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For once, I’m not being sarcastic. You don’t have to bother running your sarcasm-detecting algorithm over that headline, students at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Because it’s true! More »

Si os habéis comenzado a preguntar quién demonios es Tomohiko Kawanabe, pues es nada más y nada menos que el presidente del departamento de investigación y desarrollo de Honda Motor Co. Creo que tiene cierta autoridad para decir lo que dijo: Honda no le tiene confianza al coche eléctrico, ya que el consumidor no podrá adaptarse a las limitaciones que todavía ofrecen.

A pesar de todo, Honda sigue desarrollando motorizaciones eléctricas (Honda EV-N), como lo ha reconocido el mismo ejecutivo de la marca. Sin embargo es más por presión del mercado norteamericano que por propios deseos de Honda de poner en las calles un coche eléctrico en el futuro inmediato.

Es cuestionable si los consumidores aceptarán las limitaciones de un rango limitado de conducción y tener que pasar tiempo recargándolos. Ciertamente, estamos haciendo investigaciones sobre motores eléctricos, pero no puedo decir firmemente que los recomiendo.

El verdadero objetivo maestro de Honda, dentro del campo de los combustibles alternativos, parece ser el desarrollo de motores a hidrógeno, a pesar de que la infraestructura es casi nula. El paso inmediato de la marca, será insistir con los coches híbridos, como los actuales modelos del Civic y el Insight.

Vía | Automotive News

General Motors this morning announced it is adding even more Android to the upcoming Chevy Volt — and we’ll check it all out this week at Google IO.

We’ve already seen the Chevy Volt app for Android when it debuted at CES in January, and it’ll be upgrated later this year to add Google Maps features, including voice search and Google Maps Navigation, wich we’ve enjoyed on Android 2.0 and up for a while now.

What we’re really itching to see is what OnStar has up its sleeve in regards to Android.

“While OnStar will never lose sight of our core focus on safety and security, this relationship is an example of how we’re evolving our leadership position in connected vehicle technology,” Chris Preuss, OnStar president, said in a news release. “What we’re talking about today is only the beginning.”

Indeed. More this week as we get it. [via GM] Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

This morning the Census Bureau released the “Quarterly Starts and Completions by Purpose and Design” report for Q1 2010.

The first graph shows the NSA quarterly starts intent for four categories since 1975: single family built for sale, owner built (includes contractor built for owner), starts built for rent, and condos built for sale.

Condo starts in Q1 were just above the all time record low last quarter (4,000 vs 3,000 in Q4 2009).

Read the full post at Calculated Risk >

Join the conversation about this story »

Just a quick FYI guys (and this one’s for the ladies (qjnet/news/women-love-sengoku-basara.html) as well), the official UK site for Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes (or Sengoku Basara 3 in Japan) is now live.

by David Roberts

The Kerry-Lieberman climate bill is out now, and with it comes a fateful decision for the political left in the U.S.

If the left’s institutions and messaging infrastructure succumb to internal squabbling or simple indifference; if the public is not actively won over and fired up; if President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) stick their fingers in the wind to see which way it’s blowing … the bill will fail. The default outcome now is failure. Very few people in Washington, D.C., today believe the bill has a chance of passing.

The odds are long, but the bill could be saved if the left—and I mean the whole left, not just environmentalists—pulled together and fought like hell. What’s needed is concrete political pressure. That means tracking who’s for it and against it; relentlessly pressing for commitments; actively organizing in a few key Republican and centrist Democratic states; pressing establishment pundits and media figures to cover it; calling out those who stand in the way of progress; and never, ever letting Obama and Reid have a moment’s peace until they fulfill their promises.

The left hasn’t shown itself particularly capable of that kind of single-minded campaign. And there’s no guarantee it would succeed even if attempted. Without it, the bill’s failure is all but inevitable.

So is it worth doing? Is the bill worth fighting for with the kind of passion that was brought to health care or even the presidential election?

I believe the answer to that question is an absolute, unqualified, overwhelming yes. However flawed and inadequate, Kerry’s bill would represent a sea change in American life. It would lend desperately needed momentum to the global fight against climate change. Failure would be a tragedy and passage a huge, vital victory.

I know many of my fellow travelers on the left disagree. Some have convinced themselves that not only is the bill flawed, it’s worse than passing nothing at all; many others view it with distaste or resignation. Both left and right have attacked the bill relentlessly since its inception in the House, and for the vast muddled middle the lesson has been simple: if both sides hate it, it must not be worth supporting. A climate bill has come to Congress and it has almost no passionate supporters.

Nevertheless, the fact remains: It’s overwhelmingly important to pass the damn thing. I’ll argue as much in my next few posts, but to begin with I want to emphasize two reasons we ought to have an overwhelming bias toward immediate action, even compromised, inadequate action. One is physical, one political.

The physical argument in favor of immediate action

Geographically, CO2 reductions are fungible—from the climate perspective, a reduction here is as good as a reduction there; the source is irrelevant. However, the same is not true temporally. Present and future CO2 reductions do not have equal value. A ton of reduction today is worth more than a ton of reduction 10 years from now.

The reason is simple: For every molecule of CO2 added to the atmosphere today, future emission rates must be slashed more to return to safe levels in time. (This is the point of the famous bathtub analogy.) Every bit of delay makes the ultimate task more abrupt, difficult, and expensive. Neither the public nor policymakers seem to understand this ineluctable fact of atmospheric physics, but it is absolutely central to climate policy. Here’s a visual representation:

“A slow start leads to a crash finish.”Science: Doniger, Herzog, Lashof

The longer action is postponed as we wait for a sufficiently ambitious climate bill, the more ambitious it needs to be—the target recedes. Getting started quickly, even with less force than most climate campaigners would like, makes the hill less steep and every future battle easier.

The political argument in favor of immediate action

By almost all projections, Republicans are going to clean up in 2010. Democrats’ current large majorities are anomalous and unlikely to return any time soon. (They couldn’t even hold on to 60 in the Senate for a full session.) Meanwhile, the remaining Republican moderates are being vigorously purged from the party by the teabaggers. It’s hard to see Republicans getting sensible on climate any time soon, when every internal dynamic is pushing the other way. If this bill doesn’t pass this year (and the filibuster remains in place), it could be another four to eight years before it comes up again, likely in weaker form. That’s 10 to 20 percent of the time left between now and 2050, at which point emissions in the U.S. ought to be getting close to zero. Meanwhile the bathtub keeps filling up.

If the American Power Act dies, state cap-and-trade programs will still proceed. The administration will do what it can through executive branch action at the Department of Energy and elsewhere. The EPA will wade into greenhouse-gas regulations (and a fog of lawsuits). But without a declining carbon cap in place, the market won’t get the 20-to-40-year predictability sought by large energy investors. There won’t be the massive shift in private capital needed to kickstart a green economy. It won’t be enough.

Meanwhile, the international climate process, which has effectively been idling for 12 years as it waits for the U.S. to get its act together, could well fall apart. Maybe it can limp along if the U.S. is allowed to count non-carbon-market reductions toward its Copenhagen commitments—Obama could probably hit America’s tepid 17 percent by 2020 target through executive action alone. But it will send an unmistakable signal to other countries. If you thought Copenhagen was difficult, with the U.S.  insisting it might pass legislation, wait until Cancun after it’s clear the U.S. won’t. We can say goodbye to leverage, or good faith, or the ability to look Tuvalu’s representative in the eye.

Leaning forward

Donald Rumsfeld was wrong about the problem but right about the posture: When it comes to greenhouse-gas reductions, we should be “leaning forward.” Our bias should be toward action, even if it means making unpleasant policy or political concessions in the short term. As I said earlier:

Right now, policy is being made out of fear: fear by the private sector that decarbonization will be a crushing burden; fear by consumers that their energy prices will skyrocket; fear by politicians that the project will prove electorally unpopular. Campaigners can organize marches, think tanks can put out reports, scientists can issue dire warnings, but ultimately, that fear simply can’t be overcome in advance. The only way to overcome it is through experience.

Does the American Power Act get us started? Yes: it’s got mandatory targets. In my mind, that alone gives it an overwhelming presumption of support. It would have to contain a lot of extremely bad stuff to overcome that presumption, and while there’s certainly some lamentable provisions, I don’t think any of them are bad enough to meet that threshold. More on that soon.

Related Links:

The American Power Act and California’s AB 32

Battle of the Carbon Titans

Big Green and little green clash over the American Power Act

As the Jewish community heads into the holiday of Shavuot, the
House and Senate are expected to vote this week on the American Jobs, Closing Tax
Loopholes, and Preventing Outsourcing Act, a job creation bill that
will likely include $1 billion for the National Housing Trust Fund
(NHTF) and an extension of unemployment benefits through the end of
2010. The inclusion of these measures is crucial to the economic
security of millions of unemployed workers and low-income families.




Take action now! Urge your Members of Congress to ensure that the American Jobs, Closing
Tax Loopholes, and Preventing Outsourcing Act (HR4213) includes funding
for the National Housing Trust Fund and an extension of unemployment
benefits through the end of 2010. You can call the Capitol Switchboard at
202.224.3121 or send a quick email by clicking on the links below:

• National Housing Trust Fund
• Unemployment benefits

Thanks for your support – and don’t forget to spread the word to friends and family who care about issues of economic justice.

PalmCast Live is coming atcha tonight – Dieter and Keith will talk up the AT&T Palm Pre and plenty more, so tune in at 8pm Eastern.

Got questions? Tweet them with the  #palmcast hashtag for our lightning round.

Since summer is coming up, we don’t want y’all to go scratching your screen with sand when you hit the beach, so we’re going to give away a pack of Smartphone Experts Screen Protectors for the Palm Pre or Pre Plus.

Foxconn—one of Apple’s main providers—is so worried about employee suicidal rate that they’ve hired 100 counsellors to help. Their concern isn’t only about the living, however: They’re bringing 30 Buddhist monks to release the suicide souls from purgatory. More »

Everyone who walks the busy streets of a city takes imaginary snapshots. For all I know, my face glimpsed in a crowd years ago may live on in someone’s memory the same way that the face of some stranger lives on in mine. Of course, out of the hundreds of people we may happen to see in a day, we become fully aware of only a select few, and often not even that many if we have too much on our minds. Then it happens.

All the poets who loved colorful street life, starting with Whitman and Baudelaire, knew that the unforeseen was one of the inherent qualities of the beautiful. We come face to face with someone, or we catch a peek at them from the corner of our eye and the camera in our heads clicks, suspending the image. Here is a tall, well-dressed young woman with a look of utter despair in her eyes and an incongruous smile on her lips. In the next instant, she’s gone and we forget her as we busy ourselves with other things, except she may reappear later that day to haunt us, or in a month, or even years after, like some snapshot we found in the shoebox in the attic that we can’t stop looking at because we no longer remember who that person in it was or when or where it was taken.

Why do we remember some faces and not the others? One meets all sorts of interesting-looking people in the city: confident, bursting with health, sickly, preoccupied, seemingly lost or thoroughly defeated, so how come so few stick in our memory? No doubt it’s because something about them cheers or troubles our spirit. At times, compassion and fear make us identify with them. We find ourselves in their shoes for a moment, living a life we have read in their faces. I recall seeing, for example, a pale, middle-aged man in an inconspicuous gray suit, sitting on the subway with his gray hat, gray moustache, collapsing cheeks and empty watery eyes as the uptown local rattled along.

For some reason, the memory of his face is more vivid to me than many far more momentous encounters and occasions in my life that I ought to remember with greater clarity. I keep his face in my secret photo album, the one I would not show to anyone, even if I could, because the pictures in it would most likely mean nothing to them. And yet for me, and I’m sure for others, this sort of collection of random images is a kind of unintended autobiography. When I hear people say that “every human being carries around a secret,” this is what I think they are talking about.

Fifty years ago sitting in Washington Square park one warm spring day, I overheard a story on this very subject. Two old men were chatting about different kinds of women they knew in their life, and the various way in which they drove both of them crazy, when one said that his father told him before he died that the most beautiful woman he ever saw in his life was getting off the Staten Island Ferry just as he was getting on. Their eyes met and that was it. His father even remembered the exact date and the time of day, which as I recall was in the month of May in 1910. Of course, after he fell silent, I turned around to sneak a better look at the man who was telling the story, but today, no matter how hard I try, I can only bring back his words and nothing else. Evidently, to remember a face, it helps if one’s mind is blank and not busy thinking about some story one has just heard.

Classic Palm OS 5.x (aka Garnet OS) fans are going to have to wait a bit longer to get their hands on the first new Palm OS PDA since 2005’s Palm TX and Z22. The Aceeca PDA32’s preliminary release date of April 10th has unfortunately come and gone with no additional news of availability. Tam Hanna, who has done a great job of keeping us all abreast of Aceeca news, reported on May 9th that he should hopefully know a bit more about Aceeca’s status in a “few weeks worth of time!”.

In related Palm OS news, programmer hero Dmitry Grinberg is still plugging away at his Palm OS-compatible OS, DGOS. His most recent blog post is nearly two months old but as of last month Dmitry did indicate that he is still working on DGOS but is sadly pressed for time due to his new employer. The full plans for DGOS are discussed in our past coverage.

Jennifer Aniston and her bodacious abs remind us that 40 is the new 30 in the latest ad for SmartWater.

Spotted@

Might We Suggest…

• Vopium Adds Android to its Portfolio of Applications
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The Toyota 4Runner is an SUV manufactured by Toyota and sold throughout the world from 1984 to the present. In Japan it was known as the Toyota Hilux Surf.

The original 4Runner was a compact SUV and little more than a Toyota pickup truck with a fiberglass shell over the bed, but the model has since undergone significant independent development into a cross between a mid-size and a full-size SUV.

All 4Runners have been built at Toyota’s Tahara plant in Tahara, Aichi, Japan or at Hino Motors’ Hamura, Japan plant, and in Brazil. Its mid-size crossover SUV counterpart is the Kluger/Highlander.

The third generation 4Runner did, however, look very similar to the second generation.

This similarity largely ended with its looks. It carried over the basic design and concept, but executed it differently with an all-new body shell on an all-new chassis. This time, it shared virtually nothing with the pickup it had originally evolved from, and had more in common with the Land Cruiser, as it shared its chassis with that of the Land Cruiser Prado.

The third generation 4Runner also featured new engines that are also installed in the first generation Toyota Tacoma pickup trucks. :

– 2.7L 3RZ-FE I4 replacing the previous 2.4L 22R-E I4; 150 hp (110 kW), max horsepower: 4800 rpm, torque: 177 ft·lbf (240 N·m), max torque: 4000 rpm;
– 3.4L 5VZ-FE V6 replacing the previous 3.0L 3VZ-E V6: power: 183 hp (136 kW), max horsepower: 4800 rpm, torque: 217 ft·lbf (294 N·m), max Torque: 3600 rpm.

and now, check the video review with the latest Toyota 4Runner:

As the base model of the lineup, the 2010 Toyota 4Runner SR5 4×2 will come with the 157-horsepower, 2.7-liter inline-4 shared with the Highlander, and it will start at $27,500 – a price drop of $1,140.

According to Toyota’s product information, this engine will be available with either two- or four-wheel drive, but we’d suspect anyone willing to sacrifice ruggedness for $1,140 isn’t really worried about the 4Runner’s off-roading abilities. Stepping up to the 270-horsepower 4.0-liter V-6, the 4Runner SR5 4×2 V6 will start at $29,175, while the volume seller, according to Toyota, is the four-wheel drive version of this configuration, which will get the same $30,915 starting price as the 2009 model. Even though the price is staying the same, Toyota claims that the 4Runner SR5 will benefit from an additional $1,700 worth of equipment when compared alongside the 2009 model.

Replacing the Sport Edition in the lineup, the all-new 4Runner Trail will be the most capable off-road model with a more rugged design and a single drivetrain configuration that offers only the V-6 paired with four-wheel drive.

With its blacked-out plastic trim and safari-style roof rack, the 2010 4Runner Trail will have a starting MSRP of $35,700.

This price represents an increase of about $5,000 compared to a base 2009 4Runner Sport, but unlike this model the 4Runner Trail is not available in a two-wheel drive layout.

The just released Samsung Galaxy A just received an unboxing and video walkthrough, and if you’re into watching a seven minute video about a phone that’ll probably never ship to the US, in a language you don’t understand, well, by all means! All kidding aside though, the Samsung Galaxy A is actually quite impressive–the colors on the screen pop, the build quality looks good, and the transitions are rather snappy. There’s even a full-on antenna for mobile TV. Samsung is certainly upping their Android game with the Galaxy A and we hope the Galaxy S can extend that, while finding a way to the US. [via androidguys] 

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal defended himself Tuesday following a front-page article in The New York Times and a widely circulated video that showed him saying that he served in Vietnam.

With veterans standing behind him at a VFW Hall in West Hartford, Blumenthal said he regrets the times that he has misspoken about his service during the war.

When he misspoke, Blumenthal said it was “absolutely unintentional” and “totally unintentional.”

“On a few occasions, I have misspoken about my service, and I regret that,” Blumenthal said. “But I will not allow anyone to take a few missplaced words and impugn my record of service to my country. I served in the United States Marine Corps Reserves, and I am proud of it.”

Regarding a statement from his campaign that The New York Times story was a distortion, he said, “The article denigrates service in the reserves. … It really implies there were some special favors or treatment involved.”

He mentioned several times that, despite his Ivy League background at Harvard College and high-profile positions at a young age, he did not receive any special treatment in the military.

• Susan Campbell: AG Blumenthal Explains

Blumenthal, the front runner for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate, declined to comment about the role of Republican Linda McMahon’s campaign in providing information to the New York Times.

“I’m not going to say anything more,” Blumenthal said of the McMahon campaign.

In an uncharacteristic move, Blumenthal eventually cut off questioning from reporters and ended the news conference shortly before 2:40 p.m.

Regarding his military history, Blumenthal spoke in detail about how he came to serve.

“I volunteered to join the United States Marine Corps Reserves 40 years ago,” he said in his opening remarks at the news conference. “I went to boot camp at Parris Island.”

“I looked them up in a phonebook. No special help,” Blumenthal said. “Unlike many of my peers, I chose to join the military and serve my country. … There were no special favors.

• Pictures: Richard Blumenthal Under Fire For Public Statements About Military Service

As he has said many times in the past at veterans’ ceremonies at the state Capitol and around Connecticut, Blumenthal noted Tuesday that he reached the rank of sergeant before receiving an honorable discharge.

“I am proud of my service in the United States Marine Corps,” he said. “I am prouder still that my oldest son, Matthew, is serving in the United States Marine Corps Reserve.”

• Blumenthal’s Claims About Having Served In Vietnam Being Challenged
• What was the McMahon campaign’s role in the Blumenthal bombshell?
• Rob Simmons: Dick Blumenthal Owes An Apology To Vietnam Veterans; Says Linda McMahon Lied, Too

As one of the best-known politicians in Connecticut and a national figure as an attorney general with 20 years of service, Blumenthal has been the subject of feature articles for years.

“I can’t be responsible for all the mistakes in all the articles – thousands of them,” Blumenthal said of stories that have been written about him through the years.

Blumenthal was introduced by Peter Galgano, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who said that the allegations were “malicious” against Blumenthal. 

“Every Marine Corps ball I’ve attended since 2004,” Blumenthal was there, Galgano said.  “Marine Corps balls, funerals, homecomings, send-offs. … Through the hardest times, Dick Blumenthal has always, always been there for us. … He has always been completely straightforward about his honorable service in the Marine Corps Reserves.”

The incident in Norwalk in 2008 was “one quote where he misspoke,” Galgano said. “I could see where that quote could have been misread.”

During Galgano’s introduction, a veteran shouted, “Semper Fi!”

“He has always stood by us, and we are proud to stand by him,” Galgano said.

Jean Risley, chairperson of the Connecticut Vietnam Veterans Memorial who brought the Vietnam Wall to Coventry, said, “I’ve known Dick Blumenthal for many, many years. … We’ve gone to homecomings. We’ve gone to send-offs. … We’ve been at funerals. … In all that time, I never once heard him say that he was in Vietnam. I did hear him say how passionately he felt about our veterans and how we had to honor them.”

“There isn’t a nicer, more honorable, more responsive advocate for our Vietnam veterans, our veterans in general, than Dick Blumenthal,” Risley said. 

Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Videos, Ford

We know firsthand that both the 2011 Ford Mustang V6 and GT aren’t just plenty quick – they’re downright scary fast compared to their predecessors. It should follow, that the king of the heap 2011 GT500 should be similarly faster than the 2010 model. Let’s just go ahead and call that one an understatement. Ford just dropped a tasty video on the interwebs showing the car lapping one of our favorite tracks – Virginia International Speedway.

Ford’s engineers had it in their minds that the new aluminum block with its 120-pound weight savings should help the car click off the 4.1-mile Grand West portion of the track about three seconds quicker than the outgoing car. Thing is, the 2011 GT500 managed to lap the track in 2:58.5 – a full nine seconds faster than last year’s version.

Progress is most definitely a good thing. Hit the jump to see the car do the dance.

[Source: Ford]

Continue reading Video: 2011 Ford GT500 spanks last year’s model by nine seconds at VIR

Video: 2011 Ford GT500 spanks last year’s model by nine seconds at VIR originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 18 May 2010 13:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Even without a deficit crisis, France is running out of money to pay for its generous social programs.

95% of French anesthestists are striking today to demand a raise. Several thousands held a particularly annoying protest on the tracks of a major Parisian train station, which blocked trains for hours, according to Le Monde.

As the austerity bug hits France, paying for the world’s best health care system will be a major challenge. The country has tried for decades to reduce health care pay and benefits, and only succeeded in stirring up public outrage.

See Also: Guess Who’s Going To Get Pounded In A Greek Collapse

Join the conversation about this story »

Yep. If you’re an American Express cardholder, and you’ve had your sights on brand spanking new Ford Fusion Hybrid (and who wouldn’t?), this Thursday, May 20, 2010, could be your day to shine.

American Express’ “Daily Wish” website will be offering the car for half price at an as yet unannounced time on a first-come, first-serve basis.

(more…)