Author: Serkadis

Where do we stand on healthcare reform?

It’s still a coinflip.

POLITICO has attained a memo sent to Representatives from Rep. Christopher Van Hollen which lays out the madness that will be the next few days.

Here’s a few points:

• The latest CBO budget scoring — a requisite for any vote — could come any day. Probalby no later than Monday.
• The bill will go to the rules committee
• A 72-hour clock will start.
• Vote will happen as soon as Friday, possibly Saturday.

This is also pretty interesting, directly from memo:

Finally, I encourage you to study the final attached slide (#14) and give some thought to what your plan is post-vote, especially during Easter Work Period. If your Member is a yes, or might be a yes, I would lay the groundwork for some events to highlight the reforms that will quickly become law – no more donut hole, dependent children covered until 26, insurance access for those with pre-existing conditions, etc.

In other words: we’re gonna pass this thing, and then Democrats must IMMEDIATELY begin explaining their vote, and digging out from their hole.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Haven’t Gotten A Raise In Forever? Blame Our Broken Healthcare System
• Obama Delays Asia Trip, As Healthcare Has Trouble Getting Over The Finish Line
• The Scary Truth About Healthcare Reform: If It Doesn’t Work, We’ll Be Much Worse Off

Filed under: Europe, Technology, Volkswagen, UK

This is what we mean when we say that the future of alternative fuels isn’t anywhere close to being decided. A team from the BBC program Bang Goes the Theory has rigged an older Volkswagen Scirocco to run on coffee pellets. It’s a bit complex, with the coffee grounds needing to be heated to 1,292 degrees Fahrenheit, and the resulting concoction cooled, separated and filtered before it’s run to the engine. Because coffee contains carbon, however, it works.

It’s expensive, though. The trial run the Starbucks Scirocco will make from London to Manchester and back will cost more than 25 times what the same trip on gasoline would because the car goes just three miles on a kilo of coffee. The 209-mile trip is also take ten hours, due to the number of stops required to refill the fuel canister and regularly clean out the system.

So, on second thought, this is not what we mean when we talk about the future of alternative fuels. But it is really neat, and it’s for the kids, and those sorts of things count for a lot in our book. Hat tip to Joviocoe!

[Source: The Daily Mail]

Grounds for Celebration: TV scientists convert VW Scirocco to run on coffee originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Subaru, Toyota, Rumormill

Japan’s Best Car (via 7Tune) apparently reports that development costs associated with Subaru’s version of the Toyota FT-86 sport coupe have become so high that all-wheel drive is now being dropped from the equation. If true, this would deprive the widely-expected Scooby coupe of the feature the brand’s entire marketing platform is built on, likely leaving us with a pair of clones whose only major difference will be styling. To that end, it’s also reported that an effort is underway to more substantially differentiate the Subaru coupe’s look from the Toyota FT-86 beyond grilles and badges.

Of course, nothing’s official until these cars are formally introduced, but yanking AWD from the Subaru effectively leaves us with a Japanese version of GM’s old Camaro/Firebird scenario, assuming both cars really do come to market. Frankly, it’s hard to see why Subaru would even bother going with this sans all-wheel drive coupe, though the Herculean PR spin they’d have to put on it would likely be hugely entertaining (“This is what we wanted all along…”).

So, let’s hear what you think. Follow the jump for a poll on how a lack of AWD would impact your interest in the presumed Subaru version of the Toyota FT-86. Thanks to Johnny for the tip!

[Source: 7Tune via FT86Club.com]

Continue reading Report: No AWD for Subaru version of FT-86 “Toyobaru” [w/poll]

Report: No AWD for Subaru version of FT-86 “Toyobaru” [w/poll] originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony and Microsoft are now moving into the Wii-dominated motion-controlled gaming market. So, what does Nintendo think about it? NoA president Reggie Fils-Aime says they’d be embarrassed to do what the two console manufacturers are currently doing.

Here’s a new promotional video of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift showing off the new features being integrated into the game’s home console versions. The vid also includes a very quick glance at new character μ-12. Bit of a “blink

consumption vs GDP – CHART OF THE DAY: The Real-Time Indicator That Says The Consumer Is Already Rolling Over – Vincent Fernando and Kamelia Angelova – Clusterstock at Business Insider

CHART OF THE DAY: Why You Still Don’t Have A Job – Joe Weisenthal and Kamelia Angelova -  Clusterstock at Business Insider

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major article on inflation vs deflation – must read – Bernanke’s Dilemma: Hyperinflation and the U.S. Dollar – Ron Hera – Seeking Alpha 
  
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video:  MISH & Marc Faber: Don’t Expect Another Crash … Bernanke Won’t Allow It – … He says "if we go down by 10-20% on the S&P 500, our money printer Ben Bernanke will flood the market, weakening the dollar" Both commentators made a … – GuruFocus
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Gold Makes Making New Highs Relative to All Currencies (VIDEO) – Paco Ahlgren –
Assets against which gold continues to make new highs: the dollar.  the euro.  residential housing.  the yen.  the yuan.  the Dow Jones Industrial Average.  the S&P 500.  U.S. debt.  automobiles. – The Bottom Violation

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Income distribution: Why Our Present Economy Is Not Sustainable – Kimball Corson – Most of us are not going to like to read what I write here, but, after careful consideration, I believe it is the truth, whether we like it or not. However, I doubt that we will be able to face up to the problem and fix it. Succinctly put, the problem is this– … – Seeking Alpha

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Households’ balance sheet repair continues (2) – Scott Grannis – According to the Federal Reserve’s calculations, the net worth of U.S. households as of last December had increased by $5.7 trillion (up 11.6%) from the low of last March – Calafia Beach Pundit

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Soaring Stock Market, And Housing Rebound Means The Wealth Effect Is Back! – Joe Weisenthal – Money Game at Business Insider  
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The TIPS Yield Curve: Bad News for Bonds – Eddie Elfenbein – … I’m not a bond investor but I wouldn’t even think of investing in any bond that had a real return of less than 2%. According to the bend of the current curve, the TIPS yields won’t reach 2% for another four years. … – Seeking Alpha

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Annaly Capital Management Announces Monthly Commentary for March

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interesting – Hugh Hendry: "We Hedge Fund Managers Are On Your Side" – Submitted by Tyler Durden – Originally authored by Hugh Hendry and appearing in the Daily Telegraph – hattip John Cervarich – Zero Hedge

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Video: Uneven Terrain: Oil of L.A. – From VBS.tv – Twenty million barrels of oil sit beneath Los Angeles. Hidden in plain sight, thousands of wells pump day and night all over the city covered by hollow office buildings, camouflaged next to high schools, and concealed behind shopping malls. – Canoe.tv

Will Insomniac’s games no longer be sticking exclusively to Sony consoles? That’s the rumor going around right now.

ABC News International (Paul Schemm)

Four page story.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

After announcing back in September 2009 that they would be switching from a MySQL environment to a NoSQL BigTable solution, Digg engineers rewrote the majority of their site’s code using the Cassandra DB as their main data storage handler. Cassandra was chosen from other open-source NoSQL solutions, including CouchDB and MongoDB.

John… (read more)

OsirisNet

A massive nine web pages dedicated to the tomb of Ty in Saqqara, with photos, illustrations, site maps, and some great descriptions and explanations.

After several months of work, we can finally present to you, on OsirisNet, a complete description of the famous mastaba of Ty, in Saqqara. Besides an exhaustive description (which includes the translation of almost all the texts) you will be able to discover more than 650 photos, illustrations, commented plans and images with an overlay effect of detail information.

http://www.osirisnet.net/mastabas/ty/e_ty_01.htm

We hope that this visit will please you.

Thierry BENDERITTER & Jon HIRST
www.osirisnet.net
Tombs of Egypt

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Egypt State Information Service

In accordance with the newly approved antiquities law, Culture Minister Farouq Hosni ordered on 10 March 2010 the formation of a standing committee to inspect and register relics owned by individuals.

The law requires Egyptians who have Jewish, Coptic and Islamic antiquities to report their belongings to the committee, which is affiliated to the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) as of this month.

The law, which forbids trade in antiquities, allows possession of antiquities with some individuals, on condition that they cannot use them to benefit others, or to damage and neglect them, SCA Secretary-General Zahi Hawass said.

“These antiquities can, in future only, be given as a gift with the SCA’s authorisation. They may also be passed on as part of an inheritance,” Hawass added.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Adireé Fashion Agency (Executive Producer of AFWNY), partners and sponsors will host Africa Fashion Week New York (AFWNY) in New York, NY. AFWNY is a luxury multi-day event that will include Runway shows, exhibition, and industry networking events with the sole purpose of raising awareness of the African Fashion/Entertainment professionals in New York and Tri -State area. 

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
Private Viewing Reception

Thursday, July 15th, 2010
Fashion Show @ 6 PM

Friday, July 16th, 2010
Trunk Show / Sample Sale @ 6:30 PM

Saturday, July 17th, 2010
Private African Soiree @ 5 PM

For more information visit: http://africafashionweekny.com/fashion/

Catholic News Story (Carol Glatz)

The Vatican Museums had a rare opportunity to unravel some of the secrets inside a 2,000-year-old Egyptian mummy.

Ny-Maat-Re, a female mummy given to Pope Leo XIII in 1894, had been in a serious state of degradation since the 1990s. Poorly embalmed, the linen bandages under her back had rotted away and her spine and ribcage had collapsed.

In 2007 a Vatican expert decided to restore and study her further and the Vatican Mummy Project was born.

Egyptologist, Alessia Amenta, is the curator of the Vatican Museums’ Department for the Antiquities of Egypt and the Near East. She told Catholic News Service that she assembled a team of top-notch experts from a variety of fields to come together to save Ny-Maat-Re, who is one of seven adult and two child mummies in the Vatican Museums’ collections.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Talking Pyramids (Vincent Brown)

The re-wrapping of the mummy of the Anonymous Man was carried out in early February by the team from the Brooklyn Museum. We saw some of the live coverage of the re-wrapping here on Talking Pyramids.

Today they’ve released the batch of photos from the fourth day of the re-wrapping and you can see all of the photos from all four days on their Flickr stream.

See Vincent’s page above for videos and useful links.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Article Tags: Bruce Thompson

As an engineer schooled in the slide rule era, I have been trying to educate myself about the nature of climate models. The details of the specific construction of the models have been hard to find. I am old enough that I have been through the evolution of computers and calculators from those earliest HP scientific models that cost $400 in 1972 dollars. Computers are not electronic brains, they are just very fast electronic slide rules and adding machines. So I want to figure out the thinking process behind the models.

As a summer intern in the thermodynamics department at Grumman Aerospace, I did computer modeling of the air conditioning system of the A-6E aircraft. Getting that program to run took a lot of debugging, but when it finally started to go, it used 2 minutes of computation time on Grumman’s biggest computer before the time allotted to a summer intern expired. They needed that computer for other things, such as landing men on the moon! The summer intern’s project would have to wait. But I do have an informed curiosity in the creation of these climate models. It’s not a pretty picture.

Now that I have found some of the details, I think I can provide a layman’s guide to the developing issues about the models. Much of the current debate centers on the validity of the surface temperature issue.

Click source to read FULL report by Bruce Thompson

Source: americanthinker.com

Read in full with comments »   

Article Tags: Gary Novak, Headline Story, W. R. Pratt

Currently in the mainstream media there is a constant barrage of repetition concerning the issue of human emissions of carbon dioxide. You cannot open a newspaper or turn on the radio without being told how we must reduce our carbon footprint and do our bit for the environment.

Terms such as Man Made Global Warming, Greenhouse Effect and more recently, Climate Change have cast a shadow of gloom over our very existence. A mass global guilt trip has been successfully laid on the ordinary people of the world which makes even the Catholic Church look like part-timers. It has been said by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the debate is over. That we humans are responsible for a rise in CO2 over the last 150-200 years or more taking levels from 280 ppm (parts
per million) up to 385 ppm.

It is also claimed that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and causes global warming because it traps heat from the Sun. And that because of our CO2 emissions, the temperature on Earth is set to go on rising until the polar ice caps melt and the sea levels rise, swamping coastal towns and villages and displacing millions of people. In fact such catastrophic predictions have been so numerous that CO2 levels have been increased by the very act of their verbalisation. Most worrying is the fact that there are currently, very real efforts underway to curb our carbon emissions and force us to pay a premium for the right to emit carbon dioxide based on these claims which, it has to be said, although the debate is apparently over, have yet to be substantiated. The reason that so many people have accepted that they are to blame, regardless of the fact that these claims remain unsubstantiated, is simple.

To be told that you are responsible for harming the very environment on which you depend for life is enough to fill you with the utmost fear, unbearable guilt and sheer terror. Therein lies the problem. When we are in a state of fear or shock or we feel a sense of intense guilt we loose the ability to think properly. Rational and logical thought is shut down to a point where we cease to even question what we are told.

Updated below in comments section by Gary Novak

Source: spinonthat.com

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Accent Advocate

A standing room-only crowd joined history professor Manu Ampim in LA-100 Thursday for a W.E.B. Du Bois lecture series event on the inaccuracy with which the media portray the life of King Tutankhamen, popularly known as King Tut.

The seminar focused on his true genealogy and the De Young Museum exhibit by archeologist Zahi Hawass claiming to have newfound DNA.

“This is modern-day fraud,” Ampim said. “People are taking it as far as distorting images to say they know what King Tut looks like. This is all speculation. You cannot present evidence if it has not been proven yet.”

Ampim said that saying they know who King Tut’s parents were is just guesswork.

They release data that says one thing at this moment in time, Ampim said, then release data at another point in time that is completely different information, and as a scholar one just cannot do that.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Asharq Alawsat (Zahi Hawass)

Ancient Egyptian antiquities have preserved images and illustrations for us that reflect the humour of the ancient Egyptians and their tendency of caricaturing their circumstances, whether they represent their political, economic, or social circumstances. Ancient Egyptian artists utilized the walls of tombs to carve silent caricatures and convey highly expressive scenes to the viewer. Examples of this can be seen in the image of an extremely skinny shepherd whose ribs can be seen under his skin herding a group of fat cows, or an image of a guard sleeping outside of the warehouse that he is supposed to be protecting. There is also the image of a monkey attacking a young boy who stole fruit from the market.

In addition to these images and scenes etched on to the walls of tombs, the laborers and artists also carved images and exchanged drawings and caricatures.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes