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While a Wyoming coal plant and one Chevron refinery are the largest pollution sources for California, the three industries that together account for 40% of California’s GHG emissions include electric utilities, oil refineries and cement manufacturers – so these are the three industries most impacted by California’s climate legislation, AB32, which will begin next year.

California is the largest cement-producing state in the U.S., accounting for between 10% and 15% of U.S. cement production and cement industry employment with about 2,000 workers between 31 cement facilities.

The fossil energy that it takes to heat the cement mix up to 2,642 degrees Fahrenheit is why cement production has such high carbon dioxide emissions. (more…)

They’re called Confucius Classrooms, named after an ancient Chinese philosopher and they are becoming more and more popular throughout the United States.  They are classes, paid for in part by China and designed to teach U.S. school kids Chinese language and culture.  Proponents say it’s one extra tool students can use to be competitive in the global environment, but critics say it’s nothing more than a subtle attempt by the Chinese government to spread pro-China propaganda.

Confucius classrooms have been around for the past few years and there are currently 60 of them from New York to Oregon.  Each is administered through a network of organizations and universities that have deals with the Hanban, China’s official language teaching agency.  Chinese officials insist the programs have nothing to do with communism and the curriculum was created to help clear up misunderstandings about China.  Some parents are not so sure.

In Hacienda Heights, California, just east of Los Angeles, the notion of a Confucius Classroom was highly controversial and caused an uproar in the community.  Many parents and longtime community members spoke out against the program suggesting that their kids would be exposed to a communist agenda.  However, in the end some issues were resolved and the school board voted to put the classes in place to begin this fall.

At Riverview Elementary, in Lakeside, California, just outside of San Diego, third graders are learning Mandarin at a rapid pace.  The principal there, Olympia Kyriakidis insists this is a major asset for her students.  She says in addition to Spanish and multi-media classes, her kids are going to be at the top of their game and ready to compete in the global market.   As for concerns that there might be some hidden message being taught in the classes, Kyriakidis says she and her staff personally review all the materials by hand and have yet to find anything off color.  She says it’s all about language and culture, no politics.

The principal also points to a large American flag hanging in the corner of the room, and says no matter what it’s America First…. each class starts with the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States.

From Green Right Now Reports

A worker installs solar panels at American University's School of International Service. Photo: Jeff Watts

American University plans to become a carbon-neutral campus, and the Washington D.C.-based institution is even willing to set an ambitious deadline: 2020.

“We have used the geographical limitations of our urban 84-acre campus in the nation’s capital to our advantage to more aggressively pursue renewable energy and carbon offsets,” said Chris O’Brien, director of sustainability. “Of the few plans that call for earlier carbon neutral dates, American University’s size, location, and academic focus make our active pursuit of sustainability distinctive.”

To meet its goals, AU will employ four strategies: reduce consumption, produce renewable energy, buy green power and buy and develop carbon offsets.

American, Northern Arizona State University, Antioch University, and the University of Montana are the only doctorate-granting universities with 2020 carbon neutrality dates. The announcement comes two years after President Neil Kerwin signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), pledging that AU would work to achieve carbon neutrality.

Of the 685 signers, 200 have submitted plans thus far. Many call for carbon neutrality by 2025, 2040, or 2050.

A recent purchase of wind-generated renewable energy credits equivalent to 100 percent of the university’s annual electricity usage has already helped the university progress more than halfway toward its carbon-neutrality goal. The campus also features a new Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold-designed building for the School of International Service, and the university is participating in a pilot program with the U.S. Green Building Council to develop a streamlined approach to green building certification for campuses.

Currently, a team is working to certify 30 AU buildings to LEED standards.

American University’s student population is around 11,000, counting undergraduates and graduates.

Emma Caulfield, former star of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has filed for divorce from husband Cornelius Grobbelaar after three years of marriage, The Associated Press reports.

Grobbelaar and Caulfield — who wed on Aug. 23, 2006 — separated on May 7. Caulfield, 37, cites irreconcilable differences for the split in documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court last Thursday.

Caulfield is best remembered for playing the demonic Anya on The CW’s cult series, which ran for seven seasons before being cancelled in 2003.

Adam Wheeler, a 23 year old man from Delaware made his way to Harvard University by showing fake grants and scholarships. He was admitted to the school in 2007 after he claimed he had perfect record in Andover and he had also claimed that he studied in for a yea in Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A professor noticed the similarity between Wheeler’s writing and that of a colleague while reviewing his application. University started to check Wheeler’s background after he took the school’s endorsement for scholarships. Wheeler has been charged against 20 offenses including identity fraud and he was arrested on Monday by authorities of Massachusetts.

Wheeler also said he was employed by McLean Hospital which is affiliated with Harvard, but in fact he was not employed by any such hospitals. According to the reports before Harvard, Wheeler used to be a student of Bowdoin College in Maine, but he got suspended for dishonesty, the authorities said.

This is a serious crime and he should be punished for that, Harvard is a well known university and not only Harvard, but any other college or University do not deserve such a student who faked everything from the beginning.

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Did they or didn’t they?

I was told that the McMahon campaign worked closely with the New York Times on the Blumenthal story — providing military records, information on the deferments and, most damningly, that video from the Norwalk event.

And, last night, the campaign wasn’t shy about saying so. Staffers tweeted on the topic and posted Kevin Rennie’s blog entry about it on the campaign website. Just before 11 p.m. last night, they sent out a press release with Rennie’s blog post — in case you missed it.

Now, however, the website has been scrubbed and the campaign appears to be backing off its claim of credit.

A New York Times spokeswoman tells Politico that the story was the product of “extensive independent reporting.” 

 If the McMahon campaign provided the video and other help, should the story have said so? Is this inside baseball or are there larger principles at play?

And one more question: Did the McMahon campaign undercut the story by giving the Dems an out?

That’s the tack Democratic chair Nancy DiNardo is taking. “Linda McMahon’s malicious, deceptive attack on Dick Blumenthal’s record of service is the lowest kind of political smear,” DiNardo said in a statement. “Her campaign admits they are the ones who cherry-picked the quotes and are behind the hit piece.”

Erin Kutz wrote:

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino announced today that venture capital firm Spencer Trask will sponsor a startup competition starting in July, and award $25,000 for the winning company to work in the “Innovation District” that the city is developing, the Boston Globe reported. Menino made the announcement alongside plans to develop 1,000 acres in the city’s seaport and Marine Industrial Park area, and said that the venture firm will award another $25,000 next year to fuel growth in a startup working in the area. The Innovation District will also be home to state startup competition MassChallenge, which launched in April.

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As expected, the ramifications of Google’s admission of collecting personal data with its Street View cars are beginning to unfold. The company has already started destroying the data at the request and with the cooperation of regulators, but is facing increased scrutiny and, it has to be said, rhetoric, especially in Germany, a country where … (read more)

Sure, the ghost special effects somehow have gotten worse in the last 20 years, but it’s pretty much impossible to not be charmed by the Ghostbusters returning to the New York Public Library. [Improv Everywhere] More »

[JURIST] Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) [official website] Antonio Maria Costa on Monday opened a UN conference on international crime prevention by warning of the inadequacies of the current international crime control system. Costa indicated that organized crime is gaining economic strength [press release] and that countries must find ways to disrupt the international criminal market. In particular, Costa warned about the inadequacies of dealing with new threats against the environment, identity theft, and Internet crimes as well as the traditional threats of piracy, kidnapping, and slavery. Members of the conference were also urged to utilize the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime [materials] protocol adopted in 2000 as an important mechanism in crime prevention.

Costa’s statements come two months after the EU released a report [JURIST report] detailing organized crime in Bulgaria and Romania and the steps the countries must take to gain full rights under the EU. That assessment echoed statements made in previous progress reports [materials; JURIST report]. In January 2007, Bulgaria and Romania officially joined the EU [JURIST report] following six years of accession negotiations. Both countries have been required to comply with a series of benchmarks; failing to do so could result in EU intervention and the potential loss of economic aid under Articles 36-38 of the Act of Accession [text], which lays out safeguard mechanisms [EC backgrounder] in the event of problems posing a threat to the functioning of the EU.

[JURIST] DC-based consumer advocacy organization Food and Water Watch (FWW) [advocacy website] filed suit [complaint, PDF] in a US district court Monday against the US Department of Interior (DOI) and the Minerals Management Service (MMS) [official websites] for an injunction to halt drilling at the BP Atlantis Facility [corporate website] in the Gulf of Mexico. FWW joined suit with Kenneth Abbott, a former safety contract engineer for BP, claiming that DOI and MMS allowed BP to operate the Atlantis Facility without documented, approved final engineering drawings considered critical to safe operation. FWW and Abbot hold that although federal law requires 100 percent engineer approved “as built” drawings for most platform systems, less then 10 percent of BP’s Atlantis Facility drawings had met these specifications. The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas [official website], lists several attempts by both FWW and Abbott to address this safety issues with the DOI and MMS, but no action was taken by either government organization to compel BP to produce the requisite drawings.

The gravity of BP’s conduct has and will continue to have long lasting effect on the environment and public health, and DOI and MMS’s failure to enforce its regulations against BP has only accelerated the time to another BP catastrophe. Accordingly, it is necessary that DOI and MMS be enjoined to temporarily prohibit production at the BP Atlantis Facility in order to protect and prevent further catastrophic destruction, and to further ensure the its regulations are enforced. … [U]nless relief is granted by this Court, a catastrophe is certain to occur at the [facility], which will undoubtedly cause unprecedented, irreparable damages to the environment in and surround the Gulf of Mexico and the general public health.

BP has repeatedly claimed that it has worked with the DOI and MMS to meet the specifications required for the Atlantis Facility, but the allegations against them raise more doubts on how well federal regulators, especially MMS, have been inspecting BP facilities in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion [BBC backgrounder] last month. In response, the Obama administration asked DOI Secretary Kenneth Salazar [official profile] to conduct a “top-to-bottom” reform of the MMS [speech text] and ordered immediate inspections of all deep water operations in the Gulf. Salazar and other federal officials will be questioned on Tuesday by Senate committees on the efficacy of actions taken to prevent the April oil spill.

On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano [official profile] defended [testimony] the federal government’s “all-hands-on-deck” response to the oil spill before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs [official website], stating that the government lacked the resources and expertise to deal with a spill of this magnitude, and must therefore depend on the response of BP to resolve the subsea oil spill. President Barack Obama has announced that he is forming a presidential commission [AP report] to investigate the cause of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, and will be similar to the ones that investigated the Challenger explosion and the nuclear disaster on Three Mile Island. Also on Monday, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works [official website] asked US Attorney General Eric Holder to open an investigation [press release] into potential violations of civil and criminal laws related to the BP oil spill. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was a result of an oil well blowout that the caused an explosion 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf. Eleven platform workers are missing and presumed dead, and 17 others were injured. The amount of oil spilled into the Gulf is part of an ongoing debate [NPR report] and has ranged from 5,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The resulting oil slick has covered at least 2,500 square miles. The White House is keeping a daily chronology of events [text].

Filed under: Truck, Work, Chevrolet, GM, GMC

General Motors has just announced the hauling capacities for the 2011 Chevrolet Silverado HD and GMC Sierra HD pickups. The new trucks can now pull up to 21,700 pounds in fifth-wheel configuration and lug around 6,635 pounds worth of payload, thereby making them the new best-in class champions. The traditional tow rating sits at 17,000 pounds. What did GM change to give the trucks their new credentials? The company says that it extensively tested the trucks’ systems, including the engine, transmission and brakes at the new gross combined vehicle weight and found that the thing could handle the abuse.

Both the Silverado HD and the Sierra HD now come with tougher bed rails, though. GM specified a new high-strength steel that can take more of a beating compared to last year’s pieces. The new tow ratings best the next closest competitor, the 2011 Ford F-350, by 1,000 pounds on the conventional towing front and a more modest 100 pounds under fifth-wheel conditions.

How did we ever live in a world where pickup trucks couldn’t tow three Bentley Continental GT coupes and a gooseneck car trailer? Hit the jump for the press release.

[Source: GM]

Continue reading GM announces best-in-class towing, payload figures for heavy-duty Silverado, Sierra

GM announces best-in-class towing, payload figures for heavy-duty Silverado, Sierra originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 18 May 2010 11:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Latest news tell us that Indrani also known as Pal Chaudhuri is dating with Lindsay Lohan and recently was believed to have spent some time at Lohan’s hotel.

Many think that Lindsay Lohan now has a lesbian lover. Indrani is a reality show star and currently the photographer of Lohan. Indrani, 36 years old respectively is twice as old as 23 year old Lindsay. Rumors are going around that they frequently date each other. They first met at a photo shoot last fall where most probably some spark occured between the two of them. Dating particularly in Los Angeles and spending nights together at Lohan’s hotel.

Indrani told The Post, “We have been spending a lot of time together. I have never had a relationship with a woman before, but Lindsay is just somebody who I find fascinating, gorgeous and extremely smart, as well as super-hot.

“Lindsay gets a lot of bad press, but she’s a really strong, creative woman and is trying really hard to get her life in a good, positive place.”

“When they are together, they talk about art and the deeper meaning in life.”

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My newest column for Discover is about that strangest of the senses, smell. An odor can be an overwhelming experience, and yet it’s often impossible to put that experience into words. In fact, we’re terrible at naming smells, despite being exquisitely sensitive to the differences between them. I take a look at some recent research that may bring us closer to resolving this paradox, with the invention of the first yardstick for the nose–a simple measurement of odor molecules that reveals a lot about how pleasant or vile we find them. Not only might it help us understand our own noses, but it may even let us build electronic noses to sniff for things we don’t want to stick our own noses in. Check it out.

ESPN (NYSE: DIS), which has already notched more than six million downloads for its free ScoreCenter app, continues to expand its digital presence on devices with six new mobile apps announced at today’s upfront. Five are actually localized versions of the same one, a free ESPN Local app that will launch first for ESPNDallas.com with Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York to follow. The move also extends ESPN’s competition with local news orgs now getting into apps.

The most interesting one, though, may well be ESPN Passport, a geo-location app scheduled to launch in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup and designed around the game experience. ESPN says users will be able to check in at games and create a mobile “scrapbook” through pictures and messages shared on various social platforms. ESPN will aggregate the check ins for user-gen coverage of events on ESPN.com, so if you download this app don’t try any sick-day sneaks.

The local apps will include local and national news; GOS-activated weather details; blog posts/tweets from local contributors; stadium guides; local SportsCenter video/audio; texting to ESPN radio. Nothing so far about personalization. A number of ad opps, including dynamic insertion in news stories, and in-app purchasing potential. ESPN says the local sites in Chicago, Boston, Dallas and LA are drawing more than 3.4 million users a month. ESPNNewYork.com just launched last month. More details in the release.

—New social game: With licensing deals for a variety of console games, ESPN is no stranger to gaming. Now the network is getting into social gaming through a two-year deal with social gaming company Playdom. Starting this fall, ESPNM and Playdom plan to be on Facebook. MySpace (NYSE: NWS), Bebo (if there is a Bebo), and other social media sites, as well as their own ESPN.com and Playdom.com. Mobile “extensions” are also planned. First up, a Farmville-like ESPNUville, according to SBJ. (ESPN PR says the ESPNUville isn’t a formal name, but was used to provide a comparison.) Release.

As outspoken as she is gorgeous, Megan Fox has some stern advice for frumpy folk thinking of emulating the look of old Hollywood glamour by going under the knife: “See a shrink!”

“I would encourage anyone to first speak with a therapist, to try and figure out where this want comes from, because a lot of times it’s not related to your teeth or your nose or your chin, the surgery is not going to alleviate that insecurity for you,” Megan tells Allure Magazine in its June issue — on newsstands May 25. “If, then, you feel, ‘This is something that I want to do,’ then do it. It’s amazing that we have the technology to do the stuff that we do.”

The 24-year-old Transformers stunner goes on to tell Allure that she has no qualms about strangling the uidentified photog who snapped a topless photo of her on the set of the upcoming flick Passion Play.

Megan On Nude Photo Leak: “If I knew who took this picture, I would personally cause them harm – physical harm. I’m not a fucking reality TV star that’s courting the paparazzi and wants my fucking picture taken all the time. I’m at my job and I’m trying to play a character and I’m trying to be serious, and this is the shit that’s happening to me. It makes me furious.”

Why Megan Hates To Cook: “I’ll starve to death before I’ll cook for myself. I think I could survive a week without eating. I’ll eat the same thing every day for two months and then never eat it again. I did that with Life cereal. I ate it every day for so long that the thought of it makes me upset,” she told the mag. “The only person I enjoy cooking for is my boyfriend’s son. I like arranging it on his little plate…. I like cooking for kids, for some reason.”

How Megan De-Stresses: “Just being able to be at home, and light my candles and my incense, and just be isolated and shut everyone out except the people that I’m close to and be in a family environment and have some semblance of a normal life.”

Just a reminder, everybody, that we’ll be liveblogging the keynotes Wednesday and Thursday from Google IO in San Francisco. Be sure to check back in if you want the latest in Android news, as it happens.

At a public briefing to discuss the reports, Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, will deliver opening remarks, and members of the panels that wrote the reports will discuss their recommendations and take questions. The briefing starts at 10 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 19, in the Lecture Room of the National Academy of Sciences building at 2100 C Street, NW, Washington, DC. Those unable to attend the event can watch the live webcast at The National Academies website.

The National Academy is releasing reports tomorrow from three panels on “America’s Climate Choices“:

1. Panel on Advancing the Science of Climate Change.  This panel will address the question: “What can be done to better understand climate change and its interactions with human and ecological systems?”
2. Panel on Limiting the Magnitude of Future Climate Change
3. Panel on Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change

NAS panels tend to be quite conservative in their articulation of the science, but the reports are timely so it will be interesting to see just how much or how little coverage they get from the media.

Inkia isn’t a new player in the tablet game and so the inPad 701 and inPad 702 might be solid contenders. Details are a bit light but we know that both run Android on a 7-inch screen with the 702 model getting a 3G module. It’s probably safe to assume that the target market is Asia but retails such as Dynamism has a long history of bringing similar products to the states. That is of course if they are worth our time and not garbage.

Felix Salmon on why people invest in stocks:

My feeling is that people like to invest in stocks because they like knowing that there’s a chance that the stock market will solve all their financial problems when it rises. Think of it as a three-pronged strategy: buy a house, invest in stocks, and work hard. Any one of these three things can pay off with lots of money at retirement, in the way that investing in TIPS won’t.

What’s more, an entire generation of Americans started working and saving and buying a house in the early 1970s — and millions of them hit the trifecta, becoming successful in their careers even as their stocks rose and the value of their real-estate soared. I doubt that particular combination is going to happen again in the U.S., but the experience of that generation is so powerful as to give a lot of people a lot of hope. Even if that hope isn’t particularly rational.

If you’re saving a little bit in the expectation that your 401(k) will boom, your house will appreciate, and Social Security will support you, you may well end up in big trouble.  Modern retirement planning should probably focus more on putting away an unreasonably large chunk of your income.