Author: Serkadis

Here’s the market’s flash verdict (maybe) on healthcare reform.

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Filed under: Classics, Auctions, Ferrari

While the iconic 250 series of 1960s-era Ferraris – including the GTO, California Spyder and Testa Rossa – continue to break records at auction, the models that followed are quickly catching up, as those who lusted after them in their wonder years are coming up with the cash to acquire them today. As with any great collector cars, the more perfect and more rare the specimen, the more it’ll fetch at auction.

Case in point, three classic Ferraris hovering around the 40-year-old mark each sold for seven figures last week at the RM Auctions Amelia Island event in Florida. One example, a rare Daytona Spyder once owned by Edsel Ford II, brought in $1,017,500 – safely inside the $1-1.25 million estimate range. Another, an alloy-bodied 275 GTB/4 in stunning copper, which was purchased new by Luigi Chinetti and displayed at the 1967 New York Auto Show, went for $1,265,000 – a little short of its estimate. It was bested, however, by a meticulously-restored, concours-winning 275 that greatly exceeded its estimate with a $1,650,000 winning bid.

Along with the headline-catching Duesenbergs, these classic cavallinos helped RM achieve an 88% sale rate at Amelia Island, accounting for over $19 million in sales. Further details in the press release after the jump.

[Source: RM Auctions]

Continue reading Three classic Ferraris break the million-dollar mark at Amelia Island

Three classic Ferraris break the million-dollar mark at Amelia Island originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Σίγουρα ο Μπιθικώτσης δεν θα είχε φανταστεί κάτι παρόμοιο. Ένας αθεόφοβος καλλιτέχνης από την Νέα Υόρκη εν ονόματι  Jeremy Dean μετέτρεψε ένα Hummer H2 σε άμαξα που το σέρνουν 2 άλογα! Απίστευτο; Φωτογραφίες και μερικά video στη συνέχεια.

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Στην ειδική εκδήλωση για τον Yves Saint Laurent που έγινε στις 10 Μαρτίου στο Παρίσι η Citroen παρουσίασε μια ειδική έκδοση του DS3. Με ένα τεράστιο λογότυπο της φίρμας του στην οροφή, το αυτοκίνητο χρησιμοποιήθηκε για να μεταφέρει σταρ και κριτικούς μόδας στην εκδήλωση που παρουσιάστηκαν περισσότερες από 300 δημιουργίες του Yves Saint Laurent. Φωτογραφίες και δελτίο τύπου στη συνέχεια.

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IEA Executive Director Audrey Soglin updated the Representative Assembly today on Illinois’ participation in the federal Race to the Top competition for federal funding. You can see the update, too.

Race to the Top Update RA

Not as if Michelle Bombshell McGee really has much to strip generally

Michelle Bombshell McGee is the gift that keeps on giving, and she continues to make headlines, this time with the release of a video featuring her stripping.

This isn’t exactly a surprise to anyone who has seen McGee’s website, it seems like she’s a fetish model/possible sex worker, so a video of her stripping was probably inevitable. I’m sure all that’s left at this point is a Michelle Bombshell McGee sex tape to complete things (I mean we’ve got her in a Nazi fetish photoshoot already …)/ Check out the Michelle Bombshell Mcgee stripping video after the jump:

«Θέλουμε να ενημερώσουμε ότι σύμφωνα με την εμπορική της πολιτική, η Kosmocar AE τιμολογεί και ταυτόχρονα παραδίδει όλα τα απαραίτητα δικαιολογητικά για την ταξινόμηση των αυτοκινήτων στους επίσημους εμπόρους της, αφού προηγούμενα έχει λάβει πλήρη εξόφληση της αξίας αυτών.

Because of the ongoing debate on health care reform, FDL’s front page will look a little different today. Today’s book salon, featuring Charlie Stross’s The Trade of Queens: Book Six of the Merchant Princes, hosted by Paul Krugman is going on now and can be found here.

Bart Stupak finally had his press conference. He announced he has agreed to vote “yes” for the HCR bill after an executive order on abortion was agreed to with the White house.

FDL liveblogging of the floor debate continues here.

Tags: Bart Stupak, Health care

This is nothing new, but the small world of WQVA can add one more set of wallpapers to their list. The guys at MylostBlog have managed to get another pack of wallpapers available to the people that use a device with that resolution. There is not much wallpaper in the pack, but I am sure many people have been waiting for something new by now.

If you want to get something new to your device, try this pack and enjoy:

Try it

The demand may be significantly less than the previous week, but the PSP continues to outsell all the other gaming platforms in Japan. Selling second best is still the Wii, steadily closing the gap, while it’s the

Congratulations to Lady Gaga and Beyonce! Lady Gaga and Beyonce saw their single Telephone climb to the top spot in the UK singles chart today. Beyonce now has a total of five number 1 songs in the UK.

Crazy In Love [2003]
Déjà Vu [2006]
Beautiful Liar [2007]
If I Were A Boy [2008]
Telephone [2010]

I am… Sasha Fierce is also still going strong. After 70 weeks in the album chart, it went up 8 places to number 22!

Lady Gaga just tweeted:

TELEPHONE WENT #1 IN THE UK! + THE ALBUM FAME MONSTER WENT #1 UK! WE DID IT HONEY B! LOVE + KISSES TO OUR FANS, WE COULDNT DO IT WITHOUT U.

Filed under: Motorsports, Acura, Audi, Chevrolet, Porsche, Ferrari, Peugeot, Diesel, Racing

The first of nine races that comprise the 2010 American Le Mans Series is now in the history books, as the 12 Hours of Sebring came to a conclusion under the cover of darkness Saturday night. For those of you who still have the race on your DVRs, you can come back here later. For the rest of you, read on to find out who got a jump on the rest of the ALMS field.

Continue reading 2010 24 Hours of Sebring goes into the books [SPOILER ALERT]

2010 24 Hours of Sebring goes into the books [SPOILER ALERT] originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Updates: A procedural vote allowing the bill to go to general vote passed easily.  Almost there…

Original post:It’s begun folks! Congress is in chamber debating healthcare reform.

Passage odds on InTrade are over 95%.

On MSNBC, Pat Buchanan called it a done deal.

There’s chatter that a final deal with the anti-abortion Democrats is in the works. (Update: According to reports there’s still no deal on this front)

The GOP’s opening pitcher is boy wonder congressman Paul Ryan, who is talking about the nonsensical CBO score and the deficit.

There will be several procedural votes today. A final vote may come sometime around midnight.

If you’re not near a TV, you can watch the debate on C-SPAN here.

Update: According to The Hill, the Democrats are definitely still short!

2:57: The White House just blasted out the following to liberal activists. Probably not worth reading into one wary or another

As today’s historic healthcare vote is near, I ask that you do not let up and continue pushing. 

Anything you can do in these final hours to promote and publicly call for support is much appreciated and timely.

Do not let up – do not quit. 

Keep everyone in positive thoughts – educate your members – make your voices heard.

We are on the verge of history – but it is just the verge – it has not happened yet.

3:28: Stupak to hold press conference at 4:00 PM announcing his vote. The presumption is that it’s a “YES” but there’s nothing official on that.

3:31: For what it’s worth, here’s how we’d characterize the debate right now. The Republicans have been trying to hammer The Democrats on various points: earmarks, rules, the deficit, etc. Democrats are ignoring the claims, and sticking to rhetoric, not engaging the critics.

3:45: Evidently Stupak will announce that he’s a “YES.” POLITICO explains what’s about to go down.

4:00: The Stupak press conference is set to begin any second now.

4:05: Stupak is out on the podium. Marc Ambinder has a text of The President’s executive order which will limit abortion funding.

4:07: Stupak: “We have an agreement.”

4:11: If you think there’s still a chance this could fail, you can make 33x your money over at InTrade, where the odds have hit 97%.

4:22: Stupak Q&A: “We’re well past 216”

6:17: A final-final vote isn’t expected until late tonight, but nothing that’s happened this evening suggests the vote will be suspenseful.

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Along with its ambitions to take on the supercar market, McLaren officially launched the MP4-12C earlier this week. However, McLaren has yet to provide official performance figures and the curb-weight of the MP4-12C – all McLaren told us so far is that the car can go from 0-60 mph in the low 3-second range with a top speed of more than 200 mph.

McLaren also claims that when using the launch-control function of the car’s 7-speed Seamless Shift dual-clutch gear box (SSG), the MP4-12C is capable of running a 0-60 mph time of under 3 seconds and a 0-124 mph time of under 10 seconds. That makes the 600-hp MP4-12C faster than the Corvette ZR1 (3.4 seconds), Ferrari 430 Scuderia (3.5 seconds) and the Lamborghini LP560-4 (3.2 seconds).

Click here to read our original post on the official launch of the McLaren MP4-12C.

Click here to read more news on the McLaren MP4-12C.

Refresher: Power for the 2011 McLaren MP4-12C comes from a 3.8L V8 twin-turbo engine producing around 600-hp mated to a 7-speed Seamless Shift dual-clutch gearbox (SSG). 0 to 60 mph is expected to come in the low 3 second range with a top speed of more than 200 mph. Sales begin in early 2011.

2011 McLaren MP4-12C:

– By: Omar Rana

Source: CARandDRIVER

Ακόμη ένα video από την πισωκίνητη Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni, σε πορτοκαλί χρώμα αυτή τη φορά. H ειδική έκδοση της Gallardo η οποία αποτελεί φόρο τιμής στον επί 40 χρόνια δοκιμαστή Valentino Balboni , διαθέτει τον γνωστό πλέον 5.2 λίτρων V10 κινητήρα που στην προκειμένη περίπτωση αποδίδει 550 άλογα. Τα 0-100 χλμ/ώρα έρχονται σε 3.9 δευτερόλεπτα ενώ η τελική του ταχύτητα αγγίζει τα 320 χλμ/ώρα. Το video στη συνέχεια.

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Article Tags: You could not make it up

With climate change occurring faster than ever, some new persuasive techniques are needed.

Thomas Friedman, in Hot, Flat and Crowded, proposes that we refer to our time as the “Energy-Climate Era.” Friedman’s thesis — that the converging trends of rapid population growth, man-made climate change, and peak oil will define our time — is well-argued. But events since the date of publication invite a refinement upon Friedman’s label for our time.

A case in point: photovoltaic energy, since 2008, has achieved cost/performance gains so impressive that analysts like McKinsey now see “grid parity” as an inflection point for planning new generating capacity in national electricity grids starting around 2015. And, while the developing world has had fewer resources to support feed-in tariff programs, recent policy signals from both China and India suggest that political leadership in both countries is more attuned to the issues of climate change and clean energy than generally credited. As clean electrons approach grid parity, both of these countries are poised to dramatically expand the size of the market — driving a virtuous circle of even greater scale economies and technology innovation.

Source: greentechmedia.com

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With War Machine standing side-by-side with Tony Stark in Iron Man 2, that makes two armored-up heroes (qjnet/news/watch-iron-man-2-war-machine-reveal-trailer.html)fighting for the good guys. But what about the bad guys?

Article Tags: E. Calvin Beisner

Wanted for Premeditated Murder: How Post-Normal Science Stabbed Real Science in the Back on the Way to the Illusion of “Scientific Consensus” on Global Warming

Climate Change and the Death of Science is the most important article we’ve linked to in quite a long time. If you have time to read nothing else from this issue, read this. It’s worth every minute it will take.

As Climategate and other transgressions of fundamental scientific procedure by global warming alarmists continue to unfold, it becomes increasingly clear that a great deal of what’s been called “climate science” isn’t science at all. It’s ideological propaganda, often religious (but certainly not Biblical), masquerading as science.

In Climate Change and the Death of Science, Christian blogger Jerry Bouey nails practitioners of post-normal science fair and square, in their own words, demonstrating that even they know and admit they’re no longer doing science but politics. To put it bluntly, they stabbed real science in the back. This article strikes at the very root of many environmentalists’ routine practices.

Bouey explains brilliantly how science got hijacked by post-normal science along the hurried way to the “overwhelming scientific consensus” on manmade global warming. Bouey points out that one of the world’s leading global warming alarmists is himself a devotee of post-normal science and therefore a traitor to real science.

The article quotes post-normalist (and therefore not to be suspected of presenting post-normal science in a bad light) Eva Kunseler distinguishing normal and post-normal science thus:

Click source to read FULL report by E. Calvin Beisner

Source: rightsidenews.com

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Filed under: Motorsports, Volkswagen

Williams is intent on bringing another major automaker into Formula 1, but which will get the call? Volkswagen has toyed with the idea of entering F1 for some time. The German auto giant is one of the largest carmakers never to participate in the sport, notwithstanding Porsche and Lamborghini, which have in the past and which have since fallen under the VW umbrella. The latest reports suggest that if costs continue to drop and stability is restored, Volkswagen could field an entry – in some form or another – by 2013. Questions remain over which of its many brands and divisions VW would choose to promote through its participation, and whether it’d opt for a full-on factory team (like Ferrari, Renault or Mercedes-Benz) or instead develop and supply engines to existing teams (as Cosworth currently does).

Williams, for its part, is very interested in partnering with Volkswagen, should it join the grid in 2013. How interested? Autocar reports that could Williams could be interested in selling its F1 team wholesale to Volkswagen, much as Sauber did to BMW (Williams’ old partner, which has since left the sport entirely) and Brawn has to Mercedes-Benz. Williams F1 team principals Frank Williams and Patrick Head have already offloaded part of the team to Austrian investor Toto Wolff, and Autocar quotes Williams as saying to Germany’s Bild, “We are stronger with a manufacturer than as a private team.”

[Source: Autocar]

Williams courting Volkswagen into Formula One? originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 21 Mar 2010 12:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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