Category: News

By numerous accounts, this spring has been the most brutal in years for seasonal allergy sufferers. (Do I see some nodding heads out there?) As much as everyone looks forward to spring, some folks grit their teeth for several weeks or live on a steady dose of allergy pills. I always get questions this time of year from folks who are looking for ways to get through spring a little happier and maybe less medicated. Here’s one such email from reader Joyce….

Dear Mark,

I’m from the Upper Midwest where spring came early this year. No complaining about that, mind you – we earn our warm season! I’ve always had problems in spring, but this year I’ve been in really bad shape (like everybody what I hear). I’m relatively new to your site, and I’m slowly adopting elements of the Primal Blueprint. So far, it’s been going great! It’s got me thinking though about diet and whether what I eat/don’t eat can make any difference. What’s your take on this? I’d love any recommendations that could get me in the garden earlier!

Although the extent of people’s allergies (as well their sources) span a wide spectrum, anyone who spends whole months blowing through Kleenexes can likely benefit from a few adjustments – especially those new to the PB.

First, what to avoid… One of the best strategies to alleviate those miserable symptoms is to steer clear of alcohol and other histamine containing foods. As far as alcohol goes, wine (both red and white) seem to be the worst instigators. Sulfites are part of the issue with these drinks, but histamines that result during the fermentation process also wreak havoc. If you have allergy issues, consider avoiding other foods subject to aging and fermentation like aged cheese, pickles, and sauerkraut. And as for yeast, it’s one more reason to ditch bread. Grapes and ciders can be culprits as well.

Also, if you know the source of your particular allergy, you can further pinpoint foods that tend to trigger what’s called “oral allergy syndrome,” a reaction to allergen-related foods that affects primarily the lips and mouth. Check out the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia information on cross-reactive foods for those with seasonal allergies.

As for what to eat, think anti-inflammatory. It just so happens that the PB delivers just that. Research supports the particular benefits of fresh produce, fish and nuts for reducing both the symptoms of existing allergies as well as the development of allergies later in life. Research on the pregnancy and childhood diets of Spanish children found that a higher intake of certain vegetables (like tomatoes and eggplant) and fish offered protective benefit from allergies and asthma. Another study with Greek children linked high intake of nuts, fruits and vegetables with a lower risk for respiratory allergy. The EPA and DHA in fish and fish oils has been shown to be among the best preventative options for allergic disorders.

Want more? Tea, particularly green or white, offers a big flavonoid boost that reduces inflammation and supports general immune function. For raw dairy enthusiasts out there, farm milk consumption was shown to provide similar protective advantage against allergy and asthma whether or not the children drinking it lived on the farm or not.

Although antioxidants and flavonoids in general offer therapeutic benefit, certain nutrients like vitamin C and quercetin are potent natural antihistamines. An extra dose of magnesium can help alleviate wheezing symptoms. Some folks report success with spirulina as well. As for herbal remedies, butterbur shows good promise, but isn’t for women who are pregnant or nursing.

Another recommendation? Buy some wild – and local – honey. Because bees pick up the pollen of their environment, the resulting honey can offer something of a therapeutic dose for gradual desensitization – much like an allergy shot. It’s important to start small (1/4 teaspoon daily – max) and work your way up to gradually build tolerance.

Last, my own nearly debilitating seasonal allergies literally disappeared when I got rid of grains (and cut the chronic cardio). It may have been related to the autoimmune connection between anti-nutrients/leaky-gut and hypersensitivity to proteins in grass seeds and pollen (grains are grass seeds). Many MDA readers report a dramatic reduction in hay fever or allergy symptoms when cutting grains.

Good luck to Joyce and everyone else who’s laying low for another couple weeks. Let me know your thoughts, and do share any other anti-allergy strategies that have worked for you! As always, thanks for the great questions and comments, and keep ‘em coming. Have a great Monday everybody!

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Related posts:

1. Dear Mark: Omega-3s and Fish Allergies
2. Dear Mark: Flu Shots
3. Dear Mark: Gluten

Porsche says that it has almost 900 potential buyers for its new 918 Spyder, a plug-in hybrid open-top supercar with a mid-mounted V8. Porsche will probably decide to build the model once 1,000 potential customers have pledged interest, Porsche’s development chief, Wolfgang Duerheimer, said in an interview at the 2010 Beijing Motor Show.

“I’m confident that we will soon reach the threshold of 1,000,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We need 1,000 seriously interested people to make a sound business case.”

“We’re very optimistic that we’ll be able to further expand our leading position in the sports-car segment,” he said.

Click here for more news on the Porsche 918 Spyder Concept.

Refresher: Power for the Porsche 918 Spyder Concept comes from a 3.4L mid-mounted V8 making 500-hp. The engine is mated to two electric-motors sitting on the front and rear axle with an additional output of 218-hp. Power is driven to the wheels by Porsche’s 7-speed Doppelkupplungsgetriebe PDK transmission, allowing the 918 Spyder Concept to go from 0-62 mph in 3.2 seconds with a top speed of 198 mph. Drivers are allowed to choose from four different driving modes including E-Drive, Hybrid, Sport Hybrid and Race Hybrid. The E-Drive mode lets the 918 Spyder concept run on pure electricity with a range of 16 miles.

Porsche 918 Spyder Concept:

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Bloomberg

You see the pictures of tornado damage on TV, but it doesn’t do them
justice. Yazoo City was one of the areas hardest hit by the deadly
tornado that tore through the region Saturday. We were able to drive down one street with some of the worst damage. It is severe and extensive. House after house is missing a roof, windows or walls. Crunched cars are scattered along the road, lifted and moved several feet from where they were parked by their owners. Huge old trees are uprooted or snapped.
And it goes on like this. We turned around after about a mile.

We met Joe Martin just as he was coming back to his childhood home.
Martin wasn’t in the home at the time of the storm and was seeing the
damage for the first time. The home is a total loss. Martin’s father
has built it just after he returned from World War Two. Martin was ten
at the time and remembers helping him build the house. Martin’s mother
planted azaleas out front- all gone now from the storm. So are the
trees that stood there for decades. Martin says they won’t rebuild.
There’s no replacement for that house.

They say there are hundreds of people without homes today in
Mississippi. Take one look at one street in Yazoo City and it’s easy
to understand why.

There’s a great interview with the eccentric hedge fund manager Hugh Hendry of Eclectica Capital in Investment Week.

Here’s the short version of what he said:

On the China “bubble”: “China has not demonstrated an ability to create wealth. It has demonstrated an ability to create GDP growth, which is a function of spending money…Infrastructure projects and steel plants that are publicly commissioned…If you build a high-speed rail link and anticipate it improving the productivity of the economy over the next 10 years, but actually it does not, it means you will have to raise Government borrowing or tax the population to sustain the negative cashflow.” More on China from Hendry.

On what’s wrong with the investment world: “We have created a hunger just to make money, speculative money and damn the consequences almost – we are either all investing in houses or stocks, soon to be Chinese stocks with Anthony Bolton. But, it has also created a Pavlovian response where every crisis was an opportunity to buy more. I think time is receding, it is passing, it is leaving us behind. My difficulty is that I do not sell dreams. I live in the real world.”

On his investment strategy: “We are concerned about the world being profoundly deflationary and therefore are reluctant to take a lot of economic risk. So the businesses we select to buy today are large-cap names, so I can sell them and not be trapped in them. They are businesses that have a lack of economic sensitivity. I have a tremendous amount invested in the tobacco industry. I think it could survive a consumer depression.”

On inflation: It could reside in the future [especially if you ban short-selling]. “If you want to create inflation, what you will see is that we will have a ban on short selling. We will have a ban on naked credit default swaps.” Watch Hendry vigorously defend short selling.

The full interview is on Investment Week.

And for more from Hendry, read an article he penned in the Telegraph.

Join the conversation about this story »

Starbucks implements LED lighting conversion in stores.  …

We did this by reaching out to GE, who developed a highly energy-efficient LED bulb that complements Starbucks store design approach and fits existing fixtures.

Via Starbucks: Energy-efficient LED Lighting coming to a Starbucks near You

Lynne Kiesling

I was intrigued last week to read Bruce Yandle’s short piece in Regulation discussing Pigou and his ideas about taxation in the context of modern “Pigouvian” policy proposals. I recommend his essay highly; it communicates eloquently how Pigou’s ideas are currently being used as a justification for a variety of forms of taxation. Many of these tax proposals (bank taxes, gasoline taxes, salt taxes, sugary soda taxes) may be motivated by some political elite’s notion of what is “good for society”, but Yandle also makes clear that such proposals may instead be motivated by raising revenue.

Even more interestingly, Yandle does something that few current economists do — he reads Pigou’s original arguments. In them he finds something that I find intriguing (and although I have read large portions of Pigou’s original works, I was not aware of this):

As strange as it may seem, Pigou did not believe that government could improve human well being by fine-tuning behavior with taxes, subsidies, and regulation. His concern was grounded in what we today call Public Choice. He did not accept the notion that politicians, given constitutional constraints, would be capable of implementing an efficient and effective set of taxes and subsidies. Put simply, he did not believe the politicians could get the calculations right. Instead of making things better, the chances were just as good that things would be made worse. Instead of keeping faith with implementing a well-designed tax, the politicians’ interest would be deflected to writing loopholes for favored interest groups and finding ways to generate ever more revenue.

Yandle quotes Pigou from his seminal 1932 work The Economics of Welfare, Chapter XX, “Intervention By Public Authorities” (1932). Pigou’s discussion in this chapter is striking in how it presages modern public choice arguments, as Yandle indicates. Pigou is also making a clear argument for analyzing the performance of different institutions and what are the correct comparisons to make. Take, for example, this quote from p. 332, which immediately precedes the quote Yandle used in his essay:

[The case for government intervention] cannot become more than a prima facie one, until we have considered the qualifications, which governmental agencies may be expected to possess for intervening advantageously. It is not sufficient to contrast the imperfect adjustments of unfettered private enterprise with the best adjustment that economists in their studies can imagine.

Not only is Pigou making a public choice argument in this chapter; in this quote he is also making a point that Harold Demsetz would later term the “Nirvana fallacy” in “Information and Efficiency: Another Viewpoint” (1969). In the remainder of the chapter Pigou goes on to argue that early-20th-century improvements in voting access, in bureaucratic administration, and in communications technology made government interventions more appropriate in more situations than had been the case previously, with less voter engagement and a less productive bureaucracy. To do a true Demsetz-style non-Nirvana comparison, though, Pigou would have had to compare the effects of those changes on the productivity of markets and other institutions for private ordering, relative to their effects in public administration.

Still, I find this chapter of Pigou incredibly striking. It indicates Pigou’s willingness to admit, and to analyze, the effects of institutions on economic outcomes. Here he’s essentially saying that institutions matter, a position that his colleague John Maynard Keynes did not hold. Pigou’s argument is even more striking to me in light of my recent reading of Buchanan and Wagner’s Democracy in Deficit, which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. Pigou’s analysis of government intervention seems to me to have more in common with Buchanan and Wagner’s argument, and their criticism of Keynes’ approach as institutionally sterile.

Pigou, Buchanan and Wagner, and the Yandle essay all give some substantial food for thought as we think through the range of very interventionist policy proposals being put forward right now. I also recommend Thom Lambert’s post at Truth on the Market about the Yandle essay, which is what prompted my musings here; he goes into more detail in discussing the Pigou-Coase comparisons.

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch has a post up, The Age Of Facebook. Facebook having superseded Google having superseded Microsoft. Unstated that Microsoft superseded IBM as a firm which defines an age through reach, power and influence. Two thoughts that come to mind:

1) It seems that each “age” has been shorter than the previous. IBM was computing for decades. Microsoft probably ten years or so depending on how you define it (I put the second derivate maximum at 1995). Google’s real ascent seems to date to around 2000, but its monopolistic plateau of the mindshare didn’t seem to last for very long as Facebook was already generating a lot of buzz by 2007 (the same principle operates across human history, the civilization of Pharaonic Egypt spanned 2,000 years, the same length as from Augustus to our own time!)

2) It also seems that the extent of a definite age of ascendancy for a particular firm is more muddled now, as creative destruction and innovation allow for many domains of excellence and supremacy, as well as the resurrection of bygone brands. Consider the revival of Apple’s fortunes. And if we are on the verge of the Age of Facebook does anyone believe that Google’s brand will collapse? Arrington notes that Microsoft is perceived to be passed its peak, but it has many years left of its cash cow products, perhaps at least another decade. IBM has reemerged as a software services company. And so on. On a relative scale Arrington’s argument seems to have some merit, but secure domination doesn’t seem to be what it used to be (also, one might need to distinguish between buzz and influence, and concrete metrics).

In its main environmental story today –  “On climate bill, Democrats work to overcome Graham’s immigration objections” — the WashPost said:

In some ways, the problem that proponents of climate legislation face is that they’re pursuing a policy goal that is not much of a hot-button political issue. Environmental activists had a well-attended event Sunday on the Mall, with musical stars Sting and John Legend, but immigration reform advocates are likely to dwarf that turnout with dozens of rallies across the country Saturday.

Yes, the biggest single climate rally in U.S. history is dismissed by comparison with the hypothetical cumulative turnout of dozens of future rallies on immigration.  Who says the media isn’t fair?  Apparently preserving the health and well-being of countless future generations isn’t “hot-button” enough for the media to be interested [kind of an ironic phrase, considering the rally was for action of global warming].

The “problem” for the White House (and Senate Majority Leader Reid) is that if they push immigration first, they kill both bills — knowingly — and they break a long-standing (and oft-repeated) commitment to three major constituencies:  environmentalists, clean energy types (like me), and young voters.

I am not an immigration analyst, so let me quote The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait from Friday, writing about the possibility that “Senate Democratic leaders have decided to try to put immigration reform first on the agenda”:

This strikes me as a terrible idea. First of all, climate legislation is just plain more important than immigration reform. The latter is important, but the former is dire. Given that Republicans may well take control of the House in November, and could easily hold it for a long time, this year could literally be the last chance to pass climate legislation, however watered down.

Now, I suppose I could be persuaded of the merits of this move if it seemed clear that the climate bill had little chance to pass and immigration stood a great chance to pass. But this does not seem to be the case….

It’s true that immigration splits the GOP. But it also splits the Democrats, who have a lot of members representing heavily white, working-class areas. Increasing the political salience of immigration at a time when unemployment is over 9% does not seem like a good strategy to help them. Also keep in mind that the House has already passed a climate bill, but hasn’t passed an immigration bill.

Indeed, Politico persuasively suggests that the cost of shelving climate for immigration is probably to kill both….

If this is Reid’s decision, the White House needs to come down hard on him. It’s outrageous to sacrifice a chance to make progress on the biggest single policy challenge merely to increase the reelection chances of one Senator. This episode also shows, again, why it’s a bad idea to have your Senate leader hail from a state that leans toward the opposing party.

There’s some good background on the timeline of events from Brad Johnson’s WR post, “Whisper Campaign Derails Climate Bill Rollout.”  I’ll have more to say about Graham’s role shortly.

Finally, for those who want to read about the Earth Day event in the WashPost, you have to go to the Style section, “Earth Day’s moment in the sun,” which has some great pictures, like the one above.  I’ll post more on the event when I get the videos.

The Alfa Romeo TZ3 Corsa by Zagato is not a design exercise, nor does it take inspiration from the 90 years of collaboration between Zagato and Alfa. The TZ3 Corsa race-car is basically a gift from Zagato to Alfa Romeo honoring 100 years of races and victories across the whole 20th century.

The TZ3 Corsa weighs in at only 1,870 pounds and is powered by a 4.2L dry sump V8 engine making 420-hp. Mated to a 6-speed sequential gearbox. the TZ3 Corsa goes from 0-62 mph in less than 3.5 seconds with a top speed of more than 185 mph.

Think of it as a Alfa Romeo 8C with racing roots and history brought altogether.

Alfa Romeo TZ3 Corsa by Zagato:

Press release:

Milano, April 2010: Zagato Atelier announces the introduction of the Alfa Romeo TZ3 Corsa at the XII Villa D’Este Concours d’Elegance.

The TZ3 Corsa is not a design exercise. It does not take inspiration only from the 90 year collaboration between the two brands, neither only from the Milanese conjunction between Alfa Romeo and Zagato.

The TZ3 Corsa is a race car, honouring 100 years of races and victories across the whole 20th century.

It celebrates men and machines of the Alfa Romeo Zagato common tradition:

Scuderia Ferrari of the 20’s and 30’s, Alfa Corse of the 40’s and 50’s, Autodelta of the 60’s and 70’s up to the latest Scuderia Zagato of the 80’s and 90’s.

Recalling these racing emotions, the TZ3 Corsa is based on a mono shell carbon fibre tubular chassis, coupled with a tubular frame and a lightweight aluminium body.

It boasts Technical Partners such as OMP and Pirelli.

Following Zagato’s gentlemen-driver heritage, the car has been commissioned by the Alfa Romeo Zagato collector Martin Kapp, during the Zandvoort Tribute to Zagato event, where more than 130 Alfa Romeo Zagatos were celebrating the 90th Anniversary of the brand.

Martin Kapp owns, among his Alfa Romeo Collection: SZ coda tonda and SZ coda tronca, TZ and TZ2, Junior Z and S.Z..

Tribute to the 100th anniversary of Alfa Romeo’s Racing Heritage:

Alfa Romeo and Zagato achieved the best results since the beginnings thanks to the Mille Miglia victories of the 1500 6C, the 1750 GS and the 8C 2300 Zagato of the Scuderia Ferrari. Already in 1933 an official advert of the Alfa Romeo 8C proclaimed: “The Spider that, with the trio Alfa Romeo – Scuderia Ferrari – Carrozzeria Zagato, brought countless victories in the homeland and abroad for the honour of Italy.”

Even the grandiose Quadrifoglio Verde was placed on the bodies of Zagatos of the Alfa Corse team numerous times. Among the most glorious moments is the victory of the Formula 1 championship of Juan Manuel Fangio, aboard his Alfa Romeo 159 bodied by Zagato, as well as the victorious Alfa Romeo 3000 CM bodied in 3 samples by Zagato.

During the 60’s, the list of absolute victories of the Giulia TZ and TZ2 by Zagato for the Autodelta of Ing. Carlo Chiti, was never-ending. Some of the most memorable victories included the 1964 12 hours of Sebring, the Targa Florio, the Nurburgring, and the 24 hours of Le Mans.

The single-brand Alfa Romeo S.Z. championship emphasized the Alfa Romeo ES30’s (Experimental SportsCar 3000) technical and dynamic abilities. The S.Z. delivered, and continues to so today, constant performance and driving pleasure to the Gentlemen drivers of the Alfa Zagato team, across the most important racetracks in Europe.

TZ3 CORSA Specification Sheet

TECH DETAILS

General Data
Curb Weight – 850 kg
Wheelbase – 2500 mm
Track
Front: 1622 mm
Rear: 1617 mm
Length – 4345 mm
Height – 1200 mm
Width – 1944 mm
Seating Capacity – Driver + Co-driver

Engine
Configuration – V8, dry sump
Displacement – 4200 cc
Power – 420HP Manual adjustable engine calibration

Drive train
Gearbox – 6 speed sequential “tractive”
Suspensions – Ohlins Push road

Tyres

Front: 245/645 “18 – Slick 640
Rear: 285/645 “18 – Slick 650

Chassis
Layout – Front/Mid Engine – Rear Drive
Frame – Carbon fiber Monoshell +Carbon fiber arms
Body – Hand Made aluminium body

Performance
0 – 100km/h – sub 3.5 sec
Max Speed – over 300 km/h

Technical Partners:

OMP – A Genoese company – with over 37 years of experience in the design and production of equipment for competition cars – has supplied a range of its accessories for the new Alfa Romeo TZ3 Corsa, specifically a set of WRC seats made out of carbon fibre, racing seatbelts, a steering wheel made out of carbon fibre, and an aluminium fire extinguisher. Products which represent a constant research into new technologies and a continuous study of innovative design forms.

PIRELLI – Pirelli participates in the presentation of the Alfa Romeo TZ3 Corsa in the role of a technical partner, equipping the car with its PZero, the most performing tyres of the Pirelli product range, developed for motorsport. Thanks to the renewed collaboration with Alfa Romeo and Zagato, Pirelli confirms itself as a leader in the high-end and as the main technological reference partner for the most prestigious automotive companies.

– By: Kap Shah

   

Yes, ladies and gentleman, my wish has finally come true: a proper Tower Defense type of game has hit the App Catalog. Defensive Warfare ($2.49 in the App Catalog) is a full on place upgradeable towers (guns, AA-rocket launchers and slow- ‘em-down emp weapons) and prevent different classes of vehicles, both air and ground, slow and fast, from reaching the other end of the map. 

Gameplay is enjoyable for the most part, but the game does get rather frustrating in the more advanced levels as the AI has a tendency to stop concentrated fire on passing units and aim at whatever units come into range, diluting the effectiveness of my towers and preventing me from advancing through the last few levels. Still, it’s an exciting (and very welcome) entrant into the App Catalog, will most certainly get better as time goes on, and is a  great sign of things to come.  

Just buying something from an anonymous seller on Craigslist — or any number of other sites — can be a risky proposition in its own right. But police in Oakland say there’s been a rash of recent incidents where victims purchased items off Craigslist only to be robbed at gunpoint when they show up to take receipt of their purchases.

To help cut down on the number of these incidents, the police have issued the following four tips for how to minimize your odds of becoming a victim:

1. Do not agree to meet in a secluded or residential area. Highly populated and well-traveled areas are better.

2. Do not travel to any location with a large amount of cash.

3. Leave if someone or something looks suspicious.

4. If you are robbed, give the subjects the property they are asking for; your life is worth much more than your property.

Rash of holdups prompts Oakland police to caution online shoppers [Oakland Tribune]

Listen up, Xtina Stans: Christina Aguilera is set to unveil her comeback video, “Not Myself Tonight,” to the world in a special premiere event on Vevo.com this Friday, April 30!

In celebration of Christina’s return to the charts, ChristinaAguilera.com will be releasing a promo still from the official music video everyday this week.

(Check out your first sneak peek above….)

Don’t forget to mark your calendars — Christina’s dance-infused comeback LP, Bionic, debuts June 7.

Facebook wants to ride its new Open Graph protocol past Google on the road to Internet domination. But first, they’re going to have to get past Sen. Chuck Schumer.

The New York senator wrote a letter to the FTC asking them to look at Facebook’s privacy guidelines. Facebook’s new plug-ins allow users like you and me to see articles, or music, or restaurants our friends have “liked” throughout the Internet. Information that used to live in a news feed on Facebook will now follow us around the Web. What was once merely public is now really, really public.

In the long run, Facebook’s newest invention is probably a good thing. It will make online shopping better when websites can tell us what kind of jeans our friends liked. It will make online advertising more lucrative when smart phone ads serve up ads for restaurants and shops we support on Facebook. But rather than be asked to opt-in to this brave new world of smart sites and smarter phones, Facebookers’ information is automatically slurped into the matrix. Opt-in is the default; opt-out is the option.

Schumer wants to flip that around and offer users more upfront control over their accounts. Fine. He can ask, but it’s extremely unlikely that the FTC will decide that the Facebook’s new tool violates privacy any more than their old default opt-in rules. In fact, it’s extremely unlikely that most users even care. An opt-out world — that is a world where control is more important than privacy — is the world we’re living in.

So ultimately, it’s good that Schumer is asking. Facebook is onto something powerful and potentially revolutionary with Open Graph, but it has a dubious record of loosening privacy rules when it makes architecture changes. The company has changed its privacy settings so often it appears to have once even confused its founder into making public pictures that he later reclaimed behind a privacy wall. If Schumer’s letter accomplishes nothing more than to scare Facebook into freezing its privacy policy and to make more users aware of how they can opt-out of Open Graph, Facebook can continue to innovate while its users understand that ultimately we have the power to turn it off.

Actualización: Hemos incluído el video de ADAC con el test de la Citroën Nemo.

La falta de ESP (control electrónico de estabilidad) ha llevado a los coches gemelos Citroën Nemo y Peugeot Bipper a fallar las pruebas conocidas como del alce, de ADAC. A modo informativo, la prueba del alce consiste en volantear para esquivar un objeto imaginario yendo a velocidad de carretera. El ADAC efectuó la prueba a una velocidad de 80 km/h en los dos vehículos del Grupo PSA que no cuentan con ESP, comparados contra el Fiat Qubo que tiene ESP como adicional.

Los resultados son evidentes, ya que el Citroën Nemo volcó durante la prueba y el coche de Fiat se mantuvo estable durante la maniobra (dado el resultado del Nemo, el Bipper ni siquiera se probó). Hay que considerar que este tipo de vehículos tiene un centro de gravedad bastante alto y que son muy propensos a volcar en una maniobra semejante. De manera que el control de estabilidad es obligado para vehículos de este tipo.

El Grupo PSA ya ha reaccionado anunciando que equipará a los Citroën Nemo y Peugeot Bipper con ESP de serie en los próximos meses, postergando a los modelos diesel para septiembre de este mismo año.

Cabe recordar que en el 2005 el Dacia Logan falló de la misma manera en estos tests del ADAC, a lo que Renault respondió que la prueba se había hecho con el modelo equipado con llantas de aluminio opcionales, que provocaban un desllantado inmediato en un viraje muy cerrado. Parece que Renault hizo sus propias pruebas con el modelo equipado con llantas de chapa, que resultaron exitosas.

Vía | Autobild

Gizmodo’s commenter community is the best in all the interworld. But it doesn’t just take care of itself. We need someone to spend an hour or so a day moderating comments, for a little cash and a lot of glory. More »

by Agence France-Presse

Photo courtesy talkradionews via FlickrWASHINGTON—Washington played host Sunday to another ‘tea party’ rally, but this time the tea was green and the message of the thousands who gathered on the National Mall was pro-environment, not anti-government.

“It’s nice to be at a tea party,” British pop icon Sting said, referring to the vocal conservative and predominantly white activist movement that is vehemently opposed to President Barack Obama’s administration and health-care reforms in particular. “A green tea party, where people know what’s going down, for a change,” he continued, as he took the stage to close out nine hours of music and pleas to save the planet, organized in honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.

Before Sting, hip-hop artists The Roots, Bob Weir of legendary rock band the Grateful Dead, and John Legend were among the acts who blasted through heavy-bass sets on a temporary stage set up on the Mall, with the Capitol as a backdrop.

When the sets ended, local and international politicians, stars, and activists took center stage to plead for the planet.

In a videotaped message, President Barack Obama said Earth Day “has always been about coming together for a cause bigger than ourselves” and urged the thousands gathered under the hot spring sun on the mall to form a united front against climate change.

Former president of Costa Rica Jose Maria Figueres, who is now a member of the global action committee of the Earth Day Network, warned that, when it comes to climate change, “we have to get it right the first time—we can only have a plan A because there is no planet B.”

Avatar director James Cameron teamed up with three actors from his blockbuster movie—CCH Pounder, who played the Na’Vi matriarch; Laz Alonzo, who played a Na’Vi warrior; and Giovanni Ribisi, who played earthling Parker Selfridge—to call on what he said were 200,000 people gathered on the Mall “to be warriors for the Earth.”

“You have to leave here today and fight the deniers. You have to fight the people in doubt and make them understand the urgency of climate change legislation,” Cameron said. “You need to be warriors for the Earth and create change, but your tools will not be physical weapons but words,” said Cameron, whose movie Avatar is about the Na’Vi people’s fight against strip-miners from Earth who want to gut the Na’Vi planet, Pandora, for its precious mineral, unobtainium.

Civil rights icon the Reverend Jesse Jackson urged Americans to ditch their cars in favor of mass transportation. “I applaud President Obama for the start he has made towards more mass transit, more rail lines, more green jobs. and weatherization … Mass transit is a major key” in the fight against global warming, Jackson said.

For the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, taking to the stage to promote a cause was alien. “People have put us on a kind of pedestal and I’ve been reluctant to use that for political or ideological purposes,” he told reporters. “But this is important enough for me to speak out on. The environment is important and if you have kids, it’s hugely important,” Weir said.

The celebration on the Mall came ahead of what was supposed to be the introduction of a new compromise energy and climate bill in the Senate. But those plans were thrown into disarray on Saturday when influential Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina abruptly pulled his support for the bill, saying he was outraged over a decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to move an immigration bill in the Senate ahead of it.

Related Links:

World’s first taxis with easily swapped batteries hit Tokyo

Oil rig leak and the week in fossil-fuel industry disasters

Rooftop farming and beekeeping boom in New York

Since the economic crisis, people everywhere have been calling for a major review of the way banks function in the world today. In a big step towards a Robin Hood Tax, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) has made substantial progress in redressing the balance between banks and the rest of society by calling for major taxes on banks and hedge funds.

But as well as taking from the rich, Robin Hood also gave to the poor. The IMF tax should not just be about saving money in case banks mess up again, it must also deliver hundreds of billions of pounds to help millions of people hit by the economic crisis here and abroad, and to fight climate change. Only then will it become a true Robin Hood Tax.

The IMF proposal

The IMF is proposing two taxes on banks and financial institutions.

They want a flat levy on all financial institutions to help insure against a future bank crisis. And they want a tax on the profits and incomes of banks and other financial institutions such as hedge funds to help pay for the costs of the current crisis.

The IMF proposed tax is not a transaction tax, which is what the Robin Hood Tax campaign has been calling for (0.05% on all transactions), it is a tax on profits and incomes of banks and other financial institutions.

The IMF did analyse a transaction tax. They said it was practical and that many countries already have them. But they concluded it was not the best way to repay the costs of the crisis and that further investigation of it was beyond the remit of the mandate given to them by the G20.

Fighting poverty and climate change

The IMF tax is a major step towards a Robin Hood Tax, but it fails on two counts. It’s not ambitious enough and makes no commitment to helping the poor and fighting climate change.

The Robin Hood Tax campaign is about instigating a tax on banks that will raise billions every year to help both the poor and the planet. We believe that a tiny tax of 0.05% on all transactions is the best way to achieve this.

However, if the IMF tax on profits can also raise hundreds of billions and be linked to fighting poverty and climate change we would be hugely supportive of it.

What are the politicians saying?

The parties in the UK all want to tax the banks – but the taxes they are talking about would only raise around 7 billion pounds each year. This wouldn’t raise any where near enough to fight poverty and climate change.

All three parties need to show much more ambition. They need to take fighting poverty and climate change seriously. A tiny tax on the banks could raise hundreds of billions of pounds, making a huge difference where it’s really needed.

Give and take

The IMF did not dismiss a transaction tax – they said it was practical, but favoured another kind of tax on profits and bonuses.

If this proposed tax delivers hundreds of billions of dollars for the poor both at home in the UK and abroad then it becomes as much a Robin Hood Tax as a tax on transactions.

Robin Hood was a champion of the poor. Banking and finance is the most profitable industry in the world. Since the crisis, banks have bounced back and made hundreds of billions of dollars of profit and still paid out huge bonuses.

And that is the point of the Robin Hood Tax campaign. Banks can afford to pay an ambitious tax, and whether it is the IMF proposal or not, we must see hundreds of billions of dollars raised from the banks each year used to help those who need it most.

Investigators haven’t yet stepped into the Upper Big Branch Mine in Southern West Virginia — the site of this month’s explosion that killed 29 miners — but experts suspect that a blast that severe could only be caused by a large accumulation of methane gas, likely exacerbated by the presence of coal dust.

Today, however, Massey Energy claimed that wasn’t the case, citing air samples taken in the hour prior to the explosion. The Washington Post reports:

Air samples did not show high levels of explosive gases just before an explosion in a West Virginia coal mine that killed 29 workers, and what caused the disaster remains unknown, the mine’s owner said Monday.

Massey Energy Co. board director Stanley Suboleski said the samples were taken by a foreman as part of a shift change exam of the mine, just “tens of minutes” before the blast. The examination also showed that air flow in the Upper Big Branch mine was fine.

Massey has been on the hot seat since the April 5 blast — not only for the sheer number of safety violations the coal giant has racked up in recent years (including citations at the Upper Big Branch related to ventilation and the accumulation of combustibles) — but for allegedly fostering a company culture where safety played second fiddle to production.  Indeed, former Massey workers have charged that a disregard for safety precautions has been Massey’s M.O. for years.

Stay tuned. This story is sure to have legs.

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