Contrarian Pundit

My day job has been taking absolutely all of my time, and so I probably won’t have anything new to say until this weekend.
And while America enjoys Memorial Day weekend, I’ll still be working on my feature.  Ug.

Last Wednesday evening, the EPA directed BP to use less toxic dispersants on the Gulf oil spill within four days.  BP’s favorite dispersant, Corexit®, has been banned in the U.K. for over  a decade and is linked to respiratory, nervous system, liver, kidney, blood, and reproductive disorders.  Approximately 700,000 gallons have already been poured into [...]

Since this is Bank Failure Friday, the day when regulators seize failed financial institutions, I thought I should review some of the Bay Area’s problem banks.
There are currently eight companies that have received enforcement actions by regulators and are therefore under increased scrutiny:
(1) Community Bank of San Joaquin (Stockton)
(2) Fireside Bank (Pleasanton)
(3) Gateway Bank, FSB [...]

When CBS News tried to film the thick oil washing up on Louisiana’s coastal marshlands, its camera crew was confronted by BP and its private military contractors, the Coast Guard:
CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella reports it’s an ominous sight. The oil is thick and black and stretches about a quarter mile down a beach. It [...]

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson spoke out today about the use of toxic chemical dispersants on the Gulf oil spill:
The long term effects on aquatic life are still unknown and we must make sure that the dispersants that are used are as non-toxic as possible.  We are working with manufacturers, with BP and with [...]

Via Andrew Ross, these two Chronicle headlines tell you all you need to know about the Golden State:
(1) Budget proposal deals blow to California’s poor: on the governor’s plan to terminate welfare, education, the elderly, the disabled, and compassion.
(2) California No. 1 in spending on political ads: on our state’s “Gold Rush” of election spending, [...]

Via Andrew Ross, guess who’s joined the likes of Greece and Dubai on CMA’s list of states most likely to default on their debt?
Postscript: Note that Iraq has also joined the top 10.

There are a couple of interesting implications to read from Justin Gillis’ excellent New York Times article on how the gulf oil spill has been mismeasured.
The facts: Two weeks ago, Seattle-based NOAA scientists hastily estimated that the gulf oil spill amounted to 5,000 barrels a day, revising BP’s initial low-ball guess of 1,000 per day.  [...]

Now that the magazine is done with the horribly strenuous June ship and I’ve turned in my draft for next month, blog operations will return to normal.

ProPublica’s Paul Kiel has the numbers …
Money the Obama administration committed to its mortgage-modification program to help people avoid foreclosure: $75 billion.
Money spent so far under the program: $242 million.
Amount spent by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: $151 million.
Percentage of Fannie/Freddie payouts that went to servicers: 100
Number of people the Obama administration sought to [...]