‘Lost’ audio: Garnett explains the island to ‘Big Baby’ from The Basketball Jones on Vimeo.
Okay, so this video can basically bring anyone up to speed on Lost and so it probably deserves a *Spoiler Alert* tag, but there’s going to be no avoiding Lost news after the finale on Sunday so you might as well get used to it. Your screwed if you’re just now getting into the show. The Internet isn’t going to stop just because you’re only on Season 3. Sorry.
While parents, teachers, administrators, and politicians in Texas clash over the content of students’ textbooks in the Lone Star state, the Obama administration is quietly expanding the reach of the federal government into local education — with results to be cheered or feared, depending on your political philosophy.
The agenda set by the president and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a friend of Mr. Obama and former chief of the Chicago public school system, is undeniably bold. It encompasses not only the $4.3 billion “Race to the Top” fund, which encourages competition for federal funds, but also an effort called the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
Here, the Obama administration is working with governors from forty-eight states and other leaders to develop standards in English — or “language arts,” as you may recall it from your own school days — and mathematics, for students from kindergarten through twelfth grade.
“These draft standards,” notes the initiative’s website, “define the knowledge and skills students should have within their K-12 education careers so that they will graduate high school able to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing academic college courses and in workforce training programs.”
The website continues: “States will be asked to adopt the Common Core State Standards in their entirety and the core must represent at least 85% of the state’s standards in English language arts and mathematics.”
One governor — a Republican — told Fox News the core standards will not be “all-inclusive,” just a, quote, “basic threshold” for an educated citizenry. “While I strongly believe in states’ rights in education to create their systems, I think it’s entirely appropriate, if the federal government is giving money to incentivize, to make sure that we have strong accountable standards in education,” said Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia. “I think it’s too important for a nation not to do that.”
The amount of money that Uncle Sam spends on education is growing. Analysts project that the federal government’s share of total education spending will rise, during President Obama’s first term, from about 9 percent to 15 percent.
Duncan has said he wants to be “a partner, not a boss,” of local educators — but that he will not remain a “silent partner.” Conservatives, who have never been ardent champions of the Education Department, warn that greater federal involvement will lead inexorably to greater federal control — and not just from bureaucrats, but from the very groups conservatives blame for the great decline in American postwar education: teachers’ unions and administrators’ associations.
“As the federal government puts more money into education, there’s no question but that they’re going to demand accountability and oversight for the funds that they’re spending,” said Terry Hartle of the non-partisan American Council on Education. “We want them to do that; we want, as taxpayers, to make sure our money’s being well spent. How many strings come with that oversight and that accountability becomes a very critical question as time goes by.”
Some libertarian groups say the evidence is lacking for those policymakers who would propose a “federalized” curriculum — which the Obama administration has not done. Neal McCluskey of the CATO Institute, for example, wrote recently that there is “very little good, comparative research on national standards,” and thus little reason for local educators to embrace them.
And thus little reason for local educators to embrace the core standards program.
There’s a lot of under-the-hood changes to Wave to make it faster, more stable and more extendable with new APIs, among other improvements, but the big news for most people is that now anybody can use it with their standard Google (or Google Apps) account—it’s just going to live in Google Labs for the time being. [Wave] More »
Filed under: Government/Legal, Toyota
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into four packages that were recently sent to four different Toyota manufacturing facilities over the past week. Investigators eventually determined that there was nothing harmful or threatening in the packages, but not before Toyota evacuated its North American headquarters in Kentucky on Friday. According to Reuters, the packages were described as suspicious, but neither the FBI nor Toyota seem to think the incident was any kind of threat.
Only one of the boxes caused a full-scale evacuation. Two others were uncovered in the mail rooms of Toyota plants in Texas and West Virginia without incident, while a third was stopped in a post office in Indiana. At this point, it’s not clear exactly what made the packages suspicious in the first place. Whatever it was, though, it was enough to cause the post office workers in Indiana to call the state police. Law enforcement has yet to reveal the name of the sender.
[Source: Reuters | Image: AP Photo/David Zalubowski]
Reuters: FBI investigating four packages after Toyota’s Kentucky HQ evacuated originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 19 May 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews
Customer relationship management (CRM) software has typically fallen outside the realm that Betanews has covered, at least in recent years. It falls outside the realm a lot of publications cover, not because it’s the least bit obscure or unimportant or even a segment of the information industry around which billions of dollars in invested capital revolve, but because it isn’t usually the stuff around which soap operas are based. If someone left a spare, unauthorized beta copy of Dynamics CRM at a bar, it’s not something Gizmodo would be snapping photos of and TMZ would be scooping interviews about.
Nevertheless, CRM is a huge industry; and while Microsoft has been a big player in that market since its acquisition of Great Plains Software in 2001 and Navision the following year, it has never been the #1 player. PeopleSoft had a very competitive CRM offering for small businesses in the early part of the last decade, then Oracle acquired that company in 2004. Later, Siebel had the lead, and Oracle acquired that company in 2006. (You can see a pattern here.)
Then, as though Calvin “Freakin’” Borel were jockeying it, Salesforce.com has surged forward with a spectacularly successful alternative that is now a prime example of the success of cloud-based Web apps. Microsoft could very well be left behind in this market unless it makes some deals.
Evidently, that’s what it was trying to do: Jigsaw is a CRM software producer’s Holy Grail. Think of one colossal database of cloud-based, crowd-sourced contacts, assembled through the sheer momentum of tens of thousands of willing contributors. Connect Jigsaw to your CRM product and you have a high-bandwidth gold mine.
Just last month, CRM Magazine‘s Lauren McKay learned, Jigsaw was preparing to announce a deal with a handful of companies, including Microsoft and Oracle, to extend its cloud-based connectivity to Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Siebel. The result would probably have been a set of branded add-ons that resemble this currently available third-party utility that connects Dynamics with Jigsaw.
Then Salesforce.com purchased Jigsaw outright. Almost immediately, Salesforce began marketing Jigsaw Data Management as its own product — the biggest link to the broadest cloud database of sales contacts in the world.
The problem with cloud-based products is that they’re practically monopolistic by design. Just as there’s no sensible business reason for anyone to build “another Wikipedia,” it would be considered foolish for anyone to try a “competitive cloud” for even a barely-established product, including Jigsaw.
The objective now for any competitor, including Microsoft, is to try to keep enough of a foot in the door to remain a competitor, before it gets boxed in with the slow horses in the middle. Apparently Microsoft chose to fire a broadside with the weapons at its disposal at the time, which yesterday were comprised of some very old patents on “technologies” such as stacking toolbars together — methods for which you’d think the rest of the world had already been granted perpetual license by default.
But regardless of whether you buy into the theory that Microsoft has any rights to claim, for instance, the ability to embed a menu in a Web page (patent #5,742,768), it’s now an established fact that somebody in Tyler, Texas would buy into it, and it’s an academic matter to seat such a person on a jury. So even if Microsoft’s artillery rounds are made of paper, they can inflict damage.
This lawsuit isn’t really about toolbar stacking. It’s about making certain a competitor with momentum and motive doesn’t lock down the cloud.
Utilizing the nextgenserver SIM unlock method that came about last month, enterprising users have been able to unlock the newly released AT&T Palm Pre Plus and get it up and running on other North American GSM carriers, including T-Mobile and Telus. Folks interested in getting the the device up and running on T-Mobile will only be able to utilize EDGE, of course, but those using Telus and the like will experience full 3G.
While this method is effective, it isn’t exactly cheap – the phone without contract will set you back about $400, and the unlock service another $37 – but it’s really the best way that those of you who swear by T-Mobile State-side or want to enjoy HSPA up in Canada.
Thanks to Karl for the tip!
The Google I/O developers conference kicks off at 12EST/9PT—as in, like, now. We’re on the ground at the conference and we’ll be posting all the best nuggets we can find, but in the meantime you can watch a stream of the keynote over on YouTube. More »
It seems as though some Droid Incredibles are providing a less than incredible experience as Chris Tabor shown that he has had touchscreen issues with three different Droid Incredible devices. The problem seems to arise from an electrical grounding problem with the phone that prevents the touchscreen from working unless the body of the device is touched with your hand. Tabor originally discovered the bug while attempting to use his Incredible in a car dock and has apparently had the same issue with the two replacements that were sent by Verizon. Chris put up a video demonstrating the problem, showing that while a Motorola Droid and HTC Droid Eris work fine on a styrofoam surface, his three Incredibles do not.
This doesn’t seem to be a widespread problem, but we’re curious if any of you are experiencing any issues with your Droid Incredibles. Check out the video, and let us know in the comments!
{Widget type=”youtube” id=”PQRgT3gtmsI” }
Via Phandroid
Where were we when Chris O’Donnell was having FIVE children?!
A teen heartthrob no more, these days the Hollywood hunk stars opposite LL Cool J on CBS’ breakout hit NCIS: Los Angeles. And did we mention that he’s also been knighted Redbook Magazine’s “Hottest Celebrity Dad 2010?”
Eh — David Beckham still gets our vote, but congrats to Chris all the same.
Accepting his title with pride, Chris appears with his brood on a Matt Jones-snapped flip cover of Redbook’s June issue, on newsstands May 25.
“He’s the fun one in the family. He’s also a lot less strict than I am: he’ll bring home a package of Ho-Hos and try to show me the ‘vitamin category’ on the back. I’ll say, ‘There are no vitamins in that.’ And he’ll say, ‘Yes, there are—look!’” says Chris’ wife, Caroline.
Chris On Family Life: “I knew when I got into this business I couldn’t have it both ways: I could live the playboy lifestyle, which is not a bad thing to do, or have a traditional family life, which is how I grew up. That was more important to me…When I’m sitting in the backyard at the end of the day with a glass of wine, watching the kids having fun and clowning around, for me, that’s what it’s all about.”
Chris On Fame: “The only time it got really crazy was during Batman. Anywhere I went in the world, people knew who I was. I was being offered these huge films that would have taken my career to a different level, and I decided to put on the brakes. I knew if I continued on that track, I probably wouldn’t have gotten married.”
On The Secret To A Successful Marriage: “Our families have the same values and traditions, and I think that goes a long way, because when the excitement and heat of romance wears off, those are the things you fall back on.”
When you work for an international development agency you’re always looking for engaging ways to tell the development story.
In a bid to try something different – not just writing policy papers and thousands of words blog type features – we came up with the idea of using animations. We wanted to give people who support Oxfam the tools to challenge aid sceptics. We also hope to reach new people who might not come across our policy positions any other way.
I wrote the script for the animation below and then worked with an animation team from State of Play Games. There was a lot of back and forth as we refined the messages, adapted the animations and then went through the rigours of getting it signed off. Colours have to be right, you have to say things like this or like that – it’s complicated working at a large NGO.
This animation outlines the case for where aid has made a difference to millions of lives and shows that the idea that aid simply doesn’t work, doesn’t fit the reality in many of the poorest parts of the world.
I’d be really interested to hear what people think.
The singer Lee DeWyze is the favorite to win the title of American Idol. The aspiring artist, 24-year-old from Illinois, was the favorite of the judges last night, during the most recent edition of the singing contest.
Lee DeWyze, 24-year-old from Illinois, was the favorite of the judges last night, after singing two songs: one chosen by judge Simon Cowell and the other chosen by him.
DeWyze chose to sing the song by Lynyrd Skynryd’s “Simple Man “listed by the jury of the show as” brilliant. ”
Later, Cowell made DeWyze sing the theme of Leonard Cohen “Hallelujah.”
This was the interpretation which made the American Idol audience literally exploded in the amphitheater, along with the good reviews of the four judges.
“Just unbelievable,” said Randy Jackson.
Along with Lee, Casey James, and Crystal Bowersox are looking for the next Wednesday 26 to crown the new American Idol.
The final competition will be broadcast live and live in Peru, through the sign of Sony.
Lee DeWyze “Hallelujah”, American Idol 2010:
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Remember back when Bill Gates said:
“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today… A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose.”
Those days are long gone, apparently. In its latest patent litigation action, Microsoft has decided to sue Salesforce.com for infringing on a bunch of patents. Basically, it looks like Microsoft went through its collection of patents to find whatever they could that Salesforce might possibly infringe on. Take a look at the list:
Amusingly, Microsoft and its super expensive lawyers were apparently in such a rush to file the lawsuit that they put the wrong patent number in on that second to last patent in the filing. Oops. Either way, look over that list of patents and try not to repeatedly shake your head in disbelief at the ridiculously broad nature of each and every one of those patents. And, then, since patent system defenders always remind us that it’s the claims that matter, go take a look at the claims and wonder how these patents ever got approved in the first place. Going through that list of patents, you could use them to sue an awful lot of web-based service providers.
Hopefully (though, unlikely), the Supreme Court gets around to issuing its Bilski ruling and puts software patents like these out of their misery. Here’s the full filing for anyone interested:
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I wanted to take a ludicrously early look at next year’s team and make some guesses as to what the lineup might look like. You might think that this coming year will be easy to predict, but with only two Point Guards on the team, and both freshmen, things may not be so clear. I’m going to start the several part discussion with the players we know well, then tomorrow discuss the new blood and finally on friday take a shot at what the depth chart might look like at the start of the season.
David Lighty (6-5, 225, SF, Senior)
David Lighty
I’ll keep this discussion in seniority order, meaning that the last of the Thad Five gets to go first. It’s hard to imagine that David Lighty has been here for 5 years, and that all of his classmates were gone long ago. Hell, it almost feels like he’s been here forever – certainly not a bad thing. Lighty has been a consistent presence on the team and has been the defacto team leader since his junior year. His leadership that year was readily apparent when he broke his left foot and was forced to sit out the remainder of the season. The Buckeyes struggled the rest of the way without him and were forced to grow into new roles that helped the 2009 version of the team excel.
Speaking of that break, it was recently reported that Lighty again broke that left foot during spring practices. The recuperation from the surgery to repair the break is expected to take about 12 weeks, which should leave plenty of time for him to bounce back before fall practices begin.
Lighty has been and almost certainly will be a Small Forward. He plays very well in his role and has, on infrequent occasion, exploded on the score boards to the tune of 30 points. Those sorts of games need to be more the rule and less the exception if he wants to take his game to the next level. I think he’s poised to have a very solid year for the Buckeyes.
Jon Diebler (6-6, 210, SG, Senior)
Jon Diebler
We all know “Threebler” quite well. The three point shooting master had some rough going in his time in the scarlet and gray through his first couple seasons, but he really took strides in this last season in building his confidence. Shooting is all confidence so you can expect Diebler to be even more lethal next year from beyond the arc.
One key component to making Diebler a consistent scoring threat will be how hard he works in the offseason working on his dribble drive and lane penetration. He showed flashes during the season of developing that sort of skill set which began to force defenders to back off him a tad and opened up his three point shooting. Unfortunately, the instances of it were few and far between which allowed good defensive teams to shut him down.
There is only one position that makes sense for Diebler – at the 2 slot. With a decent dribble drive, he could make a potent 3-guy, but he’s played the 2 for three years and will likely play the 2 in the NBA so there’s little sense in changing him around.
Dallas Lauderdale (6-8, 260, PF/C, Senior)
Dallas Lauderdale
Towards the end of last season, we began to see a glimpse of what Lauderdale could become when he understood his role in the offense. To that point Lauderdale had been nothing more than a Shot-blocking, (inconsistent) rebounding role-player who could score a couple of points a game. Suddenly, however, the Buckeyes were finding ways of getting him the ball so that he could score and make a significant impact on the score board. A couple of 10 point games later and the entire perception of Lauderdale as a player changed.
I’ve long thought that the reason Lauderdale struggles so much in scoring and rebounding is because he fits more naturally at the 4 rather than the 5. He’d play significantly better in a role similar to Othello Hunter did in his first season playing both PF in support of Greg Oden, and C when Oden was resting. Lauderdale is a capable 5, but it’s not his strongest position. Given a couple years of experience in the spot, though, Lauderdale may be redefining his role.
William Buford (6-5, 200, G, Junior)
William Buford
Buford is the clear heir-apparent to the mantle of “Team Star”. He has shown flashes of brilliance and more in his 2 seasons under Matta and looks to take a big step towards becoming a consistent and powerful threat shooting the ball. He has the sweetest shooting stroke on the team and simply makes shooting look easy and natural, no matter how challenging the shot.
He’s not as natural of a ball-handler as Evan Turner was (this is absolutely not a knock on Buford – I’ve seen very few college ball-handlers look as natural as Turner) so it’s doubtful that we will see him get plugged into the 1 position. That said, it’s possible given the youth at that position. Keep in mind that Matta’s philosophy depends more on getting the best talent on the floor as much as possible and less on sticking to the traditional PG, SG, SF, PF, C concepts. If Buford can learn to dictate the offense and can bring the ball up the floor effectively we may see him in the 1. He’s a more natural 2/3 guy, though, and it seems likely that he will find his place there during the season.
Nikola Kecman (6-8, 225, PF, Junior)
Nicola Kecman
Those of you who followed the Buckeye Battle Cry through the 2009-2010 season know that I have a strong liking for Mr. Kecman as a player. Nikola did not get many opportunities to see the floor during the season, playing almost exclusively in mop-up duty with “Big Z” Sarikopoulos, Mark “The Shark” Titus, Eddie Days and Danny Peters. In those times, however, the 6-8 forward showed an ability to shoot the long-ball and really challenge the defense with his size and versatility. There’s a chance we may get to see more of Kecman this season, depending on how fast the younger players develop into Matta’s system.
There’s no question in my mind that Kecman should play the 4 spot. With his shooting range and height he will give opposing defenses a headache and open up passing lanes into the paint for the big guys.
Zisis Sarikopoulos (7-0, 265, C, Junior)
Zisis Sarikopoulos
Big Z is the heir to the title of “Buckeye 7-footer” following in the footsteps of Oden, Koufos and Mullens. Unfortunately, he hasn’t yet grown to fill the shoes of those players yet, having only played in mop-up duty thus far. Interestingly, each of the Buckeye’s 7-footers have become progressively less of an impact on the team. Oden was a massive impact. Koufos started and played reasonably well despite being a “Black Hole” (ball goes in, and never comes out). Mullens was a bench player behind Lauderdale who played decent minutes, and finally Big Z mostly rode the pine. It leaves one to wonder if Matta is deciding that the 7-footer just isn’t his style, what with the continuous play of the 6-8 Lauderdale and the recruitment of 6-9 Jared Sullinger to play Center.
It’s also possible that Sarikopoulos just needs more time in the program before becoming an effective player, much like Kecman. We’ll just have to wait and see if he makes a significant impact sometime in the future.
Eddie Days (6-0, 180, G, Senior)
Eddie Days
Days was the player that almost no-one knew about from last season. Eddie participated in walk-on tryouts last fall and managed to make the team in October after already spending 3 years at Ohio State as your typical, everyday student. He played nothing more than mop up duty in 4 games and compiled almost no stats in his grand total 7 minutes of play. The likelihood of Eddie seeing the court much this year is probably still low, which probably plays into his plans a little bit as it seems he wants to go into the coaching profession.
Maybe he’ll be the next voice from the OSU Bench? You never know!
Tomorrow I’ll take a look at that ridiculous recruiting class Matta pulled in. There are some pretty good looking players on that list, and there is more than a little to get excited about for next season.
Memo to U.S. House: It ain’t a “spill,” it’s an undersea volcano spewing 3 million gallons a day — two Exxon Valdezes a week. That’s the point of this hearing.
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to watch the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing, but you can today 2 pm edt– click here.
I definitely think it worth watching given who the witnesses are:
- Steve Wereley, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University
- Richard Camilli, Associate Scientist, Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
- Michael Freilich, Director of the Earth Science Division, NASA
- Frank Muller-Karger, Professor of Biological Oceanography and Remote Sensing, University of South Florida
Werely has been all over the news and the source of many of the figures that I have cited — see Should you believe anything BP says?
Finally, here’s a good piece from The Atlantic, “Why BP Won’t Measure the Oil Spill.”
Todos recordamos el accidente que Fernando Alonso sufrió en los últimos entrenamientos libres del reciente GP de Mónaco 2010, lo cual le impidió poder participar en la sesión de clasificación.
El comunicado oficial afirmaba que no podia ser reparado ya que sólo se contaba con media hora de tiempo para hacerlo. Tras finalizar dicho gran premio y analizar detenidamente dicho monoplaza, se ha comunicado que no podrá ser reparado finalmente.
Tras esto, la escudería Ferrari cuenta con un chasis menos para lo que resta de temporada y en los próximos días tendrán que decidir que chasis llevarán Felipe Massa y Fernando Alonso en el inminente GP de Turquía 2010.
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A recent op-ed by Chris Conklin in The Sun News of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, voiced frustration over the cascading closures now hitting the Southeast. Conklin comes from a fishing family and wonders if he’ll be able to stay in the fishing industry unless catch shares are instituted. The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council is considering a number of options – including catch shares – to reduce fishing closures and get fishermen back on the water.
by Steve Cowell
Now that it has passed the House of Representatives with flying colors (246 to 161), we are thisclose to making Home Star a reality. This is the plan, supported on both sides of the aisle, that would give U.S. homeowners rebates for energy-efficiency improvements that cut energy consumption. Most importantly, Home Star will put many of the country’s construction folks and blue-collar wage earners back to work, so let’s get it passed in the Senate and on President Obama’s desk already!
The bill has unique bipartisan support and is backed by one of the largest coalitions to hit Washington in years. In just a few months, the Home Star Coalition has signed more than 1,300 members. Supporters come from labor unions, the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, contractors, retailers, utilities, and regulators, to name a few groups. We’re gaining more ground every day and the time is right for Congress to make it into law. But first a little history:
Home Star was introduced to The White House in November 2009. The concept was so well-received, Home Star was unanimously voted for by the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board the following month. Since then, this plan to weatherize America’s homes has undergone much review and analysis by a coalition of more than 1,000 stakeholders, the Senate, the House, and the administration. Its pros and cons have been analyzed, dissected, and debated on blogs, TV, and in mainstream newspapers for months now. It is time to move past the talk and get to the action.
Home Star will put hundreds of thousands of people back to work and provide economic recovery to a large number of blue-collar workers hit hardest by this recession.
The disparity between blue- and white-collar workers who have been affected by the economy is striking—one in five workers in blue collar industries across America is jobless. On the other hand, those making $150,000 a year or more are barely impacted. (Three percent are unemployed as of this writing.) These are the findings of a study [PDF] authored by Professor Andrew Sum, Northeastern University’s director of the Center for Labor Market Studies. In a radio interview earlier this year, he said, “It’s The Great Depression for blue-collar workers—with dire implications for society … this rate of joblessness is greater than any post-wartime period in history.”
Home Star will benefit unemployed blue-collar laborers and experienced workers who have lost jobs in construction and manufacturing because their skills can be easily adapted. Beyond retrofitting, Home Star will have a ripple effect, creating jobs in other areas such as retailing, trucking, and manufacturing. In fact, U.S. factories will crank out 92 percent of the products needed to support the program, from insulation to replacement windows.
Home Star will also help cash-strapped homeowners defray the costs of investments that will lower their energy bills. It would provide rebates of $1,000 to $1,500 for insulation, duct, and air sealing, installation of more energy-efficient equipment, and other items at a “Silver Star” level. For more comprehensive home energy improvements (“Gold Star level”), consumers would receive a federal rebate of up to $3,000 for retrofits that result in savings of 20 percent. And the higher the energy savings achieved, the higher the rebate, up to $8,000.
Homeowners who use less energy can create an economic environment that can help ease problems in the housing market. Not coincidentally, the mortgage default crisis occurred at exactly the same time that energy prices spiked in 2007 and 2008. High energy bills may only be one factor in pushing a homeowner over the edge. But the correlation between high energy bills and a family’s ability to afford a mortgage payment is a direct one.
The icing on the cake is that Home Star will help preserve the environment. Residential buildings generate more than 20 percent of our nation’s carbon dioxide emissions—twice what automobiles emit. Existing techniques and technologies in energy-efficiency retrofitting can reduce home energy use by 30 percent per home and lower associated greenhouse-gas emissions significantly. Total associated savings in home energy bills is estimated to be as much as $9.4 billion over 10 years. Not a bad return on a $6 billion investment in Home Star!
If Home Star passes, programs will be set up here in America, right now. Its unemployed citizens can finally get back to work. Retrofit workers will earn decent wages, spurring new opportunities for themselves and their families. The societal benefits of Home Star are infinite.
By enacting Home Star, we can help end The Great Blue Collar Depression and keep our economy on the road to recovery.
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Italdesign Giugiaro Quaranta Concept
Italdesign Giugiaro has produced a bunch of stunning designs including their famous take on the Mustang with the Ford Mustang Giugiaro Concept; the Italdesign Giugiaro Quaranta Concept; and most recently, their take on the subcompact market with the Italdesign Emas Concept. It seems their work has been so impressive that it has caught the eyes of executives over at Volkswagen AG.
According to two industry sources that talked to Automotive News Europe, Volkswagen AG will buy a controlling stake in Italdesign Giugiaro SpA, Italy’s largest design and engineering firm. Sources said that the announcement could come as early as next week.
Italdesign is privately owned by Giorgetto Giugiaro, 71, who serves as chairman, and his son Fabrizio, 45, who leads the design and model division. The company has about 975 employees.
The move is in line with Volkswagen’s plan to become the world’s largest automaker by 2018 with sales of more than 10 million vehicles annually. To reach that goal, along with its merger of Porsche, Volkswagen will need more designers and engineers.
Volkswagen has plans to add 60 models in 2010 alone, including upgrades to current models.
– By: Omar Rana
Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)
In what is said to be another clash of the year for the Senatorial seat, a retiree from US service emerged victorious against an incumbent official.
Pennsylvania’s focal point is directed to the state’s battle of two Democrats for the captain’s wheel. Senator Arlen Specter, a Democrat who abandoned the Republicans April of last year (2009) was hard hit by the public’s misery and rage. Being an upfront supporter of Barack Obama and the President’s policies, Specter votes experienced sudden surge downwards. The person taking over the chieftain chair is Representative Joe Sestak, another Democrat. Sestak, a retired US admiral received overwhelming support from the party’s left wing or segment.
After austerely losing to Sestak, Specter delivered a message to the state:
“It’s been a great privilege to serve the people of Pennsylvania. And I’ll be working hard for the people of Pennsylvania very hard for the coming months.”
With Rep. Joe Sestak’s poll triumph, he is now tasked to braze out and confront a former Republican loyalist in the Congress- Pat Toomey.
On a separate story, Democratic Party’s Mark Critz won PA-12 by defeating Republican’s bet Tim Burns in the elections.
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