By Michael Collins

Rupert Murdoch is in big trouble. It is not a perfect storm but we're getting there.

British attorney Mark Lewis is in New York to take legal action in behalf of clients who may have had their phones hacked in the United States.

More significantly, News Corp withdrew its bid to buy the remaining 61% of BSkyB, the highly profitable British cable TV franchise (£1.1 billion 2011, News Corp owns 39% now). (Murdoch images: left, right)

Last week, James Murdoch stepped down as chairman of BSkyB after surviving a challenge to his position just weeks ago.

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By Rady Ananda
Food Freedom

On Dec. 6, New York’s Suffolk County government will hold a public hearing on a proposal to ban aerial spraying of aluminum oxide, barium, sulfur, and other salts into the air over the county without first filing an Environmental Impact Statement with and receiving approval from the county’s Dept of Health Services, Div. of Environmental Quality.

Exempted from the proposed ban are aerosol spraying operations for agriculture, and for disease vector control operations.

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Michael Collins

Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times just published one of the few feel good stories in months following the 2008 financial crisis. She describes a possible day of reckoning for the perpetrators of the 2008 crisis and much of the pain that has followed.

The newly elected New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman (D), wants information from Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley. Among other things, the information concerns mortgage pooling and bundling. This may well include information on collateralized debt obligations (CDO's) and mortgage backed securities (MBS). New York state officials told Morgenson:

"The New York attorney general has requested information and documents in recent weeks from three major Wall Street banks about their mortgage securities operations during the credit boom, indicating the existence of a new investigation into practices that contributed to billions in mortgage losses." New York Investigates Banks’ Role in Financial Crisis New York Times, May 16

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By Rady Ananda

(Updated below.) The last four months of 2010, nearly 500 earthquakes rattled Guy, Arkansas. [1] The entire state experienced 38 quakes in 2009. [2] The spike in quake frequency precedes and coincides with the 100,000 dead fish on a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River that included Roseville Township on December 30. The next night, 5,000 red-winged blackbirds and starlings dropped dead out of the sky in Beebe. [3] Hydraulic fracturing is the most likely culprit for all three events, as it causes earthquakes with a resultant release of toxins into the environment. [4]

A close look at Arkansas' history of earthquakes and drilling reveals a shocking surge in quake frequency following advanced drilling. The number of quakes in 2010 nearly equals all of Arkansas' quakes for the entire 20th century. The oil and gas industry denies any correlation, but the advent of hydrofracking followed by earthquakes is a story repeated across the nation. It isn't going to stop any time soon, either. Fracking has gone global.

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