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SUNDAY, JULY 3, 2011

NOT SO SLICK

Exclusive video shows BP’s CEO defending his actions

BY JOSH BERNSTEIN

SATURDAY, JULY 2, 2011

Over three days of sharp questioning, a haggard-looking Tony Hayward shows flashes of anger and remorse as he defends his handling of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in a recent videotaped deposition obtained exclusively by The Daily. (Swipe to next page for video clips.)

Attorneys representing several states and corporations that are suing BP over last year’s massive spill suggest that the former CEO was reckless when it came to safety, insensitive in his conduct following the tragedy and perjurious in his testimony before Congress.

When asked about the 11 men who died when the Horizon burst into flames on April 20, 2010, he notes his remorse, but admits he can’t remember all of their names. In the end, he is able to correctly name only one victim, Karl Kleppinger.

Stephen L. Roberts, an attorney for BP’s corporate partner Transocean, also drops a bombshell when he reveals that BP filed a legal pleading that referred to the 11 victims as “callous, indifferent and grossly negligent in causing this explosion.”

Roberts claims BP filed the pleading on April 20, 2011, the one-year anniversary of the day the men died in the explosion. “It was after I left the company. I’ve had no involvement in it,” says Hayward.

In a nasty exchange on day one of the deposition, plaintiffs’ attorney Robert Cunningham accuses Hayward of lying when he testified to Congress that BP was conducting “a full and complete investigation.”

“You proceeded to testify falsely under oath on multiple material issues, didn’t you, Dr. Hayward?” Cunningham asks.

“Objection!” shouts Hayward’s attorney, off-camera.

But attorneys believe they were able to show that BP failed to follow its own investigative procedures, neglecting to pursue possible mistakes by its leadership.

Cunningham points out that “a full and comprehensive investigation … would have required the executives to investigate themselves, wouldn’t it?”

Hayward responds: “We were trying to establish what was the cause of the accident. That’s what we did.”

In fact, BP’s own report, the “Bly Report,” concluded that erroneous decisions by “multiple companies and work teams” contributed to the disaster.

Hayward left the company in September 2010 and admits in the deposition that he never read the Presidential Commission’s report, which concluded that “most of the mistakes and oversights at [Deepwater Horizon] can be traced back to a single over-arching failure, a failure of management.”

— With Sarah Ryley and Shalini Sharma

SUNDAY, JULY 3, 2011

“You proceeded to testify falsely under oath on multiple material issues, didn’t you, Dr. Hayward?” Cunningham asks.

“Objection!” shouts Hayward’s attorney, off-camera.

But attorneys believe they were able to show that BP failed to follow its own investigative procedures, neglecting to pursue possible mistakes by its leadership.

Cunningham points out that “a full and comprehensive investigation … would have required the executives to investigate themselves, wouldn’t it?”

Hayward responds: “We were trying to establish what was the cause of the accident. That’s what we did.”

In fact, BP’s own report, the “Bly Report,” concluded that erroneous decisions by “multiple companies and work teams” contributed to the disaster.

— With Sarah Ryley and Shalini Sharma

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Kate Moss marries guitarist Jamie Hince. Can you spot the particularly adorable wedding crasher?

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LET'S BE FRANK!

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Coquette: How to be the bride

Dear Coquette,

I’m newly engaged and have started thinking about and talking about wedding plans with my fiancé. We have chosen our bridal party and decided where we want to get married. My mother is not happy with either decision. She insists that my brother should be a groomsman even though my fiancé does not feel he has a close enough relationship to my brother to make him one. My brother is going to be involved in the wedding. He will be walking down our grandmothers and our mother. He will also be giving a speech and will be announced at the beginning of the reception for the entrances. My mother does not think this is good enough because he won’t be at the altar. My fiancé’s stance is that it is our wedding and my mother should just get over it.

My mother is also not happy with our location. We’ve decided we want to get married somewhere that is about four hours away from where we live. My fiancé’s family lives there, and he and I plan to move there once we’re married. My family either lives four hours away or farther. My mother thinks it is unfair for us to pick a location so far away from our family because it is a hassle to travel. He and I are in love with this town, and, like I said, we plan to build our life together there.

The tension is becoming insane and unbearable. I’m afraid to have a conversation with my mother in case she starts ranting about the wedding location or crying because my brother isn’t a groomsman. What do I do, Coquette? Is my fiancé right? Should we just say, Sorry, this is our wedding; we get what we want. Or is there some sort of compromise in this? Also, I’m afraid that the rest of the planning will be like torture because of all this tension already built. The last thing I want is my mother or my fiancé to be miserable on my wedding day because if they’re miserable, I’ll be miserable. Please help.

You’re the bride, sweetheart. That means you’re in charge. Not your mom. Not your fiancé. You.

Sure, everyone in your family is gonna give you an earful of opinions. But for better or for worse, when conflicts arise, the buck stops with you. Step up and start laying down the law.

Not that what I have to say should matter in the least, but since you asked, here’s what I think. On the one hand, your crazy-ass mother should quiet down and let you have your wedding wherever you damn well please. On the other hand, your fiancé is being a thoughtless douche for not immediately and graciously allowing your brother to be a groomsman.

Throw your mother a bone. Tell your fiancé that that your brother is gonna be a groomsman, but then insist that your mother shut the hell up about the location. Boom. Done.

While you’re at it, stop trying to please everyone all the time. It’s impossible and attempting to do so will end in disaster. The sooner you grow a spine and start telling everyone the way it’s gonna be, the sooner they can all start getting over themselves.

Take control. Be firm. This is your day. Own it.

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FORTUNE TELLING

Retired physicist teaches psychic day-trading technique

BY BENJAMIN CARLSON

Forget charting or fundamental analysis — if you want to strike it rich in the stock market, all you need to do is tap into your psychic abilities.

Or, at least, so says Marty Rosenblatt, 68, a retired physicist from Southern California who claims to have hit upon the ultimate trading strategy.

He is promoting a new technique for exploiting “the natural capability of human consciousness” for precognition, enabling practitioners to foresee whether the market is going to go up or down.

By employing a method he calls 1ARV — shorthand for "Unitary Associated Remote Viewing" — “you’ve got an edge of 10 to 15 percent,” he told The Daily after presenting his technique at a recent convention of so-called “remote viewers” in Las Vegas.

The so-called edge apparently hasn't generated untold wealth for Rosenblatt, who declined to estimate his earnings from 10 years of psychic day-trading.

“It’s not yet there,” Rosenblatt admitted.

Nevertheless, the technique has provided him a source of income. Rosenblatt's eager students shell out $1,000 each to learn the ropes of his psychic procedure at the New Age-focused Monroe Institute in Faber, Va. They also have the option of putting up an additional $1,000 to join an investing club that employs the strategy. The institute offers an assortment of “experiential education” programs that delve into such topics as energy healing and out-of-body exploration.

Roughly 500 people have attended his workshops over the years, Rosenblatt said.

Of course, mainstream scientists and financial professionals tend to scoff at the notion that investors should bank on precognition.

Sue Blackmore, a British professor of psychology who once believed in psychic phenomena, said that people convince themselves they have psychic powers “in the same way that gamblers convince themselves that they’ll win. … If you start out believing in something, then the more time and effort you invest in it, the harder it becomes to admit you have been wrong.”

Rosenblatt’s project has a surprising pedigree, however, building on decades of once-classified intelligence research. Rosenblatt said he became interested in the CIA’s involvement in psychic phenomena while working as a scientist for companies contracted to conduct energy research — including modeling nuclear blasts — by the Department of Defense.

In the 1970s, the CIA began researching whether psychic spies could help in intelligence missions, such as locating downed Soviet planes in Africa, or peering into secret military installations behind the Iron Curtain. Similar programs were pursued by other intelligence agencies until 1995, when they were made public and shut down. The activity was dubbed “remote viewing.”

Those who were involved — many of whom are supportive of Rosenblatt’s work— insist “remote viewing” is a proven ability. That's partly why they’ve turned to the stock market: to put their money where their mouth is.

“That’s why I'm doing this,” Rosenblatt said, explaining that he just wants to show the public that psychic powers are real. “I hope this is a step toward a major paradigm shift where the unused capabilities of consciousness become standard in our society.”

Given Rosenblatt’s own unimpressive trading record, is there any evidence it really works? He and others in the remote viewing community point to the case of Russell Targ, a physicist who studied psychic phenomena at the Stanford Research Institute. In 1982, Targ made headlines when he earned $120,000 on nine “psychic trades” in the silver market.

But when Targ tried his luck again the following year, he failed. “If we had replicated in ’83, the world would be a different place,” Targ mused.

Here’s the basic method psychic day-traders use. It requires two people, a partner and a psychic. Before the market opens, the partner chooses an object — for example, a brick — that he will give the psychic at the end of the day if the market goes up. (Supposedly, psychics cannot simply read stock tickers in the future, so they use objects.) If the psychic describes being handed something “rough” and “red” in the future, the partner buys in. If the prediction is accurate, at the end of the day the psychic gets the brick, thus bringing his vision of the “future” full circle.

But beware even dabbling in “psychic” trades: You may fool yourself into thinking it’s working. Professor Nicholas Seybert of the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business said investors often delude themselves by focusing only on positive results.

“It’s presumably a subconscious thing,” Seybert said. “If they want market price to go up, when it does go up, they’ll believe that it was warranted. When it goes down, they’ll say that’s just random.”

Even Russell Targ compared psychic day-trading to “a powerful machine with a loose screw.”

Asked whether he thought people could eventually make a living off of such prognostication, he said. “I think it’s never going to be that easy. I mean, there are tens of thousands who think they’ve got a scheme.”

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Broadcast Training Camp for Former NFL Players