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You know, not everything that goes into your toilet requires the same amount of water to push it down the pipes. Wouldn’t it be better to use more water on the denser stuff, and vice versa?

Well, with no tools and just $20, you can trick out your toilet so that it’s “dual flush” (a new toilet with dual flush built-in can run you from $99 to a few hundred). Dual flush means it lets you, at the push of a button, decide whether you want to you a lot of water or a little. John over at Young House blog put one in this weekend and gives a step by step walkthrough.

You might not be able to pimp your ride, but you can at least trick out your throne and save a little coin.

Easy Upgrade: Super Toilet [Young House Love]

RELATED: Bail Yourself Out By Draining Water Costs

A woman in Florida got her driver’s license in the mail only to find that she apparently lived on “Eat Ass” street. Her entire street address is printed as “Eat Ass Englewood, FL 34223,” thus raising the question of how exactly they mailed the license to her.

The DMV told the local NBC station:

“The Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has numerous safeguards in place when customers conduct business with us to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the information provided to us. We have opened an investigation into this matter to determine who and how this misinformation was provided. Using false information related to a Florida driver license or ID card is a crime, and subject to applicable penalties of law. We have already reissued the customer’s drivers license at no cost.”

Mysterious.

Woman’s new driver’s license reads “Eat @%$” [2News] (Thanks, Ryan!)

Filed under: Etc., Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, GM

Bob Lutz is now officially into the swing of being retired. The former General Motors Vice Chairman has been living the life of leisure since the end of April, but the company he helped steer through Chapter 11 took some time to honor the living automotive legend in a number of receptions held yesterday. Lutz took the occasion to hand out a little wisdom to his fellow workers by telling them not to be afraid to be an irritant or point out deficiencies in the company, saying the philosophy worked for him throughout his career.

Lutz received a number of keepsakes during the celebration, including a set of aluminum versions of the cars he helped bring to market while at GM, including the Chevrolet Volt, Malibu and the Pontiac Solstice, as well as a small diecast engine. He spent his time signing autographs and shaking hands between speeches. Lutz also spoke to the theme of his next book – a tome that he’s been working on since walking away from the automaker last month.

The text will focus mainly on the troubles that riddled GM before the meltdown and what the company can do to avoid falling into the same pitfalls in the future. His advice? Don’t abandon common sense, and don’t try to outthink the industry. It isn’t one that requires “a huge intellect.”

[Sources: Detroit Free Press, The Detroit News | Image: AP Photo/Seth Wenig/Getty]

Self-proclaimed “irritant” Bob Lutz honored by GM originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 19 May 2010 16:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Luxury storage masters LaCie have introduced a new drive (well, drives) intended for maximum data protection and connectivity. Inside that forbidding black box are two hard drives, and every bit that’s written to one is written to the other in true RAID 1 fashion. It has built-in server and torrent download functions, which could be nice, and if it’s connected to your router, you should be able to access your files from pretty much anywhere.

It’s also got a USB 2.0 interface, so you can use it as a normal hard drive as well. Capacity is either 2TB or 4TB, though if I’m not mistaken, effective capacity is half that. After all, there are only two drives in there and they’re mirroring each other exactly. 4TB of space would require two 4TB hard drives… and those don’t exist yet. $480 for a total of 2TB of space is a bit insane if you ask me.

You might remember the Drobo FS that debuted a month or so back that shares many of these features. The LaCie is cheaper, but the limited capacity really kind of sinks it if you need a versatile or professional solution. For a little light storage and torrenting, the Network Space MAX will be fine, but if you need expandability and more options on the accessibility front, the Drobo is a necessary buy — though it’s significantly more expensive.

“It looks very scary. It’s not good. I really feel… not good about that.” That’s what the International Space Station Commander, cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, says about the Gulf’s oil disaster. This is the last satellite image. Update: New image added. More »

by Mary Bruno

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For the first 18 years of my life I lived along the final 17-mile stretch of the
Passaic River. That’s the dirty, ugly part of the river that passes through the
most crowded, industrialized part of the United States.

The
Passaic forms the western border of my home town: North Arlington, New Jersey,
a tiny borough just a few miles north of the river’s mouth in Newark. Our house
sat on a steep slope above the river. In the winter, when the oak and maple
trees were all bare, I could see the water
from our front porch. Sometimes in summer, when a flood tide overwhelmed the
river’s sluggish current, the Passaic would smell faintly of the sea.

The
Passaic was my home town river, but I didn’t have much to do with it as a kid.
I crossed over it often enough, every time we visited my mother’s family, who
lived on the other side. But I rarely played by the Passaic. I never fished it
or took a boat out on it. I certainly didn’t swim in it. I didn’t really know
the river. I just knew that it gave me the creeps.

The lower Passaic flows through the most densely populated, heavily industrialized area in the country.Photo: Mary Bruno

Like the
state it flows through, the river has a serious image problem. The Passaic is
as historic as New York’s storied Hudson, and in some places—the 77-foot-high
cascade in Paterson, for one—it is just as majestic. But most people, even
some New Jerseyites, have never heard of the
river. Those who have know it only as one of America’s most polluted waterways.
It’s hard to bond with a river like that.

The
Passaic is a poster child for rivers—for nature—everywhere. The river had
been the lifeblood of the region, the source of food and power, the playground
of the rich, the avenue of transportation, communication and commerce. The
first white settlers sailed up the Passaic in 1662 and founded Newark, the
nation’s third oldest city, on its banks. The river’s abundant charms fueled an
explosion of growth and industry that transformed the fledgling United States
into a global manufacturing powerhouse. But in time the industrial revolution
it spawned would poison and betray the Passaic. By 1952, the year I was born,
the river’s beauty and majesty were dim and distant memories. Its lower stretch
was a toxic canal. The Passaic wasn’t a source of wonder and delight, or even
interest anymore. For a whole generation, my generation, it inspired fear, revulsion,
and denial instead.

The
river wasn’t fearsome in any traditional sense. It didn’t rage or thunder. It
didn’t loll along and then suddenly turn into a boil or hurl itself over a
cliff—not this far downstream anyway. It wasn’t icy cold or booby trapped
with eddies. It wasn’t even that wide; a dog paddler like me could make it all
the way across. But the river scared us just the same. It scared us in a deep
down creepy kind of way.

We
were afraid of its impenetrable darkness. We were afraid of its industrial smell.
We were afraid of the things that lived beneath its surface and the things that
had died there. We were afraid of spotting a hand or a head bobbing in the
rafts of garbage that floated by. We were afraid
of submerged intake valves that sucked water into the factories along the
banks. We were afraid of the river’s filth. It wasn’t the kind of filth that
came from playing football with your friends. It was grownup filth. The kind
that scared the blue out of water and coated the riverbank with
oily black goo. It was the kind of filth you could taste; the kind that could
make you sick, maybe even kill you. We were afraid of getting splashed with
river water or of touching river rocks. We were afraid of falling in or of—God forbid—going under. We were afraid of the river’s anger
at being so befouled, and afraid, most of all, of the revenge we felt certain
the river would exact.

Surely,
I thought, there must be more to my home town river than the oily, garbage-strewn
slough that I remembered.

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“Our job is to make advocates of people,” said former NY/NJ Baykeeper executive director Andy Willner.Photo: Mary BrunoAndy
Willner, recently retired Executive Director of the N.Y./N.J. Baykeeper
Association, is passionate, generous, cocky, fearless, and a bit bombastic. I
love him. He says the N.Y./N.J. Metropolitan Area is a “big region” with “low
environmental self-esteem.” His mission is to awaken citizens to regional treasures
like the Passaic. He says that people don’t know the Passaic anymore, that the
river is a stranger to them, and that you can’t care about something that you
don’t know. He invited me to join him on a Passaic River boat ride.

Our
boat was a 16-foot Aqua Patio. It looked like a floating hot tub, all white
with a high freeboard and banquette seating, ideal for the civilian river trips
that the Baykeeper regularly runs up the Passaic. The two-hour tour took us
about three miles upriver, from the mouth in south Newark to the New Jersey
Performing Arts Center at the north end of downtown. It was the first time I
had ever actually been out on the Passaic.

I took
a seat in the bow with a pair of environmental engineers from Pennsylvania and
three attorneys from the Rutgers Environmental Law Center. Janice and Martin, a
retired couple from New
York, were squeezed into the stern alongside two researchers from the New York
Academy of Sciences, who were studying the ecology of New York Harbor.

Skipper
Bill Sheehan had the helm amidships. He was sturdy and gruff with a shark tooth
necklace and a bushy red moustache the color of sunset that completely obscured
his upper lip. He leaned against the gunwale, just in front of Janice, one hand
on the wheel. He had the look of a cop, or a bartender, or the ship’s captain
that he was. The look of someone who is comfortable being in charge.

Andy, our
host, was a sunnier presence. He had a full gray beard and a thick shag
of salt and pepper hair. A seafaring rabbi. A 35mm camera swung from his neck.
He used his free hand—the one that wasn’t gesticulating—to brace the camera
against his middle-aged paunch. He had made this trip upriver on many, many
occasions, but he snapped pictures with the eagerness of a first-timer. He
pointed out his favorite bridge. He marveled aloud at the play of sunlight on
the glass facades of the new office towers along the shore. Wonder lives next
to outrage in his heart.

We set
out from the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission’s massive sewage treatment
plant on the shores of Newark Bay. The 172-acre complex of circular tanks,
pipes, pumps and stacks processes waste for 1.3 million residents in New
Jersey’s Passaic, Bergen, Essex, and Hudson counties.

Once
we cleared the dock, Andy unfurled a nautical chart and located our position in
the labyrinth of bays, tidal inlets, islands, and marsh. Raritan Bay was below
us, linked to Newark Bay by the Arthur Kill, a tidal strait that separates New
Jersey from Staten Island. Across Newark Bay to the east lay the Meadowlands,
the vast salt marsh that is home to the Hackensack River. Above us, and well
within view, were the mouths of the Hackensack and the Passaic. The two rivers
flow down from the north and squeeze the last bite of land between them into a
chubby, muddy “V” called Point No Point before they disappear into Newark Bay.

Andy
straightened up, and with a sweep of his right arm, lassoed up the entire view.
“All these bays were much larger,” he said. “They were all extraordinary
wetlands. The Passaic was one of the most bountiful rivers in the whole system,
this estuarine stream with tributaries coming into it and a marsh system all
around it.”

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I
strained to picture the scene that Andy was describing. Like so much wild
habitat in New Jersey, the wetlands that surround Newark Bay have been
manhandled over time. In most places their transformation is so complete that
discerning the natural features of the landscape is an exercise in extreme
imagination. The once sinuous outline of Newark Bay, scalloped by coves and
inlets and the mouths of its tidal rivers and creeks, is now ruler straight
thanks to a century-long parade of large scale public and private development
projects. “You can see how geometric
the shoreline is,” said Andy, tapping the chart. “These are big fills.”

The
transformation of the Newark Meadows began in 1914 when the city of Newark,
hungry for real estate, began reclaiming the marshland along the western shore
of Newark Bay. Port Newark came first. The city dredged a mile-long shipping
channel in the bay. They mixed the dredgings with garbage and ash and heaped
the malodorous blend on top of the salt marsh until the landfill was firm
enough to support the docks and warehouses that followed. By 1974, the Newark
Meadows had completely disappeared, buried beneath the Port Newark/Elizabeth
Marine Terminal, the Newark Liberty International Airport, and the New Jersey
Turnpike. Similar landfill operations soon claimed much of the eastern shore of
Newark Bay too. Signature stands of
white fuel storage tanks now occupy acres of former salt marsh in Bayonne.
Welcome to the Garden State.

This
massive industrial footprint is the first impression that most visitors to the
state will have, certainly the millions who arrive and depart by way of Newark
airport. And it’s a lasting impression. The industrialization of the Newark Bay
marshland has done more to stereotype New Jersey than all the jokes about big
hair and the mob. Newark Airport, Port Elizabeth, the N.J. Turnpike, and the
Bayonne and Elizabeth fuel tanks are, alas, the icons of my home state.

My
fellow Aqua Patio passengers seemed unfazed by the industrial sights and
smells. Most were there on business. The environmental engineers were
reconnoitering the Passaic for a client that just bought riverfront property;
the scientists were exploring the Passaic, Hackensack and Hudson River
estuaries for a larger survey of New York Harbor; the lawyers were compiling an
inventory of structures and businesses along the Passaic. Janice and Martin
were just looking for something interesting to do on a pleasant autumn
afternoon. “Marty loves to be out on the water,” said Janice. The couple read
about the Baykeeper tours in the newspaper, and drove out from their home in Manhattan.

They
couldn’t have picked a better day. The sky was an aching, cloudless blue, the
temperature a delightful 75 degrees F. It was the kind of Indian summer evening
that can make even the Passaic River look good. And it did look good. The water
was actually blue. Its surface, miraculously free of debris, rippled and
sparkled with every breeze. The sun was slipping lower in the sky. Three
fingers from the horizon. Now two. The
light was sharp and golden. We were sailing through honey.

Shipping containers are just one of the industrial eyesores along the Passaic River in Newark.Photo: Mary BrunoWe
passed abandoned factories and rotting docks on the Newark side of the river,
and a junkyard with towers of pancaked sedans, and acres of red and blue
shipping containers stacked seven high. Backlit and spectral, each eyesore had
its own sad beauty. Together, they recalled a vanished era, the mid-19th century,
when Newark was the king of U.S. manufacturing and the banks of the Passaic
teemed with commerce.

About
three miles upriver, just north of the Benjamin Moore paint factory, we came to
the Diamond Alkali superfund site. The address, 80 Lister Avenue, is on the far
eastern edge of Newark, in the city’s historic Ironbound district. Bill
maneuvered the Aqua Patio in closer to shore, and shifted the engine into
neutral. Most of the passengers stood—to take pictures, pay respects. Diamond
isn’t the only superfund site along the Passaic, but it is by far the most
notorious. For Passaic River advocates, 80 Lister Avenue is a battle cry.

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From
1951 to 1983, the Diamond Alkali plant manufactured pesticides and weed killers
and close to a million gallons of Agent Orange, the defoliant that U.S.
military aircraft sprayed onto the jungles of South Viet Nam during the war.
The process of making Agent Orange generated huge quantities of dioxin, a
poisonous byproduct that remains the most carcinogenic substance known to man.
Diamond’s dioxin poisoned its workers, its plant site, the surrounding
neighborhood, and the river too. We were right to be afraid of the Passaic.

The six-acre, concrete grave for the remains of the Diamond Alkali plant. RIP.Photo: Mary BrunoThe
remains of the Diamond Alkali plant were entombed beneath the grey concrete
mound we floated past. It was the highlight of the tour. Fifteen feet high and
about the size of a football field, the mound was secured behind a concrete
bulkhead and a steel fence, sealed with multiple layers of clay, and capped
with an impermeable “geofabric” membrane. The mound is a six-acre grave within
which lie the remains of the deconstructed Diamond factory buildings and 932
shipping containers filled with 66,000 cubic yards of dioxin-contaminated dirt,
dust and debris that environmental cleanup crews vacuumed from the streets,
stores, schools, houses, playgrounds,
and empty lots near the property.

A few
thousand years from now, remarked Bill, archeologists studying this site will
conclude that the people of the late 20th Century “built monuments to their
pollution the way the ancient
Egyptians built monuments to their pharaohs.” With that, he kicked the engine
back in gear and we continued slowly upstream. The skyline of downtown Newark
was just ahead. Sunlight lasered off the smoked glass windows of the FBI’s new
riverside tower.

“How
come there are no other boats on the river?” asked Janice. Her face was hidden
beneath the peak of her white cotton cap, which was pulled low against the
harsh sun. It was a good question, direct and obvious, and it cut to the heart
of things. Even the poison mound and the Mad Max landscape and the occasional
doomsday commentary from Andy and Bill hadn’t managed to spoil the simple joy
of being out on the water.

My
mother would have enjoyed this boat ride. She always dreamed of living by the
water. Whenever she would mention this, my father would tease her: “You do!”
he’d say. “You live on the Passaic River.”

In a
way, he was right. There was a time when people would have coveted our home above
the river. The Passaic was valued once, even beloved. Civic leaders harnessed
its power to fuel their industrial revolution. Artists immortalized its beauty
in paintings and verse. The river’s clear, navigable waters sustained the
settlers, who farmed and fished its fertile basin, and built cities and towns,
like mine, along its banks. But those days didn’t last.

The
Passaic’s beauty had been ravaged and its bounty spent long before Janice posed
her question. The river view mansions were boarded up. Riverfront hotels shut
down. Rowing clubs disbanded. The benches in riverside parks were turned to
face the street. By the time I was born the Passaic’s lower stretch was a garbage can, a cesspool. The river was
poisoned and it was dead and even a kid like me could see it.

No one
in my large extended family ever mentioned the state of the river. No one
seemed to mourn it. The Passaic was something we crossed over or drove along,
but it was never something we engaged. The river was like an elephant in the
living room of my childhood. Its death was a ho-hum fact of life, like Friday
night shore traffic on the Garden State Parkway or Hudson County politicians on
the take. Some people must have fought for the river once. But the battle was
long over. People moved on. Like those park benches, they turned their backs on
the Passaic.

My
mother, the water dreamer, told us not to play by the river, but she didn’t
have to. How come there were no other boats on the Passaic River on this
perfect late-September afternoon? I knew
the answer to Janice’s question.

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The Passaic River at Millington Gorge.Photo: John Bruno

There
are hundreds of thousands of waterways in the continental United States, 3.5
million miles of endlessly moving liquid. How many of these waterways are
technically rivers is a rather tricky
question. “River” is not a scientific term. Indeed, science is a little laissez
fair when it comes to classifying a waterway as, say, a stream versus a river.

My
Webster’s Tenth Collegiate Dictionary defines a river as “a natural stream of
water of considerable volume.” What constitutes “considerable volume” is left
to someone else to decide.
So it’s not surprising that rivers vary greatly in size and habit. Some are
quite small; the D River in Oregon flows just 120 feet through Lincoln City to
the Pacific Ocean.  Some rivers are
massive like the wide Missouri, which at 2,450 miles is America’s longest. Some
rivers are ephemeral, surging into being after a desert downpour only to vanish
with the rain, leaving behind a lacework of empty washes that hold the promise
and threat of rushing water until the next big thunderstorm. A few rivers, like
Florida’s Kissimmee, form gigantic puddles that sheet in slow motion, like the
gentlest flood inching across a grassy sea some 40 miles wide.

Taken
together, America’s rivers drain the countryside like a giant open vascular
system that collects water from the interiors of the continent and transports
it to the seas. Their precious cargo is pirated along the way for drinking,
bathing, irrigating, recreating, and for powering millions of homes and
industries. Rivers bring life, and they can take it away too. Such is the
strange arithmetic of water: too much or too little is deadly.

Like
the Passaic, most rivers are the raison d’etre for
the communities and industries that have sprouted along their banks. There are
thousands of river towns in the U.S. – Minneapolis, St.Louis,
New Orleans, Augusta, Savannah, Albuquerque, el Paso, Cincinnati, Wheeling,
Great Falls, Bismarck, Kansas City, Sioux City, Jefferson City, Omaha, Trenton,
Toledo, Fort Wayne, Wilmington. Those are just some of the larger ones. The
Passaic spawned Newark (1666) and Paterson, N.J. (1791), two erstwhile
industrial powerhouses, as well as dozens of smaller communities like my home
town. Like most rivers, the Passaic has paid dearly for its largesse.

In
strictly physical terms, the Passaic is a fairly small river, just 90 miles
long. Nevertheless, it is New Jersey’s longest river, edging out the Raritan by
about five miles. The name Passaic means “peaceful valley” in the language of
the Lenni Lenape, the Native American tribe that occupied northern New Jersey
before the white settlers arrived.  

The
Passaic is many rivers: swift and clear in its upper stretch, sluggish and swampy
in mid-section, a thundering cascade at Great Falls, brackish below the Dundee
Dam, and so industrial in its final miles that New Jersey poet laureate William
Carlos Williams declared it “the vilest swill hole.”

The
river rises in Mendham, an historic township in north central Jersey. It heads
almost due south at first, then veers sharply north, then northeast, then due
east and then south again, making two final northward loops before emptying
into Newark Bay. This erratic path traces a sloppy, upside-down U that winds
through, over, under, and around seven New Jersey counties, 45 of its cities
and towns, three swamps, three dams, four meadows, four waterfalls, a pond, a
lake, 49 bridges and seven highways, and past countless homes, parks, playing fields,
parking lots, diners, junkyards, office buildings, shopping centers, gas
stations, warehouses, and factories. The drive from Mendham to Newark is about
30 miles. The Passaic takes the long way around.

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At 90 miles, the Passaic is the longest, crookedest, and most historic river in New Jersey. Map: Passaic River

The
Passaic’s 90-mile journey can be divided into three long stretches. The Upper
Passaic is a largely downhill romp through meadows and forest and along the
southeastern edge of the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. The Central
Basin is the long, flat, flood-prone mid-section
that flows north through an ancient lakebed. The Lower Valley, where I grew up,
is a 35-mile-long corridor with sides that curl like plumped pillows as it
sweeps down from the cliffs of Paterson to the sea level marshes of Newark.

In its
convoluted journey from pristine headwaters to the superfund site at its mouth,
the Passaic mirrors the triumphant and tragic relationship between nature and
industry in America. The wildness
and beauty that awed the first settlers some 400 years ago turned America into
an industrial titan. Rivers like the Passaic powered the mills, farms, and
factories that produced clothes, food, steel and electricity, a robust
international trade, and a large and solid middle class. But along the way, the
mighty frontier that helped forge American enterprise and character fell victim
to an industrial fervor that seemed, at every turn, to sacrifice natural
resources for financial gain.

The
power and much of the breathtaking natural beauty of our national mountains,
forests, rivers, and seas survives today only in the isolated patches of our
national parks, and then just barely. “Our tools are better than we are,” wrote
naturalist Aldo Leopold in his 1949 environmental classic A Sand County Almanac.
“They suffice to crack the atom, to command the tides. But they do not suffice
for the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without
spoiling it.” My great grandmother Emily Sullivan had a saying: “Don’t shit in
the nest.” The Passaic River is an object lesson in what can happen when we
ignore that simple, salty advice.

The
Passaic changes character in the Lower Valley. Seventeen miles upstream of the
river’s mouth in Newark Bay, the Dundee Dam crosses the river. The Passaic is
fresh water above the dam. Below, the river becomes a swirl of fresh water and
seawater whose salinity varies with conditions of weather, river flow, and ocean
tide. Water levels in the river fluctuate about five feet with each daily tide.
During extreme high tides, the Passaic can rise as much as 11 feet. When
conditions are right—a high tide during the dry summer season, for instance—the
tongue of saltwater from Newark Bay can lick the Dundee Dam, a full 17 miles
upstream.

The
Aqua Patio passengers were all quieter on the return trip, even Bill and Andy.
I wondered what they would all take away from this experience. Andy used the
Passaic River cruises to shake people up, open their eyes, confront them with
the tragedy and the possibility of the Passaic. Later that year, he would take
the mayors of Newark and Harrison out for a ride on the river. Baykeeper hosts
cruises for local business leaders, for the press and for the general public
too.

“Our
job is to make advocates of people,” said Andy. He was giving me a lift back to
my car, steering his Subaru Outback slowly along the paved streets that wind
through the PVSC plant from the riverside dock to the visitor’s parking lot at
the main entrance. “Remember Moby Dick?”
he asked, out of the blue. “The first chapter is all about Manhattan. When
industry and pollution kind of took the water away from people, the people
responded appropriately: they turned their back on the waterway and took on
other interests. Same thing with the Passaic. When
the Passaic became foul, when it was no longer a place to picnic and boat and
swim, it became less known to everyone except the people who worked on it. And
those people used it as a highway and a toilet, and when it started to smell
bad and people started to hear warnings about it, the Passaic became an unknown
place.”

I left
Andy standing in the parking lot, deep in conversation with the two
environmental engineers from the cruise. 
My maiden voyage on the Passaic River had the desired effect.  Andy would have been pleased. I didn’t get
over my fear of the Passaic. But after the boat ride that fear mingled with
curiosity and a kind of compassion. The river had touched me.

 

This is the first of a two-part excerpt from This American River: From Paradise to Superfund, Afloat on New Jersey’s Passaic.

Stay tuned for Part Two: Paddling the Passaic from its pristine beginning to its dioxin-laced end.

Related Links:

Grass That’s Truly Greener

An examination of benefits to Americans in the American Power Act

Details emerge on study of cancer near U.S. nuclear plants

(Lynn Sweet/Sun Times)

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

_______________________________________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 19, 2010

Below is a list of expected attendees who will join tonight’s Reception and Performance following the State Dinner:

The President & First Lady Michelle Obama

His Excellency Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, President of Mexico and Mrs. Margarita Zavala

The Honorable Tom Atkin, Special Assistant to the President & Senior Director, NSC

Mr. Monte Briggs Hawkins

The Honorable Joe Baca, United States Representative

Mr. Robert C. Barber, Cambridge, MA

Mrs. Denise Bauer, Belvedere Tiburon, CA

Mr. Steve Bauer

The Honorable Robert Rand Beers, Under Secretary for National Protection Programs, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC

Mrs. Marian Beers

The Honorable Alan D. Bersin, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for International Affairs

The Honorable Barbara Boxer, United States Senate

Mr. Michael Camuñez, Special Assistant to the President, Office of Presidential Personnel

Mr. Steven Means

Mr. Thomas Castro, BMP Radio, Houston, TX

Ms. Jacqueline Castro

The Honorable Gil Cedillo, California State Senate, Los Angeles, CA

Mr. Gilbert Martinez

The Honorable James E. Clyburn, United States Representative, Washington, DC

The Honorable Henry Cuellar, United States Representative

Amy Travieso

Mr. Jim Demers, Concord, NH

Mr. Carlos Elizondo, Washington, DC

Mr. Mark Dumas

The Honorable Eliot Engel, United States Representative

Mrs. Patricia Engel

The Honorable José W. Fernández, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and Business Affairs, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC

Ms. Andrea Gabor

Ms. María Garza, President, Mexican American Council, Homestead, FL

Edward Garza

Mr. Stuart Grant, Greenville, DE

Mrs. Suzanne Grant

The Honorable Raúl Grijalva, United States Representative

Ms. Marisa H. Grijalva

The Honorable Gary Grindler, Acting Deputy Attorney General of the United States

Christine Grindler

Ms. Christy Haubegger, Creative Artists Agency, Los Angeles, CA

Mr. Steven Wolfe Pereira

The Honorable David Heyman, Assistant Secretary for Policy, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC

Ms. Victoria T White

The Honorable Rubén Hinojosa, United States Representative

Mrs. Martha Hinojosa

The Honorable Fred Hochberg, Export-Import Bank, Washington, DC

Dr. John P. Holdren, Washington, DC

Ms. Roberta Jacobson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for North American Affairs

Mr. Jonathon Jacobson

The Honorable David Johnson, Assistant Secretary of State for INL

Ms. Scarlett Swan

Mr. Lon Johnson

Mr. Michael Kempner, East Rutherford, NJ

Mrs. Jacqueline Kempner

Mr. Steven Lerner, Chapel Hill, NC

Dr. Sharon Van Horn

The Honorable David Lipton, SAP and Senior Director for International Economics

Ms. Mary Galbraith

The Honorable Nita Lowey, United States Representative

Mr. Stephen Lowey

The Honorable Ben Ray Lujan, United States Representative

Ms. Deanna Archeleta

Ms. Maria Matos, Wilmington, DE

Ms. Sindy Ortiz

Mr. Gary Matthews, Chicago, IL

Mrs. Sandy Matthews

Mr. John F. McShane

Mrs. Kathleen C. McShane

The Honorable Daniel Meltzer, Deputy Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy Counsel to the President, White House Counsel

The Honorable Janet Murguía, President and CEO, National Council of La Raza, Washington, DC

Mauro Morales

The Honorable Grace Napolitano, United States Representative

Ms. Angela Salinas

Mr. Danny Ortega, Chair, National Council of La Raza Board, Phoenix, AZ

Mr. Raul Perea-Henze

Mr. Stephen B. Sobhani

Mr. Jon Ralston, Las Vegas Sun, Henderson, NV

Ms. Madeline Ralston

The Honorable Vivian Rapposelli, Secretary, Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth and their Families, Newark, DE

Stephen Rapposelli

The Honorable Nick Rasmussen, SAP and Senior Director for Counterterrorism

Mrs. Maria Rasmussen

Mr. Sean Regan, Director, NSSS Transborder Security Policy

Mrs. Eva N. Regan

Ms. Rosa Rosales, San Antonio, TX

Mr. Brent Ashley Wilkes, Executive Director, League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Washington, DC

The Honorable Lucille Roybal-Allard, United States Representative

Mr. Edward Allard

The Honorable Francisco Sánchez, Undersecretary of Commerce, Washington, DC

Ms. Mileydi Guilarte

The Honorable Linda Sánchez, United States Representative

Mr. James Sullivan, Guest of Then Honorable Linda Sanchez

The Honorable Loretta Sanchez

Ms. Esther L. Coopersmith

The Honorable Elizabeth Sears Smith, Office of Cabinet Affairs

Mr. Douglas Smith

Mr. Jeffrey Stirling

Mrs. Cynthia L. Stirling

The Honorable Paul Stockton, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs

Mrs. Kristin Stockton

The Honorable Bruce Swartz, Department of Justice

Ms. Deborah Goodings

Ms. Grace Tsao-Wu, Chicago, IL

Ms. Laura Kofoid

Ms. Mimi Valdés Ryan, Co-Founder/Editor-in-Chief, Kidult.com, New York, NY

Mr. Florian Bachleda

Mr. Jorge Valencia, West Des Moines, IA

Ms. Ramona Rowbury-Valencia

Secretary Tom Vilsack, Secretary, Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC

Mrs. Christie Vilsack

KNOXVILLE — Here is the scenario: weapons-grade uranium is being secretly stored inside Pasqua Hall, the engineering building on the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, campus by the fictional government of Elbonia, and a terrorist organization is trying to get it and blow it up.

Those are the hypothetical terms of, nuclear engineering professor and Governor’s Chair, Dr. Howard Hall’s class project, pitting one half of class against the other.

The blue team’s goal is to protect the uranium. The team members have devised a multi-tiered strategy to secure the dangerous material.

The red team is the bad guys. The team’s goal is to infiltrate the facility and detonate the material. Their tactics include an induced riot, food poisoning and sneaking in through steam tunnels.

“What the students are learning here today is a real practical exercise in putting together a system, or really it is a system of systems, to keep that material out of the hands of the bad guys,” Dr. Hall said.

The class played out the scenario in the form of a tabletop exercise using a 3-D model of Pasqua Hall to allow for more realistic movement. The model removes a lot of the simulations or “playisms” commonly associated with these types of exercises.

The exercise took place at the Y-12 National Security Complex, a real-life weapons-grade uranium storage and processing facility in Oak Ridge.

“The fact that they can come here, do the exercise, see the highly-enriched uranium nuclear facility, it really brings home the reality and importance of this,” Dr. Hall said.

“It gives an extra sense of realism that you aren’t just sitting in a classroom where you have done everything else for the course,” said Dave Dixon, a first-year nuclear engineering PhD student.

In the exercise, the two teams are separated. In one room, they strategize and debate what to do next. In the other, they make their move.

“We didn’t know what the defenses were and how to infiltrate. It is like chess. We move in anticipation that they are going to react in a certain way,” said nuclear engineering senior Jeremy Townsend.

The approach to the exercise is the same used by Y-12 to train nuclear security personnel all over the world.

Moves are made inside the Pasqua Hall model and dice are rolled to see who gets shot and with which weapon.

This exercise even included a mole — a traitor on the inside of the blue team.

All the while, Hall and nuclear security experts from Y12 watched and analyzed the teams’ responses.

“It’s a great liaison for us,” said Justin Kesterson with Y12’s national security training and analysis programs. “It gives us the opportunity to meet with folks who we will probably be working with in the near future and probably be working for.”

Y-12 personnel not only were involved in the facilitation of the table top exercise, but also in the development of both blue and red team strategies. Periodically throughout the semester, Y-12 Physical Protection Experts from the National Security Analysis and Training Program would meet with class participants and field questions regarding the application of protection strategies learned during the course.

This is the first time Y-12 and UT Knoxville have collaborated in nuclear security education and Dr. Hall is committed to making sure it won’t be the last.

“We are going to continue to partner,” Dr. Hall said. “We are going to continue to find new ways to bring the real world experiences and real world facilities like Y-12 into the academic mission.”

After four hours of attacks and counterattacks, the red team won, obtaining not just the uranium, but most likely, a good grade in the class.

C O N T A C T :

Whitney Holmes (865-235-3302, [email protected])

Gap cards and cell phones and, quite possibly, kittens. These are a few of Todd Davis’s favorite things. Actually, not. These are the favorite things of the thirteen criminals who stole Davis’s identity and used it to apply for credit cards and cell phone accounts. Davis’s true delight is plastering billboards with his social security number to demonstrate his confidence in his identity theft protection company, LifeLock. Obviously, his company’s services leave a little something to be desired. On Tuesday the Federal Trade Commission promised Davis that he’ll be doing more than blushing—LifeLock must pay twelve million dollars for deceptive advertising and for failing to secure customer data.
Wired reports: “In truth, the protection they provided left such a large hole … that you could drive that truck through it,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, referring to a LifeLock TV ad showing a truck painted with Davis’s Social Security number driving around city streets.
For only ten dollars per month, LifeLock’s first services consisted of placing fraud alerts on consumers’ personal credit files every ninety days—something that anyone with a phone or a computer could do, for free. As covered extensively by the Phoenix NewTimes, the U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford ruled last May that this …

Research firm Gartner has published the latest quarterly smartphone numbers, and it’s easy to see why the honchos at Google are all smiles at the I/O conference this week. Android grew an impressive 8 percent of smartphone market share this year, moving it into fourth place overall. This puts Android only trailing Nokia, RIM and Apple in smartphone sales. Windows Mobile drops to fifth place behind Android.

Nokia remains the 800-pound gorilla in the smartphone cage with 44 percent of the market, although this share is a 4 percent drop. RIM showed a modest 1 percent YOY drop while Apple gained almost 5 percent. Windows Mobile and Linux both dropped almost as much as Nokia.

Microsoft faces a big challenge with the launch of Windows Phone 7 looming near. It will be worth watching to see if its market share goes back up once the new platform launches. WebOS is not garnering enough sales to appear as in individual line item on Gartner’s chart; HP has some work ahead with the integration of Palm.

Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub. req’d): To Win In the Mobile Market, Focus On Consumers

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(Lynn Sweet/Sun-Times)

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

_______________________________________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 19, 2010

Below is a list of expected attendees at tonight’s State Dinner, followed by the list for the head table:

The President & First Lady Michelle Obama

His Excellency Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, President of Mexico and Mrs. Margarita Zavala

Mr. Michael Adler, Miami Beach, FL

Mrs. Judy Adler

Mr. Javier Alatorre, Mexico

Mr. Will Allen, Growing Power, Oak Creek, WI

Ms. Cynthia Allen

Ms. Adrienne Arsht, Washington, DC

The Honorable David Axelrod, White House Communications

Mrs. Susan Axelrod

The Honorable Xavier Becerra, House of Representatives

Dr. Carolina Reyes

The Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Vice President of the United States

Dr. Jill Biden

Mr. Dennis Blair, Director, Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Mrs. Diane Blair

The Honorable Antony Blinken, Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor, Office of the Vice President

The Honorable Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, Newark, NJ

Ms. Gayle King, New York, NY

The Honorable John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Deputy National Security Advisor for Counterterrorism, Homeland Security Council

Mrs. Katherine Brennan

Mr. Lindsey Buss, President and CEO, Martha’s Table, Washington, DC

Mrs. Betina Franceschini

Mr. Charles Cawley, Camden, ME

Mrs. Julie Cawley

Mr. Kenneth Chenault, Amex, New York, NY

Mrs. Kathryn Chenault

The Honorable Steven Chu, Secretary of the Department of Energy, Washington, DC

Mrs. Jean Chu

The Honorable Hillary R. Clinton, Secretary of State

Secretary Ernesto Cordero, Secretary of Finance and Public Credit

Mr. Shani Davis, Chicago, IL

Mr. Jae Su Chun

Mr. José Díaz-Balart, Telemundo, Hialeah, FL

Mrs. Brenda Díaz-Balart

The Honorable Chris Dodd, United States Senate

Mrs. Jackie Clegg Dodd

The Honorable Thomas Donilon, Assistant to the President, Deputy National Security Advisor, NSC

Ms. Cathy Russell, Chief of Staff to Dr. Jill Biden

Ms. María Elena Durazo, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, Los Angeles, CA

Mr. Henry Tamarin, Chicago, IL

Mr. Don Edwards, Chicago, IL

Mrs. Anne Edwards

Mr. Carlos Elizondo Mayer-Serra, Mexico

The Honorable Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff to the President

Ms. Amy Rule

Mr. John B Emerson, Beverly Hills, CA

Ms. Kimberly K Marteau

Ambassador Patricia Espinosa Cantellano, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Mexico

Ms. Giselle Fernandez, Los Angeles, CA

Ms. Karen Gordon

Mr. Jorge Fernández Menéndez, Mexico

Ms. Patricia Flores, Head of the Office of the President, Mexico

Mr. David Friedman, Longmont, CO

Ms. Shawna Friedman

The Honorable Mike Froman, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs, NSC

Ms. Nancy Goodman

The Honorable Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, Washington, DC

Mrs. Becky Gates

The Honorable Timothy F. Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, Washington, DC

Mrs. Carole Geithner

Mr. Leo Gerard, President, United Steel Workers, Washington, DC

Mr. Gerald Fernandez

Ms. Whoopi Goldberg, Whoop Productions, New York, NY

Mr. Thomas Leonardis

Ms. Maria María, Mary’s Center, Washington, DC

Mr. Michael Rexrode

Secretary Fernando Gómez Mont, Mexican Interior Secretary

Mr. James Gorman, Morgan Stanley, New York, NY

Mrs. Penny Gorman

Mr. Joe Hansen, President, United Food and Commercial Workers Int’l, Washington, DC

Ms. Bonnie Lou Ladin

Ms. Jane Hartley, CEO, Observatory Group, New York, NY

Mr. Ralph Schlosstein, New York, NY

The Honorable Eric Holder, United States Attorney General, Department of Justice, Washington, DC

Dr. Sharon Malone, MD

The Honorable Steny Hoyer, United States Representative

Ms. Kathleen May

Ms. Dolores C Huerta, Delores Huerta Foundation, Bakersfield, CA

The Honorable Valerie Jarrett, Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor

Mr. James L Jones

Mrs. Diane Jones, McLean, VA

The Honorable Tim Kaine, Richmond, VA

Ms. Anne Holton

Justice Anthony Kennedy, Washington, DC

Mrs. Mary Kennedy

The Honorable Pat Kennedy, Under Secretary, Management, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC

Ms. Elizabeth Swope

The Honorable R. Gil Kerlikowske, Washington, DC

Ms. Anna Laszlo

The Honorable Ron Kirk, USTR, Washington, DC

Ms. Elizabeth A Kirk

The Honorable Raymond LaHood, Secretary of the Department of Transportation, Washington, DC

Mrs. Kathy LaHood

Mr. David C Lizárraga, Los Angeles, CA

Mrs. Yvonne Lizárraga

Ms. Eva Longoria-Parker, Los Angeles, CA

Mr. David Figueroa, Pasadena, CA

Mr. George Lopez, Los Angeles, CA

Mrs. Ann M Lopez, Toluca Lake, CA

Mr. Joaquín López Dóriga, Mexico

Ms. Monica Lozano, Publisher, La Opinion, Los Angeles, CA

Mr. David Ayon

The Honorable Capricia Marshall, Chief of Protocol, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC

The Honorable Iris Martinez, Hispanic Caucus Chair, Chicago, IL

Mr. Tony Martinez, Brownsville, TX

Mrs. Carla Martinez

Mr. Thomas F. McLarty, President, McLarty Associates, Washington, DC

Mr. Eliseo Medina, Oxnard, CA

Ms. Liza Medina

The Honorable Robert Menendez, United States Senate

Ms. Gwendolyn Beck

The Honorable Jim Messina, Office of Chief of Staff

Ms. Ana Elizabeth Himelic

Dr. Mario Molina, Department of Chemistry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA

Ms. Guadalupe Limón

Mr. Brian Moynihan, Bank of America, Boston, MA

Ms. Susan Berry

Admiral Michael G Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Arlington, VA

Mrs. Deborah Mullen

The Honorable Cecilia Muñoz, Office of Intergovernmental Affairs

The Honorable Janet Napolitano, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC

Senator Carlos Navarrete, President of the Senate, Mexico

Mr. Kevin O’Reilly, Director for North America, National Security Staff, NSC

The Honorable Peter Orszag, Director, Office of Management & Budget

Ms. Bianna Golodryga

Mrs. Valerie Owens, Kennett Square, PA

Mr. Jack Owens

Congresswoman Beatriz Paredes, President of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Mexico

The Honorable Carlos Pascual, Ambassador to Mexico

Ms. Gabriela Rojas Jimenez

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi, United States Representative and Speaker of the House

Mr. Paul Pelosi

The Honorable Federico Peña, Denver, CO

Ms. Neila J Peña

The Honorable John Pérez, Speaker of the House, State of California, Sacramento, CA

Mr. Jason Seifer

Mr. Victor Pérez, Hoy, Chicago, IL

Miss Agape Pappas

Congressman Francisco Ramírez Acuña, President of the House of Representatives, Mexico

Mr. Jorge Ramos, Univision, Miami, FL

The Honorable Harry Reid, United States Senate

Mrs. Landra Reid

Mr. Dan Restrepo, Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs, NSA, Washington, DC

The Honorable Silvestre Reyes, United States Representative

Mrs. Carolina Reyes

The Honorable Susan Rice, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, New York, NY

Mr. Ian Cameron, New York, NY

The Honorable Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico, Santa Fe, NM

Ms. Vesta Richardson

Mrs. Marian Robinson

Mr. Reynaldo Robledo, CEO Robledo Vineyards Managment, LLC,, Mexico

Mr. Luis Rubio, Mexico

Mr. Jesse Ruiz, Dinker Biddle and Reath LLP, Chicago, IL

Mrs. Michele Ilene Ruiz

Secretary Gerardo Ruiz Mateos, Secretary of Economy

The Honorable Kenneth Salazar, Secretary of the Department of the Interior, Washington, DC

Mrs. María Elena Salinas, Univision, Miami, FL

Mr. Manuel Machado

Mr. Mark Sanchez, New York Jets, Florham Park, NJ

D’Brickashaw Ferguson

Mr. Arturo Sarukahn, Ambassador, Embassy of Mexico, Washington, DC

Mrs. Veronica Valencia-Sarukhan

Mr. Scott Schenkelberg, Executive Director, Miriam’s Kitchen, Washington, DC

Mrs. Susan Gillespie

The Honorable Susan Sher, Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the First Lady

Mr. Carlos Slim, América Móvil, Inbursa, Grupo Carso, Mexico

The Honorable Hilda L. Solis, Secretary of Labor, Department of Labor, Washington, DC

Mr. Sam Sayyad, El Monte, CA

Mr. Andy Spahn, Los Angeles, CA

Jennifer L Perry

The Honorable Jim Steinberg, Deputy Secretary of State, Washington, DC

Ms. Sherburne B. Abbott

Mr. Tom Strickland, Chief of Staff, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, DC

The Honorable (Dr.) Larry Summers, Director, National Economic Council

Ruth Summers

The Honorable Mona Sutphen, Office of Chief of Staff, West Wing, Washington, DC

Mr. Clyde Williams

Ms. Ana Claudia Talancón, Mexico

Mr. Dennis Toner, Wilmington, DE

Mrs. Ann Toner

Mr. Robert I Unanue, President, Goya Foods, Secaucus, NJ

Ms. Elizabeth Unanue

Mr. Guillermo Valdés, Director General of the Center for Investigation and National Security (CISEN), Mexico

The Honorable Arturo A. Valenzuela, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC

Ms. Kathryne Mudge

Mr. Arturo Vargas, Executive Director, National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Los Angeles, CA

Mrs. María Vargas

The Honorable Nydia Velázquez, United States Representative

Mr. Dennis Rivera

The Honorable Antonio Villaraigosa, Mayor, City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA

Ms. Prisila Rodriguez

Mrs. Alexa Wesner, Austin, TX

Mr. Blaine Wesner, Reston, VA

Mr. Frank White, Jr., Washington, DC

Ms. Sylvia Denise Davis

Mr. Wellington Wilson, Olympia Fields, IL

Mrs. Kaye Wilson

Mr. Robert Wolf, Purchase, NY

Mrs. Carol Wolf

Mr. Lorenzo Zambrano, CEO CEMEX, Mexico

Mr. John Zidich, Arizona Republic, Phoenix, AZ

Mrs. Pamela Zidich

Seating Chart for Head Table beginning with the President and moving to his right.

v The Honorable Barack Obama

v First Lady Margarita Zavala

v Mr. David Lizárraga

v Mrs. Mary Kennedy

v Ms. Maria Elena Durazo

v Mr. Jason Seifer

v Mrs. Landra Reid

v Mr. Henry Tamarin

v Ms. Maria Elena Salinas

v Mr. Frederico Peña

v First Lady Michelle Obama

v His Excellency Felipe Calderon Hinojosa

v Ms. Dolores Huerta

v Justice Anthony Kennedy

v Mrs. Priscilla Lizarraga

v Senator Iris Martinez

v Senator Harry Reid

v Mrs. Nelia Peña

v The Honorable John Pérez

v Representative Nydia Velázquez

We welcome Suzuki’s latest not-a-motorcycle to our long-term fleet.

Suzuki wants you to know it makes cars in addition to its widely recognized motorcycles, which perhaps explains the massiveness of the “S” on the grille of the Kizashi. While fully enclosed and riding on four wheels, the Kizashi does retain one characteristic from Suzuki’s other business: diminutiveness. Instead of going head to head with big family sedans like the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord, the Kizashi is smaller by half a size.

Keep Reading: 2010 Suzuki Kizashi GTS – Long-Term Road Test Intro

Related posts:

1. 2010 Suzuki Kizashi – Short Take Road Test
2. 2010 Suzuki Kizashi AWD – Short Take Road Test
3. 2010 Subaru Legacy 3.6R Limited – Long-Term Road Test Intro

Materials: Expedit 2×4, glass inserts, legs, drill, shelving brackets

Description: Here at Salon Vivid, we are remodeling our salon, and wanted product display shelves to match the contemporary feel we are trying to achieve. Not being able to find exactly what we were looking for, we decided to get creative!

We purchased the 2×4 Edpedit in white from Ikea. To have the products at an eye level for our clients, we supported them with 3 ft. legs we found online. To attach the legs, we screwed them into the bottom of the shelving unit.

We also wanted the merchandise organized for easy recognition. We decided to insert shelves so our travel sized products would be located next to the full sized products. We ordered custom made glass shelves to fit the dimensions of the cubes. To apply the shelves, we drilled holes and inserted shelving brackets to support the glass.

We love the shelves, especially how they fit the needs of our salon. Also, we receive many compliments on them from our clients!

~ Salon Vivid (Phiet), Webster, Texas

My dad moved a brick wall once. Seriously. He used a chisel to break the four sides of the wall, moved it a meter, and then applied cement to fix it to its new position. These, however, are entire buildings. More »

Women need to take the initiative in asking for a raise, Associate Professor Hannah Riley Bowles at the Harvard Kennedy School explains in a New York Times article published May 14.  Her studies show that women need to take the initiative to ask for more pay and need to employ a negotiating approach that helps them get the compensation they deserve while maintaining good relationships at work.

To read the full article, click here.

Hyundai gives tuners more of what they need and less of what they don’t. But is it enough?

Hyundai released its Genesis coupe a little late to capitalize on the pre-recession Fast and Furious era, but the company’s factory-backed pro drift car, myriad SEMA customs, and tire-shredding TV commercials show that the Korean company understands the power of the aftermarket among consumers of affordable, sporty cars. Nowhere is this more evident than with the Genesis coupe 2.0T model, which starts at $22,750 and packs a turbocharged, 210-hp, 2.0-liter four-cylinder.

Keep Reading: 2010 Hyundai Genesis Coupe 2.0T R-Spec – Short Take Road Test

Related posts:

1. 2010 Hyundai Genesis Coupe 2.0T – Short Take Road Test
2. 2010 Hyundai Genesis Coupe 3.8 – Road Test
3. Name That Exhaust Note, Episode 40: 2010 Hyundai Genesis Coupe 2.0T R-Spec

Ah, Lifelock. The company, which was recently fined $12 million for bogus advertising and absolutely dreadful security practices (the private data that Lifelock claimed it was helping you protect was not encrypted and was available to more than just authorized employees). Of course, the most amusing thing of all was how the CEO of the company, Todd Davis, plastered his Social Security Number everywhere to show how “safe” he felt with the company’s service. In the past, we had noted that this didn’t actually stop him from from being a victim of identity fraud — when someone used his well publicized SSN to get a $500 loan in his name. Oh, and then there was the story about how the CEO then personally went to the home of the guy who did this, and “coerced” a confession out of him. In doing so, it ruined the police investigation and tainted the case.

Thankfully, it now turns out that there were twelve other opportunities to taint evidence. Yes, it’s now come out that the CEO who proudly gave away his SSN because his own company would protect him has been a victim of identity fraud at least 13 times. And they say 13 is an unlucky number…

The stories go on and on, with lots of people using his Social Security Number to open up various accounts — many of which it appears he didn’t find out about until collections agencies came calling. Could there be any worse advertising for Lifelock than this? It’s even pissing off the police

“It’s unfortunate he chose to conduct business in that way,” [Albany police] spokeswoman Phyllis Banks said. “It’s not fair to [AT&T] because they’re losing a pretty substantial amount of money.”

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Used Car Salesmen Tricks

One of the biggest moments in many people’s lives is driving off in their brand-spanking-new automobile. It’s an exhilarating feeling. It’s also a big moment because in that very instant, that brand-spanking-new car loses a big chunk of its value—the difference between the retail price you paid and the car’s wholesale value. That’s typically thousands gone in an instant.

That’s why some car buyers choose to shop around for a used car. You save yourself that steep initial drop-off in value. More importantly, you get a car that runs just as well, is just as dependable, and looks and feels as good as that new car—that is, if you play your cards right.

For if there is one pitfall of buying a used car, it’s the risk of buying a lemon, a junker—call it what you want, you get the point: the wrong car. Used car dealers, after all, have nearly as bad a reputation, if not worse, than lawyers do. This holds true for individual people selling their cars through newspapers, Web auctions and classified sites, or with the old-fashioned signs in their car windows. The saying, “Buyer Beware,” no where has more meaning than with cars.

The opposite to that, of course, is that there are some real steals out there in used cars. We’re talking about quality vehicles that will perform beyond your expectations at a low price. Here’s how to find these perfect used vehicles, and avoid the top 10 scams that used car dealers everywhere try to pull on you.

1. Get a second opinion for the hype. Used car dealers will bombard you with every adjective under the book to sell you on a car—sporty, thrifty, fast, and etc. Don’t take their word for it. Instead, find someone you know, whether a neighbor, a colleague, a family member, or a friend, who owns the same make and model of the vehicle, and ask them for their opinion.

2. Do a background check. One of the most unethical, but legal, things someone can do to you is sell you a used car that’s been in a flood (and sort of repaired), or one that’s had 10 previous owners (none of whom repaired it). To be sure you don’t fall victim to this, track down a history report, including a clearance check on the vehicle title. You can even get some of this information from the seller, simply by asking why they are selling it. You’d be surprised what beans people may spill.

3. Examine for past damage. Used car dealers may also try to peddle a vehicle that was wrecked in a major accident. It’s amazing what autobody experts can do to repair a car’s exterior. So don’t go by the outer appearances of a vehicle. Before you buy it, make sure that it does not have serious damage to its frame, which it would have if it was involved in a crash.

4. Call up your trusted mechanic. Used car dealers, especially the big lots, will say they put their used cars through a “100 point inspection,” or something like that. Once again, a second opinion is in order. Get this one from your own mechanic. He’ll be able to tell how good a shape the car actually is in. Also be sure to ask him or her how often the car had been serviced. A good mechanic can even gauge that.

5. Research for recalls. Needless to say, a used car dealer may sell you a car that’s actually under recall in his mad rush to get the car off his lot. So be sure to call the car manufacturer, or visit their Web site, to see if the vehicle has any active recalls.

6. Avoid the leftover lemon. Along with recalled vehicles, dealers may even perpetrate something much worse on you—sell you a lemon. (By definition, a lemon is a car that’s still under warranty, which has such major problems that, warranty or not, it still cannot be fixed in a reasonable way.) The best way to avoid this is to research in Consumer Reports or the various automobile magazines, which all have yearly reviews of every make and model on the market. They’ll tell you whether a kind of car is known for being a lemon and prone to breakdowns.

7. See through the old paint and bait. Along with performing their “100 point inspection,” car dealers may shine and wax a used car—even repaint it—to hide dents, dings, and rust spots. A keen eye, though, can see right through this.

8. Take the test drive. Once you’ve done all your research, homework, extra credit, and everything else called for in the first seven steps, then comes the fun—the test drive. Drive the car for as long as its owner or dealer will allow you. Then you’ll get a better feel for how the vehicle handles, accelerates, brakes, and otherwise suits your tastes (or doesn’t).

9. Be wary of the pushy seller. At any stage of the game—from the moment you first talk to the seller to the test drive—be careful if the seller gets pushy. Any dealer or seller who is in a rush to move a vehicle should set off bells and whistles. Why the rush? Are they hiding something? In some cases the seller may just be excited to sell you the car—and actually happy for you—but in many other cases, they may be up to something. Better be safe than sorry.

Follow these 9 simple steps to avoid the scams and pitfalls of used car deals, and you could get the car of your dreams—for far less than you’d pay if it was brand-new. Plus, you get that same high when you drive your new used car home, without losing thousands of dollars.

Used Car Buying Tips

Some of these used car buying tips won’t be new to you. Often the trick is just to apply what you already know. On the other hand, when it comes to expensive areas of life like buying a car, one new thing learned can save you hundreds of dollars. Try some of the following.

1. Make a low offer. Okay, you knew this one. A trick you may not have used, though, is to make a low offer, and then leave your phone number with the seller. Time has a way of making sellers desperate, especially after you just helped convince them that they are asking too much.

2. Be careful with car price guides. Use the “blue book” etc, but try not to pay more than wholesale. I can’t think of many times when people I know have paid more than “bluebook,” so these “average” sales prices are doubtful.

3. Talk to people. This is one of the simplest and effective used car buying tips. Just let friends, family and others know you’re looking for a car. Quite often people would be happy to avoid the whole process of advertising and showing their car if they could just get rid of it by giving a good deal to a friend.

4. Check out the engine. Have a mechanic look at the car, and tell you what it’s likely to need in the next year or so. Then make a list, so the seller can see in writing why you are offering less than he wants.

5. Auctions. See if there is a public auction in your area. If not, maybe you can go with a dealer friend and give him a $100 to buy a car for you.

6. www.carfax.com. It’s around $25 to run vehicle background checks for a month – long enough to find your next car. They’ll show the chain of title, accident reports for the car, and even safety and reliability scores for that model.

7. “Ugly” cars. Watch for cars that sit on the lot for months. Dealers will often sell these “ugly ducklings” at a loss just to move them. Again, you may want to leave your phone number with a low offer.

8. Rental company cars. They are sold fairly cheap when they get the new ones in. Buy at bluebook wholesale or less, because they have had many different drivers, so they’ve more wear than normal.

9. Repos. Credit unions and some small banks do their own selling of repossessed cars. You usually bid on paper, maybe with a $50 deposit, and then get your $50 back if you’re not the winning bidder. If they don’t sell their own repossessions, ask where they are sold.

10. Consider gas mileage. High mileage may be better, but maybe a car that costs $500 less will use only $400 more gas in the two years you expect to own it. Do the math.

The Guide To Better Car Buying Deals

Buying a car is like making a journey into the unknown especially if you do not know the meaning of mileage and the only seats you have sat on inside a car are the ones for the passengers. Without a map, one can get lost, confused by several choices and generally duped into accepting a less than great a deal.

Still like any journey, with the right guide to buying a car, one can breeze through the experience with flying colors. Below is a guide to getting better car buying deals not only in terms of getting high quality cars but also in being aware of rebates and discounts. Both online and offline transactions were mentioned and discussed as some people are already doing their shopping online.

Read on and see for yourself which car buying guide you already know and which one you just heard for the very first time.

Car buying guide #1: List your requirements and stick to it.

Knowing what you need and what you want already takes you halfway the decision-making process. List your requirements and search for a perfect match out of the hundreds of car models available. You can do this in the old fashion way by visiting the car dealers near your area or the new age way through the wonders of the World Wide Web. One car buying guide which you should remember is to never go to dealers without having a car in mind. Websites like CarDirect.com has a handy research tool that can help you refine your search

Car buying guide #2: Have a budget and stick to it.

When you have already decided on your car model, you can now look into the prices being offered by various car dealers. One car buying guide that is really important is to do price comparisons, which are available online at InvoiceDealers.com or CarsDirect. You can also ask advice from people who have bought cars in the last five years. Chances are, car dealers still have the same practices.

Car buying guide #3: Be on the look out for special sales and promos

Most car dealers and even websites will always come up with a promo or a special deal guaranteed to outsell the competition. You can also leave your contact details and ask the car dealers that you have visited to inform you of upcoming promos. That way, you will stay up to date and would be able to compare different deals offered by different companies. One can also try looking for great deals over the Internet.

Car buying guide #4: Buy at the right season

One car buying guide that is a sure hit is perfecting the timing of buying a car. Usually, car dealers go on sale by the end of December as there is low demand for expensive gadgets. Because of the Christmas shopping rush, few actually buy a car at this period of time. Another great time is on July to October where new models have to replace the new. Sometimes, car manufacturers even offer big discounts just to be rid of the stock.

Car buying guide #5: Beware of Add-ons

Some dealers would put add-on services that you do not really need until the price skyrockets. Beware of these add-ons and really determine if that is something that you would like for your car.

Source: LiveDrivingTips.com

I’ve been thinking of writing up a post detailing the different viewing methods for 3D TV/gaming/cinema and their various strengths and weaknesses, but it looks like that won’t really be necessary. Cyberlink has put together a really nice and very detailed guide to pretty much everything the end user needs to know about 3D.

If anything, they err on the side of objectivity. Whether one method or another is better isn’t really the point — and as I mentioned in my reply to Roger Ebert’s issues with 3D, these technologies are maturing quickly and to pick a winner (or declare them all losers) would be shortsighted. And as a commenter points out (I noticed this as well), polarized solutions are given a sort of lowballing, though higher resolutions and/or dual projectors in cinemas can easily circumvent the resolution issue Cyberlink cites. Might Cyberlink be in the business of selling active shutter glasses, perhaps?

At any rate, if you’re in the market or just want to be informed, this is a great (though rather long) article. You can download the whole thing as a PDF or read it over at Tom’s Hardware.

We could either give Best Buy the benefit of the doubt and chalk these stickers up to an over-zealous blue shirt or Best Buy really does expect to con some ignorant customers out of some cash. Your call. [via Consumerist]