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At Walmart, the party never stops. Ever.

Stephen Wilkes – Time-Lapse: A Day at A Walmart Store from BERNSTEIN & ANDRIULLI on Vimeo.

[via BuzzFeed]

Tito Ortiz and Jenna Jameson have patched things up and are both singing a different tune about the violent Monday morning encounter that has the professional fighter facing felony domestic charges for throwing the ex-sex worker into a bathtub.

On Thursday, Jameson withdrew her abuse allegations against Ortiz.

“What actually happened has now been dramatically distorted and misinterpreted and remarks that both Tito and I made after the police arrived reflect the state of shock that we were both in,” Jenna tells TMZ.com.

This statement comes just hours after the porn queen claimed a clean drug test debunked her boyfriend’s claim that an altercation between them was an intervention, not an assault. On Monday, a tearful Tito charged that Jenna has been addicted to OxyContin since giving birth to the couple’s twins last year. He’s now claiming that he found two “very old” pills in Jenna’s pants pockets and he jumped to conclusions about her using, resulting in an argument.

Tito’s lawyer, Chip Matthews, tells TMZ the whole thing was “a big misunderstanding.”

I blogged yesterday about the disaster in Greece, and its rapid spread to other European countries.  Today the fish-eye is turning on countries outside of the PIIGS, including Japan, Britain . . . and us.  According to the Financial Times, “The Fund has calculated that almost all advanced economies need to tighten fiscal policy significantly in the coming decade in order to stabilise debt at 60 per cent of national income by 2030 and the tightening needed in the US, Japan and the UK is just as bad as that required in Greece, Spain, Ireland and Portugal.”

So perhaps naturally, I’ve been thinking more about the parallels to the Great Depression that I talked about yesterday.  Arguably, the Great Depression was the first global financial crisis, infecting the developed world along with the developing.  So it’s interesting–and frightening–to observe the similarities between that crisis and this one.

• Excessive international capital flows trigger an initial financial crisis  For a number of reasons, there was a whole lot of gold flowing into New York from abroad in the 1920s.  That money turned into, among other things, margin loans and credit to fuel the Florida real estate boom.  (Yes, there was a previous iteration of the current disaster).  All that leverage eventually collapsed, turning a busted bubble into an international disaster.
• A second panic emerges more than a year after the initial trigger.  By late 1930, people believed they had turned the corner.  Things were bad, of course, but people had lived through panics before, and after the initial shock, they expected to start rebuilding.
• Fiscal crises on the periphery turn into banking crises  Creditanstalt, the Austrian bank that ultimately is thought to have triggered our second bank panic when it failed, went down after acquiring a failed bank whose liabilities turned out to be more than Creditanstalt could handle.  But this wasn’t just a banking problem–it was a fiscal problem.  Austria had a mix of fiscal problems, many of them stemming from the credit contraction, and could not afford, politically or financially, to bail out a major bank.
• Excessively tight monetary policy plays a central role  There is a direct correlation between how long a country stayed on its gold standard, and how deeply it suffered during the Great Depression.   Defending your currency meant high interest rates that crushed recovery.
• Bad monetary policy has international effects  In the thirties, the mechanism was international gold flows; now, it is the euro.

I’m not sure how much to make of this.  If you look hard enough, you can always find similarities in situations.  But they are striking enough to make me wonder if they aren’t part of some broad template for international banking crises.  Not that I’m exactly the first person to suggest this, but the mess in Greece, and the resulting contagion, makes it seem more plausible.

Join the conversation about this story »

The last major section from the EPA’s new Climate Change Indicators in the US report is society and ecosystems. Below are key summary points.

Clear changes in growing seasons, bird migration leaf growth and blooming dates have occurred and the trends suggest that they will continue. Heat-related deaths show much more variability, despite clear heating trends, but that could be due to a variety of factors beyond climate change that have an influence on this topic.

(more…)

Posted by Monique Garcia at 1:22 p.m.

As lawmakers in Springfield prepare to vote on a proposal to change the way state House and Senate districts are drawn, Gov. Pat Quinn today said he’s not a fan of the plan his fellow Democrats drafted.



The governor said that he doesn’t see the proposed changes "as moving the ball forward all that much" and worries districts will be crafted to protect sitting lawmakers instead of reflecting a particular geographic area.



"It’s awfully complicated," Quinn said. "I’m not sure if it’s a reform or not, to be honest."

The proposal, which already passed the Senate, would place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot asking voters to approve a process that would give lawmakers a stronger hand in drawing legislative boundaries. The House could vote on the idea as soon as this afternoon, though Democrats would need at least one Republican vote to reach the three-fifths margin needed for approval.



"I just think the best way to have redistricting is to set up competitive districts that are not gerrymandered to make sure the people have the best representatives," said Quinn after a groundbreaking ceremony in Glenview for a
pharmaceutical company building its headquarters there with $4 million in tax credits. "Too often this is an exercise of protecting incumbents of both parties. I don’t think that’s healthy."



While Quinn isn’t backing the proposed changes, his opposition is unlikely to derail the proposal as it’s a question that goes directly to voters and does not require his approval. Still, Quinn said if he’s elected in November he will work to bring about comprehensive changes.

"I’ve always felt that redistricting has been way too political in our state, by both parties. So if I’m governor I’m going to try and be the person who makes sure we do it right for the people and not for the politicians."

Republicans joined by government reform groups have an alternative redistricting plan, but Democrats defeated it this week. The Democratic criticism is that the Republican plan takes the map-drawing process out of the hands of lawmakers who will be impacted by it.

Consumerist reader Rachel was recently trying to book a train trip from Washington, D.C., to Newark, NJ, on Amtrak’s website and ran across a bit of a snag — When she attempted to claim the Student Advantage discount, her ticket was suddenly $13.90 more expensive.

Here’s how Rachel tells it:

Tonight I went online to buy an Amtrak ticket for next month (5/22) on the usually expensive Northeast Corridor Line though I lucked out and was able to find a $49 ticket. Coupled with my Student Advantage Discount, I was pretty pleased that for once I wouldn’t be paying a ridiculous sum to ride the rails. However, when I put in my information for the discount, the price of the ticket jumped to $62.90.

Does Amtrak have some sort of policy against using discounts on fares lower than $50? It seems pretty ridiculous to be unable to take advantage of your discount at all times (excepting the policy that tickets must be bought no later than 3 days in advance), but hey, that’s me.

We were able to replicate Rachel’s situation and got the exact same results. And when we tried one of the higher-price fares listed for that day, the Student Advantage discount was actually a discount.

Looking at the Amtrak page that details the Student Advantage program, there doesn’t appear to be anything in the listed limitations regarding a threshold at which the discount no longer applies.

Our best guess is that, aside from a computer glitch, Amtrak considers the $49 fare as an already-discounted rate, but then Rachel should have gotten a message that she could not combine the discounts instead of a higher price.

Below are screenshots of the fare with and without the Student Advantage “discount.”

Even though Mega Man Zero Collection has been delayed in Japan, the same doesn’t hold true for North America. Capcom has announced that the game is on course for a June 8 North American release.

HP’s Chief Strategy Officer / Chief Technology Officer, Shane Robison, sat down with CNN to chat about HP’s plans with the new Palm acquisition.

It’s clear that HP intends a "change in [their] business model," and will be going all-in with webOS, which Robison calls "a modern, very capable operating system." In the beginning, at least, HP has no intentions on licensing webOS to other manufacturers.

More interestingly, Robison didn’t rebuff a question that HP would be dumping Android entirely – pointing to the fact that with Palm there’s a "tightly integrated approach" between software and hardware. They’ll be "sorting out" their strategy for Windows Phone 7 over the coming months, but they’re "very, very serious partners with Microsoft," so it doesn’t look likely that HP will be dropping off the list of launch partners for the OS.

HP is also "anxious" to keep all the key employees at Palm – a sentiment we’re fully behind. Read the entire interview here.

Chrysler Group LLC, which has been criticized on keeping its new product plans under the wraps, has repeatedly said that the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee flagship SUV will set the bar for other new products that will come out later this year. In the mean time Chrysler is concentrating on generating revenue to fund the new vehicles to come.

As for the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee, Chrysler and Fiat CEO says that the model “must be flawless. It needs to be perfect and it will be.”

“It is important for us because it is a large volume vehicle and the first one for the new Chrysler,” said Jeep chief Mike Manley.

The new Grand Cherokee will also be the first vehicle with Fiat input. The model will be produced at Detroit’s Jefferson North plant using Fiat’s manufacturing system and will offer the first evidence of quality improvement for Chrysler.

“It is a signature car for Chrysler,” Marchionne said. “It will have quality that is unprecedented in the history of the place.”

Click here for more news on the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Refresher: The 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee will be offered with two new powertrains including Chrysler’s new flexible fuel 280-hp Phoenix 3.6L V6 which increases fuel-economy by up to 11 percent. The range will be topped off with a 5.7L HEMI V8 making 360-hp and a maximum torque of 390 lb-ft.

2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee:

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Detroit News

Let’s take a quick look at the new Skyfire 2.0 browser for Android, shall we? Full page rendering? Check. Flash video? Check. Bells and whistles? Check and check. Our quick verdict: So long as you’re not worried about any privacy concerns regarding proxy browsers, this could easily become your main browser.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Skyfire, the third party mobile browser famous for its ability to handle nearly every major browser plug-in and web technology has finally arrived in the Android Market today.

At the beginning of April, the browser was released in a very limited alpha program which received overwhelming interest from users. The Skyfire team said it had to stop taking email requests for the software almost immediately because of the sheer volume of messages. Well, those masses now have something they can sink their teeth into.

Skyfire 2.0 has an actionable address bar across the top of the browser with buttons for favorites, bookmarks (both of which are imported from the default Android browser), browser tabs, options, and the interesting “load pages as” button, which lets you select “Android, Desktop, or iPhone.”

Across the bottom of the screen is where the hideable “SkyBar” resides.
Down there, is a link for compressing and playing Flash videos, an “explore” tab which can call up related information about your current page (videos, tweets, pictures, news stories, etc.) or lets you search, and a social sharing tab which links to all your social media and media sharing apps.

Skyfire can handle up to eight browser tabs at a time, and devices running Android 2.0 and up are treated to pinch-to-zoom functionality. In the browser’s settings menu, the toolbars, screen settings, browser startup behavior, and privacy functions can be tweaked.

The browser’s banner feature is, of course, its ability to play Web media that most mobile browsers cannot.

Skyfire’s Jeff Glueck today said, “You may hear Skyfire described as ‘making Flash run’ on mobile phones. Yet with Skyfire 2.0, we’re actually doing something distinct. We’re translating Flash videos (and soon others like Silverlight and WindowsMedia and Quicktime) into a format easier on your phone: html5 video. And beyond video, we believe that mobile has been missing features popular on desktop browsers, in toolbars, add-ons, and extensions. Before, these might have strained the device and network, but by using the power of a cloud platform, we can enable new features and do the hard processing work on our side.”

Glueck actually repeated the sentiment expressed by Steve Jobs in his dismissal of mobile Flash this morning, saying “This browser will not enable Flash games or applications, because we think there’s a quite healthy ecosystem of native games and applications on mobile, and the response times for a game that users expect don’t work well with the latency of cellular networks.”

“But video is all about the latest content, and that means streaming,” Glueck continued. “And the big problem has been two-fold: How do you make videos play that today error out, but also do that without straining the overtaxed 2G and 3G networks? This is Skyfire’s wheelhouse. We compress video by an average of 70%, varying and adapting the stream to your network conditions. That means video that starts faster, plays smoothly without all that buffering, and more efficient use of the network and your battery.”

While video is the focus of Skyfire, it was a shame to find out in our tests this morning that Hulu does not work.

Even so, Skyfire is very fast, and immediately integrated into your Android environment (all settings are carried over, and when you click links embedded in messages, Android now presents you with the option to launch it in the default browser or in Skyfire, something none of the other third party browsers do.)

With four or more browsers that aren’t available on the iPhone (including Fennec, Mozilla’s mobile browser) and a reported 46% share of mobile Web consumption, Android is proving to be the choice for both consumers and developers interested in browsing.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

Let’s do some back-of-the-envelope math

• There was just a huge mining disaster in West Virginia.
• Today there was another (much smaller) mining disaster in Kentucky.
• In the Gulf there’s an oil spill that some are calling the next Exxon-Valdez.

Add it all up: We’re going to get the big T. Boone Pickens endorsed “Climate” bill, which has nothing to do with climate, and everything to do with subsidizing natural gas.

It’s status in the Senate has been in limbo, but now we think it’s a done deal.

Disagree? Not convinced?

Well consider that natural gas is getting absolutely bludgeoned today — down over 8% — and yet many names leveraged to natural gas are doing great.

A few of the companies that would benefit from the passage of the bill are doing nicely.

• T. Boone’s own Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (CLNE) is up .75%.
• Westport Innovations (WPRT), which would be involved in natural gas engines, is up over 4%.
• Cummins (CMI) which is a partner of Westport is up nearly 3%.

The oil services companies and folks like BP (BP) are getting slammed today, and natural gas (UNG) is a horror show, but those companies that stand to benefit from a big taxpayer gift are doing quite fine. That’s why T. Boone Pickens is smiling.

Don’t miss: Why natural gas investors perpetually miss their big payoff >

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• The Taxpayer’s Big Gift To T. Boone Pickens Has A "Real Chance" Of Coming By May
• MAP OF THE DAY: BP’s $12 Billion Nightmare
• Wait, Is American Offshore Drilling About To Go Bye-Bye?

Now that you’ve got your shiny new Verizon HTC Droid Incredible, it’s time to start stocking up on accessories. And we’ve got you covered in the Android Central Store.

Just mosey on over to the phone selector on the left-hand side and choose the Droid Incredible. Cases, chargers, Bluetooth headsets, storage cards — we’ve got ’em all in the Android Central Store. (Sponsored post)

While we’re not sure (and we don’t think Daimler is either) whether or not Maybach will stick around, Mercedes-Benz’s luxury brand did unveil a new facelift at the 2010 Beijing Motor Show last week.

The much needed facelift comes as Maybach desperately needs to boost sales. According to Autodata, Maybach sold only seven cars in the U.S. last month, down from 15 units the same month a year ago.

But what is Maybach doing to attract new customers? Offering things like 19-inch video screen, an overview camera for rear passengers and on board WI-FI.

However, one feature that really sticks out is a built-in perfume spritzer. So if you want your car to smell like roses every time you step in – you can get it. Maybach says that the perfume smell is of “an extremely high-quality flacon perfume atomizer available on request.”

2011 Maybach 57/62:

– By: Kap Shah

Source: DriveOn

One of the two miners reported missing following last night’s deep-mine collapse in Western Kentucky was killed in the accident, according to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The Senate Minority Leader made the announcement on the chamber floor this afternoon.

“Many Kentuckians awoke this morning to the sad news that one miner was killed and another is missing after a ceiling collapse in an underground coal mine in Webster County, which is in the western part of Kentucky,” McConnell said. “Right now, it is my understanding that MSHA officials are on the site, and rescue teams are working to locate the missing miner. For now, we can only hope that their efforts are successful. I ask my colleagues and the American people to keep the miners, their families, and the rescue workers in their prayers.”

If there is one automaker that has been keeping busy in order to revamp its whole lineup, it has to be Hyundai. After the Genesis, Genesis Coupe, Sonata and the new Accent – Hyundai today unveiled the new Elantra at the 2010 Busan Motor Show in Korea.

“The new Avante encompasses Hyundai’s latest ambitions, featuring the best styling and performance in its class,” Steve S. Yang, President & CEO of Hyundai’s Global Business Division, said at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center (BEXCO) today. “We’re confident that it will once again redefine the compact segment worldwide.”

Besides a sleek new look (courtesy of Audi’s ex head of design), the new 2011 Elantra will get Hyundai’s new 1.6L Gamma GDI engine that makes 160-hp and features fuel-saving technologies like Dual Continuously Variable Valve Timing and Variable Induction System. The engine will be mated to a new 6-speed automatic.

Our opinion? It seems Hyundai may finally have a winner to compete strong against the Honda Civic, Nissan Sentra, Ford Focus, Chevrolet Cruze and Toyota Corolla.

Click through for the press release and high-res image gallery.

2011 Hyundai Elantra (Avante):

Press Release:

HYUNDAI UNVEILS ALL-NEW AVANTE AT BUSAN MOTOR SHOW 2010-04-29 24

* World-premier of new Avante compact, Hyundai’s global best-seller

* Featuring 1.6L Gamma GDI engine, 6-speed automatic

Hyundai Motor Co. had its world-premier of the all-new Avante compact sedan, the company’s best-selling model worldwide, at the Busan International Motor Show 2010 today.

“The new Avante encompasses Hyundai’s latest ambitions, featuring the best styling and performance in its class,” Steve S. Yang, President & CEO of Hyundai’s Global Business Division, said at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center (BEXCO) today. “We’re confident that it will once again redefine the compact segment worldwide.”

With sportier and even more elegant lines than its predecessor, the new Avante ? badged as Elantra in markets outside Korea – continues Hyundai’s ‘fluidic sculpture’ design philosophy.

Hyundai has applied its latest 1.6L Gamma Gasoline Direct Injection engine and a 6-speed automatic transmission to the front-wheel drive compact, the first time GDI and six-speed automatic have been featured on a compact sedan in Korea. The new Avante delivers a peak output of 140ps and maximum torque of 17.0kg·m. It is also about 10 percent more fuel efficient than its closest competitors, thanks to GDI, the six speed automatic and other fuel economy enhancements.

The new Avante will delight and surprise with a raft of other advanced features not found on other compacts, including HID (High Intensity Discharge) headlamps, LED combination lamps in the rear, heated rear seats, puddle lamps and a color TFT LCD information display nestled in the gauge cluster.

Under the Avante/Elantra badge, Hyundai has sold over 6 million units worldwide since the car’s launch in 1990. Hyundai will begin sales of the all-new Avante in the second half of 2010 in Korea.

At a separate commercial vehicle booth, Hyundai displayed a hydrogen fuel-cell electric bus and a Universe Limousine luxury coach, among other displays.

– By: Kap Shah

This new Naughty Bear video lets us in on one of the weapons in the titular ursine maniac’s arsenal: a frickin’ bear trap. Get a bear caught in one of these and you’re free to deliver whatever