Category: News

Found under: Motorola, MOTOROI, Android, ,

Motorola has a brand new Android phone the MOTOROI which is scheduled to arrive in Korea at first followed by the USA this March and other markets. The phone has just been launched and youll find it very attractive.In fact some may say that this Android handset from Moto is even better than the Droid as it has some more than decent specs and features. The MOTOROI will offer you a 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen display 8-megapixel camera with Xenon flash 720p HD video recordi

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Found under: Google, Android, China, Motorola, Samsung,,

Following the recent hacking attacks which have been allegedly conducted with the Chinese government support Google is taking some drastic measures that are about to affect the Chinese smartphone business. It all started with the cyber-attacks direct to Google and various other IT-related corporations. Google responded by lifting the censoring of its Google.cn results and now the company decided to stop Android plans in China. Two new Android devices were about to be launched in

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A jury will decide if former Roman Catholic priest and convicted sex offender Daniel McCormack will remain incarcerated under the Illinois Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act, a judge ruled today.

Siding with prosecutors, Judge Dennis Porter said McCormack will remain in a secure treatment facility until a verdict is reached in a trial.

McCormack fondled five boys between ages 8 and 12 in St. Agatha Catholic Church’s rectory, misconduct that dated to 2001. Some victims were members of the basketball team he coached at nearby Our Lady of the West Side School. Other victims were friends of boys who attended the school, where McCormack also taught algebra.

Two audits commissioned by the Chicago archdiocese later found a trail of abuse allegations dating to McCormack’s seminary days in 1988, all of which the archdiocese had failed to investigate properly. They found that although a priest had been assigned to monitor McCormack at St. Agatha, he still had contact with children.

McCormack pleaded guilty in July 2007 to five felony counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and was sentenced to five years in prison. Removed from the priesthood, he was scheduled to be released on parole last September.

Lawyers for the Illinois Attorney General and the Cook County State’s Attorney are seeking civil commitment based on a medical evaluation, the number of victims, McCormack’s “offending pattern” and the fact that he molested a child after initial allegations surfaced.

That last fact was what led Porter to determine probable cause on Tuesday.

Daily U-Turn: What you missed on 1.19.10 originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I have no idea how this works, but I do know that it’s one of the strangest, coolest things I’ve seen in a while. Search for any Vimeo video on ASCIImeo, and it’ll play back to you as text.

Not sure that this fills a specific need of any kind—although avant-garde film students and alternate dimension enthusiasts, feel free to correct me—and I recommend switching to black and white (“simple ASCII”) to cut down on the headaches. Otherwise, though, this is the exact kind of wonderful oddball thing that makes/wastes my day perfectly. [ASCIImeo via The Daily What]

A 25-year-old Chicago man was sentenced today to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to murdering the owner of a Bloomingdale truck repair business last March.

Timothy Bailey-Woodson admitted taking a metal machine part and beating David Coungeris, 53, on the head as many as 25 times on March 5 at the High Tech Auto & Repair, 250 S. Gary Avenue, following a “physical altercation” between the men, Assistant DuPage County State’s Atty. Steven Knight said.

At a court hearing in March, prosecutors said Bailey-Woodson told authorities the victim had made sexual advances toward him prior to the beating. But on Tuesday neither Knight nor Assistant Public Defender Jeff York went into detail about the fight or about any other motive.

Bailey-Woodson had been released from the DuPage County Jail on Feb. 7, 2009, after serving 78 days on a motor theft conviction and moved in with Coungeris shortly thereafter. York said Bailey-Woodson worked at the truck repair shop during odd jobs for the defendant.

Knight said that after the fight between the men, Bailey-Woodson picked up a machine part, put on gloves and proceeded to beat the victim “until his arm got tired.”

Bailey-Woodson then emptied the shop’s cash register, Knight said. He was arrested later that day by Chicago police near his listed West Side address.

Knight said that prosecutors agreed to the 25-year sentence because of Bailey-Woodson’s plea and his cooperation with police following the murder.

– Art Barnum

Read the original article from Tribune News Services.

by Jonathan Hiskes

Seattle Times environmental reporter Craig Welch profiles one of the more puzzling characters in recent urban politics, Seattle’s now-former mayor, Greg Nickels. The piece treads some of the same ground as my profile of Nickels last month: after demonstrating national leadership in rallying mayors on climate change, Nickels received no political credit back home. Seattle, a supposedly green-minded city, tossed him out in a primary race last August and elected regional Sierra Club leader Mike McGinn instead.

Welch points out that Nickels’ home record on sustainability included some real accomplishments:

He fought sprawl by building up, added more bike lanes and tried reducing the ease of parking to discourage driving. He essentially doubled recycling rates and started a national conversation about waste, leading the charge to reduce landfill-clogging plastic by pushing (unsuccessfully) for the city to charge for disposable grocery bags. The city partnered with Nissan, which is making Seattle a test market for a new electric vehicle, installing more than 2,500 charging stations around town.

And last summer, Nickels’ light-rail dream started rolling, just as the Natural Resources Defense Council named Seattle the nation’s most sustainable city.

On the biggest urban threat to the health of Puget Sound—stormwater runoff—the city became a leader, increasingly turning to green roofs and cisterns and bio-swales to filter pollutants from rain water to slow their release into storm drains.

In my piece, I wondered whether Nickels didn’t get more credit because Seattleites are ready for more and bolder leaps toward carbon-free living.

Welch explores whether it was Nickels’ style, not the substance of his actions, that was too abrasive for this famously polite city. Residents saw an increase in large, tall infill developments, they were asked to approve a fee on disposable bags, yet—the argument goes—Nickels failed to explain how all this was adding up to something bigger.

“While [Nickels’ climate-change program] was celebrated across the country and while Al Gore came to Seattle to sing its praises, it was not adequately laid out to local people as something that was to their advantage,” SeattlePI.com political columnist Joel Connelly told me last November. “Hence, you had a ‘nanny state’ reaction to it.”

I think there’s a danger in journalists demanding better “narratives” from politicians, as if the main problem is that our leaders aren’t eloquent enough. Still, Connelly is on to something. Nickels’ loss speaks to the need for green leaders to sketch out what they want us to move toward. The sustainability movement has got to be about more than absence (of dangerous greenhouse gases, of toxic pollutants in the air and water). There needs to be a positive vision of the future for voters—more pleasant places to live, easier commutes, stronger communities. 

 

Related Links:

Not waiting on Copenhagen

Top Obama admin. officials tout clean energy in Seattle

America’s greenest mayor, laid off and looking on

Andrew Grene, UN official with University ties, among victims of Haiti earthquake

Andrew Grene, 44, a senior United Nations official in Haiti with longstanding ties to the University of Chicago community, was among those killed in the Jan. 13 earthquake, officials with the UN and the Irish government said Tuesday.

Through his career in public service, Grene was “a true humanitarian,” said Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin, TD, in a statement Tuesday.

Grene, who graduated from the College in 1987 with a B.A. in Romance Languages and Literatures, was based in Port–au–Prince and served as assistant to the head of the UN’s special representative in Haiti, Hedi Annabi, who also died in the earthquake along with numerous UN workers. Grene held citizenship in the U.S. and Ireland.

“Andrew is part of a long and honourable Irish tradition of public service with the United Nations,” Martin said in a statement. “His family, and indeed Ireland, can be very proud of his work.”

Two of Grene’s children currently are students at the University of Chicago — Alex, a second–year student; and Patrick, who is in his third year. Andrew Grene’s father, David Grene, was a University faculty member and an internationally recognized expert on the classics. He was among the founding members of the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought. A native of Ireland, he died in 2002.

Andrew Grene was born in Chicago and raised here and in Ireland. In a brief note to University colleagues, Grene’s son Alex said his father had inspired many people through his example.

“He was a hero to me in every sense of the word, but it wasn’t just me; he inspired everyone around him,” Alex Grene wrote.

“The amount of love and joy in his heart was more than anyone could fathom; so much so that when I looked at my 44–year–old dad, I could see clearly in him the youthful 18–year–old college student who wandered the University of Chicago with wonder in his eyes, and the young boy who once ran and played amid the soft, green, rolling hills of Cavan.”

In addition to his two sons, Andrew Grene is survived by his wife, Jennifer; and a daughter, Rosamund. Services will be held in Ireland.

INDIANAPOLIS—Brian L. Nehrig, 43, Fishers, Indiana, was sentenced to three years’ probation today by U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Barker following his guilty plea to mail fraud.This case was the result of a investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

During 2005 and 2006, Nehrig worked as a foreclosure attorney doing foreclosure work for Citifinancial. Citifinancial required Nehrig to submit a bid at sheriff’s sales for foreclosed houses, sell the houses at arm’s length transactions, and then submit the proceeds if the home sold to a third party.

Instead, Nehrig sometimes submitted inflated bids and had arrangements with friends and associates to buy the properties. Nehrig did not tell Citifinancial about the side deals, which were usually for a few thousand dollars more than the minimum bid requested by Citifinancial. Nehrig did not send Citifinancial the profits.

The Court determined the loss to Citifinancial to be $66,000. Citifinancial has been paid through an insurance claim.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Gayle L. Helart, who prosecuted the case for the government, Judge Barker also imposed six months’ home confinement, and a requirement that Nehrig perform eight hours of community service per month for each of the 36 months that he is on probation.

Nehrig was fined in the amount of $2500. Judge Barker noted that Nehrig’s law license was previously revoked and ordered that he not be self-employed and give full disclosure of this felony conviction to any future employer.

Live blogging the Massachusetts US Senate race between Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown:

9:30  Scott Brown wins, Martha Coakley loses. Also losing: Wall Street as POTUS, Dems will ramp up attacks. I’m done for tonight.

9:24 Brown has accepted concession call from Coakley (per Fox)

9:22 AP calls is for Brown

9:20 Boston Globe says Coakley calls Brown to concede

9: 18 70 percent of vote in, Brown +7

9:13 All eyes on Boston returns where Coakley seems to be strengthening

9:09 If margin of Brown lead holds up, I can’t see him not being seated ASAP

9:04 60 percent in in, Brown +7

9:02 Coakley get not getting the Boston vote she needs.

9:00 I have yet to hear from or talk to a single political analyst at this point who thinks the race is still in doubt. Brown +5 with 52 percent in.

8:58 45 percent in Brown +5

8:47 Wasserman at Cook Report: Cook Report does NOT officially call races, but if I were working for a network I would have enough #s to project: Brown Wins

8:42 Brown +7 with 21 percent percent in.

8:35 Dave Wasserman of Cook Report: Brown needed 59% in Danvers, he got 63%. Brown consistently overperforming our model by 3-4 % pts

8:32 With 11 percent in, 53-46 Brown

8:26 Brown seems to be overperforming in key counties

8:23 With 4 percent in, 52-47 Brown

8:10 Preliminary election day poll from Rasmussen:

• Among those who decided how they would vote in the past few days, Coakley has a slight edge, 47% to 41%.
• Coakley also has a big advantage among those who made up their mind more than a month ago.
• Seventy-six percent (76%) of voters for Brown said they were voting for him rather than against Coakley.
• Sixty-six percent (66%) of Coakley voters said they were voting for her rather than against Brown.
• 22% of Democrats voted for Brown. That is generally consistent with pre-election polling.

8:07 Politico: Sr. Dem on Boston ‘High turnout in more conservative wards. Not high enough in Af-Am, Latino and more progressive wards.’

8:03 Brown source: Cautiously confident

7:51 Dem meme for the night is that Coakley was a lousy candidate in a bad environment; any other major Mass. Dem would have won by double-digits

7:44 TheHyperFix: From a Dem operative in Mass. : “Boston turnout numbers not good for Coakley.”

7: 40 On MSNBC: Pat Buchanan  says Brown victory means GOPers should run as populist, Tea Party in 2010

7:34 Pundit Review: Very upbeat atmosphere here at Brown HQ.

7:30 Chris Matthews: Could be a “sad night, a tragic night” for those who want healthcare.

7:20 Polls in MA close in 40 minutes

7:17 WSJ poll finds only 35 percent approval of Obama agenda, though his personal approval ratings are above 50 percent.

7:09 Intrade betting market puts Brown at 80 percent and steady. Waiting for hard numbers.

7:02 MSNBC’s Chris Matthews says Brown election would be “deliberate, pre-meditated” murder of healthcare reform

The Web, the Internet, and all of the new media that has sprung from them, have been a boon to the information age, making information available at our fingertips instantaneously. The sheer volume of information now accessible on line is staggering. As of a few weeks ago, there were more than 21 billion pages on the Web. Information continues to become more available to more people in less time; from web sites to email to RSS feeds to Twitter, we have input at an unprecedented rate and volume. Ironically, as the frequency of information grows, the length of messages shrinks (e.g., Twitter’s 140-character limit. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; think of haiku). And, amazingly, the vast majority of this information is free.

For all its benefits, an unfortunate consequence of this torrent of information is that our “mental inbox” becomes overloaded. With our minds spilling over with information, our primary motivation is to empty it as quickly as possible. We typically use two “information survival” strategies when the inbox fills up. We output as quickly as possible without sufficient thought to either the incoming or outgoing messages. The obvious downside to this approach is that your input lacks thorough consideration and evaluation and your output lacks quality. Or, we are so overwhelmed by emails and text messages that we simply delete large swathes of messages without even looking at them. The obvious downside here is that important messages may be missed.

Information overload isn’t the only problem with this deluge of data that comes to those of us who are connected 24/7. Such large and never-ending quantities of input interfere with our ability to “innerput,” a word I created to denote our thought processes in response to input, including insights, synthesis, judgments, and decisions. With so much information coming in and the need to get information out, innerput suffers; there is neither the time nor the energy to adequately process all of the information.

Information is only a tool; it’s value lies in how we use it. And information has limited value, either as input or output, without innerput. Only through innerput does information become meaningful, only then can it morph from simple data to knowledge and wisdom. And that only comes when there is time for innerput; stopping in the middle of this flood of information to think about, wrestle with, challenge, and build on the information that arrives at our technological doorstep.

Dangers of input and output without innerput can be seen daily. Unfounded rumors that aren’t investigated adequately before they are posted spread across the Internet and are accepted and remain as “truth” even when they are definitively debunked later. Information without context limits its value to readers by restricting our understanding and its meaning to us. One-sided stories without the balance of another perspective create the illusion of accuracy and correctness. And all of this input doesn’t just describe phenomena that are happening in the world, it also impacts those very events because we make judgments about and decide on how we will respond based on these limited data.

For individuals, input without innerput has serious consequences. It means staying on the surface of information rather than diving deep into its meaning and implications. The absence of innerput prevents us from taking real ownership of the information and integrating it into our knowledge base. It also keeps us from transforming the input from cold and lifeless data into a power plant of insight, creativity, innovation, and action.

At a societal level, the consequences of too much input and not enough innerput are significant and sometimes dire. Input without innerput is often used as a weapon by extremists of every ilk against the forces of reason, moderation, and civil discourse. We see it in totalitarian regimes, fundamentalist causes, and ideological warfare. Drowning people in biased information is a common strategy used to prevent people from thinking deliberately and critically about the input to which they are exposed. In a torrent of information, the best way to survive is simply to accept it rather than resist it. The deadly combination of a tidal wave of input and the absence of innerput makes people more vulnerable to misinformation and undue influence.

So how can we swim against the tide of information overload and find the time for innerput? The answer to this question is really quite simple, but nonetheless far from easy. The power to control the amount of input we allow in, foster innerput, and ensure the quality of the output we produce is in our individual hands. Too often, I see people becoming slaves to technology rather than being its master; I see people being information junkies who just crave the input regardless of its value.

You control the flow of information in several ways. First, ask yourself what purpose all of this input serves and whether the typical information you receive each day really brings something of value to the table. You’ll likely realize that you’re inputting a great deal of information simply out of habit or perhaps a concern that you will miss out on something really important if you limit your input. Ask yourself: Do you really need to follow people on Twitter or Facebook or check your IMs every two minutes? Hopefully, this exercise will put your input load into perspective and show you that much of your input is unnecessary.
Next, choose the input you deem most important and jettison that which doesn’t clear that self-determined threshold. When you commit to input filtering and limits, you will establish new and healthier input habits.

With your input load reduced and your new understanding of the importance of innerput (you already knew it intuitively; I just needed to bring it into your consciousness), you now have the time to devote innerput to the input that you really value. The result? Less feeling of drowning in information, less stress, more time, more cogent thinking, and better quality output.

Dr. Jim Taylor is internationally recognized for his work in the psychology of performance in business, parenting, and sport. He has been a consultant to and has provided individual and group training to executives and businesses throughtout the U.S., Canada, Europe, and the Middle East, including the Young Presidents’ Organization

Dr. Taylor is the author of ten books, including Positive Pushing: How to Raise a Successful and Happy Child, Your Children are Under Attack: How Popular Culture is Destroying Your Kids’ Values, and How You Can Protect Them, The Triathlete’s Guide to Mental Training, and Applied Sport Psychology: Four Perspectives, the Prime Sport book series, Psychology of Dance, Psychological Approaches for Sports Injury Rehabilitation, and Comprehensive Sports Injury Management.

He has has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends, UPN’s Life & Style, ABC’s World News This Weekend, and the major television network affiliates around the U.S.. He has participated in many radio shows. His research and writings have as been the subject of syndicated sports columns that have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country. Jim has been a columnist for The Denver Post , and has been interviewed for articles that have appeared in The New York Daily News, The Los Angeles Times, The London Times, The Chicago Tribune, U.S. News & World Report, The Christian Science Monitor, The London Telegraph, The Miami Herald, The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, The Baltimore Sun, The Denver Post, Skiing, Outside, and many other newspapers and magazines.

This post was submitted by drjim.

Hace ya casi dos meses que tengo en mis manos esta excelente netbook de la mano de Acer y no quería dejar de mostrarla acá con algunos benchmarks para que puedan comparar con otras netbooks del mercado a la hora de realizar una buena compra..

Desde el primer día que la tengo no ha dejado de sorprenderme, su rendimiento se aleja bastante a una netbook tradicional con los ya archiconocidos Atom de Intel y a mi parecer se acerca mucho a lo que es una notebook, si no fuera por la falta de unidad optica (grabadora de dvd).. El precio en Estados Unidos es de 429 dolares y yo la conseguí en argentina a 520 dolares nada mal ya que es el precio que rondan cualquier netbook que tenga un atom 280 en el pais..

Especificaciones:

Procesador: Intel Celeron SU2300(1.2GHz) Ultra Low Voltage (CULV), FSB 800MHz, 1MB Cache L2 (512kb por nucleo)
Pantalla: 11.6″ retroiluminada con LEDs con una resolucion de (1366 x 768)
Graficos: Intel GMA 4500MHD
Memoria: 2GB DDR2 667 (2 x 1GB)
Disco Rigido: 160GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue 5400 RPM – 8 MB Cache
Comunicacion: Atheros AR8131 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Intel(R) WiFi Link 1000 BGN
Expansion / Conectividad: 3 x USB, 1 x VGA, 1 x HDMI, 1 x Headphone/Speaker/Line-Out Jack, 1 x Microphone-in Jack
Bateria: 6-celdas Li-ion (4400 mAh) (duracion de 4 a 5 horas)
Lector de Tarjetas: SD, MMC, MS, MS PRO, xD
Touchpad: Multitactil

Experiencia de uso, pruebas y benchmarks:

La pantalla que trae la Acer Aspire 1410 es muy buena, el tamaño es perfecto para navegar en Internet y hacer una que otra cosa gracias a sus 1366 x 768 pixeles, consta de 10 niveles de brillo lo que nos da una buena imagen sin importar la luz de ambiente y la inclinación de la pantalla también es muy buena permitiéndonos tenerla en el regaso sin problema..

El teclado es de un tamaño completo y las teclas son bien planas, la verdad que es una delicia escribir sobre el.

No puedo decir lo mismo del touchpad que apesar de ser multitactil en windows su superficie no se diferencia en nada a la zona donde apoyamos la mano para escribir y de a ratos como que lo perdemos y hay que estar viendo donde ponemos el dedo..

De serie el Acer Aspire 1410 viene con Windows 7 Home Premium de 64 Bits el cual funciona muy suave la verdad que ni se nota que es una netbook.. una cosa que no me gusto es la cantidad de software innecesario que trae pero que con un poco de tiempo es de fácil eliminación..

Como sistema operativo principal al igual que en mi PC instale Ubuntu 9.10 y me reconoció todo menos el micrófono que ni lo utilizo mucho así que ni busque solución.. el wifi me anduvo a la primera sin problema y la aceleración gráfica también.

Como pueden ver en en la siguiente captura de cpu-z el procesador que tiene no es un simple celeron ya que tiene el nuevo nucleo Penryn a 45nm y trae con sigo las instrucciones de virtualizacion de intel VT-x

Gpu-z nos muestra el 4500MHD de intel que en rendimiento esta bastante por encima de los integrados que vienen con los demás netbooks con Atom..

El rendimiento con aero y reproduciendo contenido HD es bueno y hasta nos permite realizar unas partidas con juegos viejos no muy exigentes como el Age of Empire II, Far Cry I, Rugby 08 y cualquiera que se asemeje..

La experiencia en windows 7 es bastante buena para ser una netbook..

Super Pi 43,414 segundos..

HD Tune da una media de 55,8MB/s podria haber sido un poquito mejor..

En WinRar 3.90 beta 5 nos da 731 Kb/s nada mal!  Ya que un Atom 280 con suerte llega a los 400 Kb/s..

La siguiente captura es de la prueba de rendimiento de HWM BlackBox 2.0

Een Cinebench 10 (64 bits) se repite el buen rendimiento del Celeron SU2300 CULV..

ScienceMark 2.0 da un resultado de 782.71 muy por encima a un atom 280 que arroja un resultado de 420 aproximadamente..

Conclusiones

Creo que no hay mucho que decir, lejos la mejor netbook que se puede conseguir por el precio que tiene, su rendimiento mejor a cualquier netbook y de sus puntos en contra la verdad que todos medio rebuscados porque no le encontré nada relevante excepto la calidad de los altavoces que ya de por si es malo en todas las netbooks, nada que unos buenos auriculares o parlantes no mejoren.

Puntos a Favor:

Rendimiento (procesador de doble núcleo, gráfica)
Pantalla 11,6 pulgadas (1366 x 768) con buen brillo
Salida HDMI y posibilidad de reproducir contenido HD
Buena calidad de construccion
Muy Ligera 1,4kg
Totalmente inaudible
Teclado superior a cualquier netbook
Wifi Draft N
Precio

Puntos en Contra:

Volumen de los altavoces muy bajos
Mucho software innecesario de serie de parte de Acer
El touchpad no se diferencia mucho al relieve del resto del netbook
A pesar de tener el indicador no trae bluetooth

Empire State Governor David Paterson wasn’t bluffing when he said last fall that he wanted to bring his widely panned soft-drink tax proposal back from the grave. You might remember that in December 2008, he proposed an 18 percent tax on sugar-sweetened beverages like sports drinks, energy drinks, and soda to try to close a budget shortfall. By February, however, his proposal had lost its fizz. His new plan, announced yesterday, is a penny-per-ounce tax—so if a 20-ounce sports drink costs a dollar, it would amount to a 20 percent tax on soft drinks.

While food cop Kelly Brownell giddily called the first proposal “bold reform” and has since been throwing his weight around trying to get a penny-per-ounce fee on sugary drinks, taxpayers haven’t been so gung-ho. A Quinnipiac University poll found that only 37 percent of New Yorkers supported taxes on their sugary drinks. And those numbers likely haven’t gone anywhere but south. A (national) poll released in September by the Opinion Research Corporation found that two-thirds of Americans oppose such a tax. There’s good reason: People rightfully realize that paternalistic politicians have no business creating special fees to engineer what we put in our mouths.

As we’re telling the media today, Paterson’s soft drink tax sequel earns a review as flat as the original:

The tax code should not be a tool of social engineering against New Yorkers who choose to make food and drink choices that paternalistic officials like Governor Paterson don’t approve of. New York state is home to the Big Apple, not Big Brother.

There is no single cause of obesity, therefore singling out sugary drinks makes no sense. Paterson’s latest proposal only serves to fatten the wallets of Albany politicians, not trim New Yorkers’ waistlines.

I’m not calling for drug testing of elected officials but watching the City Council sometimes I think they must be high on something.

There they were Tuesday going around and around for the umpteenth time about “medicinal marijuana,” listening yet again to repetitious pleas for LA to become a sanctuary city for potheads and fretting over how many, how far, how long and the minutiae of an ordinance they still don’t understand.

There was the sober Senior Assistant City Attorney Jane Usher maternally answering the same questions about there is buffer between pot shops and residences, 500 feet from hospitals and schools and how there’s a cap of 70 with loopholes for 116 more.

No, the law doesn’t allow sales for cash. It’s the compassionate use act for really sick people who can work together in a cooperative to grow pot and share it with each other. Nothing more, not the back door legalization and proliferation of 600 to 1,000 dispensaries the Council allowed to flourish.

Ed Reyes was rebuffed when he tried to end the latest round of posturing because Bill Rosendahl needed to puff up his chest and get something off it.

Cowards, he called his colleagues and everyone else who doesn’t criminalizing marijuana had destroyed America. Crazy, he called them. He was a man in need of a sedative, Herb Wesson suggested since he violated the rules of decorum and mutual respect.

Paul Koretz was as confused as ever about the rules he was voting on and what they meant. Jose Huizar was absolutely against increasing the number of pot shops and then amended the Rule of 70 to allow up to 186.

Richard Alarcon was truly amazing for a man under criminal investigation for lying about living in the district he represents when he doesn’t and then telling a ridiculous story about how a homeless nut broke into his abandoned house he claimed as residence, trashed it even as he was buying and installing new locks on the doors.

Surely DA Steve Cooley will need the help of Sherlock Holmes to solve “The Case of the Locksmith Squatter.”

Alarcon seemed to want to close all the existing pot shops and let hundreds, maybe thousands, of hospices and elder care facilities to grow their own marijuana, presumably to keep the old and sick folks stoned instead of sedated.

If all that was bizarre and symptomatic enough of what’s wrong at City Hall, Tony Cardenas stole the show with this one: He wants a “public option” like in national health care with the city getting into the business of growing and selling pot so it can reap the windfall profits and stave off bankruptcy.

Not to worry, the new pot law was a done deal even though they scorned Jane Usher and her boss, Carmen Trutanich, for showing them how to get out of the mess they created just as they did with the billboard fiasco.

The ordinance was approved 11-3 with Pro-Pot Rosendahl dissenting along with Bernard Parks and Jan Perry because they thought they might get too many of the 70 or 186 and destroy the street trade.

Finally, the LA City Council took steps Tuesday to bring an end to the proliferation of pot shops and get sale and distribution of medicinal marijuana under control.

The ordinance will come back for a final vote next Tuesday but implementation could still be many months away and most clinics facing closure likely will remain in business throughout this year.

The Council action comes 14 years after 55 percent of California voters approved the Compassionate Use Act, seven years after the Legislature enacted the Medical Marijuana Act and three years after the Council adopted an interim ordinance.

In theory, the ordinance caps the number of dispensaries at 70, an average of two for each of the 35 community planning areas (see chart below) or one for about 60,000 residents. But the size of the planning areas varies dramatically so some would not have any and others as many as five or six.

But the Council built in a number of variables to the cap, allowing all 137 to potentially stay open and allowing others that closed to possibly reopen under some conditions, bringing the number to 186.

A number of late amendments, proposed Tuesday after months of debate and endless hearings, were referred to committee for consideration.

For a list of how many pot shops are allowed in each of the 35 community planning areas, go to OurLA.org

Filed under: Aftermarket, Auctions, Lincoln, Rolls-Royce, Specialty

In this situation you might think we’d be at a loss for words. However, a Lincoln Town Car hearse cut to look like a Rolls-Royce Phantom gets our little fingers fluttering. Sadly, most of what we want to type isn’t fit for print. At least the seller’s description provides a good deal of comic… something. Have a look:

“Here it is! Open the doors to one of the most money making industries. The funeral business. I had a customer tell me that I should do a RR Hearse. It took me about a year to do it but I am so glad I did. The first funeral we did, the owner of that funeral home was so impressed with the reaction from his customers that he wanted to buy it from me. I did not want to sell it because I have 3 funeral homes wanting to book it almost every day. And they not only book the hearse but they also now book the 6 pack limo for the family from us.”

Fair enough. We suppose money is one possible explanation for this sort of you-ain’t-fooling-no-one creation is filthy lucre. In fairness, it does possess one killer app. You ever seen a funeral procession going down the street and think to yourself, “I wonder what sex that corpse is?” Wonder no more, as this hearse has blue fog lights for boy stiffs, and pink ones for the (dead) ladies. Here’s some more from the seller:

“We went from not doing funerals to doing almost 3 to 5 funerals per week and at $395.00 per 4 hr. funeral for the hearse and $395.00 for the 6 pack limo! You do the math. The other great thing is that 90% of funerals are Monday through Friday. They don’t get drunk, no trashing the limo and they are done by mid day. And if they do go over, then it is an aditional $95 per car, per hr.”

Straight boo ya! Doing the math, that’s nearly $800 per funeral. Pure profit, man. Except for the little part about who in their right mind would want to go to their grave in this thing?!? Oh, and in case you thought a fake Roller is the only hearse your fledgling business will need, click immediately to the back of the gallery to see some more phonies. Finally, in a perverse way we’re stoked we finally found a Town Car worse than this one.

[Source: eBay]

eBay Find of the Day: Faux Rolls-Royce Phantom hearse means you can go out as a fraud, too originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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