Author: Serkadis

President Barack Obama said today he is open to four new Republican proposals on health care legislation, in a gesture of bipartisanship meant to jump-start his stalled drive to overhaul the system.

Obama detailed the ideas, all of which were raised at a bipartisan health care summit last week, in a letter to congressional leaders. In a nod to his 2008 presidential rival, Obama also said he was eliminating a special deal for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries in Florida and other states that drew criticism at the summit from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

The proposals Obama listed are: sending investigators disguised as patients to uncover fraud and waste; expanding medical malpractice reform pilot programs; increasing payments to Medicaid providers and expanding the use of health savings accounts.

“I said throughout this process that I’d continue to draw on the best ideas from both parties, and I’m open to these proposals in that spirit,” wrote Obama, who will make remarks Wednesday at the White House on a path forward for his legislation.

He rejected the GOP’s preferred approach of scrapping the existing sweeping overhaul bills and starting afresh with step-by-step changes.

“I also believe that piecemeal reform is not the best way to effectively reduce premiums, end the exclusion of people with pre-existing conditions or offer Americans the security of knowing that they will never lose coverage,” Obama wrote.

Obama’s announcement is not likely to win any votes from Republicans. Nor is there any guarantee that Democratic leaders will agree to incorporate the administration’s suggestions in revised legislation. But it could give wavering Democrats political cover by showing the White House has been willing to compromise in the wake of last week’s summit.

At its core, the Democrats’ legislation would extend coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans over 10 years with a first-time mandate for nearly everyone to buy insurance and a host of new requirements on insurers and employers. However, the package soon to reach the House will be less expensive than the one that passed in November and will contain no government-run insurance program to compete with private insurers, making it more appealing to some moderates.

Obama said he was open to these four GOP ideas:

• Conducting undercover investigations of Medicare and Medicaid providers to search for waste, fraud and abuse, an idea put forth by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) at least week’s summit.

• Experimenting with specialized health courts as an alternative to jury trials in medical malpractice cases to cut down on defensive medicine. That idea has been promoted both by Democrats and Republicans, including Coburn and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), who attended the summit.

The approach calls for an expert judge – not a jury – to hear the evidence and make a final determination in cases where a patient has suffered harm. Trial lawyers are strongly opposed to the concept.

Months ago, Obama budgeted $23 million for states to experiment with alternatives to malpractice litigation, but at the time he stopped short of endorsing health courts. The president now says he wants to more than double the budget for state experiments to $50 million.

• Obama also agreed that health savings accounts would be offered in new markets his plan sets up for individuals and small business to purchase coverage. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) brought up the idea at the summit.

The president said he’s open to the tax-sheltered accounts, which go hand-in-hand with high-deductible health insurance policies. Premiums on those policies are lower than for regular health insurance, and people who have them use the health savings accounts to pay their out-of-pockets costs.

• Obama also suggested increasing reimbursements to Medicaid providers, a concern raised by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa).

As expected, the changes did not appear to win over Republicans.

“That’s just one thing,” Coburn said of the president’s desire to incorporate his proposal. “We need to start over,” Coburn said, contending the bill doesn’t address underlying issues of health care costs and quality.

Grassley said Obama’s willingness to include his idea didn’t change his opposition to the overall legislation. “There are other things more important,” like its lack of caps on liability damages and its inclusion of an individual mandate, he said.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who attended the summit, said adding a few GOP ideas won’t sway Republicans.

“This is not a car that can be recalled and fixed,” he said.

Democrats argue that the GOP calls to scrap the existing legislation and start anew further their argument that Republicans have been unreasonably opposed to almost any compromise, justifying the White House decision to push for passage with no GOP help at all.

At least nine of the 39 Democrats who voted “nay” when the House passed sweeping overhaul legislation 220-215 in November are now undecided or withholding judgment until they see Obama’s final product, according to an Associated Press survey. Some lawmakers will almost certainly have to change from “nay” to “aye” in order for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to round up the necessary 216 votes to pass the Senate’s version of the legislation, along with a package of changes that Obama proposes.

The Associated Press

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The death of a Frankfort area man fatally struck by a Metra train Monday evening in Oak Forest has been ruled a suicide.

Metra Rock Island District train No. 407 struck a pedestrian as it approached the Oak Forest station just before 4:25 p.m., Metra spokeswoman Meg Reile said.

Brian Bielecki, 47, of the 24300 block of South Harvest Hills Road in Green Garden Township, was dead on the scene, according to the Cook County medical examiners office.

A Tuesday autopsy ruled he died of multiple injuries from a train striking a pedestrian, and his death was ruled a suicide, the medical examiners office said.

Trains were delayed up to 87 minutes because of the incident, according to Metras Web site.

Oak Forest police are assisting as Metra police investigate.

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URBANA, Ill. (CBS) ―The state’s worsening financial picture has forced the University of Illinois to consider borrowing money to ease its cash crisis — something it opposed just last month — as well as raising freshman tuition up to 20 percent.

Interim President Stanley Ikenberry spoke to The News-Gazette on Monday, detailing the budget situation (poor), the need for cuts (mostly from administration) and the Category I scandal (over).

The state is now $487 million in arrears to the university, and the number could soon exceed $500 million, Ikenberry said.

“That’s not sustainable,” he told The News-Gazette.

Ikenberry, who previously predicted a tuition increase of about 9 or 10 percent, said the figure could be as high as 20 percent.

He said the most likely figure was in the mid-teens. Since tuition is held steady over four years, the annualized rate for a 10 percent increase would be less than 4 percent, he said.

Ikenberry said the U of I must weigh social policy, the importance of keeping the flagship university open to lower- and middle-income students, as well as competitiveness with other institutions, in setting its tuition rates.

From a market standpoint, he said, the U of I needs to look at Michigan, Indiana and Purdue, as well as more expensive private universities like Northwestern and University of Chicago.

For the first time, tuition and fees account for more of the U of I’s funding than state aid, Ikenberry said.

“Students and parents are the only thing keeping our heads above water,” he said.

For the current fiscal year, which began July 1, the U of I has submitted more than $600 million in bills to the state but received just $133 million in reimbursements, officials said.

“We’re bumping up against the $500 million mark,” Ikenberry said.

In fact, with no state money forthcoming, the U of I could end its fiscal year June 30 with $550 million in unpaid bills from the state. And it appears those numbers will continue to escalate in fiscal 2011, “certainly up to $750 million,” he said.

He said the university probably has enough money to last through the school year, and perhaps the fiscal year, but noted that the state’s IOUs are piling up at an increasing rate. The state was $120 million behind last June.

The state government is behind on those payments because of a $13 billion budget deficit. Gov. Pat Quinn is calling for an income tax hike to plug the gap.

The U of I initially declined to sign on to a bill that would let universities borrow against tuition income or expected state appropriations because of the state’s financial crisis.

Ikenberry said he had no objections to other universities pursuing that authority but didn’t think it was good public policy. For one thing, universities would be on the hook for the loans, not the state.

But after spending a day in Springfield last week, with no apparent budget solution in sight, Ikenberry changed his mind.

“I’ve done a 180,” he said Monday.

Southern Illinois University pushed the legislation, Senate Bill 642, but it now includes Western, Northern, Eastern and other schools.

It would allow universities to sell general obligation bonds through Aug. 31, 2010, to raise money for salaries and other operating costs. They could borrow up to 75 percent of the amount owed by the state and would have to repay the money within 18 months.

A Senate spokesman said an amendment to include the UI in the borrowing authority will be considered this week, likely in the Senate Higher Education Committee.

The measure would then return to the Senate floor for a vote, said Senate spokesman A.J. Sheehan.

Ikenberry is still hoping the state will come through with some cash so the U of I can avoid borrowing. But he wants to have that option, just in case.

The U of I is already borrowing from other cash sources, including tuition, insurance reserves and related funds that are spoken for down the road. Its only other options are borrowing against future revenue or “shutting down,” Ikenberry said.

The legislation would give the U of I the option of borrowing money for perhaps six to nine months, he said.

“If the state takes tough steps now to put its financial house in order, I’d feel better going into next year,” he said. But if a solution is a year away, “that suggests the cash-flow problems of the state are going to get much worse in the next nine to 12 months.”

Ikenberry said it’s clear state leaders know the state is facing unprecedented problems, and most agree the solution is to cut expenses and raise revenue — that is, a tax increase of some sort. But there’s no political will to act before the general elections in November, he said.

“There’s every reason for the state to resolve its financial crisis immediately. But I don’t see signs of it happening,” he said. “Until we do that, things continue to become more and more perilous.”

The U of I is going through a complex budget-review process to identify potential savings through program consolidations and other cuts. Ikenberry said it’s likely the university will be smaller in coming years in terms of programs and its “overall footprint.” But enrollment probably won’t go down, as tuition is now a primary source of income.

Ikenberry also said the U of I was looking at other possibilities, including the General Assembly ending its scholarship program, as well as cutting programs.

But the interim president said there was no easy answer.

“I don’t think we can cut our way through this, and I don’t think we can tax increase our way out of it,” he said.

The U of I already voted in January to raise the cost of room and board at the flagship campus in Urbana-Champaign by 4.6 percent to $9,086, starting this summer. The university has also forced faculty and staff to take furlough days and instituted a hiring freeze.

The Champaign News-Gazette’s Julie Wurth contributed to this report, via the Associated Press

(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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LOMBARD, Ill. (CBS) ― A school bus driver was taken to the hospital Tuesday morning when the bus was involved in a crash in unincorporated Lombard.

Around 8 a.m., DuPage County sheriff’s deputies were sent to North Avenue and Swift Road, just west of the Veterans’ Memorial Tollway (I-355), for an accident involving a school bus.

The bus was headed westbound on North Avenue, attempting to make a left turn at an apartment complex west of Swift Road when it made contact with an eastbound car, DuPage County Sheriff’s office spokeswoman Dawn Domrose said.

It is unknown how they made contact, but there were no students on the bus at the time, according to a release from the sheriff’s office.

The school bus driver was taken to Adventist Glen Oaks Hospital in Glendale Heights with minor injuries.

The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.

(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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CHICAGO (WBBM)  — Fewer teachers and larger classroom. Those are the predictions of school analysts and taxpayer watchdogs.

A wave of teacher layoffs is underway in Chicago suburbs — and experts say that is just the tip of the iceberg looming over all Illinois districts which are just now coming to grips with the state’s financial crisis.

Seventy five teachers have been laid off in Maine Township, District 300 is considering 140 layoffs, 31 have been laid off in West Aurora, as districts face a March deadline to let union teachers know their positions will be eliminated next fall. There are also teacher cuts and higher fees for students in Elgin District U-46.

Ralph Marterie, the executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, says with fewer dollars to spend schools throughout Illinois are looking at class sizes above 30, maybe reaching 40 unless additional funding is found.

And it’s not just the public school system feeling the pinch, but higher education in the state as well.
University of Illinois at Chicago Political Science Professor Dick Simpson says his department will be teaching 7 fewer classes next year.

He says the University of Illinois is short 483-million dollars budgeted and promised by the state. University officials are now considering long term borrowing, program cuts and a hike in tuition that could go as high as 20 percent for incoming freshman

The President of Chicago’s civic federation says Illinois was in financial trouble before the financial downturn cut into tax revenue. Lawrence Msall says Illinois is facing a 12.8 billion dollar deficit.

Msall says his group is calling for a 2.5 billion dollar spending cut, pension reforms, and only after that….additional funding from a state income tax hike.

Msall says that the National Pew Center for the States has found Illinois to be the worst financially managed state in the entire nation.

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CHICAGO (WBBM)  — The Illinois Democratic Party’s online casting call for potential running mates for Gov. Pat Quinn is drawing a lot of potential candidates. CLICK HERE AND APPLY

The party posted 46 applications on its Web site Tuesday, an eclectic group that ranges from a junior college student to two Argonne National Laboratory scientists; from substitute teachers to a retired Loyola University law professor; and from a high-visibility Democratic fundraiser to several people who have run as Republicans for public office.

A handful are unemployed and several more underemployed. Others include a police officer, a prison guard and a deputy sheriff; a book editor, a marketing executive, a printing technician, a personal banker, several small business owners, the CEO of a renewable energy firm, a Jane Addams/Hull House Foundation literacy aide and a stress management teacher.

One said he refuses to vote in primaries and cannot even be sure he is a Democrat and another said the fact that he is not a Democrat would be an asset to the ticket.

Several names are well-known in the Chicago area. They include former Chicago Board of Trade chairman Patrick Arbor, who has been a major Democratic fundraiser; former CLTV reporter-turned- Blagojevich senior adviser Bob Arya, and former Palos Heights Mayor Dean Koldenhoven.

None of the 46 include candidates who lost to Scott Lee Cohen in the Feb. 2 primary. Cohen resigned from the ticket under pressure once accusations of domestic violence in his past, and a checkered series of financial dealings, became public. Cohen denied the accusations.

Arbor lists a varied background that also includes a stint as mayor of Harwood Heights and notes that he is an “aficionado of Italian culture.”

Arya says in his resume that he is “intrepid, intelligent, hard-working, respected and reliable” and has both “a strong journalism background and outstanding communications skills.” While he lists himself as an advisor to the governor on fiscal and legislative matters, he does not list that it was ousted Gov. Rod Blegojevich under whom he served.

Koldenhoven, a brick salesman by trade, said he is a Democrat because he believes the party “adheres to what I believe is the good of the people.”

It is unclear whether the party’s 38 central committeemen will choose to slate anyone to run with Quinn. Party Chairman and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan has said publicly that he would like to see the lieutenant governor’s office abolished. Madigan said the applications will make the decision at a meeting, expected later this month.

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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court appeared willing Tuesday to say that the Constitution’s right to possess guns limits state and local regulation of firearms. But the justices also suggested that some gun control measures might not be affected.

The court heard arguments in a case that challenges handgun bans in the Chicago area by asking the high court to extend to state and local jurisdictions the sweep of its 2008 decision striking down a gun ban in the federal enclave of Washington, D.C.

The biggest questions before the court seemed to be how, rather than whether, to issue such a ruling and whether some regulation of firearms could survive. On the latter point, Justice Antonin Scalia said the majority opinion he wrote in the 2008 case “said as much.”

The extent of gun rights are “still going to be subject to the political process,” said Chief Justice John Roberts, who was in the majority in 2008.

At the very least, Tuesday’s argument suggested that courts could be very busy in the years ahead determining precisely which gun laws are allowed under the Second Amendment’s “right to keep and bear arms,” and which must be stricken.

James Feldman, a Washington-based lawyer representing Chicago, urged the court to reject the challenges to the gun laws in Chicago and its suburb of Oak Park, Ill. Handguns have been banned in those two places for nearly 30 years.

The court has held that most of the rest of the Bill of Rights applies to state and local laws. But Feldman said the Second Amendment should be treated differently because guns are different. “Firearms are designed to injure and kill,” he said.

But Feldman ran into difficulty with some of the five justices who formed the majority in 2008. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who joined Scalia’s opinion two years ago, said it seemed to him that Feldman was arguing that the court got it wrong two years ago.

Kennedy said other constitutional provisions have been applied, or “incorporated,” against the states without stripping them of the authority to impose reasonable regulations. “Why can’t we do the same thing with firearms?” he asked.

Of the other two justices in the majority then, Justice Samuel Alito also appeared to agree that the Second Amendment should be extended to state and local laws and Justice Clarence Thomas said nothing, as is his custom during argument.

Tuesday’s statements from the court also left little doubt that it would not break new ground in how it might apply the Second Amendment to states and cities.

As in earlier cases applying parts of the Bill of Rights to the states, the justices suggested they use the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, passed in the wake of the Civil War, to ensure the rights of newly freed slaves.

The court has relied on that same clause — “no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law” — in cases that established a woman’s right to an abortion and knocked down state laws against interracial marriage and gay sex.

This is the approach the National Rifle Association favors.

For years, Scalia has complained about the use of the due process clause. But Tuesday he said, “As much as I think it’s wrong, even I have acquiesced in it.”

Alan Gura, the lawyer for the Chicago residents challenging the statute, urged the court to employ another part of the 14th amendment, forbidding a state to make or enforce any law “which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”

They argue this clause was intended as a broad guarantee of the civil rights of the former slaves, but that a Supreme Court decision in 1873 effectively blocked its use.

Breathing new life into the “privileges or immunities” clause might allow for new arguments to shore up other rights, including abortion and property rights, liberal and conservative legal scholars have said.

But why use that approach, calling for overturning 140 years of law, Scalia said, “unless you’re bucking for a place on some law school faculty?”

Gura assured the court he is not in search of a job.

A decision is expected by the end of June.

The case is McDonald v. Chicago, 08-1521.

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Filed under: By the Numbers

Ford outsells GM, Toyota sales fall hard

A number of things transpired last month to paint most of our By the Numbers table below green. A minor contribution can be credited to Toyota and its recall woes, the effect of which has been that many other automakers are grabbing conquest sales from the wounded Japanese automaker.

The Toyota Camry for instance, long the best-selling car in the U.S., moved 16,552 units last month compared to 20,634 the year before, a drop of almost 20 percent. The Ford Fusion, which has been gaining sales on the back of positive reviews and a mantel full of awards, sold 16,459 units last month. That’s a 117-percent sales increase compared to last year, some of which we have to believe is directly attributable to customers turning away from Toyota and the Camry. (Note: The Honda Accord beat them both with 22,456 sales, though the new Crosstour accounts for 2,432 of those sales, and the Nissan Altima fell below the Fusion with 16,198 sales.)

The major contributing factor to so many brands and companies reporting positive sales results in February is the fact that sales in February of last year were so dismal. It’s easy to be in the green when the bar has been reset so low. That said, Ford Motor Company’s performance in particular has to be noted, as it now stands as the largest domestic U.S. automaker after selling more vehicles last month than General Motors (142,285 vs. 141,951), a feat that hasn’t happened for 12 years. Expect it to happen a lot more as GM’s non-core brands wind down into non-existence.

*Brands and companies are displayed in descending order according to their percentage change in volume sales. There were 24 selling days in February 2010 and 24 selling days in February 2009, so the change in monthly sales volume will be the same as the change in the average daily sales rate (DSR) for each brand/company.

By the Numbers – February 2010: Easy Being Green Edition originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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(This guest post originally appeared at the author’s blog)

There is, arguably, no more important gauge of investor sentiment than the VIX.  Market extremes are generally best seen by the extraordinary swings in the VIX.  As we’ve recently described, the market has been on a drunken walk that takes it in one direction for a series of weeks and then suddenly reverses with the utmost conviction.   This back and forth has been a hallmark trait of the range-bound market of the last few months.

With today’s invincible feeling in the equity markets the VIX has now fallen a remarkable 14 of the last 15 days.  That’s a 93% win rate in a three week period.  Not bad if you’ve been trading or hedging via the VIX.  Unfortunately, this trend is more than unsustainable.  This is the longest losing streak for the VIX since the March 2009 rally began and the few losing streaks that came even close were followed by sideways to down markets in the following 4-8 weeks.

The VIX has become a sure bet.  As the old saying goes, if something seems too good to be true it probably is.  The trend is your friend until it ends and this trend is beginning to look like a mighty bad bet to me.  I’m not one to call tops, but as a manager of risk this indicator has me feeling a bit uneasy.

 

Read more market commentary at The Pragmatic Capitalist >

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Yesterday’s Bloodshed Sent The VIX Soaring 20%, Which Means Today Markets Will Rebound
• The VIX Screams Pre-Lehman Complacency As It Hits A New Low
• Huge Surprises In 2010: An American Third Party, A Major Yuan Devaluation And The VIX Falling To 14

It was reported last month that Lexus had no plans to bring the new CT 200h hatchback to the North American market – but you can scratch that report now. Today at the world debut of the Lexus CT 200h at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show, Lexus confirmed to AutoWeek that the car will be sold in the United States.

“It’s designed with Europe in mind, but it will be sold worldwide,” said Andy Pfeiffenberger, vice president of Lexus Europe.

Click here to get prices on the 2010 Lexus HS 250h.

Refresher: Power for the Lexus CT 200h comes from a 1.8L VVT-i gasoline engine mated to a powerful electric-motor fueled by nickel-metal hydride batteries. Unlike a mild-hybrid system, the CT 200h has an EV (electric-vehicle) mode that allows it to run on only on its electric-motor for up to 1.2 miles at speeds of up to 28 mph.

2011 Lexus CT 200h:

– By: Kap Shah

Source: AutoWeek

The Department of Labor (via Catherine Rempell) has now put out a press release explaining the consequences of Jim Bunning’s decision to block the unemployment insurance extension.

The bottom line is that up to 500,000 Americans could be shut out in the next month.

Here are some notable states, and how much they’ll lose immediately:

• New York: 54,3000
• Florida: 49,600
• Georgia: 41,000
• Ohio: 16,200

Read the whole announcement here >

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• 11 Reasons Jim Bunning Is Dangerous And Must Be Stopped
• How The GOP Unleashed A Monster, And Brought Its Jim Bunning Problem Onto Itself
• Jim Bunning Also Just Triggered A 21 Percent Cut In Medicare Fees To Doctors

Filed under: Concept Cars, Sedan, Geneva Motor Show, Europe, Electric, Luxury

We saw this here four-seat Gullwinger last year billed as the Koenigsegg Quant. For the 2010 Geneva Motor Show, it’s reappeared as the NVL Quant. Go figure. We’re not sure if we should emphasize the dream part of the headline, or the boat part. At first glance, we’re thinking boat as the Quant is enormous. The wheelbase is 122 inches, and the vehicle’s overall length is 192 inches. It’s six-and-a-half-feet wide, too. No, it’s not 1970s Caddy big, but for an electric car, the Quant is barge-like. And it rides on 23-inch wheels.

Though once you start getting inside the numbers, you see why we really ought to emphasize the dream part. Ready? Here goes: zero to sixty miles per hour in 2.7 seconds and a top speed of 234 miles per hour. Pretty, um, hopeful numbers considering that the giant gullwing four-seater weighs 3,700 pounds. Er, actually it’s “projected” to weigh 3,700 pounds. Meaning the actual weight may vary. Also we need to point out that the Quant’s made out of carbon fiber.

Power comes from four electric motors (one for each wheel) with some type of torque vectoring software to maximize traction. There are two different power systems on board. One’s a conventional battery and the other’s a pyrite film covering that acts as a solar cell to power the instruments and also charge the battery. Speaking of batteries, the NVL Quant might will ship with either a metal-air battery (like some hearing aids) or a refillable Redox Flow Cell. Not sure what either of those are? Don’t fret, but be sure to check out the wood-look steering wheel – we think it looks great.

Geneva 2010: NVL Quant is an electric dream boat originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Article Tags: ClimateGate, YouTube

Five part YouTube

Phil Jones at the UK Parliament, 1 March 2010 [1/5]

Unedited video of Phil Jones’ appearance at the UK Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee, with Vice Chancellor of the University of East Anglia, Prof Edward Acton.

Read in full with comments »   

After spending all day in the green, the indices fell and ended down.

Scoreboard:

Dow: Down 10 points to 10,393.

NASDAQ: Down 2 points to 2272.

S&P 500: Down 1 point to 1114.

Commodities killed it today. Oil gained $1.01 to rise to $79.71 a barrel.

Gold jumped $14.20 to $1132.50 an ounce while silver rose $0.45 to $16.92.

Futures gained solidly across the board, with the sweet stuff, sugar and cocoa, being the heaviest losses.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Dow Closes Up More Than 80
• Stocks Post Meager Gains Today, Crude Oil Up 2%
• Stock Indices Rally As Coffee, Silver Post Strong Gains

Addison officials say they’re exploring the possible purchase of the former Driscoll Catholic High School site and options for how they might use the land in the future.

The village board’s committee of the whole recently discussed the idea and invited input from members of the plan commission, citizen advisory board and other Addison taxing bodies.

Village President Larry Hartwig said about 40 people attended the session and all appeared in favor of pursuing the purchase of the land at 555 N. Lombard Road. The site is owned by the Diocese of Joliet, which closed the 43-year-old school last spring citing declining enrollment and financial woes.

“At the end of the day, I asked how people felt because they are really the leaders of the community. No one spoke up against it,” Hartwig said. “We got kind of a unanimous encouragement from the people in attendance to at least pursue this.”

Officials are considering several ideas for the land, he said, including tearing down the building and using the site as open space for Addison Park District or nearby Addison Trail High School.

Hartwig said the village also would consider holding the property until the housing market recovers, and then selling it for redevelopment.

“No decisions have been made, but at least the village would be in control to decide what is in the best long-term interest of Addison,” Hartwig said.

To pay for the site, Addison would need to borrow money and repay the bond through a property tax increase. Hartwig said he could not disclose how much Addison is willing to spend, but indicated taxes would increase about $20 a year for the owner of a $300,000 home. In addition, Addison does not need taxpayer permission to take out a bond because it is a home-rule community.

“We realize this is a tough, tough, time to be doing that, especially while we’re cutting all the things out of our budget, reducing staff through attrition and not filling jobs,” Hartwig said. “But November is our first opportunity to do a referendum and that is too far off. That’s why I thought we’d get a cross-section of the community at last week’s meeting.

“Plus, if the land got sold to someone else, we’d pay off the bond and taxes would go down,” he said.

Selling the Driscoll property raises several issues, said Doug Delaney, assistant to Joliet Diocese Bishop J. Peter Sartain.

First, he said the asking price is undetermined because the former Driscoll building needs major repairs. Second, the Diocese wants to sell the land to a group that will use it for purposes in line with the Diocese’s values.

“The Bishop’s hope would be that it would be property that is useful and helpful to the community, and parks or ball fields seem to be in line with what the Diocese would want,” he said. “But I can’t say if holding the land for redevelopment is something the Bishop would support.”

Both Delaney and Hartwig confirmed no formal meeting has occurred on the matter, but Addison officials hope to schedule one before the end of the month.

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

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Joining the Lotus Evora 414E Hybrid at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show is the new lightweight Lotus Evora Carbon Concept. The concept shows the use of stylish carbon fiber body panels, leather and alcantara interior, an aggressive carbon diffuser and a high-tech composite body.

“The design of the Evora Carbon Concept car features exotic, high tech materials that offer a good synergy with the Lotus brand image, expressing our motorsport heritage and history of stylish sports cars for which Lotus are renowned,” said Donato Coco, Director of Lotus Design.

The Evora Carbon Concept also has diamond cut forged 19-inch alloy wheels on the front and rear, wrapped in Pirelli P-Zero Corsa tires.

Make the jump for the press release and the high-res image gallery.

Lotus Evora Carbon Concept:

Press Release:

Evora Carbon Concept Makes Motorshow Debut

The multi-award winning Lotus Evora provides the basis of the stunning carbon design concept unveiled at the 80th Geneva Motorshow. The car boasts a stylish carbon fibre, leather and alcantara interior, aggressive carbon diffuser and an evocative high tech composite body.

The Evora Carbon Concept car emphasises Lotus’ motorsport pedigree, utilising beautiful high quality materials with exposed carbon fibre and plush alcantara. The striking white concept car is finished in an advanced water based pearlescent paint that contrasts with the exquisitely finished weave on the carbon fibre panels.

The head turning looks of the Evora Carbon Concept car provide a more purposeful, planted stance with the car looking lower and more aggressive. This styling direction is continued with a structural carbon fibre roof, Lotus Motorsport influenced carbon diffuser and carbon splitter. The Evora Carbon Concept car retains the same class leading handling and high tech aluminium bonded and extruded chassis of the production car.

The contemporary interior of the Evora Carbon Concept car combines the lustre of the carbon panels with perforated leather and matt alcantara. The bespoke interior uses swathes of sumptuous grey alcantara to cover the footwell, dashboard and roof. The soft texture of the leather and alcantara are juxtaposed with the hard surfaces of the carbon fibre to provide a satisfying sensory experience.

The Evora Carbon Concept car has diamond cut forged 19” alloy wheels front and rear, shod with Pirelli P-Zero Corsa tyres (235/35 wide front and 285/30 wide rear). The wheels and tyres give the Evora real presence filling the wheel arches and giving the car a purposeful appearance.

– By: Omar Rana

Article Tags: Gerald Warner

The appearance of Phil Jones, sometime head honcho of the CRU at the “University” of East Anglia, hero of the Climategate e-mails scandal, before the Commons Science and Technology Committee yesterday was an interesting occasion. It was historic, since it afforded the whole world the spectacle of a new reality: AGW propagandists on the defensive.

That said, the Committee of Public Safety this was not, but there was still some dogged probing from committee members which Jones nervously tried to deflect until brought up against the brick wall of undeniable facts: his instructions for e-mails to be deleted, his refusal to pass on data to sceptics and the fact that he had consistently refused access to his computer codes and methodology. What particularly startled the committee members was the revelation by Jones that, in climate science – apparently as distinct from other scientific disciplines – refusing to share data was “standard practice”. One wonders why (well, actually, one does not wonder at all).

Yet the most significant part of this exchange, largely buried by subsequent discussion of the issues already mentioned, occurred very early in Jones’s evidence. Referring to the CRU’s collaboration with two other climate units in America and another two in Russia and Japan respectively, Jones said: “We may be using a lot of common data, but the ways of going from the raw data to a derived product of gridded temperatures and then the average for the hemisphere and the globe is totally independent between the different groups.”

Source: blogs.telegraph.co.uk

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Article Tags: ClimateGate

The “Climategate” scandal, which broke in November 2009, revealed what many skeptics had privately suspected. Prominent climate scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) had collaborated to keep data out of skeptics’ hands, subverted the peer review process, and used questionable methods to construct the temperature record on which the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change (IPCC) based its recommendations.

Now a new “Climategate” scandal is emerging, this time based on documents released by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in response to several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suits filed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The newly released emails further demonstrate the politicized nature of climate science, revealing a number of questionable practices that cast doubt on the credibility of scientific data provided by NASA.

The emails reveal that GISS, like CRU, has done a poor job of preserving and managing its data. Although there is no evidence that GISS has destroyed its data, as CRU did in the late 1980s, Dr. Reto Ruedy of GISS admits in an email that “[The United States Historical Climate Network] data are not routinely kept up-to-date.” In another email, he reveals that NASA had inflated its temperature data since 2000 on a questionable basis. “[NASA’s] assumption that the adjustments made the older data consistent with future data… may not have been correct,” he says. “Indeed, in 490 of the 1057 stations the USHCN data were up to 1C colder than the corresponding GHCN data, in 77 stations the data were the same, and in the remaining 490 stations the USHCN data were warmer than the GHCN data.”

Source: spectator.org

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