Category: News

Greenwire: Extensive tests have revealed that water in parts of California’s high Sierra were contaminated and making people sick, but no water was worse than that on U.S. Forest Service land. Bacterial contamination was so high that algae was sprouting in the water and hikers were getting hit with Giardia, E. coli and other diseases.

Robert Derlet spent 10 years studying the water and is now calling on the Forest Service to do something about its quality. He and University of California, Davis, Tahoe Research Center director Charles Goldman say cattle should be moved to lower elevations. The livestock waste accounted for much of the contamination. Their results have been published in various periodicals, including Wilderness & Environmental Medicine.

“This proves cattle are contaminating the water,” said John Buckley, executive director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center. “I guarantee you many people don’t realize that snowmelt water, that looks so pure, has fecal coliform and E. coli in it.”

Derlet and Goldman say the land where cattle currently grazes should be made into a protected national park. Both Yosemite and Sequoia national parks were created partly because of damage from grazing sheep, which stirred up dust and made similar damage to water quality.

In Derlet’s studies, he found that unvisited streams and lakes were almost always safe for drinking. Contamination from sunscreen, soap and human waste also contributed to the pollution, as did wild animals, horses and mules. But the contamination was always worst near horses and cattle.

But an official with the Forest Service said the livestock are not responsible because there is vegetation that filters fecal matter before it reaches the water (Tom Knudson, Sacramento Bee, April 25). – JP

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A grassroots online effort is springing up to boldly take one Star Trek icon where he’s never gone before: To The State House. A Canadian Facebook group is urging William Shatner, 79, to run for governor general of his native Montreal.

So far, the Help Nominate William Shatner for Governor General of Canada group has attracted 35,000 followers.

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_______________________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 26, 2010

DAILY GUIDANCE AND PRESS SCHEDULE FOR
TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2010

In the morning, the President will greet members of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform in the Roosevelt Room. There will be a still photographer pool spray at the top of the greet. Following the greet, the President will deliver remarks in the Rose Garden, thanking the members of the Commission for their important service and underscore the importance of forging bipartisan consensus around recommendations to meaningfully improve our long-run fiscal health. The remarks are open press.

The President will embark on another leg of the White House to Main Street tour with stops in Iowa. In the early afternoon, he will tour the Siemens Wind Turbine Blade Manufacturing Plant in Fort Madison. There will be travel pool coverage of the tour. The President will then deliver remarks and share ideas with workers for continuing to grow the economy and to put Americans back to work. This event is open press.

The President will later tour a local business in Mt. Pleasant. There will be travel pool coverage of the tour.

Later in the afternoon, President Obama will hold a town hall meeting at Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa. This event is open press.

The President will spend the night in Des Moines.

Also tomorrow at 10:00AM EDT, the Fiscal Commission will hold its first formal meeting at the White House Conference Center where they will hear remarks from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, OMB Director Peter Orszag, and Former OMB Directors Robert Reischauer and Rudolph Penner. The meeting is pooled press and will be streamed live on www.WhiteHouse.gov/live.

In-Town Travel Pool
Wires: AP, Reuters, Bloomberg
Wire Photos: AP, Reuters, AFP
TV Corr & Crew: CBS
Print: Washington Post
Radio: SRN

Out-of-Town Travel Pool
Wires: AP, Reuters, Bloomberg
Wire Photos: AP, Reuters, AFP
TV Corr & Crew: CBS
Print: AFP
Radio: NPR

EDT

8:30AM In-Town Travel Pool Call Time

9:30AM THE PRESIDENT greets members of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform
Roosevelt Room
Still Photographer Pool spray at the top (Gather time 9:25AM – Briefing Room)

9:45AM THE PRESIDENT delivers remarks underscoring the importance of forging bipartisan consensus around recommendations to meaningfully improve our long-run fiscal health
Rose Garden
Open Press (Pre-set 8:45AM – Final Gather 9:30AM – North Doors of the Palm Room)

10:05AM THE PRESIDENT departs The White House en route Andrews Air Force Base
South Lawn
Open Press (Pre-set immediately following Rose Garden remarks – Final Gather 9:55AM – North Doors of the Palm Room)

10:20AM THE PRESIDENT departs Andrews Air Force Base en route Quincy, Illinois
Out-of-Town Travel Pool (Call Time 9:00AM – Virginia Gate, Andrews Air Force Base)

CDT

11:30AM THE PRESIDENT arrives in Quincy, Illinois
Quincy Regional Airport
Open Press

12:30PM THE PRESIDENT tours the Siemens Wind Turbine Blade Manufacturing Plant
Fort Madison, Iowa
Travel Pool Coverage

1:10PM THE PRESIDENT delivers remarks on how to grow the economy and put Americans back to work
Siemens Wind Turbine Blade Manufacturing Plant
Open Press

2:00PM THE PRESIDENT tours a local business
Mt. Pleasant, Iowa
Travel Pool Coverage

4:35PM THE PRESIDENT holds town hall meeting
Indian Hills Community College, Ottumwa, Iowa
Open Press

Briefing Schedule

Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton will gaggle aboard Air Force One

##

Today is a busy day for economic wonks and other economist-types in Washington. Below is a brief guide to all the action:

• At 9 a.m., the Federal Open Markets Committee — the board on the Federal Reserve that sets interest rates — starts a two-day meeting in Washington. The FOMC is expected to announce tomorrow afternoon they are holding rates near zero for an “extended period”, though more hawkish members (economists who believe that the risk of inflation means the FOMC should raise rates) may dissent. For the past two meetings, Kansas City Federal Reserve President Thomas Hoenig, a voting member of the committee, has argued against his more dovish colleagues and said the Fed should stop signaling that it will not raise rates anytime soon (axing the “extended period” language). Any suggestion that the Fed might tighten monetary policy in the second half of the year will be news-making and rate-changing.
• At 10 a.m., the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, headed by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), meets and hears testimony from Goldman Sachs employees regarding the company’s role in the financial crisis. Planning to testify are chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, chief financial officer David Viniar, and London-based trader Fabrice Tourre, charged in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s civil fraud suit against Goldman. Expect fireworks from Levin, and a conciliatory tone from Blankfein.
• Also at 10 a.m., the bipartisan Presidential Budget Commission meets for the first time and will hear testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Last weekend, former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), called the debt commission a “suicide mission”; economists believe there is no way for the United States to balance its budget without raising taxes, and Republicans have not supported a tax increase in more than 20 years. “Americans are right to be concerned that this commission is merely a front to provide Democrats with the political cover they need to impose massive tax hikes,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) recently argued.

A rendering of two key demonstration blocks in Galveston that will be replanted to restore the esplanade to its historic grandeur. (Photo: PRNewsFoto/Apache Corporation and Galveston Island Tree Conservancy)

From Green Right Now Reports

The loss of trees along the Broadway esplanade on Galveston’s historic central thoroughfare, is one of many devastating damages sustained by the city in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. The Galveston Island Tree Conservancy is spearheading a regional fundraising campaign targeted to the energy and corporate communities in the Houston and Galveston area to raise funds to replenish the iconic blocks.

Apache Corporation is launching the campaign with a $150,000 donation to the Galveston Island Tree Conservancy.

“We hope to motivate others – businesses, foundations and individuals – to contribute as the city works to secure available grant funding,” Roger Plank, president of the Apache Corporation, said in a statement. “Our goal is to help the city restore the full length of the Broadway esplanade.”

The donation will fund the replanting of two key demonstration blocks, from 24th Avenue to 26th Avenue, (East and West of the Texas Heroes Monument). Planting will start in late May 2010. In addition, the donation will help fund the studies and planning required for approval of the project by the Texas Department of Transportation and the Texas Historical Commission.

The Galveston Island Tree Conservancy continues to work in close association with the City of Galveston to replant the 40,000 trees lost to Hurricane Ike. The organization said its priorities are to make the greatest impact on public areas to improve the beauty and spirit of Galveston. Once the two demonstration blocks are completed, the Galveston Island Tree Conservancy will have replanted the entire entrance to the historic downtown Galveston area down to Harborside Blvd.

The Galveston Island Tree Conservancy has been working closely with the Texas Historical Commission, City of Galveston and TXDOT for more than nine months to move forward with the campaign.

“It will take many years and substantial financial commitment for Galveston to recover from the damage of Hurricane Ike,” said Plank. “We believe that companies in the Houston-Galveston area have a significant role to play in this recovery, and we look forward to working with others in our industry and the entire community to restore Broadway.”

We were just noting that the UK’s Labour Party appeared to have egregiously infringed on the copyrights of a television program with its campaign poster for the second time, and Shane Richmond, over at the Telegraph, points us to an even more blatant infringement by the same party. In this case, the party put out a pamphlet that used a blogger’s photo entirely without permission and against his wishes (he’s voting for a different party).

Richmond contacted the Labour Party to get their comments on both situations. On copying the television poster, the comment was:

“We only bought the digital posters for a set period and that period has now passed.”

On the situation with the blogger’s photograph, the party responded:

“It appears in this instance that one of our design team has made an innocent error which we regret.”

Now, both of these responses are quite interesting, because having dug through the Digital Economy Act (no longer the Digital Economy Bill, now that it’s been rammed through Parliament), I’m having trouble finding the defenses it includes for “I only infringed for a little while, and that period has passed” or the “innocent error” defense.

As Richmond notes, does this mean that when someone is accused of infringement under the Digital Economy Act, they’ll be able to respond:

“Yes, I downloaded your new film but that was an innocent error which I regret.”

After all, if that response is good enough for the party that wrote the new law, stood behind it forcefully, and rushed it through the House of Commons with basically no debate, then shouldn’t it be good enough for UK citizens as well?

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If Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) bolts the Senate climate coalition, it must be time to turn to the “energy only” bill that centrist Democrats have been promoting as a bipartisan alternative to a climate bill, right?

Not so fast…. It is almost as difficult to add up 60 votes in the Senate for the energy-only approach as it is to find 60 votes for a climate bill.

“The energy bill is not popular with either side,” said Robert Dillon, spokesman for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), top Republican on the energy committee.

That’s the NY Times (reprinting a Greenwire piece) on the “Bingaman bill,” which passed the Energy and Natural Resources Committee chaired Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) last year.  Graham’s active support for a comprehensive climate and clean energy jobs bill now in question, but based on my discussions with staffers and wonks, the notion that an energy-only bill is more politically tenable is quite dubious.

The Bingraman bill “does have bipartisan support. But it also has bipartisan opposition, and that opposition has only gotten stronger in the intervening months”:

Environmentalists and liberal senators from coastal states have never liked the offshore drilling provisions in the bill, which would allow rigs 45 miles off the Florida coast. And with oil gushing out of a well 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, the political momentum is on the side of opponents.

“The Bingaman bill is waiting in the wings,” said Mike Gravitz, oceans advocate for Environment America. “But there are lots of negatives to it.”

Republican opponents said it did not do enough to encourage states to allow offshore drilling because it did not cut states in on the royalties. And others complained that there was not enough encouragement for building new nuclear power plants.

The political essence of the Bingaman bill is a deal to trade drilling off the coast of Florida for a “renewable energy standard,” or RES, ordering utilities to use more renewables. The deal is that environmentalists and industry both get something they want but not everything.

It sounds workable in principle. The bill passed out of committee with four Republican votes.

But six Republicans voted against it for reasons as varied as nuclear power and property rights.

Indeed, the political climate today is one where conservatives  are willing to cut off their nose to spite their face as the saying goes –  they simply don’t want to give  the president and progressives political successes and the pastiche of bipartisanship to parade in front of the public before the election.

Graham  himself is unlikely to support a narrower bill (see Stick a fork in the energy-only bill: Lindsey Graham (R-SC) slams push for a “half-assed energy bill”).

But the prospect of a solid bloc of GOP opposition leaves little or no room for intra-party disagreements among Democratic senators.

And two Democrats voted against the bill for diametrically opposite reasons. Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey voted “no” because he opposes drilling. But Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana opposed it because it was not pro-drilling enough.

Landrieu cast her “no” vote after the committee shot down proposals to give coastal states a cut of the royalties from oil and gas drilled off their shores. Called “revenue sharing,” the practice is supported by the oil and gas industry because it smooths the way for state approvals.

Landrieu’s opposition reflects the position of pro-drilling coastal Democrats who say they need revenue sharing to get them to the table. Virginia’s two Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Jim Webb, and Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) support drilling, but only with revenue sharing.

But powerful interior Democratic centrists, like Bingaman and Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), the leader of efforts to drill off Florida, vehemently oppose revenue sharing. They joined with Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) in a letter last week blasting the concept.

Bingaman and Dorgan might not vote against the bill if they are getting everything else they want in terms of drilling and an RES.

It  bears pointing out that the Bingaman RES would not significantly expand renewable power beyond  what is the projected under business as usual.   Unless it is substantially expanded –  something the overwhelming majority of Republicans are sure to oppose –  is hardly a reason to vote for the bill.

But the prospect of losing out on billions of dollars in the future could cost votes among other interior-state lawmakers who are not as invested in the process.

But the opposition of senators like Menendez is only growing. Menendez and his New Jersey Democratic colleague flatly threatened to vote against a climate bill if it encouraged more offshore drilling. And that was before a spill off the Louisiana coast started gushing 42,000 gallons a day into the Gulf of Mexico, creating a 600-square-mile sheen of crude that threatens coastlines from Louisiana to Florida.

“This latest incident should give the administration and our fellow Members of Congress pause in their effort to expand oil drilling along the East Coast. We plan to oppose any climate or energy legislation before the U.S. Senate that does not include significant safeguards for the Jersey Shore,” the New Jersey senators said in a statement, even before it was clear that oil was leaking into the gulf.

Ten liberal senators declared their flat opposition to coastal drilling and the revenue sharing they believe would encourage it. And that did not include anti-offshore drilling Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe from Maine.

Some liberals signaled they might be willing to accept more drilling in exchange for strong limits on greenhouse gas emissions. But without those limits, and with concerns growing about the gulf spill, they are less and less likely to agree to such a deal.

Precisely.

It will be hard to square this circle in the current political climate.  And, of course, and any Senate bill would have to go back through the House, which  might well be reluctant to take up another bill with controversial provisions.

If the White House can’t get a comprehensive bill, I doubt  it will get a significant energy-only bill.  That leaves a  strategy similar to the one they are now using on jobs, where they put forward very tiny bills with a couple of hard-to-oppose provisions.  Hard to get terribly  excited about that in the face of looming Hell and High Water.

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Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

Connect CEO Duane Roth made hiring a full-time lobbyist in Washington D.C. a key part of last summer’s initiative to boost San Diego’s innovation economy. Last week, the nonprofit group named Timothy Tardibono, a lawyer and policy analyst, as its government affairs director and chief counsel—and Tardibono says he’s already got some issues on his radar.

“I’ve been here for four or five days, and there’s already two bills that could really hurt San Diego’s innovation community,” says Tardibono, who served most recently as legal counsel to Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Tardibono, who is a full-time employee of Connect, spoke to me by phone from his new office in Washington.

Tardibono says one issue stems from a provision of the financial reform act introduced by Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd. The provision raises the requirements for a wealthy individual to qualify as an “accredited investor,” which would make it harder to make angel investments in startups. A pending amendment will fix that provision, enabling innovative startups to still raise needed capital from angel investors. But Tardibono says, “It’s a great example of why Connect needs eyes on the ground here in Washington.”

The other issue is a broader and more complex effort to reform both patent law and to overhaul the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. “Patent reform only comes to the Hill every two or three decades,” Tardibono says. While the debate has been cast as “a clash of the titans—with big high-tech versus big pharma,” Tardibono says the legislation also is stirring a variety of concerns among small investors about the ability of large technology companies to race to the patent office to claim patent protections.

Tardibono intends to discuss the technology community’s need for immigration reform, saying, “There is a great need to retain engineers and scientists from other countries to help startups develop technologies and big companies to develop new products.” He also wants to win more federal grants and other types of funding for technology startups.

Tardibono says his prime directive, though, is to voice the concerns of entrepreneurs and technology innovators because the process of technology innovation “is really not well-understood here on Capitol Hill,” a sentiment echoed in San Diego by Connect’s Roth.

“First of all, we call him an advocate, not a lobbyist,” Roth says. “Our constituency is broad and his mission really is education. His job is to …Next Page »

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I have a policy for evaluating BlackBerry applications — at least for personal use. If it’s free and appears remotely useful, I’ll give it a shot. All this costs me is the marginal amount of time it takes to download and use the app, and then the time to restart my BlackBerry if I decide to delete it. If, on the other hand, the app costs money, I had better be sure before I buy it if I’m going to need it or not. When I first saw Antair Snippets, I thought that it might be worth it. But then I saw the price tag and thought that Memo Pad might be able to perform a similar function for free. I thought I’d present the case for you in this space.

(more…)

The recurring conflict of American capitalism pitting large versus small will once again play out Tuesday. This time in front of the Supreme Court where a global agri-business leader is asking the justices to overturn a lower court ruling in favor of a family-operated farm with environmental sensitivities.

But as is often the case at the Supreme Court, the underlying legal dispute is considerably more pedantic than the broader overtones of the larger conflict.

The issue the justices will have to solve is assessing the authority of a federal trial court judge to issue a sweeping injunction under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Nonetheless, the case offers a glimpse into the ages-old dispute between the competing interests of modernity and environmental stewardship.

Monsanto is one of the world’s largest agriculture companies and has developed a genetically engineered alfalfa variety known as Roundup Ready alfalfa. Monsanto claims its product is simply another in a line of stronger seeds that have “become a mainstay of American agriculture” because of its ability to generate higher yields which means more money in farmers pockets. Its Roundup Ready alfalfa is believed to offer greater resistance to a common herbicide that Monsanto also produces.

Geertson Seed Farm objects to the Monsanto seed believing it will contaminate organically produced alfalfa. The Idaho-based operation contends the Roundup Ready alfalfa will be difficult to kill and then cross-pollinate with other seeds. Geertson says this “will contaminate other feral plants and conventional alfalfa seed fields in the area. In a few years, it will be extremely difficult to avoid contamination from [genetically engineered] alfalfa to conventional alfalfa seed.”

Geertson sued and convinced a federal judge to issue a nationwide injunction preventing Monsanto from selling its alfalfa seed. The judge ruled that certain procedures weren’t followed under NEPA and that Monsanto is prohibited from selling its seed, at the very least, until those protocols are completed.

Monsanto says Geertson’s “science fiction-like scenarios” about the fate of natural alfalfa seeds are bogus. It also objects to the judge’s decision to issue the injunction which Monsanto claims is an “extraordinary remedy” that may be granted only when necessary to prevent likely irreparable harm.”

The justices are almost certain to focus their attention on the legal merits of the injunction and stay away from the back-and-forth over the seed.

The judge who issued the injunction, Charles Breyer, is the brother of Justice Stephen Breyer who has recused himself from the case. That means eight justices will decide the matter and if they split, the ruling of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals–which affirmed the injunction order–will be upheld.

The case is Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms

We just love mentioning those Hello Kitty iPhone cases around here. So of course a new one was just released and yes its an official Hello Kitty case from Sanrio. This latest one has her sitting on a backdrop of retro black and white comic designs. Aren’t those blue overalls just precious! The case comes with a screen protector and is a hardshell design to protect it from bumps and drops. The Hello Kitty iPhone 3G/3GS Case Cartoon retails for $29.95.

Greenwire: Solar energy plants being built in California have some residents concerned that they could encroach on massive American Indian carvings depicting the flute-playing god Kokopelli. Historian Alfredo Figueroa has been taking the lead in challenging businesses and the state to try to protect the carvings.

At issue are three plants being installed around Blythe, Calif. A joint project from Solar Millennium AG and Chevron Energy Solutions would be the largest, placing mirrors on 7,030 acres of public land. Figueroa believes the installation might happen on the carvings of Kokopelli or Cicimitl, an Aztec spirit.

The companies say the claims are “completely false.” Rachel McMahon, director of governmental affairs for Solar Millennium said, “The image is adjacent to our transmission line, but they don’t interfere with each other.”

The Bureau of Land Management is evaluating the carvings and working with the California Native American Heritage Commission to determine if the geoglyphs have a sacred value, which could help get them more protection. The projects have also been hit with complaints about damage to the desert habitat or aesthetic problems.

The massive carvings, discovered by a pilot in 1931, are best seen from the air. The carvings near the Colorado River are thought to be 3,000 to 4,000 years old, while ones deeper in the desert could be as many as 12,000 years old.

Figueroa, who is part Yaqui, Pima and Chemehuevi, says the region around the carvings is Aztlan, the supposed mythical birthplace of the Aztecs. He has led spiritual dances to protect the site and vows to continue the fight against the solar projects however he can.

“Maybe they have good intentions in pursuing clean energy, but they will erase our history,” said Netze Cauhtemoc, one of the dancers. “It would be like throwing up a shopping mall in the middle of Jerusalem” (David Kelly, Los Angeles Times, April 24). – JP

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AMD launched its 5xxx series of graphics card for consumers in September, last year. The 5xxx series of graphics card featured many new technological improvements including ATI’s Eyefinity. ATI Eyefinity technology allows users to attach and use up to 3 monitors simultaneously, excluding the ATI 5870 Eyefinity edition. The ATI 5870 Eyefinity edition features 6 DisplayPorts, so users can hook up to 6 monitors and use them simultaneously.

Now AMD has unveiled its FirePro line-up of graphics card for professionals. At the beginning of this month, AMD had announced the ATI FirePro V8800 graphics card. AMD had described the card as “the industry’s most powerful professional graphics card ever created.” The ATI V8800 features 1600 stream processors, and 2GB of GDDR5 memory and costs 1,499$.

The cards which AMD announced today are – specification wise – placed below the ATI FirePro V8800. The ATI V7800 has 1440 stream processors, along with 2Gb of GDDR5 memory. The card also features a dual DisplayPort, and a single dual-link DVI output. AMD describes the FirePro V8800 as “ultra-fast.” Next in line is the “true workhorse” V5800. At 800 stream processors, the V5800 has 640 stream processors less than the V7800. The graphics memory has also been halved at 1Gb.

The “entry-level” cards – the V4800 and the V3800 – have 400 stream processors. The V4800 has 1Gb of GDDR5 memory while the V3800 has 512Mb of GDDR3 memory. The FirePro V4800 is equipped with two DisplayPort and one dual-link DVI port. The ATI FirePro V3800 has one display port and one dual-link DVI port. AMD did not mention the pricing or the release dates of these cards.

Don’t miss these Related Posts:

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O surpreendente protótipo hibrido Porsche 918 Spyder revelado no Salão de Genebra ainda não foi oficializado para ser produzido, pois a companhia vem acompanhando o interesse do publico no modelo, que determinará se seu projeto enfim chegará as ruas. As ultimas informações são de que a Porsche recebeu cerca de 900 potenciais clientes interessados no 918 Spyder.

Apesar dos bons números em sua recepção, o chefe de desenvolvimento de projetos da Porsche, Wolfgang Duerheimer, disse durante uma entrevista no Salão do Automóvel de Pequim realizada dia 24 de abril que esperava pelo menos 1000 ordens: “Estou confiante que em breve alcançar o limite de 1000” , complementando que: “Nós precisamos de 1.000 pessoas seriamente interessado em fazer um caso de negócios”.

Nossa torcida é que o hibrido esportivo Porsche Spyder 918 seja realmente produzido pois ele promete revolucionar o sua categoria, apresentando um desempenho superior até mesmo que o Porsche Carrera GT, porém com um consumo de combustível e de emissão super-reduzidos sendo em média, mais que o dobro econômico que nossos atuais populares, apresentando um consumo de apenas 33,3 km/l !!!

Tudo isso gracas a seu sistema hibrido combinando um motor V8 de mais de 500 cavalos de potencia e três motores elétricos, gerando mais 218 cavalos adicionais. Com isso sua aceleração de 0 a 100 km/h é feita em apenas 3,2 segundos e sua velocidade final chega aos 320 km/h.

Fonte: TopSpeed

Greenwire: Officials acknowledge it could be months before they can stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico from a rig that sank last week near Louisiana. Crews worked yesterday to shore up the leak that is estimated at 42,000 gallons of oil a day.

Response crews are setting up containment booms around coastal areas. They are working on three strategies: one that could stop the leak in two days, one that would take months and a third that would simply capture the oil and push it to the surface. The 600-square-mile sheen of oil and water will remain at least 30 miles from shore for at least the next three days, but Gulf Coast states have been warned to be on alert.

The leak is coming from a riser on the rig that exploded and sank last week, leaving 11 crew members missing and presumed dead. Workers are using remote-controlled vehicles to try to activate the rig’s blowout preventer, which can seal the well within 24 to 36 hours. But officials from BP, which leased the rig, said that operation was “highly complex” and might not be successful.

A second effort would involve drilling relief wells nearby, which could take two to three months. Those wells would push mud and concrete into the cavity of oil and gas punctured by accident. Officials are also planning to place a dome directly over the leak to catch the oil and send it to the surface if the blowout preventer fails. The dome strategy has never been used in water this deep.

Crews had to stop working for most of the weekend because of rough seas, but by yesterday afternoon, planes were dropping dispersant to break down the oil. Last night, 15 boats were skimming the oil off the ocean surface (Robertson/Kaufman, New York Times, April 25). – JP

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We don’t know if we’re being foolish in believing that Sony Ericsson can hit its target launch date, but the latest report hovering around is that the Xperia X10 Mini & X10 Mini Pro will hit Rogers in May or June. That time frame fits with the original summer timeline we heard previously and considering we felt both devices were ready back in February, it’s not that much of a reach.

Whether Sony Ericsson and Rogers can hit that date is of course another matter, but we’re hopeful they won’t bungle this release like the big brother Xperia X10. Surprisingly, the price of the X10 Mini & X10 Mini Pro on a new 3-year contract is expected to be rather affordable. The X10 Mini is expected to retail for $49.99 and the X10 Mini Pro will be priced at $69.99. That would be a great price point for the miniature versions of a once sought after phone. [mobilesyrup]

[JURIST] A Haitian judge on Monday dismissed charges of kidnapping and criminal association against all 10 members of a US missionary group arrested in January but ordered one to stand trial for making “irregular travel” arrangements involving 30 Haitian children. Laura Silsby, the only missionary who has not been released by Haitian authorities, will remain in custody until her trial. According to a 1980 decree in the Haitian Criminal Code, irregular travel is the term for traveling or organizing travel originating in Haiti with a foreign destination in a manner that does not comply with established laws. If convicted, Silsby could face six months to three years of incarceration.
Last month, a Haitian judge ordered the release of one of the last two US missionaries out of a group of 10 who were arrested following the January 12 earthquake in connection with their attempt to take 33 children across the Haitian border into the Dominican Republic. The judge had announced in February that the two remaining missionaries would also be released after the other eight members of the missionary group affiliated with the Central Valley Baptist Church of Idaho and the New Life Children’s Refuge Charity were released earlier that month. Haitian authorities originally charged each of the 10 missionaries in February with one count of kidnapping and one count of criminal association, asserting that many of the children were not orphans.