Category: News

Covidien is recalling a number of tracheostomy tubes, used to help people breathe on ventilators, due to issues with the tubes leaking. The trach tube problem has resulted in at least 1,200 reported incidents, including at least three deaths. 

The FDA announced the tracheostomy tube recall on April 23, warning that the cuff of the tubes do not always hold in air as they should. If the cuffs leak, it could adversely affect ventilation, decreasing the amount of oxygen being received by patients. This could lead to serious injury or death under some circumstances.

Covidien sent a letter to customers (pdf) on April 13, alerting them that it had received reports of “serious adverse health consequences” due to problems with some versions of its cuffed Shiley tracheostomy tubes, as well as some custom and specialty tracheostomy tubes. Covidien has told FDA that it has received reports of at least three deaths and 1,200 incidents connected with the recalled trach tubes, according to FDA officials.

In the affected units, the cuff does not hold air due to leaks in the pilot balloon inflation assembly. This can cause the ventilation system to lose the ability to create positive pressure in the airway, leading to a sudden decrease in the amount of oxygen being received by the patient, or a sudden increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in their blood.

The medical device recall affects 62 product codes and their associated lot numbers for Shiley Tracheostomy Products and Custom Shiley Tracheostomy Products, commonly referred to as “trach tubes”. All of the recalled devices were manufactured between November 2008 and December 2009. A complete list of the affected product codes and lot numbers is available in the FDA and Covidien press releases.

The FDA and Covidien are recommending that customers return any products affected by the recall. They can contact the company’s technical services department at 1-800-635-5267. Any healthcare professionals or patients who have experienced adverse events associated with this product should contact the FDA’s MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program at www.fda.gov/medwatch/report.htm.

Oddworld creator Lorne Lanning has some bad news for fans waiting for a new entry in the series. He recently told G4TV that the next Oddworld title has been shelved. There’s still some a silver lining to this

In a half-century of hunting, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has turned up nary a whisper from E.T. But for renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, the non-success of SETI and others who hope to contact alien life might be for the best: Aliens, he says, might not like us.

Hawking caused waves with this suggestion in his new Discovery Channel special, which debuted last night. He has long believed that extraterrestrial life exists, simply because of the sheer vastness of the universe. While much of what’s out there might be simple microbial life, there may indeed be new civilizations far more advanced than our own. But that doesn’t mean they’ll be friendly.

Said Hawking: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach” [The Times].

Should aliens decide to drop in on our pale blue dot, he predicts they may come not in a spirit of peace and understanding, but more likely in the spirit with which Europeans conquered Native Americans and colonized what’s now the United States. These alien wanderers similarly might see human society as primitive and unimportant, and attack our planet for its resources, he says.

While Hawking contends that contacting E.T. would be quite risky for us, he also considers the possibility that we’ll never get the chance, even if there are advanced civilizations on distant worlds. “Perhaps they all blow themselves up soon after they discover that E=mc2. If civilizations take billions of years to evolve, only to vanish virtually overnight, then sadly we’ve next to no chance of hearing from them” [MSNBC].

The four-part TV special, which DISCOVER previewed in our April issue, took Hawking and the producers three years to create. Besides the alien menace, Hawking also had a little fun with time travel last night, throwing a party for time travelers and sending out invitations after the party (nobody from the future comes). The third and fourth parts, covering the life and death of the universe, air this coming Sunday, May 2.

For another take on Hawking’s comments, head to Bad Astronomy where Phil Plait takes a more skeptical view of the potential for doom-wielding alien visitors.

Related Content:
DISCOVER: Stephen Hawking Is Making His Comeback
DISCOVER: Inside the World of Stephen Hawking
DISCOVER: Hawking’s Exit Strategy
DISCOVER: The Best in Science Culture This Month
Cosmic Variance: Hawking: Beware the Alien Menace!
Bad Astronomy: In Which I Disagree With Stephen Hawking

Image: “Independence Day” / Centropolis Entertainment

One of the most talked about — and controversial — new rules in the Senate Agriculture Committee’s new derivatives bill would require banks to spin off their derivatives desks. Reports indicate that the rule made it into Senate Democrats’ final version revised on Sunday. While it sounds like a fine idea for banks to simplify their businesses by not dealing derivatives, the provision would harm the market.

Perusing the Ag bill (.pdf), you won’t find any language explicitly calling for banks to spin off their derivatives business. That’s because this would be an indirect consequence caused by another provision which would forbid federal assistance for an institution that engages in the derivatives business. Without being able to utilize Federal Depository Insurance Corporation funds or emergency loans from the Federal Reserve, banks will feel they have no choice but to spin off their derivatives desks. This is a strange sort of indirect way to require banks to get out of the business of derivatives. The legislation could have instead simply forbid depository institutions from dealing derivatives. This indirect method gets there too, but only in a round-about way.

In theory, a bank could choose to continue dealing derivatives and opt out of being eligible for government assistance. But there’s little chance any depository institution could afford to shed its FDIC charter. The once traditional investment banks that obtained a bank holding company status so to gain access to the Fed’s emergency funding during the crisis — including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — might decide to rethink that move if the rule is passed. The thought of losing their lucrative derivatives businesses could cause them to choose to revert back to traditional investment banks.

It’s also useful to note that the institutions which were the biggest problems during the crisis — Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns, Merrill Lynch, AIG and Fannie/Freddie — were not depository banks who would have qualified for such assistance. The provision would not have prevented these institutions from trading derivatives. As a result, in all likelihood, it would have had no effect in preventing the financial crisis.

Forcing banks to spin off their derivatives desks would devastate the banking industry and put U.S. firms at a significant disadvantage in the global financial market. One of the most important characteristics of a swaps dealer is its capital adequacy and creditworthiness. Counterparties and clearing houses will want to be comfortable that swap dealers won’t default. With this provision, non-U.S. banks that are still permitted to deal derivatives will have a significant advantage for this reason.

If a derivatives desk doesn’t have a bank behind it with lots of capital to better ensure its survival, the market will become less efficient. Large amounts of collateral will have to be posted for trades, and derivatives will become much more expensive. While it may be prudent to reduce the derivatives market to some extent, these new rules might go too far. Despite their recent bad press, derivatives serve an important function in both business and banking.

Foursquare has been in the news a lot lately, thanks to huge valuations and a surging number of users. The location-based service is generating a lot of hype, but no one knows if this will translate into actual mainstream success. One sign that may point in that direction is that it’s starting to get attention from mainstream celebrities, or rather, … (read more)

It remains conventional wisdom ignorance that a climate and clean energy jobs bill would not be good for farmers.  In fact, the future prosperity of U.S agriculture is tied to clean energy and the effects of climate change. Farmers are particularly vulnerable to the increased water shortages, widespread drought and floods, and lower crop yields that would result from global warming. And they are on the front lines every day, living and working the land, highly aware of these devastating consequences to farm productivity (see “A Stormy Forecast for U.S. Agriculture“).

Clean energy legislation, on the other hand, creates 3 new paychecks for farmers: a pay check for leasing a small portion of land for sustainable energy development like putting in a wind turbine that can earn them $3,000 to $15,000 per year, a paycheck for sequestering carbon in their soils by engaging in more sustainable and productive farming practices, and a paycheck for producing 2nd generation biofuel crops. CAP Director of Agriculture and Trade Policy Jake Caldwell has the story in this repost.

Curbing global warming pollution now through comprehensive, bipartisan clean energy and climate legislation in Congress that establishes a price on carbon pollution will bring real financial benefits to farmers, while reducing America’s dependence on oil and enhancing our overall competitiveness in agriculture and the wider economy.

Comprehensive clean energy and climate energy legislation will triple potential revenue streams for farmers and rural communities. Farmers can earn real money in at least three different ways in the new low-carbon economy. Farmers can receive new income for leasing wind turbines or providing land for other clean energy production, growing switchgrass or other feedstocks for advanced biofuels, and sequestering carbon under their crops and forestland.

Here are the facts:

• The Department of Energy estimates that if 5 percent of the nation’s energy comes from wind power by 2020, rural America could see $60 billion in capital investment. Farmers and rural landowners would derive $1.2 billion in new income and see 80,000 new jobs created over the next two decades.
• A University of Tennessee and 25×25 study predicts that a well-designed carbon offsets trading system that pays farmers to conserve carbon through good soil and forest management practices will grow farm revenue by $13 billion a year.
• Other producers will be able to receive matching payments through programs such as the Biomass Crop Assistance Program that promote growing energy crops and biomass to feed the nation’s need for advanced biofuels and lessen our dependence on oil.

U.S. agriculture is a critical bridge between global warming challenges and solutions. Our agricultural and forest lands sequester 246 million metric tons of carbon annually, absorbing 13 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. And the Congressional Budget Office has suggested that this number could rise to 50 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions with the appropriate incentives.

But agriculture is also carbon intensive. Our farms produce more than 413 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions per year and generate two-thirds of all nitrous oxide emissions and significant methane emissions. Nitrous oxide and methane are both more potent greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide. The agricultural sector is responsible for 6 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions overall.

Farmers’ central role in carbon production and sequestration makes them critically important players in the clean energy and climate change legislative efforts. Comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation must clearly define a role for U.S. agriculture that reduces carbon emissions, invests in rural-based clean energy to enhance our national security and lessen our dependence on oil, and provides new sources of revenue to boost incomes and jobs in rural America.

We simply will not reduce global warming pollution successfully without American farmers’ full participation.

The following policy provisions are key components of comprehensive reform that can help ensure that energy and climate legislation provides real benefits to America’s farmers:

Increase rural clean energy production

Comprehensive clean energy and climate change legislation must promote energy cost savings and rural-based clean energy in wind, solar, geothermal, bioenergy, and other renewables immediately by setting a price on carbon, reducing emissions, and establishing consistent and high-level national renewable and energy efficiency standards. Other recommendations include:

• Extend the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant financing program for wind, solar, geothermal, and bioenergy projects that benefit rural communities. This Section 1603 provision has been a particularly powerful incentive to encourage community-based renewable energy projects, including wind, in rural areas. But Congress should improve the transparency and data-gathering components of Section 1603 to expand its capacity to track the grants’ supply-chain aspects so as to ensure the program continues to create good, well-paying jobs for U.S. companies and workers.
• Provide direct grants for clean energy projects. Congress should dedicate $300 million toward increasing farm-based clean energy, including the Rural Energy for America Program, by providing grants and loan guarantees directly to farmers, ranchers, and rural small businesses seeking to design and construct their own clean energy projects. Projects and technologies might include bioenergy facilities, manure digesters, energy efficiency projects, and wind and solar power.
• Increase funding for Clean Renewable Energy Bonds to finance wind, bioenergy, and geothermal projects. Revenue raised from Clean Renewable Energy Bonds should be shared between state and local governments, public power producers, nonprofit utilities, and electric cooperatives.
• Reinvest direct payment commodity subsidies in renewable energy and energy efficiency. The federal government automatically pays $5.2 billion in commodity-based ìdirect paymentî subsidies each year to people who may or may not even farm. The Government Accountability Office has found that USDA paid 69,120 individuals who had been dead at least three years between 1999 and 2005. We should reinvest the $5.2 billion per year in outdated direct payment commodity subsidies into initiatives to promote low-carbon, agriculture-based energy in USDA programs. This funding can provide incentives to encourage energy efficiency on farms and renewable energy such as wind turbines, solar, biomass, and geothermal power.

Establish time-limited agricultural offsets to carbon-intensive industries

Investments in agriculture and forestry can help curb greenhouse gas emissions. The agriculture and forestry sectors are good candidates to provide offsets to reduce the greenhouse gas reduction costs for major emitters in the initial stages of a carbon pollution reduction program. Comprehensive clean energy and climate change legislation should:

• Establish a carbon offsets market. The offsets market would be part of a carbon pollution reduction program and would allow farmers to create and sell carbon offsets to polluting entities. This would reduce the cost of emissions reductions for polluters, and farmers would be paid for what they do so well—their longstanding carbon sequestration and land stewardship efforts.
• Designate USDA as the lead agency for agriculture and forestry offset projects. Establish a list of eligible projects with precise definitions that rewards early adopters, including producers that practice reduced tillage agriculture today.
• Ensure that carbon offsets are measurable, additional, verifiable, and permanent. Efforts that fall short of full compliance threaten to undermine the integrity and achievement of pollution reductions.
• Provide incentives to encourage global emissions reductions. The federal government should utilize carbon offsets or other means to effectively encourage emissions reductions on a global scale from permanent avoided deforestation through such initiatives as the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries.

Encourage farmers to reduce emissions and sequester carbon

Farmers should be rewarded for other activities in the agricultural sector that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or sequester carbon, but may not qualify as an eligible carbon offset project. Legislation should set aside a number of allowances to fund an incentive program for activities that:

• Promote U.S. agricultural lands as a carbon sink. Incentives can encourage farmers to undertake projects in agriculture or forestry that reduce greenhouse gases, or sequester carbon, and prevent the conversion of land that would otherwise release emissions.
• Enhance soil quality. Reducing disturbance of the soil, producing more biomass, and ensuring that biomass is absorbed by the soil will all help increase the amount of carbon in the soil. The result: fewer harmful greenhouse gas emissions in the air.
• Encourage restoration of federal forest and grazing lands. These restored lands can be used to sequester additional carbon.
• Promote activities with carbon benefits and improved carbon management. The federal government can utilize conservation easements, carbon sequestration contracts, and similar tools to encourage better carbon benefits on public and private lands, and should monitor and verify all activities in an open and transparent manner.

Promote energy efficiency in rural communities

Energy efficiency retrofitting is the most cost-effective way to reduce household energy costs while providing manufacturing and construction jobs in local rural communities.

• Implement a Rural Energy Savings Program to allow rural homeowners to obtain low-interest loans to help pay for many of the upfront costs of weatherization and energy efficiency home improvements. Farmers can pay back the low-interest loan through utility bills or attached to property taxes, so payback continues even if the homeowner moves away from the property. The USDA estimates such a program could cost $995 million to issue $4.9 billion in low-interest loans. More than 1 million rural homes would become energy efficient, and 34,000 auditing and weatherization jobs, mostly in rural communities, would be created by 2020.
• Help manufacturers in rural areas build clean energy products. Provide low-cost loans or tax credits, such as the incentives in the proposed IMPACT Act and the Clean Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit program, to help manufacturers located in rural areas to retool to produce clean energy technologies and improve industrial efficiency.
• Increase support and availability of USDA’s Home Repair Loan and Grant Program for rural areas. Low-income families who own homes in need of repair under the current program are eligible to receive loans and grants to undertake home renovations, including replacing heating and water systems. The program’s priorities should be expanded to include energy efficiency improvements and modernization of homes.

Invest in clean energy research, development, and deployment

Any comprehensive clean energy legislation should support the establishment of a Clean Energy Deployment Administration, or Green Bank, to rapidly and affordably develop and deploy emerging and existing clean energy and energy efficiency technologies in all regions of the country. It should also:

• Establish an overarching clean rural energy venture capital fund. The fund of $2 to $3 billion would act as a catalyst for further private and public sector capital to promote research, development, and deployment of clean energy technologies in targeted regional areas. It would jumpstart capital to be injected into regional areas with a strong mix of private and public research institutions, natural resources, businesses, nonprofits, and a workforce conducive to clean energy development.
• Expand funding of the farm bill’s existing Title IX overall clean energy initiatives. This should include clean energy research and development programs such as the Rural Energy for America Program. And it should increase support for renewable energy and energy efficiency program research, development, and deployment activities in wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal technologies beyond current $600 to $800 million levels.
• Provide additional research and development funding for carbon sequestration in agriculture and forestry. Research should examine the significant potential of biochar to sequester carbon. Other areas of research should include efforts to reduce methane and nitrous oxide emissions, as well as carbon dioxide and improvements in measuring greenhouse gas reductions.

Support sustainable bioenergy and biofuels

Comprehensive clean energy legislation must bring advanced biofuels—made from agricultural waste, wood chips, or dedicated energy crops such as switchgrass—to commercial scale as rapidly as possible. Biomass growers are primarily located in rural areas, and the high costs of collecting and transporting biomass means that many production facilities are also in these communities. We must ensure a stable long-term market for advanced biofuels by making targeted short-term investments in the current generation of biofuels’ fuel infrastructure needs.

• Support loan guarantees for the construction and deployment of advanced biofuel refineries. USDA’s Biorefinery Assistance program has in the recent past been the sole federal source of loan guarantees to develop, construct, and retrofit commercial-scale advanced biorefineries attempting to produce cellulosic biofuels at commercial levels, and it should receive an additional $300 million. This core funding will allow the program to issue loan guarantees for biorefinery projects established primarily in rural communities.
• Provide incentives to farmers to begin growing advanced biofuel crops. USDA’s Biomass Crop Assistance Program provides funding to producers and farmers of renewable energy crops of up to 75 percent of the cost of establishing the energy crop and annual payments for up to 15 years for crop production, and should receive additional support.
• Increase support for the current national Renewable Fuel Standard. This will require better funding and interagency strategic implementation of the program, particularly regarding its emphasis on rewarding biofuels’ performance characteristics. Congress should also ensure that legislative definitions of “renewable biomass” adhere to certifiable environmental and land use safeguards on ecologically valuable and vulnerable public and private lands, and provide a means to measure lifecycle greenhouse gas reductions.
• Encourage farmer-owned and -operated biorefinery and biofuel plant cooperatives and biomass enterprise zones. Direct producer payments and other targeted incentives can help farmers engaged in the establishment of farmer and locally owned biorefineries and biofuel facilities, but should be temporary and phased out over a 10-year period, and should have majority local ownership. Farmers will also need technical and financial assistance to encourage them to pool resources and enter into larger biomass enterprise zones that would maximize economies of scale and regional geographic proximity. Biomass enterprise zones could facilitate the co-location of biomass growing, production, and processing. And marketing alliances could encourage collaboration on facility construction, storage, and transportation infrastructure to enable biobased products to enter the retail market efficiently.
• Spur consumer demand and retail infrastructure. The United States must create requirements and strong incentives to make biofuel blends reliably available at filling stations by promoting the installation of new blender fuel pumps and distribution infrastructure that allow drivers to choose between traditional 100 percent gasoline blends and 85 percent biofuel blends. It should increase renewable fuel infrastructure grants to $100 million in each fiscal year.

Spur rural innovation in clean energy

Innovation clusters—designated regional centers where local businesses, universities, public sector institutions, and others interact in a coordinated manner to push forward research, development, and deployment of innovative technologies—should be encouraged in rural areas. Local leadership and communities can set innovation priorities appropriate to their regions and strengthen U.S. competitiveness in the global marketplace. Innovation clusters, if properly implemented, can drive the commercialization of new technologies and products, create jobs, generate revenue, and attract skilled workers to rural areas.

• Invest $150 million in clean energy innovation hubs. The hubs will tackle high-priority technological challenges in the clean energy sector by linking highly integrated solution-oriented teams in designated regions to move technology from the laboratory to pilot phase to commercialization. Support for clean energy hubs will solve energy challenges, create jobs, and promote economic growth in regional rural and urban areas.
• Invest $100 million in regional economies and applied innovation to support the creation of regional innovation clusters in rural areas. The clusters should build on the momentum generated by the clean energy innovation hubs and seek to address national economic and strategic priorities, including clean energy and energy efficiency. They should also rely on local (and often rural) leadership to design and implement the initiatives. A key component of establishing regional innovation clusters is to allow local decision makers to deploy their knowledge of local and regional advantages and strengths of particular geographic areas. Local leadership in rural communities should work to bind together local businesses, nonprofits, universities, and research and development institutions. These can combine with natural resources advantages to pursue applied innovation in a manner that will move clean energy technology from research to commercialization.

Promote U.S. agricultural exports

Clean energy legislation should strengthen agriculture’s role in meeting the National Export Initiative’s goal to double U.S. exports by 2015. The federal government should also:

• Support and conclude trade negotiations. The United States should work on a variety of international trade fora and agreements that provide market access for U.S. agricultural products, including: the WTO Doha round of negotiations; bilateral free trade agreements with Korea, Panama, and Colombia; and the newly launched Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Conclusion

Comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation will deliver real, tangible benefits to America’s hardworking farmers. New income opportunities will emerge in clean energy generation, including wind power produced directly on the farm and a variety of carbon conservation efforts. Farmers growing energy crops for advanced biofuels will earn matching payments while lessening our dependence on oil and enhancing our national security. Clean energy and action on climate change represents real money in farmers’ pocketbooks, and a healthier climate for all Americans.

Related Post:

• USDA: Economic benefits of climate bill for farmers ‘easily trump’ the costs

The world is full of stupid people; it’s just one of those facts we all know and live with as we carefully step through each and every day of our lives. Sometimes, when we watch television, or read magazines, we pay particular attention to some of these people, in morbid curiosity, as they do what they do best — make fools of themselves. While there may be billions of fools out there, these 12 very famous people have been deemed fit to be recognized as being dumber than a fifth grader.



Sarah Palin

Yes, we knock on ex-Governor Sarah Palin quite a bit, but let’s face it; she asked for every sentence. The woman is clueless in every way, and unless the subject has to do with cooking moose, she has no idea what she’s talking about in any given conversation. She shows, time after time, how ignorant she is each and every time she steps in front of a camera and opens her mouth — it’s as simple as that. In case you’ve grown comfortable and managed to forget already, the video above should serve as an unpleasant reminder of just how stupid the former governor of Alaska really is.



Paris Hilton

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Of all the vapid, self-important, talentless rich-kids to have made a name for themselves after leaving Daddy’s penthouse, Paris Hilton has got to be the most successful. How she got where she is today is no secret — sex sells — but the fact that she’s not only remained in the public eye but actually gained favor is inexplicable. This is the same girl who asked if they sell walls at Walmart. This is the girl who didn’t know what a soup kitchen was, the girl who’s deluded enough to believe that she’s actually made “all” her money on her own, without any help. She may be good enough at memorizing lines to ace a short commercial during a presidential election, but she’s not fooling anyone.



Sherri Shepherd

Unimaginably moronic simpleton that she is, Sherri Shepherd somehow managed to get through life not just somewhat successfully, but the woman regularly co-hosts one of the most-watched shows on TV. How she got this far is beyond reason and will probably never be known, but she’s made sure to show the world just how incredibly inept she truly is on several occasions. In the video above, she asserts that “Jesus came first” when confronted with the historical fact that Christians came after the Romans, who came after the Greeks. This wasn’t her first rodeo, though — she still hasn’t decided whether or not the world is flat.



Miss South Carolina Teen USA, Caite Upton

Caite Upton made a fool of herself in front of audiences the world over when she opened her mouth on live television to answer a simple question regarding the ignorance of her fellow Americans during the 2007 Miss Teen USA competition. “Like such as” became the catchphrase of the entire year, and the state of South Carolina collectively hid its face in shame. Not surprisingly, Upton has managed to get herself another gig in front of the camera; this time it’s TV’s The Amazing Race, in which she’s currently competing alongside her boyfriend of the moment. In her bio for the show, she’s listed her achievements as simply “being able to overcome the embarrassment from the flub I made on national television during the Miss Teen USA pageant.”



Glenn Beck

There’s no way to tip-toe around this one, Glenn Beck is an extreme example of just how low the standards have become for someone to host a show on a major news network. The man is beyond ignorant, which he proves time and again (every time his show airs), but it’s never so readily apparent as when he pulls out his chalkboard to attempt to prove some sort of point. In the hilarious clip shown in the video above, Beck attempts to spell the word OLIGARCHY. Needless to say, it doesn’t end well.



“Speidi”

Few people in this world are more hatable than Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt. There simply isn’t one shred of humanity between the two of them that would warrant not hating them, but their being a couple of grade-A douchebags isn’t what gets them on this list. While most of what they do is — on the surface — nothing but a desperate bid for more media attention, it becomes pretty plainly obvious that they are actually and truly stupid people when examined more closely. Watching the video above will make you cringe, and may actually cause permanent damage to the part of your brain that tries to cope with immense stupidity, so watch at your own risk.



Jessica Simpson

Jessica Simpson, though somehow able to make the majority of Americans adore her despite her severe case of man-jaw, is a vapid waste of good film — on a good day. The classic clip shown above of Simpson difference between chicken and tuna is unforgettable, but it was far from the only instance of its kind. Among the very best of the rest are gems like her mistaking buffalo wings for actual buffalo wings, and our absolute favorite: “On my first day of junior high I was in Geography class, and the teacher asked us if anybody knew the names of the continents. And I was sooo excited. I was like, Damnit! It’s my first day of 7th grade, I’m in junior high and I know this answer. So I raised my hand I was the first one and I said A-E-I-O-U!”




Kanye West

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Whether you’re a fan of his music or not, Kanye West has made himself quite the spectacle over the last few years. For having sold as many albums as he’s sold, Kanye has actually managed to become more famous for acting stupid than he has for his music. That achievement alone makes him something of a historical figure, but to top it all off the guy decided he was going to “write” a “book.” In a feeble attempt to add author to his ever-growing resume, Kanye released Thank You and You’re Welcome, a stirring philosophical masterpiece of third-grade proportions. To add further fodder for insults, he couldn’t even put the “book” together by himself and had to share a byline with some random guy nobody had ever heard of before. He’s also notorious for not understanding the difference between capital and lowercase letters; if you ever feel the urge to be like Kanye while you lurk around the Internet, you should try this handy bookmarklet for your browser.



Britney Spears

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Britney Spears was America’s sweetheart for a good month or so before she started racking up skank-points and behaving badly, but it wasn’t her penchant for scandal that made her eligible to be on this particular list. Spears earned her spot by a mix of sheer force of will and mush for brains. Aside from going completely insane and pulling a Sinead’o on her head, it was always Britney’s way with words that really made us pause (and work out what she meant to say). She’s said a great deal of truly stupid things over the years, like having been to “lots” of overseas places, Canada being one of them, but our very favorite quote from the queen B has to be this gem: “I’ve never wanted to go to Japan. Simply because I don’t like eating fish. And I know that’s very popular out there in Africa.” 



Tara Reid

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When the subject of grotesquely stupid Hollywood dimwits is broached, somebody usually blurts out the name Tara Reid — sometimes as an involuntary muscle response. She got her start in an episode of Saved by the Bell (not the good one, one of the crappy spin-offs), then moved on to appear in a slew of shows and movies, playing one terrible role after another. The girl was nominated twice at the Raspberry Awards; once for Worst Supporting Actress and once for Worst Actress. She’s a terrible actress, and a drunk to boot, but more than anything else she’s just plain dumb. If this girl were to play a game of chess with a stuffed animal, she’d probably lose; she even stated that she “makes Jessica Simpson look like a rock scientist.” Yes, a “rock scientist,” and we don’t think she meant “geologist,” either.




Carrie Prejean

Carrie Prejean, at first glance, seems like a decently well put-together young woman. In the short news blips, sound bites, and rehearsed interviews, Prejean comes across as remarkably level-headed for what she is — an idiot. She may not be on the same level as Tara Reid, but this girl is not going to be winning any of Ben Stein’s Money anytime soon. In the video above, she makes a strong attempt to keep her composure and remember her rehearsed responses while she’s being interviewed by Larry King, but finds herself locked in a mental hamster’s wheel (which is about all she has rattling around up there) when King asks about her motives for wanting to settle out of court in the recent drama surrounding her behavior and the title of Miss California USA. Apparently, inappropriate is the biggest word she knows, and she’s not afraid to use it — inappropriately.



George W. Bush

Normally, there would be a heavy sense of propriety that would stop somebody from including a man with such a lofty title in a list such as this. Clearly, G.W. is an exception to that rule, as no list of this sort could possibly be complete without the master of grammatical embarrassment’s official inclusion. Bush was no weekend-warrior in the fight against the English language, either; the man left a trail of butchered phrases everywhere he went, and hundreds of “Bushisms” have been collected over the years to prove it. Entire books have been released with nothing but his hilariously misguided adventures in public speaking — which makes him the indisputable champion of this list.


Dario Gasparini holds up original plans
for the state-of-the-art structures lab

The Department of Civil Engineering‘s new state-of-the-art structures lab, on the east side of the Bingham Building, can mimic the worst mother nature can throw at the built environment while enabling researchers to learn why everything from deep sea structures to soaring towers fail, and how to make them safer and sounder.

The Richard ’39 and Opal Vanderhoof Infrastructure Research and Education Facility was recently unveiled: 2,400-square-feet of hardy concrete, steel and hydraulics married to high-tech computer controls and sensor systems.

The Vanderhoofs provided a gift of $2 million to build the new facility, with the Case Alumni Association leading this major fundraising initiative.

“It’s a gift from the past – civil engineering alumni – to future and present civil engineering students,” said Dario Gasparini, professor of civil engineering. He has shepherded the project, and talked about the effort to a crowd of more than 50 alumni, university administrators, students and other guests.

In attendance were two representatives of the Vanderhoofs; Frank E. Gerace Case Institute of Technology ’48, whose name adorns the L-shaped strong wall; and others who donated time and money to create a facility that now puts the university in competition for large-scale academic, industrial and governmental research and testing.

Arthur A. Huckelbridge Jr., professor of civil engineering, showed the audience his current project: stressing and straining components of a base similar to that used on some wind turbines in Europe. The bases have proven a weakness in the design.

“I barely remember this space before: it was dark, dirty, unused and crowded with junk stored here,” said Chad Fusco, a master’s student and one of the first students to use the new lab.

“Now it’s beautiful and usable,” said Janette Siu, a master’s student who, with Fusco, demonstrated a system that stabilizes buildings in high winds and earthquakes. “The new lab is a boon to faculty and students.”

For more information contact Kevin Mayhood, 216.368.4442.

Summer tuition is due on Thursday, April 29 by 7 p.m. Please pay in full or have a payment plan set up by 7 p.m. If you have any questions plese call the Business Office at 847.925.6880 or stop by the Business Office in the Student Center, Building A, Room 214.

Sigh. Nokia may be selling phones like hotcakes to the developing world and my father-in-law in Poland, but they can’t make a popular phone to save their life. The new N8, leaked and reviewed on Electronista is little more than a rehash of Symbian circa 2000.

Mobile-Review’s Eldar Murtazin goes so far as to jokingly accuse Nokia employees of sabotaging the company’s brand from the inside, else it might be “impossible to explain” why the N8 exists at all.

Ha! Oh, Nokia! Silly silly Nokia. Anyway, the N8 takes some nice pictures and supports HDMI, because that’s one of the things people have been looking for for in a phone.

What’s better than giving away a Verizon HTC Droid Incredible? Giving away two Verizon HTC Droid Incredibles. That’s right, we’re upping the ante in advance of this week’s launch. Here’s the deal:

• Our original contest is still on. Hit up the forums if you haven’t entered yet.
• For a second chance at winning a Droid Incredible, hit up this forum thread and tell us about the sorry old phone you’re currently using. We’ll pick one answer at random to win the second Incredible.

We’ll pick both winners Wednesday morning and contact by e-mail, so keep close to your inboxes, and ship ’em out so you’ll have them on Thursday, launch day. Good luck, everyone!

Another chance to win a Verizon HTC Droid Incredible

WASHINGTON – A California law banning the sale of violent video games to minors that lower courts deemed too broad and in violation of the First Amendment will get another look by the Supreme Court, the justices announced Monday.

The Court’s decision could ultimately lead to a ruling reinstating the law, passed in 2005, that prohibited the sale or rental of certain violent video games to children younger than 18 years old.

So far, video game makers have successfully challenged the law saying it violates their freedom of expression.

Earlier this year, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals expressed sympathy with California lawmakers who were attempting to protect children from the potentially harmful effects of exposure to violent video games, but nonetheless ruled against the law.

A unanimous three judge panel concluded the law was too broad and that the state didn’t sufficiently link the video games to a concern that minors exposed to the games will be more likely to commit violent crimes. It further held that even if the state were able to make such a link, there are other measures the state could have taken that wouldn’t threaten First Amendment protections.

In its petition to the Court, California argues the justices should expand a late 1960’s ruling that prohibits of sale of sexual material to minors to include violent video games. It also says the current industry imposed labeling standards for video games is ineffective.

A final ruling by the Court, which will not come until next year, will likely impact the handful of other states that have similar laws.

About 13,000 Lexus GX 460 vehicles are being recalled by Toyota Motor Corp. due to a high risk that the SUVs may rollover going around sharp turns. 

The Lexus recall was announced last week shortly after Consumer Reports gave the vehicle a “Don’t Buy” recommendation for safety reasons. Test drivers at Consumer Reports say that under certain conditions, the rear of the vehicle may slide going around turns, increasing the chances of a Lexus rollover accident.

The Lexus GX 460 recall affects the 2010 model year, including 9.400 vehicles in the United States and about 3,600 more vehicles worldwide.

Problems with the Lexus GX 460 are known as trailing throttle or lift-throttle oversteer. According to test drivers at Consumer Reports, if the driver takes his foot off the gas while the vehicle is driving through a sharp turn, the rear end of the vehicle may begin to slide. On most vehicles, the electronic stability control system would detect the slide and stop it from happening, but it does not seem to be responsive enough to the problem on the Lexus SUV.

Test drivers said that it is a common maneuver for drivers, which may occur when they take an off-ramp too fast, or realize they are in a sharper turn than they expected. Testers at Consumer Reports said they wouldn’t allow their families to ride or drive in the vehicles in their current condition. Consumer Reports said that the problem could cause a driver to lose control and pose a risk of serious personal injury or death.

The last time Consumer Reports issued a “Don’t Buy” warning was 2001, for the 2001 Mitsubishi Montero Limited.

The low rating came at a sensitive time for Toyota, which is still reeling from accusations that they covered up problems with sudden acceleration in many different Toyota and Lexus vehicles. Toyota has recalled about 8 million vehicles due to the gas pedal problems and has paid a fine of $16.4 million to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Toyota quickly halted sales of the Lexus GC 460 following the negative recommendation by Consumer Reports. Now officials in Toyota’s Lexus division said that they have developed a fix that requires an update of the SUV’s Vehicle Stability Control (VSC) system. All Lexus dealers will have the updated software by the end of April, according to the press release on the Lexus recall (pdf).

Toyota officials urged owners of the vehicles to return them to their dealers to get the update, which should not take much longer than an hour, depending on the dealer’s schedule. Owners of affected vehicles will begin receiving letters in early May alerting them to the problem and the fix.

Any Lexus GX 460 owners with questions can go to www.lexus.com/recall.

Photo Courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nadaguides-garage/ / CC BY 2.0

The Maldives. I would like to go back there, become a dive instructor, and live a simple happy life. And I want this to be my house, five meters below the surface, off the coast of Rangali Island. More »

By Danny Chiotos, It’s Getting Hot in Here

Say, did you see him going; it was
early this morning

He passed by your houses on his way to the coal

He
was tall, he was slender, and his dark eyes so tender

His occupation was
mining, West Virginia his home.

It was just before 12, I was feeding the children

Ben Moseley came
running to bring us the news

Number eight is all flooded, many men are
in danger

And we don’t know their number, but we fear they’re all doomed.

— “West Virginia Mine Disaster,” by Jean Ritchie

Coal mining is dangerous business and the people of the Appalachian coalfields, from Tennessee to West Virginia to Pennsylvania, have come
to expect disasters out of the mining industry. Mining is a job that’s
full of risks and packed with hard work. Miners have come to be proud
of the work that they do which truly has had a great role in powering
the United States for more than the last century. It’s been work that’s
populated Appalachia with amazing people but has kicked up a lot of
coal dust in the process all over our great state of West Virginia.

After 9/11, where I was less than 10 miles from the Pentagon and
remember hearing fighter jets and helicopters flying over my house
throughout that tense night. I never thought I would feel that tragic
emotion that brought anger, anticipation, fear, mourning, and pride
together into one horrendous stomach ache again. Then came the disaster
at Massey’s Upper Big Branch Mine.

I could not work all week. I could not stop refreshing the WSAZ news page
and the Coal Tattoo
Blog for updates. I could not get my mind off the basic question of
whether there is good in the world where 29 hardworking men are killed
because of Massey Energy’s disregard for miner safety. I could not get
off the phone talking with students I work with and my own family
members who were grieving like I was for these men and holding out hope
that the four missing miners would be found alive. They were not.
And we continue to mourn through the weekend.

Both my great-grandfather and grandfather helped to pull 11 bodies
out of the Nellis mine which is a hair under 33 miles away from the
Montcoal mine. On November 8th, 1943, which was a Monday, his family
was watching a movie in Whitesville and they were rushed out of the
theatre to Nellis. His mother and sisters were sent home to pray for
survival, his father hurried down in the mine to search for life and my
grandfather stood sentry at the mouth of the mine with not much to do
but hope to see those men walk out of the mine. He was 13 at the time
and he saw those 11 bodies come out of the mine in a railcar without a
breath among them.

He is now the ripe age of 80, and once again mourning, this time for
the 29 miners that were killed in the Upper Big Branch mine. He and no
one in the coalfields should have to witness a disaster like this and be
reminded of a disaster they lived through 67 years ago. We have the
means and technology to make these kind of massive disasters a thing of
the past that exists only in our memories and history books.

Worker deaths should not happen, and we should be pushing to prevent
them whenever possible. The debate becomes about what is the safest
method of mining coal, since we will be mining coal for a long time
coming. Even if we quickly transition from burning coal for
electricity, there are a ton of uses for coal (including using metallurgical coal for
the production of steel, which is needed for wind turbines) which
will keep it as part of Appalachia’s economy. For a point of
information, the Upper Big Branch mine was mostly a metallurgical coal
mine and the coal mined is used for steel-making rather than
electricity production. Massey is known to export their metallurgical
coal overseas, so the 29 miners probably lost their lives not to power
the re-industrialization of the United States with renewable energy, but
to power the industrialization of countries like China and India. So,
even if we run a completely renewable energy economy, we need to keep a
focus on how we can mine coal in the way that’s most beneficial to the
communities under the safest possible conditions.

Flying in the face of these horrible realities, there has been the
disturbing development that mountaintop removal proponents have been
coming out with recently. From supporters of Massey CEO Don Blankenship to Congresswoman
Shelley Moore Capito, there has been an effort to use this horrible
mining disaster to spread support for strip mining and mountaintop
removal.

Countering this opportunistic assertion is the main point of this
piece.

Never mind the horrible leveraging of this disaster to increase
support for the form of mining that employs
the least number of people and
causes the most damage to Appalachia. While there is truth in the
statement that surface mining is safer for workers than underground
mining, the Blankenships and Capitos of the world would have you believe
that everything is hunky-dory and safe as grandma’s apple pie on a
strip mine.

The way that the Blankenships of the world make the argument is that
we could simply shift from underground mining to strip mining is a total
oversimplification of the realities of mining. The Upper Big Branch
mine was more than a thousand feet
underground. To get that coal, it takes underground mining, plain and simple. So we need to
talk about what the safest ways of mining are and what makes the biggest
impact on increasing worker safety.

As I’ve heard more of the pro-mountaintop removal opinion getting out
there, I became more interested in knowing the facts. I’ve been
hearing that strip mining was dangerous work, but I’ve never really
known just how dangerous. I came to the point of wanting to counter the
claim that the Blankenships of the world were making, but I didn’t know
the facts. So, I started crunching some numbers, making Excel
spreadsheets and asking friends for help. What I found didn’t really
surprise me, but it gave a sense of concreteness to talk about how
important unions are to worker safety.

What I found was that union strip mining was the safest for miners
and that non-union underground mining was the most dangerous. That
said, there is little way that we can or should be using that as a
justification for more strip mining. Seeing as how coal that’s mined a
certain way is generally mined that way for whole host of reasons, the
Blankenships of the world are oversimplifying it. If we look at the two
forms of mining independent of each other, because strip vs. underground
mining is generally not interchangeable, we can easily see that whether
a mine is union or non-union is incredibly important to worker safety.

I am using the very basic ratio of worker deaths per 10,000 miners to
create four statistics which compare both strip vs. underground mining,
and union vs. non-union mining. This leaves out a ton of really
important information, like worker
injury rates, black
lung and silicosis,
effects
on the communities around the mines, the different safety rates of
the different
forms of underground and strip mines, the
different safety rates at different companies, etc. etc. etc. But
what this analysis does is further the fact-based conversation about
what the safest forms of mining are in the real world.

Here are the stats that I developed using statistics from 2002-2008
(it’s pretty obvious what the stats would be for 2010 with the Upper
Big Branch disaster, but it’s too early in the year for good statistics
to be out there). The following chart summarizes the comparisons that I
wrote about earlier.

Desperate for work, Charlie Sheen’s unemployed uncle has offered to replace the troubled actor if he decides to leave the CBS hit sitcom Two And A Half Men at the end of the season.

Can you say “Bottomfeeder”

Sheen — who is battling his umpteenth trip to rehab and criminal charges for allegedly threatening wife Brooke Mueller with a knife on Christmas Day — is seriously considering ditching his role as hedonistic bachelor/ writer Charlie Harper on the Jon Cryer-assisted comedy.

In swoops his uncle Joe Estevez to save the day. The younger brother of actor Martin Sheen dished to TMZ.com that he’s now contemplating approaching the show’s creator, Chuck Lorre, about appearing as the program’s newest star.

Aberdeen, 2M Careers Ltd

Senior Environmental Consultant – Aberdeen

Our client is a successful consultancy who has a long standing track record in delivering environmental solutions both on and offshore. They have an in-depth knowledge of the operational processes and regulations that apply to our clients’ businesses.

Our client supplies a comprehensive range of environmental consultancy services. Their skilled team provide a unique blend of skills in environmental and marine science, capacity development, environmental development, engineering, chemistry and toxicology.

Our client works in the energy sectors, their major market sectors are oil and gas sector, the larger energy sectors, renewable energy, marine and coastal environmental management, the maritime sector, the industrial and commercial sector, local and national governments and international agencies.

They are looking to recruit a Senior Environmental Consultant for their Aberdeen office. It is essential that candidates have either a background in Oil and Gas projects OR Renewable Energy projects. In-depth knowledge of marine mammals or benthic ecology/biology would be of particular interest.

Our client is a well known consultancy, working within the UK and international energy, industrial, chemicals and development sectors, they have offices across the UK and worldwide.

They currently have a vacancy for a Senior Consultant with a core specialty in environmental consultancy for the offshore oil and gas industry and/or the marine renewable energy sector.

This full-time role involves client management, work-winning, project management, hands-on project work, and the application of commercial and technical skills and knowledge. The appointee will join a team providing environmental impact assessment and other support for clients’ facilities and projects. The post will be based in Aberdeen, but may involve offshore and overseas work.

Skills/Experience:

• Proven track record in environmental consultancy
• Good academic background (preferably in a marine environmental discipline)
• Experience in the offshore oil gas and/or marine renewables sectors
• Motivated self-starter
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• In-depth knowledge of marine mammals or benthic biology would be advantageous

Contact
Please email your CV to apply or all applications are treated in confidence, 2M Careers offers the services of an employment agency for permanent work.

Please note that we never send CVs anywhere without your prior consent.

When I first heard that researchers were developing for a way for water and sand to produce hydrogen, it gave me pause. If it were this easy, wouldn’t all of the beaches of the world be producing massive amounts of hydrogen?

But, of course, it’s not quite this simple. A company called Isis Innovation has discovered that grinding sand (silica) into nano scale powder is the key to achieving a reaction to split water into hydrogen and oxygen at temperatures of 158 – 194 F.

The reaction stops quickly once an oxide layer is formed. The scientists have even discovered a material to encapsulate the nano-scale silica so that it won’t react with moisture in the air to create hydrogen.

One of the biggest advantages of the sand and water method for creating hydrogen is that the source materials are abundant and cheap (low grade sand can be used). The only byproduct of the new process is the oxidized sand which can be recycled.

The inventors of this hydrogen on demand system see many uses from powering laptops to powering fuel cell cars and other vehicles. For powering cars, the hydrogen can be produced locally, so large transportation systems for compressed hydrogen gas will not be needed.

Two interesting polls from Gallup show why a few ticks in the unemployment rate here and there are really besides the point. (Thanks to Jim Geraghty of NR.)  This downturn has scarred the American psyche. The first chart shows how worried workers are about finding a comparable job if they ever lose their current one. The second chart shows that they are still pretty worried about losing their existing job.

Ryan McBride wrote:

The world of outsourced drug research and development might get a lot smaller. Charles River Laboratories International is aiming to buy the Chinese R&D services firm WuXi PharmaTech for a whopping $1.6 billion, the companies announced this morning.

Wilmington, MA-based Charles River (NYSE:CRL) reported that it plans to gobble up Shanghai-based WuXi in a deal that values WuXi (NYSE:WX) at $21.25 per share, a 28-percent premium on the firm’s closing stock price on April 23. Charles River is offering to buy WuXi for a combination of cash and its common stock. The deal requires shareholder approval and is slated to close in the fourth quarter of this year, according to the companies.

The buyout would significantly expand Charles River’s global presence in the outsourced R&D market both in the U.S. and China. WuXi has more than 1.8 million square feet of drug R&D space in China, as well as three sizable research and manufacturing centers in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and St. Paul, MN, according to its website.

“This transaction revolutionizes the contract research landscape by creating the only global contract research organization, or CRO, to offer fully integrated research and drug development services from molecule creation to first-in-human testing,” said James Foster, Charles River’s chairman and CEO, in a statement. Under the terms of the merger deal, Foster would be chief executive of the combined entity, and WuXi’s CEO, Ge Li, would be a corporate executive vice president and be president of the company’s operations in China.

WuXi is one of the fastest-growing competitors in the outsourced drug R&D world, fueled by China’s growing population of Ph.D.s and scientists, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. (The Journal article, published yesterday, gives a decent overview of both companies’ capabilities.) Drug companies are expected to increase their use of CROs as they continue to trim the size of their own R&D organizations to reduce expenses and focus more resources on the marketing end of the pharmaceutical business.

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