That cannot be finished before August.

U.S. President Barack Obama has escalated his criticism of BP. The company’s chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg is called for a meeting with the president on Wednesday. And the US coast guard has now given the company 48 hours to come up more effective measures to collect the gushing oil.

Obama has also discussed the issue with British Prime Minister Cameron.

In addition to the potential for many billions in fines, BP is responsible for paying all cleanup costs and maybe $75 million for economic damages. The BP share is going downhill. And the anger against the company is growing everywhere.

Still you see those ads everywhere: “We will get this done. We will make this right”.

But the question is: Will they?

Swedish Newspers: SVD  Expressen

US Media: Dallas News  Al.com  Miami Herald

British Media: The Guardian