The BP DEEP HORIZON DEADLINE-SHORT FORM

 IF YOU NEED TO OPT OUT OR IF YOU ARE AN EXCLUDED CLASS

 If you want to preserve your claim you MUST (1) file a bp claim using the bp claim procedure (See prior posts) AND (2) WAIT 90 days AND (3) FILE A LAWSUIT-POSSIBLY NOT A SHORT FORM JOINDER. All of this MUST BE DONE BEFORE 4/20/13. It cannot be done quickly or at the last minute.

You should also file an Opt Out petition before 11/1/12. 

War With China and War With Welfare

One of the key elements of engaging the war with China has to do with the course of an economic war.
A shooting war and economic war both have the same goal. To either (1) disarm your enemy so you can bend him to your will (Clauswitz) or (2) to counter your enemy so that you are not disarmed.  This latter course has never worked, it is the reason we lost in Vietnam, we did not go after our enemy but instead merely tried to stop them.
Unfortunately, an all out war with China is probably not in anyone's best interest and we have already lost so much ground that we should not expect, in the foreseeable future, to be able to actually defeat the enemy we supplied through our incompetence (assuming that the incompetence of our leaders can be imputed to the rest of us).
Our war must be fought on several fronts and we must carefully pick these fronts.  This issue is addressed more directly in the Essay, but since this blog exerpts from the essay extensively and since the social welfare state has been brought into the election so heavily, some mention of it here is helpful.
The great President (my opinion) Roosevelt (the second, the first was also great) some form of the modern welfare system.  President Johnson turned it into the massive failure we have to live with today.  Hence, one area which we need to address is how to eliminate the bad parts of social welfare, while keeping some sort of graduated net. 
I will  go out on a limb and say that one part is to accept some casualties.  Those who are kept alive mereby because modern science allows it, this applies to the perhaps only to a very select group of people in a vegetative state, might be a group.  Those who can work and do not because they recieve more benefits by not being part of the mainstream economy are another group.
We should not condemn a person on welfare who gets more insurance coverage, better housing and more money by being on this.  Indeed, this person has shown great resourcefulness.  We should, however, acknowledge that a system which encourages this type of conduct without taking advantage of the resourcefulness is defective. 
War doesn't just mean having tough choices or taking casualties.  It also means having the right moral underpinning to win.  After all, if the enemy is morally superior, perhaps losing would be an option.  For those of you who might think I would encourage allowing our enemy to over-run us, I suggest you read my book, although I'd also suggest you wait for the second edition coming out later this year.
What are other ideas for waging economic war?  They are covered in the first version of the book, will be covered a little more clearly in the second edition and are covered in more detail in the companion essay which is outlined in the beginning of this blog and which will be published later this year with the second edition of World War C aka Trust-how we lost the war with China.

Help, I am an excluded member of the BP/deep horizon Class or I need to opt out

IT May be too late!  You are quickly running out of time.  Opting out deadlines are only one deadline.  There is also a presentment and new lawsuit filing deadlines.  You may not even be protected, you do not appear to be protected by the class action.

This is the form to file a BP Claim. I suggest reading it carefully:

http://www.bp.com/assets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/gom_response/STAGING/local_assets/downloads_pdfs/demands.pdf

This is the website which leads you to the form above:

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9036580&contentId=7067577&nicam=vanity&redirect=www.bp.com/claims

**The settlement summary mailed to everyone (you included?) references this information under item 15 on page 10.

**The best way to handle this is to fill out but not file the form. Do the actual calculation of damages separately. Meet with an attorney to confirm you have the correct information and because you will need to file a lawsuit.
Uf you are an excluded class member or an Opt out, you may have been abandoned in this matter by the settlement.
 

Theoretically, you need to file a lawsuit (which may or may not be satisfied by the short form joinder or a previously filed class action) after 90 days from sending this form and prior to 4/20/12.
What is left out is that NO ONE is covered if they are an excluded class or opt out by ANY FILED ACTION.  You are naked and an examination of the case shows that you were not informed of this.
The notice of the settlement is fundamentally flawed in terms of being fair to those not covered by the settlement. 
 

We are not representing clients who do not meet with us.

For More information please go to our website: www.gmfpc.com

Filing a BP Claim Check List: "Even if you were denied" (tm)

1. Go to www.gmfpc.com

2. Select “A Guide to Oil Slick Litigation” form

3. Fill out the form and send it to our office

4. Call to make a short initial appointment-we cannot extend deadlines

Gregory Friedlander & Associates, P.C.
11 S. Florida St.
Mobile, Ala. 36606-1934
(251)4700303
fax: 888.441.2123
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www.gmfpc.com
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for court-use only: greg@gmfpc.com
(760)569-6000//575859# conference number
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Copyright © 2010 Gregory M. Friedlander & Associates, P.C.
The following language is required pursuant to Rule 7.2, Alabama Rules of Professional Conduct. No representation is made that the quality of legal services to be performed is greater than the quality of legal services performed by other lawyers. This web site is designed for general information only. The information presented at this site should not be construed to be formal legal advice nor the formation of a lawyer/client relationship. 

The hidden pitfalls of the bp-deep horizon settlement

This piece is based on my understanding of the law and may be incorrect.  It is an opinion piece and I welcome any response that anyone would make.  Also, Fraud may be practice by "commission" or "omission" or what is called "Fraud" may simply be mistake or coincidence so we'll call this a "pitfall".

The BP settlement is a fine settlement as far as it goes.  But there is a hidden danger in it which should have been clearly disclosed and is a bad reflection on all parties to the case and the court; but is a tribute to excellent defense work.

The settlement defines a class which is adequately and fairly compensated.  But it also suggests falsely that the unprotected classes are safe within the filed lawsuits.  Usually when a lawsuit is filed, it tolls any applicable statute of limitations.  But filing lawsuits does not change statutes.  The liability of the oil company defendants is based on the Oil Pollution Act (OPA).

This act (OPA) requires that a claim be filed 90 days before a suit is filed to give the polluter a chance to settle.  In a class action, claims are NOT filed in advance.  Hence the protections of the OPA are not in effect.  On or about January 19th, 2013 the last chance to file a claim in time to "wait 90 days before filing a lawsuit" will pass.  All the excluded class members will lose their right to claim damages under the OPA.  This includes developers, financial institutions, non-profits (such as churches), moratorium defendants (those who lost money when the gulf was closed in response to the spill) and others.  Before that date on 11/1/12 many parties that need to opt out to be protected will also have lost their right to a remedy, but that is mostly disclosed.

On January, 19th, however, one of the greatest frauds on plaintiffs ever practiced (at least in terms of dollars lost); amounting to billion in savings to BP, will become effective.  While this MAY not be true, it appears to be true based on a review of the law and the settlement.

These groups of "excluded" potential plaintiffs are sitting there believing that they are safe behind the filed class actions when the clock is ticking on them. I have to emphasis "If" this is correct, they are being fooled, and the fault lies in the court as well as in the attorneys.

The court and plaintiffs should have required that the shortcomings in the settlement be clearly and forcibly disclosed.  Instead these two groups have either been complicit or duped by the defendants in this case.  I suspect the latter of course.  The defense counsel, if I am right, deserve large bonuses.  Anyone who had the job of ensuring this gaping hole in the settlement was pointed out should ask themselves how carefully that duty was administered.  Perhaps, it was well enough; I am not so sure.

While several months have gone by, it is not too late to provide some level of public disclosure.  For more information, please watch this blog or go to www.gmfpc.com.

One solution, by the way, would be to send out a mailer saying something like this:
SOME DEADLINES IN THE DEEP HORIZON CASE

1)   Opt out deadline-11/1/12.  YOU must sign this application.

2)   Presentment deadline (90 days before filing)  This date is EFFECTIVELY for us 12/1/12.  Thereafter we would not have time to prepare a presentation to BP and Still file a suit.  If you are NOT included in the class (this applies to all excluded classes OR cases where your claim is inadequate under the class) you must (a) opt out by 11/1/12; (b) make presentment this year; (c) file suit by 4/20/13.  These are NOT extendable deadlines.

3)   Filing dealine-4/20/13.  Note you must make presentment 90 days before this date, so you have to well underway by January 1, 2013.

terrorism and the fear of a mumbai type attack against students

I want to apologize in advance to anyone who does not want to consider the horrors of terrorism.  this is only being written in the hopes that if what is suggested were to come to pass, that someone would be prepared. Terrorism is a constant theme in our society, but one which we largely chose to ignore.  It makes life more pleasant.  We have learned, in our complacency, however, that the terrorist is the most barbaric and inhuman of adversaries. They have no regard for the pain they give to others and this is reflected in their lack of concern for their own lives.
It means that we must be vigilant and we must not shirk from the worst horrors imaginable which is a pleasant thing to these monsters and make no mistake they wish to be monsters and therefore they make themselves into them.
The recent threat to various colleges raises some disturbing possibilities, the least of which is that it is a prank.  The worst, I believe, is that they are conducted by terror monsters.  In which case we must discern their purpose.  I believe that an armed populace is necessary for us to defend ourselves from outside threats and our own government.  However, the availability of guns to honest citizens implies the availability to criminals and worse still to terrorists.
Mumbai gives an example of what can happen when terrorists are combined with weapons in a peaceful population.  The Tet offensive is a more rigorous example.
What worries me about the evacuations is that it could be a method of targeting the young.  In school, they are in a controlled environment where they can be "locked down".  But if they are evacuated during a bomb threat, they can be moved, using the school staff, no less, to an uncontrolled environment along a known path according to the timetable of the terrorist.  This type of scenario is one reason why almost no type of response is too violent to terrorism.
The solution would be difficult, but I can see two ways of ameliorating the threat.  1) Make sure that when schools are threatened that the police presence in the evacuation routes is heavily increased.  2) Train the students in techniques for protecting themselves in the event of an attack and make sure they understand that a single method may be ineffective if the terrorist are aware of it. 3) This one is added-I think policing regularly and with experienced anti-terrorism experts the routes that would be used for signs of such an ambush would make sense and would be more proactive than the other two.  I'm sure there are other ways to protect against this type of terrorism and I hope that others who understand consider this and other scenarios that are suggested by the rash of threats to universities, so far benign.

President sends usa rowboat against chinese aircraft carrier

NEWSBREAK!  PRESIDENT TRIES TO CO-OPT GMFBOOKS WAR
MISSES POINT ENTIRELY

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-china-trade-obama-09172012,0,3681578.story

President Obama fires pop gun in face of canons.  It is bad that he is taking some credit for my war, but he is using spitballs against an elephant which is worse

china defeats the usa one product at a time using monetary policy

china defeats the usa one product at a time using monetary policy:

There was still little understanding of the occurrence and long-term effect of the Chinese attack.  This was partially as a result of Chinese bolstering of the US economy by underwriting reckless loans to undermine the economy in secrecy.  The result was the US currency had no value supporting it as manufacturing was exported overseas.  The Chinese currency, appeared less valuable based on an artificial exchange rate.  At any moment China could reveal the truth and reverse the values merely by removing the open and notorious false exchange rate.  The US government was unwilling to challenge this because they were weak and addicted to the cheap goods to keep the voters complacent.  The goods were not cheap, because the price was the value of the US currency and, more importantly, the manufacturing might and accompanying world respect of the United States.  The Chinese did not reveal this, even when the balance was tipped irretrievably in their favor, because they were using this false valuation which they created in order to steal all manufacturing and technology from the US and to have the US pay for the transfer.  Had they bombed Detroit, perhaps it would have been more obvious.  It would not have been more effective.

world war c-second edition coming soon

Here is part of the afterward from World War C (Also Trust, how we lost the war with china) available from Amazon, second edition coming out later this month.

This book may look like political horror fiction or science fiction. In fact, everything in this book has happened.  It was written as speculation, but it has been overtaken by facts.

It is difficult to give all of the examples, but some are in order.  When the US Army contracted for a round of night vision glasses, the specifications ended up in China because the contractors could find no one in the United States to make them.  The Chinese actually told the US Army they would not place hidden algorithms in the computers they were selling.  The advances in Chinese education are legion. The emptying of the clothing, towel, furniture, automotive part and tool manufacturing factories in the US started years before this book was written. In fact, the genesis of this book lies in a local factory that made battery and spark plug wires which closed due to Chinese competition.  In truth there was a time 30 years ago when this was put solidly in front of me.

The corruption of congress is well known, but for those of you who need an example, please see the article In Time magazine May 15, 2000 DONALD L. BARLETT AND JAMES B. STEELE penned a well researched article entitled “Soaked by Congress” which discussed in detail how Congress was paid to enact this legislation.  The lead into this article used the language “Lavished with campaign cash, lawmakers are "reforming" bankruptcy--punishing the downtrodden to catch a few cheats”. 

The election problem, successive, increasingly short term elections, was pointed out to me by a congressman.

Reserves and lifespans in time of war

World War C-the second edition of trust-how we lost the war with China, should come out in print next week.

Promotional Copy

Tom Boersig and I used to sit around after a long day together, sipping scotch, which was too sophisticated for me.  His dog would sit at my feet and Tom would smoke cigarettes which would eventually catch up with him.

He had gone back to school so he was older than I was, but he was one of those rare men who can hold onto their youth while developing their maturity. 

Rarely, he would share his time in the military and on one such occasion, he told me of his platoon. Their job was to reload the missiles in an attack helicopter in the event of an all out land war with the Soviet Union.  His description of the process is lost to time. What remained was that his group had a survival window of 15 minutes in war, enough time to reload the Helicopters at full speed a single time.  Their job was to slow down the enemy.  After that it would be up to the reserves.

In any history of World War II, the description of the experience of the German army in Africa is that they were not out fought, but that they were buried with the immense material strength of the American manufacturing might.

Even in 2001 it was obvious that our manufacturing might which made up the arsenal of democracy in World Wars I and II was being delivered wholesale to our enemies, and in particular to China.

I miss Tom and I miss having a country with a middle class built on manufacturing and development, because with manufacturing so goes manufacturing expertise and innovation.  We stand at the cross roads.  In one direction is the prior greatness of this country, in the other direction is the path of Egypt and Ethiopia, once great countries laid low by retreating into the greatness of the past, their failure to have a clear view of the future.  A triumph of immediate vs long term intelligence.

I hope this book will wake up the country before it is too late.  I hope it will prevent a shooting war with China by keeping us strong enough to prevent it.  I hope it will get rid of the corruption that plagues congress.  I hope that it will inspire the country to find a consistent moral compass which allows minority views while having a strong majority view tied to long term and medium term intelligence.

I live on a hill with  cats which seem to congregate in a yard that attracts birds and squirrels and a dog bred to hunt lions in Africa.

mog-world war c-the congressional reform act and term limits

Congressional Reform Act—Men of the Guillotine

1) Term Limits: The following will apply immediately after passage by fifty percent of those entitled to vote:

A. Two five-year Senate and House terms

B. At the end of each term or when replaced, a congressman is entitled to up to one year of paid consulting, exclusive of any other employment, for his replacement unless or until his replacement rejects his employment.  During this time, the consultant ex-congressman must pay his own expenses and has no access to the capital except as provided by his replacement.  His pay is set by congress at no more than his salary when in office.

2. No Tenure/No Pension:

A Congressman collects up to one-year salary while serving as consultant under 1(B) until terminated.  After the end of that one year or upon termination from that position by his replacement, he/she collects six months of his salary during the time when he/she is resettling.

3. Congress (past, present and future) participates in Social Security or other retirement held by the rest of the general population.  No federal retirement applies, and all funds in the Congressional retirement funds move to the Social Security system.

4. Congressional pay raises:

Congressional pay will fall proportionately with GDP but rise only by constitutional amendment or vote of 90 percent of each house and only for congressmen entering after the vote, except that it will not fall below the lowest state congressional pay for state congress nor be higher than the highest state congressional pay plus 10 percent.

6. Congress participates in the same healthcare system as the American people and may pay for any other health care from their salary.

7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

8. All contracts with past and present congressmen are void.

9. Lobbyist:

No Congressman may act as a lobbyist while receiving money under any provision of the law or for four years thereafter. A congressman may run for congress again after a period off of seven years unless they serve as a lobbyist, in which case they may run seven years after they last serve

www.moftheg.com:

LEGAL JUSTIFICATION

This law is valid notwithstanding executive, legislative, or judicial decision under the following provisions of law:

1.                  The constitution states it is by “We the people,” which implies that any provision to the contrary is invalid.

2.                  The declaration of independence recognizes the right of people “to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,” and it is inherent in this that they can amend those bonds.

3.                  Because political establishments are “deriving their powers from the consent of the governed…whenever any form of government becomes destructive,” it is inherently within the power of the governed to change the laws. www.moftheg.com

plumbing the depths of the hologram universe

This is a holiday break from the war with china and the term limits arguments that will come up later.  See the earlier posts if you want to follow that part of the blog
This examines some of the questions raised by current theories of the universe.  This one, supported by some of the writings of Einstein, Hawkins (The Universe in a nutshell) and others, is not a finished model, so I take the liberty of assigning certain features to it which may or may not be consistent with the model.
One of those "assigned features" is that everything has already happened.  Time is just a method of allowing someone to "walk around" the universe and see what is happening at any point in time, just as in a laser-hologram you can walk around in one direction and see a banana peeled and then go in the opposite direction and watch it closed back.  Hence, one question of the hologram universe is whether it is possible to go around it and see in them the past and go in another direction and see the future.
We have seen that the past is visible and easily visited, at least on a macro scale.  You do this every time you look into the night sky; starring eons into the past of galaxies and stars.  Even when you see sunlight you are looking a short time in the past.
Light is the speed limit of the universe, at least in the dimensions that we live in, and it is also a way to walk around the hologram for distant objects.  The fact that it does not, at least the way we have observed light so far, allow us to look at near objects in the distant past or any objects in the future raises the question of whether there is another way to look at light so this would be possible or to find the source of light or of the projection of the universe so that we could go walking around it.  This would give us the perspective of the hypothetical "god" which presumably created the universe and who could, by walking around it, on a micro level, see the beginning and the end.
This is not science fiction if the hologram universe allows for this type of view and if it is merely a projection of something that already exists and but for the artifice of time has already happened.  In fact, there is little reason to believe in the bubble theory that there are not an infinite number of universes, each with an infinite number of ways of things happening being viewed by whoever created them with interest or without interest just as some of us look into the sky with great interest and some out of boredom; why some see the full moon and are filled with romantic thoughts and others are merely aggravated that it is not dark enough to sleep.
In a future blog, perhaps we will discuss who is viewing these holograms.  Are they exhibits in some god museum or are we merely the bubbles formed while some great being beyond the scope of our comprehension bubbles water for tea?

Physics, Hawkins, Nostradamus self determination and why we can tell the future

Leave it to the theoretical physicists to prove that fortune telling is a legitimate science.
Before we talk about recent theories of the universe and predestination, lets give a historical background.
Joseph was an early fortune telling using the dreams of kings to predict the future.
Later the prophets went so far as to predict the end of the world, many of those predictions seeming to have an unhealthy relationship to disasters that we as modern humans now understand (supervolcanoes, super novas, super asteroids, super viruses and all the other earth ending super horsemen of the apocalypse).
Enter the early non-Newtonian physicists.  My favorite, Einstein, created to some extent this non-rational or counter intuitive view of the universe and once said that the only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.  This statement out of context may sound confusing, but if we accept time as a non-visible dimension, and we plot everything against it, it has already happened when we finish the plot, assuming that time has a beginning and an end.  With any other dimension, we accept at least a beginning (the so call big-bang before which we had something not well defind) and we also have an end (the edge of the universe outisde of which is something which is not well defined).  To say that any object, such as a board, does not exist until our ruler goes to the end would be counter-intuitive, so why cannot the same be said of time.
Enter the current physicist and the work of Steven Hawkins.  I will not pretend to understand the mathematics of current "hologram" theory for the universe.  When I stopped studying physics, we were still on string theory, a largely silly theory that yields interesting results, but was a way to explain what was happening mathematically rather than a model which unified space and time.
The hologram theory allows that everything has already happened and that we are merely a projection on an ever-expanding bubble.  Without going deeper into this today, which I may later, today I just want to point out why this incredibly complicated hologram universe (not to be confused with the intersecting laser pictures which are manmade today) allows that we can see the future and predict it because before it is projected, it has already happened, just like a hologram appears to move even though the depiction has long sense been burned into the surface of the glass on which it is re-enacted.
Who controls the hologram, how we can determine how the hologram functions, even though it already exists in its entirety, I will save for a later blog.
Suffice today to say that if everything has happened inside the bubble, or at the source of the projection, there is no reason why remnants of the past (see those who argue they have past lives), present and future (prophets) might not be burned into the image.  In a hologram, one of the key elements is that so much data is burned into each pixel that it may be viewed from different angles and at different times.  The argument of a hologram universe might, but need not be, the same.  That it explains more than the mathematical model of the universe might be a test of the validity of the theory.