Category: News

The ocean ecosystems and fishing communities in the Gulf of Mexico face potentially catastrophic impacts as a result of the 5,000 barrels of oil a day spewing out of the sub-seabed and into the waters off the coast of Louisiana. Oil moving throughout vast expanses of Gulf waters and ocean habitat and coming ashore on the massive Gulf Coast wetlands directly threatens not just the reef fish, oysters, crabs and shrimp that actually live there, but also many other species that use the reefs, marshes and other wetlands as nurseries, or that depend upon them for prey which lives or develops there.

Read the full post »

A new Iron Man 2 promo featuring the upcoming LG Ally has been leaked on YouTube. The commercial shows a group of friends using the new LG Ally as Iron Man flies around in the background. Iron Man 2 is scheduled to launch May 7th, so we could see this phone on Verizon in a couple of weeks.

Why would Verizon launch another Android phone so close to the Droid Incredible? Early rumors suggest the LG Ally might feature a 1 GHz cpu, but we now hear this phone will be targeted at the mid-range. A source who wishes to remain anonymous told us the Ally will include a 600 MHz ARM11 CPU (my guess is the Qualcomm MSM7227).

More details should be coming today. At the end of the video users are directed to visit LG.com/ally, which redirects to lgim2.com. The Iron Man 2 site says, “Check back on April 30th for the complete LG Iron Man 2 experience”.

Related Posts

• Say aloha to the LG Ally on Verizon this summer
• Droid Does Incredible TV campaign
• If you want to be a NFL player, you need to learn to use MOTOBLUR
• Droid Incredible does TV out (VIDEO)
• LG Android phone appears in Verizon’s system

(Photo: Yahoo! News / AFP / Mark Ralston)

A massive oil slick caused by the BP oil drilling platform explosion in
the Gulf of Mexico has reached the U.S. Gulf Coast. Efforts are already
underway to protect sensitive ecological areas.

Many organizations are preparing to mobilize along the coast from
Louisiana to Florida to help rescue animals and wildlife. The oil poses a
serious threat to fishermen’s livelihoods, marine habitats, beaches, wildlife,
and human health.

Although BP has publicly stated the company will pay for
all damages from the oil spill, many organizations still rely on donations to
protect wildlife from this type of impact. For example, Greenpeace stated
that it has opened support lines to report oiled wildlife, discuss oil-related
damage, and for volunteer recruitment, and the group relies on donations from
individuals for this type of work.

Click on the organizations below to donate or volunteer to help the
wildlife and areas threatened by the oil spill.

Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana
Building a list of volunteers prepared to help with this response including wildlife recovery, monitoring and photographing oil movement, and providing a boats and drivers for response activities. Donate to Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. Register to volunteer with Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana.

Defenders
of Wildlife
Urging the public to help prevent another drilling disaster through
advocacy. Donate to Defenders of Wildlife. Find volunteer opportunities with Defenders of Wildlife.

Emerald
CoastKeeper
Gathering volunteer crews ready to help clean-up efforts. Donate to Emerald CoastKeeper. Find volunteer opportunities with Emerald CoastKeeper.

Greenpeace
USA
Defending our oceans and protecting our environment from toxic pollution
like the recent oil spill. Donate to Greenpeace USA. Find volunteer opportunities with Greenpeace USA.

Louisiana
Wildlife Rehabilitators Association
Advocates for preserving Louisiana’s battered coastal ecosystem. Donate to Louisiana Wildlife Rehabilitators Association.

Wildlife
Sanctuary of Northwest Florida
Ready to mobilize and provide appropriate care to injured or orphaned
indigenous wildlife. Donate to Wildlife Sanctuary of Northwest Florida. Find volunteer opportunities with Wildlife Sanctuary of Northwest
Florida.

Check out Yahoo! Green on Twitter and Facebook.

The world mobilized to help Haiti after that country suffered the deadliest earthquake in this hemisphere in over a century on Jan. 12, 2010. Faculty, staff, and other members of the Harvard community, including affiliates of Partners In Health and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, played a pivotal role in the worldwide effort to provide aid.

President’s departure sign of crisis for public universities

Editor, The Times:

As someone who has spent most of her communications career at two large public universities, I share The Seattle Times’ sadness regarding University of Washington President Mark Emmert’s departure from the institution [“Emmert the rainmaker,” Opinion, April 29].

While the vast majority of public universities in today’s incredibly competitive universe suffer from greatly reduced state appropriations and subsequent calls to stop being elitist while also ceasing any feeding at the public trough, the loss of a master fundraiser, negotiator and visionary such as Emmert is more keenly felt than many students, faculty, alumni and donors might initially realize.

But Emmert’s departure should not surprise anyone. Given the many problems facing most public universities, it has become very difficult to recruit and retain people of his stature to assume university presidencies. It takes one who must be completely and utterly dedicated to the notion of public universities to take on the often thankless tasks of constantly raising money, dealing with athletics problems, absorbing never-ending faculty and student complaints, always needing to explain a university’s reason for existence to state legislators and assuaging sometimes overbearing and overly critical donors and alumni.

Emmert’s leaving should alert public universities and legislators everywhere about the real crises facing something the United States has always considered one of the jewels of our society: a quality public university system.

— Mary Stanik, Minneapolis

Can’t cut work force without cutting higher education

I too commend Mark Emmert; he has been a remarkable leader and true visionary. Yet, I believe The Times reflects some hypocrisy. It slams the Legislature for reducing the University of Washington’s state funding by 33 percent.

While I agree and have stressed that the Legislature has long underfunded higher education, particularly the UW, a key fact is ignored. As the 2010 Legislature worked to plug an $11 billion biennial budget shortfall, The Seattle Times editorial board repeatedly called for us to balance the budget on the backs of state workers. More than 41 percent of our state’s employees are working for our institutions of higher education, which amounts to the lion’s share of state workers. Comparatively, human-service employees make up 33 percent of our work force.

Because of its size, you cannot cut our state work force without cutting higher education — especially as it is completely (and unfortunately) discretionary. These destructive cuts and corresponding increases in students’ tuition will continue until we address our regressive, outmoded tax structure that is unsustainable and overly dependent on the sales tax.

— Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, Seattle

Over the past year or so, BlackBerry bashin’ has become a very popular hobby for users of all other mobile platforms. The aged OS and redundant hardware has kept many consumers disinterested and yawning rather than on their toes and excited.

Nonetheless, throughout the constant hounding and pitch fork conventions, RIM has continued to show steady growth. This time around, RIM has made its way into the top five phone manufacturers worldwide. Preceded by the obvious phone manufacturing giants Nokia, Samsung, and LG (1, 2, and 3 respectively), RIM settles in for fourth seat, passing Sony Ericson by a mere 100,000 phones. The research by IDC (International Data Corporation) reveals that between January and March Nokia sold 107.8 million, Samsung sold 64.3 million, LG sold 27.1 million, and RIM sold 10.6 million devices. All these phones together come to produce a 21.7% year-over-year total increase.

As for here in the US, Apple is leading the pack with 8.75 million iPhones sold, closely being trailed by Motorola with their 8.5 million phones sold. This is a pretty impressive feat considering Apple only sells one style phone versus Motorola’s various smartphones, feature phones, and basic flip phones.

This is all very interesting considering the headlines we all follow. Motorola has been within the top five manufacturers since IDC started researching back in 2004. There’s a reason RIM is referred to as the “Sleeping Giant”, but it looks like it will be a long time before anyone catches the top three.

Via: BGR

Revenge of the TAs

I read in The Daily that the University of Washington plans to fire 447 teaching assistants (TAs) next year as part of their cost-cutting process, and that the teaching assistants are organizing a strike to protest this unfortunate decision. In a school that is already burdened with large classes, I would like Seattle Times reporters to answer the following questions:

• The University raised more than $2.5 billion dollars in a capital campaign. Where has this money gone?
• The top eight officials at the UW make exorbitant salaries. Why don’t they take a 50-percent salary cut to support their TAs?
• Why won’t the state Legislature allow the UW to increase tuition so it could pay for more teachers?

The alumni watching from the outside are very puzzled by the actions of the UW and the state Legislature. If the UW is a teaching institution, why is it not supporting its own teachers and students?

— Glenna Burmer, Seattle

Congress should protect privacy in right to petition

In my civics classes, we learned about the sacredness of the secret ballot, which freed voters to express their opinions privately at the ballot box. [“Support signature privacy,” Opinion, April 28.]

In my mind, signing a petition is a means of casting a vote for consideration on the proposed issue. It should be covered by this same principle.

Secret ballots prevent exposure of one’s political preferences from public scrutiny and political pressures. The current Freedom of Information case exposes opinions on what? Gay rights? Homophobia? Democratic process?

As a voter, I might believe that an issue should be submitted to a vote and I might or I might not be in favor of or against the issue. Signing a petition is a citizen’s constitutional right. Names and addresses are rightly given to allow checking the legitimacy of voting registration —not to provide mailing lists or exposure of signers’ identities. This checking is witnessed and certified, not copied and distributed.

Without specific information from the voter on motivation for signing, those seeking names and addresses could quickly harass the signer for an unknown motive. What counts is not who signs a request for a legal process, but if approved for citizen consideration, the secret ballots of all voters at the polls.

The Supreme Court should protect the secret-voting rights of its citizens, including the right to petition.

— Roger Ferris, Shoreline

Clubs still symbol of exploitation

I was happy to see the story on the closure of local strip clubs linked to prostitution and racketeering in the Seattle area [“Proposed plea deal may close Colacurcio strip clubs,” page one, April 23].

My question is: Why are we allowing these clubs to open? A new club opened just a month ago in Renton, an area that had remained free of this blight on our landscape. Recently, Seattle gave the OK for a new club to open near Safeco Field. This is an area that many of our children frequent. Is that the message we want to pass on to our children, that sexism is OK?

Throughout history, women have been exploited, held down the social ladder, held as property and killed with no regard. Sexist extremism is more rampant in our history and today than racism ever was.

Between 1400 and 1800, roughly 7 to 11 million women were killed and tortured during the European witch hunts. It is sad that in today’s “enlightened” society, the exploitation of women is allowed to continue in these clubs. How would you feel if your daughter were working in one of these clubs?

— Timothy Finch, Renton

SCO really is quite the zombie of a company, isn’t it? It just never dies. It’s been a month since getting smacked down yet again and having a jury declare that Novell still owns the Unix copyrights, and they were never transferred to SCO (after a judge had already said the same thing). And yet, as Slashdot alerts us, SCO has now told the judge he should order Novell to hand over the copyrights anyway. Talk about getting desperate. When will SCO finally be put out of its misery?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Attention, snow birds

This is a response to “Opposition mounts in reaction to Arizona’s immigration law” [News, April 30].

I am fortunate to be married to a beautiful, dark-skinned lady who is a U.S. citizen of European descent. We love going to Sun City Grand, Ariz., each winter for a month or two.

My question for Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is this: If my wife runs into a golf cart and the “Gestapo” show up, should she carry her passport or passport card every time she leaves her home? The next thing Arizona would do is give out patches that dark-skinned U.S. citizens would wear when they leave their home. The Star of David unfortunately was used once.

— Tom McArt, Edmonds

Peg employers hiring undocumented immigrants

For all the heated controversy about illegal immigration, the debate should really shift to the real culprit: employers who hire undocumented immigrants.

Congress mandated that all employers must check and verify the Social Security numbers of all new hires. Where is the enforcement? Why would undocumented workers risk crossing our borders if they knew they could not hurdle this employment roadblock?

Corporate America, with free-trade agreements, has successfully shrouded the issue in a fog of deception and through its political power. Yes, we have a nationwide unemployment rate of more than 10 percent and it is easy to get angry and blame all those “illegals” who are taking away a good portion of those fantastic, minimally paid jobs at fast-food joints, picking agriculture, mowing lawns and cleaning hotel rooms.

Higher-paying jobs have fled outside our borders at the great cost of keeping Americans employed manufacturing goods. The cost to hire someone in India, China, etc. is a tenth of the cost to assemble and produce many of the more expensive and technical gadgets we are consumed with these days.

— Timm Stone, Lake Tapps

Caretakers already trying to cope with cuts

I am responding to The Times editorial “Raise license fees on adult-family homes” [Opinion, April 30].

Many Adult-family homes for the disabled, such as the one my 32-year-old son resides in, have had a 4 percent across-the-board cut in Medicaid compensation this year.

On top of that, the state Department of Developmental Disabilities has cleverly changed the assessment formula on the how it compensates for care. Suddenly, the compensation to our caretaker for the same level of care for my son and five other residents was drastically cut. There was no new fee or tax, but a loss of about $2,000 per month in cash flow to our caretaker.

Now The Times is calling for a $900 increase in licensing fees at the same time our adult-family home is projecting a $24,000 cut per year in income. It does not sound like Olympia got outmaneuvered after all.

With that kind of savings, the state could afford to increase its oversight on poorly run adult-family homes. While well-meaning, The Times did not do its homework and unfortunately, our disabled will be the ones who suffer from it.

— Ken Kerr, Normandy Park

Paying oversight costs in assisted-living arrangements drastically different

Thanks for the editorial concerning state oversight costs for assisted living and nursing homes monitored by the state. It is too bad adult-family homes only pay 4 percent of their oversight costs while boarding homes and nursing homes pay nearly 80 percent.

The Times did not mention or investigate what these costs actually are. If it had, we would see that adult-family homes receive significantly less in payments — most patients are usually on Medicare —than these of other types of homes, while still being required to provide similar staffing levels. Perhaps we could investigate a little more to see why these differences exist.

— Rich Zywiak, Spokane

Imagine a day in the future when you can charge your cell phone using your sneakers, or charge a touch-screen device merely by rolling up the flexible screen. New devices that take advantage of the piezoelectric effect–the tendency of some materials to generate an electrical potential when they’re mechanically stressed–are taking us one step closer to that reality.

Ville Kaajakari of the Louisiana Tech University harnessed this effect by developing a tiny generator that can be embedded in a shoe sole. The tiny smart device is part of “MEMS” or “micro electro mechanical systems,” which combine computer chips with micro-components to generate electricity [EarthTechling]. Each time the sneaker-wearer goes for a stroll, the compression action would power up the circuits in the generator and produce tiny bits of usable voltage. “This technology could benefit, for example, hikers that need emergency location devices or beacons,” said Kaajakari. “For more general use, you can use it to power portable devices without wasteful batteries” [Clean Technica].

For now, the amount of energy produced is very small, but the generator could theoretically be used to power sensors, GPS units or portable devices that don’t require a large amount of energy [Clean Technica]. The scientist hopes that the technology can be developed further to charge common devices like mobile phones.

Meanwhile, Samsung and a research team from Korea have figured out a way to harvest energy from touch-screens.

In a paper published this month in the journal Advanced Materials, the researchers describe how they combined flexible, transparent electrodes with an energy-scavenging material to produce a thin film. Their experimental device sandwiches piezoelectric nanorods between highly conductive graphene electrodes on top of flexible plastic sheets [Technology Review]. This film can be used in touch screens of common mobile devices, wherein pressing the screen would generate about 20 nanowatts per square centimeter–that is, enough power to help run part of the device. On the flexible touch-screen the researchers developed, you could help charge the batteries just by rolling up the screen.

Scientists hope that the power produced by the touch-screen should one day be enough to toss our batteries into the bin. Study coauthor Sang-Woo Kim added: “The flexibility and rollability of the nano-generators gives us unique application areas such as wireless power sources for future foldable, stretchable, and wearable electronics systems” [Technology Review].

Related Content:
80beats: New “Nanogenerator” Could Power Your iPod With Your Own Movements
80beats: The World’s Smallest Motor Could Propel a Medical “Microbot” Through Arteries
80beats: Rubbery Computer Screens Can Be Bent, Folded, and Even Crumpled
80beats: Nanotubes Could Provide the Key to Flexible Electronics
Discoblog: Can Chatting on Your Cell Phone Cause It to Recharge? Researcher Says Yes

Image: LTU

I teach the way that I wish I was taught.

—Sal Khan, Khan Academy

Interpol fans have been eagerly anticipating new material from the band and now have it with the new single “Lights”. The track is reminiscent of the sound the band produced on their flawless debut “Turn on the Bright Lights”, dense and murky. You can download the single for free in exchange for your email address via the embedded player after the jump.