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In addition, another controlled burn of the oil slick may be conducted, Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Erik Swanson said.

“We’re preparing as many resources as possible,” Swanson said, “and we’re considering many different options.”

Those options include bringing in the Department of Defense, he said. The military could be enlisted to drop or spray more dispersants on the oil, although specifics are still being developed, Swanson said.

Officials said late Wednesday the estimated amount of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from three underwater leaks after last week’s oil rig explosion has increased to as many as 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons, a day — five times more than what was initially believed.

The cause of the explosion remains under investigation, and search efforts have been halted for 11 missing workers.

Rear Adm. Mary Landry told reporters late Wednesday that the increased estimate is based on analysis from the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“This is not an exact science when you estimate the amount of oil,” Landry said, noting there are a lot of variables in calculating the rate of the spill.

“However, NOAA is telling me now that they prefer we use the 5,000 barrels [210,000 gallons] a day as an estimate of what has actually leaked from this well and will continue to leak until BP secures the source.”

Some 250,000 gallons of oily water has been collected from the scene, she said.

Harold Koh, the State Department’s top legal adviser, outlined the administration’s legal case for the robotic attacks last month. Now, some legal experts are taking turns to punch holes in Koh’s argument.

It’s part of an ongoing legal debate about the CIA and U.S. military’s lethal drone operations, which have escalated in recent months — and which have received some technological upgrades. Critics of the program, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have argued that the campaign amounts to a program of targeted killing that may violate the laws of war.

In a hearing Wednesday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s national security and foreign affairs panel, several professors of national security law seemed open to that argument. But there are still plenty of caveats, and the risks to U.S. drone operators are at this point theoretical: Unless a judge in, say, Pakistan, wanted to issue a warrant, it doesn’t seem likely. But that’s just one of the possible legal hazards of robotic warfare.

Loyola Law School professor David Glazier, a former Navy surface warfare officer, said the pilots operating the drones from afar could — in theory — be hauled into court in the countries where the attacks occur. That’s because the CIA’s drone pilots aren’t combatants in a legal sense. “It is my opinion, as well as that of most other law-of-war scholars I know, that those who participate in hostilities without the combatant’s privilege do not violate the law of war by doing so, they simply gain no immunity from domestic laws,” he said.

“Under this view CIA drone pilots are liable to prosecution under the law of any jurisdiction where attacks occur for any injuries, deaths or property damage they cause,” Glazier continued. “But under the legal theories adopted by our government in prosecuting Guantánamo detainees, these CIA officers as well as any higher-level government officials who have authorized or directed their attacks are committing war crimes.”

“I am not an American citizen. I was in Ouaga illegally. My passports and identity are fake. I bought that bag on eBay and have no association with the United States. I will take whatever COA the US wants. I will leave my wallet & passport on this aircraft.”

The leaking well, 5,000 feet (1,525 metres) under the sea off Louisiana’s coast, has created an oil sheen and emulsified crude slick slightly bigger than the U.S. state of West Virginia, the Coast Guard said.

Eleven workers are missing and presumed dead after the worst oil rig disaster in almost a decade. Swiss-based Transocean Ltd’s (RIGN.S)(RIG.N) Deepwater Horizon rig sank on April 22, two days after it exploded and caught fire while finishing a well for BP Plc (BP.L) about 40 miles (64 km) southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River.

The burn began at 5 p.m. CDT (2200 GMT), an agency spokesman said. Workboats were to pool segments of the spill inside a fire-resistant “boom,” essentially a floating corral, to be towed to a remote area for burning, the Coast Guard said.

The agency said it planned “small, controlled burns” of several hundred gallons each lasting about an hour and invisible from shore.

They said that the €45-billion currently proposed as a rescue package of loans from the IMF and other members of the euro zone was only enough for the first year of support.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn refused to confirm the higher figure on Wednesday, saying that all details of the negotiations would only be announced once the entire Greek standby program had been finalized by the IMF, ECB and European Commission officials meeting the Greek government in Athens.

The details of the discussion were revealed by Jürgen Trittin, parliamentary leader of the Green party, and Thomas Opperman, chief whip of the Social Democratic party, after their three-hour meeting at the German finance ministry in Berlin.

This article could have well been entitled How to Be a Successful Criminal, because what we are talking about bartering during crisis and/or martial law. In crisis and martial law, bartering of goods will be considered a criminal act. As such, if you barter you will be a participant in the black market (at least in the eyes of the government). Remember, during crisis with martial law, you can be arrested for just about anything.

The rules I cover in this article come from the book Black Market Operations: Marketing Theory and the Fencing of Stolen Goods, A report by Ted Roselius and Douglas Benton, associate professors in the college of business at Colorado State University. The book was published by the now defunct publisher Loompanics Unlimited. You may still be able to find the book on some internet booksellers. The book’s ISBN number is 1-55950-017-4. If you can get a copy, I recommend you add it to your preparedness library.

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