Category: News

Nice try, Tito.

Jenna Jameson has passed a drug test mere days after her estranged boyfriend, former UFC champion brawler Tito Ortiz, claimed she’d fabricated domestic violence charges against him after he confronted her about her alleged addiction to the powerful prescription painkiller OxyContin.

The test, administered by American Toxicology Inc. in Las Vegas the week, proved that Jenna’s urine was “negative” for 10 major illegal substances, including cocaine, marijuana, meth, and Oxy.

“I am definitely not addicted to OxyContin or any drug,” Jenna said emphatically, denying reports that she had imagined her early morning brawl with the father of her twin sons.

“The lab tests clearly exonerate Jenna Jameson of any hint, iota, or suggestion that she ingested or was under the influence of any opiates or controlled substances. Statements made by anyone to the contrary are completely impeached by results from this prestigious testing facility,” Jameson’s lawyer added.

Ortiz was collared by cops in Huntington Beach, California on Monday, after he allegedly tossed Jenna into an empty bathtub because she “said something extremely insulting to his ego” during an argument. The former adult film star’s arm was seriously injured during the rumored encounter.

Over the last few days, estimates had held that the Gulf of Mexico oil spilling was leaking about 1,000 barrels, or 42,000 gallons, into the water each day—bad, but still not historically bad on a scale like the spill caused by the Exxon Valdez. Except now, after closer investigation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that oil company BP’s estimate might in fact be five times too low.

Rear Adm. Mary Landry, the Coast Guard’s point person, gave the new estimate yesterday as the Coast Guard began its planned controlled burn of some of the oil. While emphasizing that the estimates are rough given that the leak is at 5,000 feet below the surface, Admiral Landry said the new estimate came from observations made in flights over the slick, studying the trajectory of the spill and other variables [The New York Times]. Because the oil below the surface is so hard to measure or estimate, NOAA’s numbers are still rough estimates, too. BP’s chief operating officer told ABC News he thinks the number is probably somewhere between the two estimates.

But if NOAA’s high-end number right, the oil spill caused by the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon just entered a new class of awful. Do the math: At the previous estimation—1,000 barrels (42,000 gallons) of oil per day—it would have taken this spill 261 days, or more than eight continuous months, to dump as much oil into the sea at the Exxon Valdez did near Alaska in 1989. But, if it’s true that 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) are entering the Gulf each day, it would take just 53 days to top the Valdez’ total of 11 million gallons. Already 9 days have passed since the explosion.

While the Coast Guard commenced burning off some of the oil to try to keep the worst of it away from American shorelines, and BP’s attempted to reach emergency valves with undersea robots, company CEO Tony Hayward is preparing a new strategy. The London-based Hayward was in Louisiana on Wednesday looking at progress in fabricating a 100-ton steel dome the company hopes to lower over the oil leak. The dome could be ready by the weekend, but it would take two to four weeks to put it in place, if that can be done at all. The dome would funnel oil, natural gas and seawater into a pipe leading to a floating processing and storage facility [Washington Post]. But while this has been done in a few hundred feet of water before, the Gulf oil spill emanates from thousands of feet below.

Related Content:
80beats: Coast Guard’s New Plan To Contain Gulf Oil Spill: Light It on Fire
80beats: Sunken Oil Rig Now Leaking Crude; Robots Head to the Rescue
80beats: Ships Race To Contain the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
80beats: Obama Proposes Oil & Gas Drilling in Vast Swaths of U.S. Waters
80beats: 21 Years After Spill, Exxon Valdez Oil Is *Still* Stuck in Alaska’s Beaches

Image: NOAA

Spyker Cars announced that it has taken the first steps to make an entrance into the Chinese auto market. Spyker signed an agreement with China Automobile Trading Company, one of China’s largest auto importers, and it awaiting government approval to begin its joint venture.

According to a report by Xinhua, from Beijing, China, Spyker recently signed an agreement with a local Chinese auto importer in order to establish a joint venture that will allow Spyker to import luxury automobiles into the growing Chinese auto market.

China recently unseated the U.S. as the world’s largest auto market, and now Spyker joins other brands scrambling to find a footing the massive – and still growing – auto market that is China. Spyker’s CEO, Victor Muller, expressed optimism regarding the growth of the Chinese auto market, and specifically with the luxury segment.

Should the agreement between Spyker and CATC be approved by the Chinese government, the joint venture would allow for Spyker sales and service in China for its supercars, luxury sport utilities and luxury commercial vehicles.

China unseated the U.S. as the largest auto market when it reported 13.64 million unit sales for 2009.

References
1. ‘Spyker taps into China’s luxury…’ view

   

Source: Leftlane

By Matt Wasson, Huffington Post

A month ago, before the nation’s attention was drawn to the tragedies
at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia and the oil rig off the
Louisiana coast, the EPA issued a blockbuster
announcement about a strict new guidance for the permitting of mountaintop removal mines in
Appalachia. The announcement left many people — reporters, politicians
and the general public alike — confused whether or not the EPA had just
put an end to mountaintop removal. The announcement generated headlines
ranging from a fairly modest “E.P.A. to Limit Water Pollution From
Mining” in the New
York Times to “New regulations will put an end to mountaintop
mining?” in the
Guardian.

Certainly at the press conference EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson used
some strong language:

“Coal communities should not have to sacrifice their
environment or their health or their economic future to mountaintop
mining. They deserve the full protection of our clean water laws.”

On
a recent trip through eastern Kentucky, set up by our good friends at Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, the answer
to whether mountaintop removal in Appalachia has come to an end was
abundantly obvious.

The photo of a new active mountaintop removal mine looming above
Route 23 in Pike County, Kentucky, at right, tells the story.

(All photos in this post were taken on April 18th in Kentucky: Here’s
a link a to flickr photo set from that trip.)

To the extent that some in the media overstated the impact of the
EPA’s new guidance, they can be forgiven. During the press conference,
Jackson herself said, “You’re talking about no or very few valley fills
that are going to meet standards like this.”

Valley fills are the typical disposal sites for the waste that is
generated when coal companies blow the tops off mountains to access thin
seams of coal. As community activist Judy Bonds of the organization Coal River Mountain Watch describes it,
“A valley fill is an upside down mountain turned inside out.” Most — but
not all — mountaintop removal mines require valley fills.

But Jackson was also very clear that this was not a blanket ban on
mountaintop removal permitting and that the guidance would not apply to
permits that had already been granted. The standards Jackson said would
lead to “no or very few valley fills” establish limits on the
permissible level of stream water conductivity. Conductivity is a
measure of salt — and an indicator of metals including toxic and heavy
metals — in water. Remember the experiment where you put salt in a glass
of water to make it conduct electricity and light a bulb?

A
plethora of recent scientific research has shown that conductivity
higher than about five times the normal level downstream from valley
fills is associated with severe impairment of the ecological communities
in Appalachian headwater streams. The photo to the right that I took
below a valley fill in Magoffin County, Kentucky, illustrates the
trouble these standards create for coal companies. According to a huge
compilation of scientific studies that the EPA simultaneously
released with their guidance, conductivity levels below Appalachian
valley fills average around 10 times normal levels. The bright orange
water coming out of this valley fill indicates enormously high levels of
iron, which in turn suggests both high conductivity levels and high
levels of toxic and heavy metals regulated under the Clean Water Act.

To be sure, the EPA’s move is a big first step that provides
immediate protection to Appalachian families threatened with new
mountaintop removal permits above their homes. It’s a tourniquet that
will stop the hemorrhaging, but here are five reasons why this guidance
doesn’t immediately or permanently put an end to mountaintop removal:

1. The EPA’s action will not affect permits that have already been
   issued. Moreover, an excellent
   piece of reporting by Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward revealed
   that those existing permits will allow some companies to continue
   mountaintop removal operations without a hitch for the next couple of
   years.
2. Not all mountaintop removal mines require valley fills and coal
   companies are already using loopholes by which they can obliterate miles
   of streams without the need to obtain a valley fill permit. The
   million or so acres of wholesale destruction that coal companies drove
   through a narrow loophole in the Surface Mine Control and Reclamation
   Act since 1977 is testament to their skill and creativity at exploiting
   loopholes.
3. Some valley fills will still be allowed under this guidance and the
   EPA even provided a set of “best practices” by which companies can do
   mountaintop removal in a manner consistent with it. Moreover, there are
   a number of recent cases where coal companies went ahead and
   constructed valley fills without
   even bothering to obtain a permit.
4. While the guidance takes effect immediately, it is a preliminary
   document released in response to calls from coal state legislators and
   coal companies for greater clarity on how the EPA was basing its
   decision whether to grant a valley fill permit for an Appalachian
   surface mine. The EPA plans to initiate an extended public comment
   period before the guidelines will be finalized.
5. An agency guidance document is different from a formal rule and can
   be easily overturned by a new administration. Even if this guidance
   proves to be effective in curtailing mountaintop removal, environmental
   and community advocates still need to ask what happens when a
   hypothetical President Palin enters the White House in January of 2013
   or 2017.

There are any number of laws and regulations that affect surface
mining, and so there is no single mechanism to ensure mountaintop
removal is stopped permanently. But the first and most important step is
for Congress to pass a strong law that prohibits the dumping of mine
waste into streams.

In 2002, Representative Frank Pallone of New Jersey introduced just
such a bill called the Clean Water
Protection Act (H.R. 1310). Pallone, together with Republican
Christopher Shays, introduced this bipartisan bill in response to the
Bush Administration’s catastrophic “fill rule,” which made it easier to
permit mountaintop removal mining and for coal companies anywhere to
dump waste into streams. Since then, people and organizations across
Appalachia have supported Pallone’s bill by carrying a simple message to
universities, church groups and Rotary Clubs across America: They’re
blowing up our mountains and there oughtta be a law!

Over the past eight years, the nationwide organizing efforts led by
groups in Appalachia have generated a remarkable 170 co-sponsors of the
Clean Water Protection Act — more than almost any other bill before
Congress. Unfortunately, the bill continues to be held up in the House
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, with West Virginia
Congressman Nick Rahall recently claiming
credit in a West Virginia newspaper for bottling it up.

If Rahall’s contention is true, it’s a powerful testament to the
level of influence he has accumulated, given that the bill has more
cosponsors than any other of the 323 bills currently before the
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. More importantly, Rahall
does not actually have the power to prevent the bill from being heard
except through his influence over Chairman James Oberstar of Minnesota,
who is the only one with the actual power to decide whether the bill is
brought up in his committee.

It’s particularly unfortunate that House Democratic leaders and
committee chairs like Oberstar would give Rahall so much power over
national policy, given how poorly his own constituents have fared under
his leadership. After 33 years in office, Rahall’s district ranked 434th
out of all 435 Congressional districts in Gallup’s recently-released 2009
well-being index rankings (see map below).

The only district that ranked lower was Hal Roger’s neighboring
district in eastern Kentucky. Notably, Rogers’ is the only district that
has suffered more destruction from mountaintop removal mining than
Rahall’s.

A big question in the wake of the tragedy at Massey Energy’s Upper
Big Branch mine is whether the obeisance of coal state legislators
toward the coal industry will change after the disaster. Traditionally,
the pandering of Congressman Rahall and Senator Rockefeller toward Big
Coal has been almost embarrassing to watch — kind of like witnessing an
overly-exuberant public display of affection on a park bench. But when
it comes to the safety of the guys in the hardhats, these gentlemen
strike a very different tune.

Given that the same company, Massey Energy, is by far the largest
operator of mountaintop removal mines, was assessed the largest penalty
in the history of the Clean Water Act, and has a record of environmental
violations to which their horrible safety record pales in comparison,
these legislators have a unique opportunity to lead their constituents
in a new direction. And Senator Byrd of West Virginia has paved the way.

One of the most under-reported elements of the EPA’s announcement was
that Administrator Jackson specifically mentioned the EPA had worked
with Senator Byrd to develop their new guidelines. She would not have
said that without explicit approval from Senator Byrd. While Byrd has
not explicitly called for an end to mountaintop removal or co-sponsored
legislation to do that, his leadership in promoting a more thoughtful
and reasonable view on climate and the future of coal in his state
represents a sea change from the public statements of statewide elected
officials over the past few decades. Rahall and Rockefeller would serve
their constituents and their country far better if they followed Byrd’s
lead.

Is Passing a Law in this Polarized Congress Realistic?

More important than the enormous number of cosponsors that
legislation to stop mountaintop removal enjoys is the fact that the
support is bipartisan. Immediately following the EPA’s announcement,
Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, said in a
press release:

“The new EPA guidelines are useful in stopping some
inappropriate coal mining in Appalachia but Congress still needs to pass
the Cardin-Alexander legislation that would effectively end mountaintop
removal mining.”

Alexander, together with Senator Ben
Cardin of Maryland, introduced the Appalachia
Restoration Act (S. 696) last year, a Senate companion to the Clean
Water Protection Act designed to eliminate mountaintop removal (or at
least permanently curtail it — we’ll see what the final language says
after mark-up). That bill got a boost the same week of the EPA
announcement when coal-state Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio announced
he would become the 11th co-sponsor of the bill.

Whether the Senate bill can survive the committee mark-up process in a
form that Appalachian citizens groups can support remains to be seen,
however. The Nashville
Tennessean recently published an editorial
that gave voice to the concerns many coalfield citizens have about
forms of mining that may not be covered by the Senate bill, particularly
cross-ridge mining. Cross-ridge is a type of mountaintop removal mining
that requires little or no valley fill and is based on the assumption
that a mountain can be put back more or less how it was after it’s been
blown up — kind of like putting Humpty
Dumpty back together again.

The
photo to the right illustrates one of many problems with the theory
that mountains can be put back together without causing major ecological
degradation. While the type of mining shown in the photo would not be
classified by state agencies as mountaintop removal (only part of the
ridgeline has been removed and there is no valley fill at the headwaters
of this stream), the impact of this mining on water quality is
indistinguishable from the impact shown in the previous photo below a
valley fill.

Some insiders have also expressed concern that the EPA’s strict new
guidance will take the wind out the sails of the campaign to pass a law,
but from the perspective of Appalachian groups that have been working
to ban mountaintop removal for decades, that concern is misplaced. The
citizens of Appalachia have led this fight from the beginning, and have a
much more vested interest in making these protections permanent than
any group in Washington, D.C.

It may be that some big environmental groups that have only recently
made mountaintop removal a priority will move on to other priorities
once the Administrative decisions are played out — and make no mistake
that the contributions of those groups over the past few years in
pressuring the Obama Administration to take action were exceedingly
welcome and timely. But it was not the Big Greens that made mountaintop
removal a national issue or whose organizing in communities across
America has generated such broad bipartisan support of the Clean Water
Protection Act and Appalachia Restoration Act.

The people of Appalachia aren’t sitting around waiting for beltway
insiders to tell them whether or how to pass a law, they’re just doing
it. The legislative effort is led by the Alliance for Appalachia, an
alliance of 13 local and regional organizations that formed
several years ago with the mission of ending mountaintop removal and
bringing a prosperous new economy to the Appalachian coalfields that is
based on sustainable industries.

The Alliance for Appalachia represents by far the greatest number of
people impacted by mountaintop removal mining, and the alliance is
composed of some organizations that have been fighting Appalachian strip
mining for decades. The battle to end mountaintop removal will not be
over until the Alliance for Appalachia says it is, and I’m confident
that won’t happen until, at a minimum, President Obama signs a law
banning the practice.

So What’s Next?

There is a window of opportunity right now to pass a strong law that
will rein in mountaintop removal permanently. Also, with coal demand
down dramatically due to the recession, now is the time to begin
replacing mountaintop removal coal with aggressive energy efficiency and
renewable energy policies in states like North Carolina, Georgia and
Virginia that are most dependent on this source of coal.

From a local perspective, more delays, half-measures and uncertainty
about the future of mountaintop removal will only lead to a myopic
approach to rebuilding the Appalachian economy and bringing new jobs and
new industries to the region.

And from a global perspective, at a time when America is finally
getting serious about addressing climate change and moving toward a 21st
century energy future built around renewable energy, isn’t it absurd
that we’re still fighting to stop the wholesale destruction of the most
biologically diverse forests and streams on the continent in order to
mine climate-destroying coal? Can we really address climate change if we
can’t even stop mountaintop removal?

For people around the country that want to see mountaintop removal
end — and that should be anyone concerned about climate change, human
rights, clean water or endangered species — a great place to start is by
telling your
Senators and Representatives that the time to pass legislation to
end mountaintop removal is now. There are plenty of tools on
the web to make it easy.

Let’s keep up the momentum, pass a strong law, and relegate
mountaintop removal to its rightful place as just another tragic episode
in American history books.

Matt Wasson is the program director of Appalachian Voices, a grassroots environmental advocacy group based in Boone, N.C.

Might We Suggest…

• And It’s Official… Verizon Announces Droid Incredible for April 29th
  
  One of the worst kept secrets in the history of Android has finally come to an end.  The Droid Incredible is official from Verizon and due out April 29th.  Starting Monday, April 19th, interested pa…

HP’s offer for Palm was for $5.70 a share, a hefty premium over yesterday’s closing price of $4.63. Understandably, when the news of HP’s purchase broke, both the volume and price of Palm’s stock skyrocketed, with Palm stock opening the day up nearly 24% from yesterday afternoon. Right now shares of Palm are trading around $5.74 (yes, higher than HP’s offer), with investors hedging that somebody else is going to come in and place a higher bid for Palm than HP’s $1.2 billion package. We wouldn’t count on it, and we’re not sure we could take the excitement either. Chart after the break.

read more

YouTube’s recent, and not universally approved, redesign is about to get a follow-up. While it’s nothing on the scale of the major revamp at the start of this month, it’s a pretty significant change, as it involves the one thing that probably gets most of the use and attention on YouTube, the actual video player. A new video … (read more)

Ask Melissa Schellberg ’10 why she is so passionate about community service, and she won’t give you a calculated plan or vision for change. She’ll keep it simple.

“I’ve always liked helping people, but I never really thought of myself as one of those people who will save the world,” laughed the Harvard softball co-captain. Even so, she has brought about change.

Sensing a need for more service opportunities for Harvard athletes, as service chair of the Student-Athlete Advisory Council (SAAC) last year, Schellberg worked with Nathan Fry, associate director of athletics, to create a community service coordinator position, in order to better match Harvard student-athletes with activities to deepen their community impact.

“It was suggested that teams do community service, but never required [for teams] unless the coach is really on them,” Schellberg said. “But coaches have a lot to do, and I wanted to help out, meet with coaches, and be the facilitator and coordinator of their projects.”

With the support of Fry and Harvard Athletics, she created and served in the role, developing relationships with nonprofit groups in the Boston area to create a more structured program of service opportunities for Harvard’s varsity teams.

Last year, one of Schellberg’s collaborative initiatives with SAAC was “Bench Press for Breast Cancer,” a fundraising event that invited all 41 varsity teams to participate. The event raised more than $6,000 for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation to support cancer research.

It wasn’t long before word spread about Schellberg’s service work. Athletes for a Better World took notice, and this past December she was named one of six collegiate finalists nationally for the prestigious Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup, which is given to the student athlete who has “made the greatest positive influence in the lives of others.”

With her success off the field and within the athletic community, it would be easy to gloss over the impact the Las Vegas native has had on Harvard softball as a whole.

Schellberg, who has started nearly every game of her college career, has been one of Harvard’s top offensive and defensive contributors on the diamond. As a freshman in 2006, she finished fourth on the team with a .311 batting average, and helped Harvard to its first Ivy League championship in five years. This season she is third on the team in hits, second in fielding percentage, leads in fielding assists, and is on pace to finish fourth all-time in assists.

“She’s been obviously an incredible member of the team … a very strong defensive third baseman, a clutch hitter for us, a very focused player, works hard, and is very diligent in her skill work,” said Harvard head coach Jenny Allard, who is in her 16th season with the Crimson.

At this point in the season, the Harvard softball team is in the driver’s seat for an Ivy League championship push, and one of the key reasons is the senior slugger, who will trade in her batting helmet and jersey for a cap and gown in less than a month.

“I honestly can’t believe it’s ending. I can’t believe I have, maximum, a month left to play college softball,” said Schellberg, who has been playing the game since she was 9. “It’s been a really good ride. And I know when I look back on it, it’s going to be full of really fond memories, and I’m not going to have any regrets.”

“In my career, Melissa’s been one of the players who has impacted the totality of the program the most,” said Allard. “In all aspects, Melissa ranks high in terms of what she’s been able to do here.

“My comment to all of my players, and specifically to every class, is to always leave the program better than the way you found it. I think Melissa is a reigning example of that. She’s looked for ways to make the team better, have people grow and develop, and I think that’s a characteristic of a great leader.”

And so, although Schellberg may not have changed the world in her four years at Harvard, she can certainly say she’s left her mark.

DroidSense allow you to analyze your Adsense™ performance daily, weekly, monthly and yearly from your Android™ Phone. It helps you graph your AdSense earnings as well. See webpage below for more details. Lite version available (try it before buy the full version).

Price: Free, €0.99

AndroidTapp.com Android App Review:

Features:

DroidSense – AdSense Tool Android App is a great tool for website owners who have incorporated Google’s AdSense into their websites. Check daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly revenue reports while on the go. Even get graphs of earnings reports. DroidSense in combination with DroidAnalytics is a great one-two punch for webmasters with Android phones.

Usefulness:

Not useful to everyone but to those who own websites or blogs and deploy Google’s AdSense services within those websites.

Ease of Use & Frequently Used:

The app is pretty straight-forward, it offers various breakdowns of revenue earned. User dependent however projected from occasional use up to daily use.

Interface:

The user interface is simple aimed at showing various revenue figures, also features simple comparison line graphs if needed.

Hamann, a prominent German tuning company, recently set their sights on tuning the new BMW Z4 sDrive35is. The BMW Z4 received an array of custom modifications from Hamann including a sleek new aerodynamics package, an improved exhaust, and a custom tuning of the car’s ECU. With the tuning changes and the expanded four-pipe exhaust system, BMW’s twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter inline six gained 54 horsepower and 104 ft-lb of torque. This means that Hamann’s tuned Z4 reached 360hp and 398 ft-lb of torque, pushing the top speed to 177mph.

The aerodynamics included a custom front lip spoiler complete with new LED running lights and side skirts with custom air scoops. Hamann tuning also modified the rear fascia to accommodate the new exhaust system and added a new deck lid spoiler. Hamann’s body kit along with the 1.2 inch lowering from the suspension system make the Z4’s stance lower and visually lengthen the body. A set of 20 inch matte black forged aluminum wheels are optional for the customer.

The interior of the BMW Z4 was, for the most part, left untouched. A custom aluminum shift knob and floor mats embroidered with the Hamann logo come standard, and a hand-crafted leather interior is listed as an option. Although Hamann didn’t release the price yet, their custom BMW Z4 isn’t expected to come cheap. The black matte wheels alone cost €7640, or just over $10,000 for a set, so expect this custom tuned Z4 to raise as many eyebrows with its price as its custom tuned sexy layout.

[Source: Hamann]

Source: Fancy Tuning – the latest car tuning news

When David Damrosch was in ninth grade, a teacher gave him a copy of the novel “Tristam Shandy” because she thought it would appeal to his sense of humor. “I was blown away by it,” he said. “Tristam talks at one point about his favorite writers, and if he’d said Defoe and Chaucer, I probably would have become an English professor like my older brother Leo, who’s on the faculty here.”

Instead, Tristam mentioned “my dear Rabelais and my dearer Cervantes.” Damrosch, just 15 at the time, thought, “I don’t know who these guys are, but if Tristam likes them, I’ll like them too.” He went out and bought some Penguin Classics and “fell in love with the broader panorama of literature.”

He especially liked satirical novels, so when he saw “The Divine Comedy” listed in the back of one of those Penguin Classics, he went out and grabbed a copy. “I soon found Dante wasn’t quite the thigh-slapper I was expecting,” he said, “but I was hooked.”

By the time he arrived at Yale as an undergraduate, his interests had expanded beyond European literature to ancient languages and cultures. “I’m a preacher’s kid with Jewish roots in the family,” said the Episcopal priest’s son, “so I was interested in the Bible.” He also had a roommate who signed up for an Egyptian archaeology course, to which Damrosch tagged along. “I was really interested in languages,” he said, “and thought: Here’s a chance to learn a language that doesn’t work like the languages I know.” He eventually dipped his toes into Middle High German, Old Norse, and Aztec poetry, finding that once he fell in love with the literature, he tended to want to learn more about the language. He has studied 12 languages, so far.

“The most interesting case was the Nahuatl language” spoken by the Aztecs. “In graduate school, I found the language was being offered in the anthropology department. The class’s enrollment doubled when I signed up, and my director of graduate studies in comparative literature threatened to throw me out the window when I asked for course credit.”

The adviser, he adds, thought “some hiring committees might feel I was just doing arabesques around the literary tradition.”

At the time, he wasn’t sure whether he’d go into academia or become a writer or Foreign Service officer. The path he ultimately chose has provided the best of all three worlds, allowing travel and immersion in foreign cultures, time to write, and the chance to open the world of comparative literature to young people.

“To me, teaching is like a secular pulpit,” said Damrosch, who is a professor of comparative literature and the department chair of literature and comparative literature in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “I have a very evangelical sense of literature as a mode of experiencing the world as aesthetic pleasure that I love to communicate to students.”

His most recent title was “The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh,” and he’s at work on another popular nonfiction title about the cultural history of the conquest of Mexico.

After spending almost three decades at Columbia University, in his hometown of Manhattan, Damrosch decided to make the move to Harvard when the department invited him to help with its new, more global focus. “In terms of being at Harvard,” he said, “it’s both a matter of helping build a more global department and also integrating the undergrad literature concentration and the graduate comparative literature program. We’ve now created a truly unified department that I think represents global comparative literature better.”

It didn’t hurt that his older brother, Leo Damrosch, has been at Harvard since 1989, or that his middle brother, Tom, is a parish priest in western Massachusetts, but scholarship was the real draw.

“Every quarter century or so, it’s nice to try something fresh,” he said. “I felt there was a chance to do some innovative work here with some very, very collegial colleagues and excellent students.”

Here’s Skyfire’s promo video for its new Version 2.0 browser, which should be available for Android any time now. (It’s not appearing in the market, and the manual download link’s not working yet either.)

Anyhoo, check out the video above, and we’ll give Skyfire the what-for just as soon as we can. [Skyfire]

Facebook lleva tiempo intentando que sus usuarios compartan con la máxima apertura y ahora lo vuelven a empujar convirtiendo los intereses del perfil en conexiones con sus páginas de comunidad. Como apunta Louis Gray si uno entra a la pestaña “información” del perfil propio en Facebook es “invitado” a que esas preferencias se conviertan en conexiones explícitas y públicas. La alternativa es que desaparezcan del perfil, sin posibilidad de que sigan siendo privadas a los contactos como antes eran.

Empezaron permitiendo que el perfil fuse público, más tarde intentaron mediante cambio en las opciones de privacidad que se compartiese en abierto. Este es el tercer paso de Facebook para intentar que los usuarios no sólo compartan sus intereses sino que lo hagan de forma visible y no sólo con sus contactos. Ganan relevancia y visibilidad, encaja con su visión del fin de la privacidad pero pierden también el alejarse de la razón primera por la que empezó a ser un éxito Facebook: compartir información con la gente que uno considera cercana o relevante.

Relacionado: Open Graph, Facebook a la conquista de la web

Como o lançamento da nova Ford Ranger 2012 ainda está meio distante e a cada dia cresce a curiosidade acerca de seu novo visual já que, apesar de ser várias vezes flagrada em testes externos suas mudanças não puderam ser vistas em decorrência de sua eficiente camuflagem, foram feitas algumas projeções de como será a futura picape da Ford.

Dessa forma, o designer Josh Byrnes em parceria com o site Irmão do Décio projetaram o design da camuflada picape. Sua dianteira aparece com faróis mais estreitos e discretos, perdendo destaque para sua nova grade dianteira que segue o novo DNA da Ford, lembrando bastante a o Fusion.

Além de seu design exterior, Byrnes foi mais longe e também projetou o interior da nova picape Ford 2012 baseada em flagras recentes. Sem maiores novidades, ela aparentemente vem com linhas conservadores adotada de materiais de qualidade superior. No Brasil, o modelo encontrará como principais concorrentes a Toyota Hilux e a Volkswagen Amarok.

Nova Ford Ranger 2012

Fonte: AutoMocion

Engraved on a large slate plaque affixed to Matthews Hall in Harvard Yard is the story of Native Americans’ past and the narrative of our future. That is the site of the original Indian College, Harvard’s first brick building, where more than 350 years ago Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck and Joel Iacoomes of the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah on Martha’s Vineyard lived and studied alongside English students. Caleb was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard, in 1665.

The Indian College also housed the College’s printing press, on which the first Bible in North America was printed. The Bible was a translation into the Algonquian Indian language.

Behind the plaque’s inscription is a faint, incised representation of a turtle, a powerful symbol in Native American creation stories. The turtle represents many things. One is a creative source, the most powerful force we possess. The turtle also embodies a sense of being well-grounded, self-contained, with a steady approach to life. These qualities resonate with many of the lessons learned at Harvard.

I soon will be an unlikely graduate of the University. My grandfather, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota, experienced a precarious childhood. Grinding poverty, disease, and despair had taken root across the reservation in the early 1900s. Often there was not enough food or fuel. His brother, along with thousands of other Indian children, was taken from his family and sent far away to an Indian boarding school in Carlisle, Penn. Boarding schools were part of the federal government’s assimilationist policies aimed at severing Indians’ ties to the land.

Like so many Indian children, my grandfather grew up with his feet in two worlds. One foot was in the Indian world, rich with traditions and ceremonies, a language that nurtured his spirit and heart, and a homeland that gave him a sense of place. His other foot was in the fast-paced white world of trains and cars and different habits. Like so many Indian children of that time, he grew up confused about his identity and indefinite place in American society.

I delved into this history as a law student. It was very disturbing to learn that two generations later things had not greatly improved in Indian country. The wholesale removal of Indian children from their homes and the displacement of their families continued well into the 1970s. This has been the most tragic aspect of Indian life today. Children everywhere deserve to grow up in a safe, stable, and nurturing environment.

I decided then to work for the rights of Native American tribes to be self-determined and self-sufficient, and to help improve conditions on Indian reservations. This work, like development work throughout the world, requires a turtle approach: One must be creative, well-grounded, and have steadfast determination, even in the face of daunting obstacles or discouragement. (After graduation, I plan to return to Vermillion, S.D., where I teach federal Indian law and direct the Institute of American Indian Studies at the University of South Dakota.)

Constancy served Caleb well at Harvard. Despite the hardships of being away from his family and the contradictions of living in the white man’s world, he earned honors in his studies. Sadly, his life, like Joel’s, was cut short by the perils of the time. After Caleb graduated, there was no identifiable Native American presence at Harvard for more than 250 years. Now, about 120 Native American students from 40 tribes study at Harvard every year.

Many Native American students at Harvard still struggle with the contradictions that Caleb and Joel faced. We still have our feet in two worlds. One day we are in our jeans studying economic theory, and the next we are in our jingle dresses dancing at the powwow. Soon we will be in the Yard receiving our degrees, and shortly after we will be fishing or hunting to feed the community. What matters is that we have persisted — that our language, traditions, and culture have endured. While our time at Harvard has given us a sense of place here, what we have learned will extend far beyond these ivy-covered walls. It will reach across all of our borders and become a part of our communities.

Culture mattered then and matters today. The diversity of our cultures is the underpinning of our human bonds, and of our intolerance and prejudice as well. Caleb and Joel lived and studied alongside their ethnic English classmates at a time when the two cultures disputed one another’s right to exist on the continent. Three centuries later, we persist, mostly intact, and determined as ever.

Diversity abounds at Harvard today. Diversity in race and ethnicities, of different religious beliefs and spiritual practices, and in widely varied talents and interests. This diversity, spurred many years ago by Caleb and Joel, not only invigorates the vitality of our learning experience, it cultivates a broader and more insightful view of the world.

The lessons gleaned from the plaque affixed to Matthews Hall continue to inspire us to know the human value of the world and to place ourselves within it. There is certainty in the lessons we have learned from the past, of being creative, well-grounded, and steadfast. Let us not linger, for there is no time to spare. So let us begin.

After a month of bad press and lawsuits, it seems Activision has finally scored a big coup. The developer has announced a ten-year deal with Halo masterminds Bungie, the latter’s first since splitting from Microsoft.

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in an occasional series of stories on the measures that individual Schools at Harvard are using to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is a rigorous world of applied mathematics, materials science, bioengineering, and other demanding disciplines.

But it is also a world in which nearly every common space includes green laminate signs or motion-control sensors to turn off lighting. The collective message: Be green.

Turn off the lights, wear a sweater, shut the sash on your fume hood. It’s not rocket science. Or, as they say at SEAS: It’s not quantum physics.

But simple steps like these — along with exacting building standards and other technical measures — have helped SEAS to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 11 percent from fiscal 2006 to fiscal 2009. That kind of progress also owes a lot to University-wide measures to save energy, said Edward P. Jackson, SEAS director of physical resources.

That number puts the School on track to meet the University’s ambitious GHG emissions goal of a 30 percent reduction by 2016, inclusive of growth, with 2006 as the baseline year.

SEAS tightened the University-wide standard for temperature set points by adjusting heating and cooling systems to start later and finish earlier. “We did it, and waited for complaints,” said SEAS manager of facilities Donald Claflin. “And there weren’t many.”

Saving energy is everybody’s business, from big energy systems to students who pause to shut off the lights. “It’s a lot of little pieces,” he said. “Everybody’s involved. Everybody’s a player.”

On the technical side, SEAS has installed efficient lighting in its five buildings, and on the two floors it leases at 60 Oxford St. It has also implemented an automated energy management system in the Maxwell Dworkin building, and examined its operating system through the lens of energy savings. By this fall, SEAS will have motion-detection sensors on lights in all of its operation.

“It’s many small steps,” said Fawwaz Habbal, SEAS executive dean. “Little drops of water on a stone will eventually make a mark.”

This kind of effort — assess, innovate, invent — is perfect for engineers, he added. “You give us a problem and we solve it.”

SEAS students, faculty, and staff also are exploring other pathways to sustainability. Some are personal-scale pathways. Custodian Joanne Carson sets aside coffee grounds in a composting bowl in the kitchen at Pierce Hall. People take them home for their gardens, she said.

Other pathways are on a bigger scale. For one, in fiscal 2009, SEAS recovered 60 percent of its recyclable waste, piling up 73 tons for the blue bin.

All SEAS buildings are covered by a green cleaning program that minimizes chemical use. And four LEED projects are under way at SEAS; one more is complete. (LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a professional U.S. rating system for sustainable building.)

The SEAS Computing and Information Technology office has already been converted from 2,000 square feet of lounge space to three energy-efficient offices in Maxwell Dworkin.

At SEAS Northwest Labs B1, a LEED project now under construction will bring together researchers in medicine, engineering, biology, and applied sciences.

Renovations are ongoing at the SEAS Vlassak Lab and the Weitz Lab, both in the Gordon McKay Laboratory of Applied Science on Oxford Street. LEED-standard renovations are also taking place in two engineering science laboratories at 58 Oxford St.

“Labs are really challenging,” said Habbal. At SEAS, they are energy-intensive hives of complicated gear, from computers, fume hoods, and imaging systems to quantum-cascade lasers.

In addition, SEAS researchers there are looking into new sources of energy, African water resources, efficient computing, carbon sequestration, and the chemistry of climate change.

Sustainability, said SEAS administrative director Jennifer Casasanto, “is part of our dialogue.”

Sustainability is also about encouraging ideas. That means student involvement.

SEAS is part of an arts-science collaboration that helps students and faculty turn their ideas — many of them about green technology — into practical reality. The Laboratory at Harvard, located in the Northwest Science Building, is run by SEAS faculty member David Edwards, Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Biomedical Engineering, along with SEAS staff member Hugo Van Vuuren.

A couple of ideas have already reached reality. One is the sOccket, a portable energy-making device shaped like a soccer ball. Kick, dribble, or throw it around, and the sOccket — rigged with inductive coil technology — stores energy. Prototypes have been tested in South Africa and Kenya.

Also, SEAS student Henry Xie ’11 developed the Harvard Reuse List, an online supply swap for students and staff.

Traditional classroom work touches on sustainability, as well. The oldest such class — and “a capstone experience for students,” said Habbal — is Engineering Science (ES) 96.

Students take on real-world issues at Harvard, then produce book-length recommendations for action. Past examples include energy use at Pierce Hall, the Blackstone complex, and Harvard athletic facilities and Houses.

SEAS classes in applied mathematics, environmental engineering, and climate studies deal with sustainability too.

It’s an issue that requires cooperation, awareness, collective action, and intensive study. “The bottom line,” said Habbal, “is mindset.”

Is Hollywood finally taking a pass on cosmetic surgery? After a rash of recent casting calls recruiting only actress with natural breasts springing up all over Hollywood, some stargazers are suggesting that nipping and tucking may be a dying trend.

Dr. Jennifer Hartstein, celebrity journalist Bradley Jacobs, and Tinseltown casting director John Papsidera sound off on the lack of Hollywood roles for stars whose plastic surgery is over the top…. (We see you, Heidi Montag!)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

El nuevo crossover del Mitsubishi llega pisando fuerte al menos en precios y equipamiento, en el punto de mira tiene un rival de la misma nacionalidad el Nissan Qashqai. Pero el nuevo Mitsubishi ASX parte de un precio bastante bueno y un equipamiento de lo más completo, así como un diseño bastante actractivo y unos acabados que se presume estarán a la altura de la gama y de los que daremos cuenta en cuanto tengamos oportunidad de verlo en vivo.

La única motorización que estará disponible para nuestro pais será el motor diesel 200 DiD, que en realidad es un propulsor 1.8 de 150 CV de potencia. También se espera la llegada de nuevas motorizaciones, como una posible versión de 115 CV o un motor gasolina.

Entrando en el equipamiento, el ASX contará con dos niveles: el Motion y Kaiteki. El primero de ellos contará desde el nivel base con múltiples airbags, ABS más ESP, control de tracción y asistente a la frenada de emergencia, llantas de 17″, faros de xenon, equipo de sonido MP3 con toma USB, climatizador automático o el sistema Star& Stop entre otros elementos.

Mientras que por otro lado, el acabado más completo denominado Kaiteki añade la tapicería de cuero, los asientos con ajuste eléctrico, sonido Rockford Fosgate, entre otros elementos. La lista de precios es la siguiente:

• ASX 200 DiD 150 CV Motion 24.150 euros
• ASX 200 DiD 150 CV Kaiteki 25.750 euros
• ASX 200 DiD 150 CV Motion 4WD 27.450 euros
• ASX 200 DiD 150 CV Kaiteki 4WD 29.500 euros

Vía | Autoblog en español

Sometimes, you have to step back to see the big picture.

That’s the lesson that archaeology students are sharing with the public through a new exhibit at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

The exhibit, “Spying on the Past: Declassified Satellite Images and Archaeology,” opens April 29 with a 5 p.m. reception, presenting four case studies of how satellite images can illuminate archaeologically important landscape features that might not be visible from the ground. The examples are from sites in Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Peru. They reveal evidence of cities, trackways, irrigation canals, and even traces of nomadic travels.

Ruth Pimentel, a student in the Anthropology Department’s sophomore tutorial in archaeology, said she’s thrilled to be able to share the excitement she felt in learning how to use satellite photos as archaeological tools.

“While I was doing the research this semester, I kept seizing my hapless roommates, showing them pictures on my computer and talking them through the method, just because I couldn’t keep to myself how cool it was,” Pimentel said. “Having gallery space in the Peabody means everyone in the class will get to explain how awesome and exciting this material is, and with much bigger pictures.”

The students’ work stems from more than a decade’s effort by Jason Ur, associate professor of anthropology, who has long used satellite photos to track elusive details of ancient civilizations and interpret them to gain new understanding of old ways of life (detailed in features such as irrigation canals) and connections between communities (elucidated by long-lost roadways).

“The way humans modify their landscapes often has a pattern or regularity, whether intentional or unintentional, that cannot be appreciated from the ground,” Ur said. “I find the emergent order of networks of tracks or patterns of irrigation fields to be almost hypnotic from above.”

Guided by Ur, students in the sophomore tutorial in archaeology first learned the techniques of analyzing satellite photos and then applied them to several archaeologically rich areas. Pimentel worked on the Assyrian Irrigation Project, which focused on northern Iraq near the Turkish border. She examined photographs of the remains of canals built under Assyrian emperors before the empire crumbled in the seventh century B.C.

“We propose that the canals were partly displays of power — the extra water allowing for elaborate royal gardens, for example — and partly large-scale efforts to support agriculture for the increasingly concentrated population,” Pimentel said. “The canals are now mostly obscured by modern farms and towns. But on the satellite images, we’re able to see faint lines on a huge scale across the landscape, evidence of the massive earthworks once there.”

Pimentel said some of the features were so faint that she had to train her eyes to detect them in the photos. There were some photos, however, in which the canals were immediately evident, she said.

“We get excited about those images. They’re our showstoppers,” Pimentel said.

In conducting his own research, satellite photos are just a starting point for Ur. He scours the images for patterns and follows that examination by traveling to a site to inspect the features of interest from the ground. He then goes back to the photos, reinspecting them with a new understanding of the landscape. There are times when, looking at the photos, features are difficult to discern, but there are other times when it’s clear something’s there, making interpretation the challenge.

Ur draws photos from various sources. He even hails Google Earth as an excellent tool for an armchair archaeologist because it can fly you to the Great Pyramids and Stonehenge without leaving the office. Most valuable, though, are older photos, such as those from the CORONA spy satellites, declassified in the 1990s and available from the U.S. Geological Survey. Because CORONA flew in the 1960s and 1970s, the photos are less expensive than images from modern satellites, but Ur said even more important is that they allow him to look back in time. Forty years ago, there was much less development in some key areas, making features visible that might be obscured now.

For visitors to the gallery, Ur said he hopes they understand that archaeology is more than just digging and more than just ancient cities. And Ur and his students said they hope viewers will understand that development is endangering many landscapes.

“I hope visitors come away learning something new about the ancient cultures of Peru, of course, but also that archaeological sites are fragile places in a changing landscape,” said Adam Stack, a graduate student in archaeology who took the course and studied the Chan Chan site on Peru’s north coast. “It will take more than archaeologists to protect the past.”