Dan Gross; Susan Watts/NYDN-Getty

New Yorkers can gripe about it all they want, but the city’s new bike system is cheap, easy, and even a little fun.

It works!New York City’s new bicycle-sharing system, Citi Bike—a.k.a. the Mike Bikes, after Mayor Michael Bloomberg—has been the source of great anticipation, fear, and derision. The rollout was delayed by Hurricane Sandy and software glitches. New Yorkers moaned about the loss of parking spaces as room was made for bike docks. Tabloid reporters eagerly awaited the first thefts, which they duly reported.But the haters and critics were generally missing the point.

And tears down offending billboard.

Apparently not wanting to be linked with Nazis, JCPenney has wiped out all signs of the so-called Hitler teapot. The California billboard that started the meme was taken down yesterday, and the online listing for the Michael Graves kettle has been taken down. After Reddit seized on the billboard, JCPenney spent yesterday saying that any similarity between the tea kettle and Hitler was unintentional. But it wasn’t all bad news for the embattled retailer: the kettle, which cost about $40, sold out almost immediately. Now they’re going for $199 on eBay.

Read it at New York

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Lisa Jackson will consult on environmental issues.

Apple announced Tuesday that it hired Lisa Jackson, the EPA administrator during President Obama's first term, to be the company's senior environmental adviser. Jackson, who will report directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook, said in a statement that the company has been "raising the bar for energy efficiency in the electronics industry." Jackson oversaw many of the Obama administration's boldest environmental policies, including implementing rules that forced automakers to double fuel-efficiency standards. Apple has pledged to reduce its carbon footprint and is looking to rely more on renewable energy sources.

Read it at The New York Times

Venezuela, Iran, and others, desperately need high oil prices. But the more powerful members of OPEC don't seem willing to go along.

OPEC meets in Vienna on Friday, a meeting that will, according to the Wall Street Journal, be a mite testy.  The last few years have been flush for the cartel, with oil prices well above their historical average.  Now fracking is changing all that--and hammering open fissures in the cartel that been temporarily plugged with huge wads of petrodollars.  On one side are members like Saudi Arabia, who you can think of as OPEC's central banker.

AP

Memos reveal frustration with “most difficult employee.”

Apparently the inner workings of Al Qaeda are a lot like the movie Office Space. The Associated Press dug through a trove of memos (yes, al Qaeda has memos) about the terror network’s North African wing’s “most difficult employee”: he never filed expense reports on time, didn’t answer phone calls, ignored meetings, and did not undertake any spectacular operations. Pointing out that despite being given "a considerable amount of money," Moktar Belmoktar had yet to buy any weapons, the al Qaeda chapter asked, "So whose performance deserves to be called poor in this case, I wonder?" Belmoktar then carried out every disgruntled employee’s dream: he quit and went out on his own and achieved infamy. Here is where things get deadly serious: Belmoktar is credited with killing 101 people in operations that include the takeover of a BP gas plant in Algeria and bombings just last week at a military base and a French uranium mine in Niger.

Read it at Associated Press

I'll reluctantly support a Cadillac tax, if only as a precursor to one day removing the tax exemption for employer health insurance spending. Quoth Jonathan Cohn in The New Republic:The story is about Obamacare's "Cadillac Tax," which isn't really a tax so much as a convoluted attempt to undo an existing tax break. To simplify things a bit, the government today doesn't treat employer health insurance as taxable income.

Costa Rica-based online exchange nailed.

This news has some Mafia dons quaking. Liberty Reserve is being charged with the largest online money-laundering case ever, where over a period of seven years it laundered over $6 billion, likely for criminals involved in identity theft and child porn. The laundering involved millions of people all over the world, and around 200,000 in the US. The case is seen as a water shed moment in money laundering by demonstrating how much of it now takes place online. 

Read it at The New York Times

Will pay $82 million fine.

See, they don’t just misbehave in third world countries! Wal-Mart will pay $81.63 million to the federal government after pleading guilty to dumping hazardous waste products like bleach and fertilizer in California and Missouri. The fines come on top of penalties paid previously to the states themselves.

Read it at CNBC

Says company is still innovative.

The CEO doth protest too much, methinks. On Tuesday, at the All Things Digital conference, CEO Tim Cook claimed that Apple is still an innovator, and that he expects it to release “several more game changers.” What has tongues wagging is that Cook hinted at a wearable computer being one of those innovations. The company has increasingly been challenged in a variety of spheres by other tech companies, most notably by Google and Samsung.

Beck Diefenbach/Reuters

Maybe corporate America finally got too greedy for its own good.