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The American Petroleum Institute, the largest oil and gas industry trade group, will start backing political candidates this year as the U.S. considers repealing $46 billion in subsidies and imposing pollution rules.

The group, whose members include Exxon Mobil Corp. andChevron Corp., would make donations separately from industry executives and employees, who gave $27.6 million mostly to Republican candidates for Congress last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington. API has paid for advertising on policy issues and to lobby on legislation.

“This is adding one more tool to our toolkit,” said Martin Durbin, API’s executive vice president for government affairs, in an interview. “At the end of the day, our mission is trying to influence the policy debate.”

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While it is generally not our policy to comment publicly on account dealings, we are sharing the following statement to clarify information regarding the Courage To Resist organization’s PayPal account and their claim that this is somehow associated with their support of U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning. Let me be clear, this decision had nothing to do with WikiLeaks.

Translation: it had everything to do with WikiLeaks, but we hated the publicity.

Every story referencing “Gaddafi Shot” is about today’s oil trading.

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The Justice Department under President Barack Obama has quietly dropped its legal representation of more than a dozen Bush-era Pentagon and administration officials – including former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and aide Paul Wolfowitz – in a lawsuit by Al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla, who spent years behind bars without charges in conditions his lawyers compare to torture.

Charles Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, confirmed Tuesday that the government has agreed to retain private lawyers for the officials, at a cost of up to $200 per hour. Miller said “conflicts concerns” prompted the decision. He did not elaborate.

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Apparently, some 2,000 Baltimore red light camera traffic citations which require a police officer to swear that he or she has reviewed the photos as indeed showing a traffic violation had a slight problem. It seems that all the verification signatures on the citations issued were from a police officer who had died in a car accident last year.

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The wave of protests that began in the Mideast appears to have reached even North Korea. For the first time in the history of the Stalinist regime, groups of ordinary citizens have protested in three cities demanding food and electricity, sources say. The event is exceptional and confirms the economic difficulties, especially concerning food supplies, people have to face under the Communist government.

[..]

“When such an incident took place in the past, people used to report their neighbours to the security forces, but now they’re covering for each other,” the source said.

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A very clever friend sends over today’s Tom Friedman column edited down to nothing but mixed metaphors and cliches:

A wake-up call’s mother is unfolding.  At the other end is a bell, which is telling us we have built a house at the foot of a volcano. The volcano is spewing lava, which says move your house. The road will be long and rocky, but it will trigger a shift before it kicks. We can capture some of it. IF the Middle East was a collection of gas stations, Saudi Arabia would be a station. Iran, Kuwait , Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates would all be stations. Guys, here’s the deal. Don’t hassle the Jews. You are insulated from history. History is back. Fasten your seat belts. Don’t expect a joy ride because the lid is blowing off. The west turned a blind eye, but the report was prophetic, with key evidence. Societies are frozen in time. No one should have any illusions. Root for the return to history, but not in the middle.

My friend could have published this himself, but he was between a rock and a hard place with no easy answers.

So Apple announces “an event” on March 2nd, but a brand new laptop line, a brand new connection technology (Thunderbolt), and first beta releases of OS X Lion all aren’t important enough to be demoed on stage.

Hmmm…. they must think the iPad 2 is a really big thing, then.

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That said, will I recommend my dad get one? No. Not this year. Why? No apps that have been specifically designed for the 10-inch tablet, which in my experience does demand new apps. Yes, Android phone apps “stretch” to bigger sizes a lot better than iPhone apps did when stretched up, but sorry we haven’t seen great apps like the History of Jazz, Aweditorium, NPR, BBC, Flipboard, Heritage, etc, like what you see on iPad.

The apps are ALL that matters for the market and Android does NOT have them yet.

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A former Transportation Security Administration screener at Newark Liberty International Airport admitted to stealing up to $30,000 in cash from travelers, federal prosecutors said.

Al Raimi, 29, of Woodridge, pleaded guilty Thursday to a charge of theft by a government officer. Raimi worked as a lead officer at a security checkpoint at the airport. Between October 2009 until Sept. 8 2010, Raimi said he stole the cash from airline passengers. Raimi then "kicked up" some of that money to his immediate supervisor, Michael Arato. "In exchange, Arato allowed Raimi to continue stealing," said Asst. U.S. Attorney Erick Kanefsky in a statement.