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Acaban de ser publicadas nuevas fotos espía del nuevo deportivo Audi R8 GT3. Este modelo de la marca alemana tendrá una potencia mínima de 420 CV lo cuál ya nos da una pista sobre el equipamiento del que hará uso.

Su rival más directo en el mercado no será otro que el Porsche 911 GT3. En lo referente a la motorización, es muy posible que tenga una variante del motor 5.2 FSI quattro con el que llegar a alcanzar una potencia de 550 CV.

Por el momento, Audi no ha dado a conocer la fecha en la que este modelo comenzará su comercialización asi que tendremos que seguir atentos.

Related posts:

1. Fotos espía del Audi A5 Sportback
2. Audi RS5, fotos espía de alta calidad
3. Audi R8 Clubsport, fotos espía

New research conducted at the University of Oslo and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine has discovered four common bad habits can reduce your life span by as much as 12 years. The bad habits are:

• Smoking tobacco
• Less than two hours of exercise per week
• More than two alcoholic drinks for women or three drinks for men per day
• Eating less than three servings of fruits and vegetables a day

I wonder why men can drink more than women without seeing the negative effects?

Via: Huffington Post

The Conference Board says that its Consumer Confidence Index increased in April to 57.9 from 52.3 in March. That soundly beat consensus expectations of 53.5. Since February, the index has risen 11.5 points. Consumers are definitely feeling more confident about the U.S. economy.

Here’s the Conference Board’s tiny graph for Consumer Confidence:

According to the report, March’s point marks a high not seen since September 2008 — before the financial crisis hit its climax. This measure matters because it reflects Americans’ views of both business and labor market conditions. The latter still troubles many, since underemployment was around 17% in March. On average, however, even labor market sentiment must be improving according to the Conference Board’s data point for April.

This consumer confidence reading also contradicts a report from a Reuters/University of Michigan poll conducted earlier in April, which appeared to indicate that sentiment was worsening. If the Conference Board is right, then that’s good news for the recovery. In order for the economy to continue growing, Americans need to spend and invest.

The Conference Board’s sentiment measures experienced significant gains across-the-board. In addition to consumer confidence, its Present Situation Index increased to 28.6 from 25.2. Its Expectations Index also rose to 77.4 from 70.4. Again, this implies that Americans are doing better presently and foresee a brighter economic future than the recent past.

(Nav Image Credit: richkidsunite/flickr)

At the first gathering of the President’s bipartisan fiscal commission, former Congressional Budget Office Director Rudy Penner makes a good point about Social Security reform:

The other point that I’d make about Social Security, it’s not as
important as health care, but it’s much more simple to understand. We
understand the effects of every option. We know what we save. We do not
know the same sort of things about the various health options. So to me
that makes a strong argument  … [that modest changes to Social
Security] would make foreign investors more confident in our finances.

Here’s another way to make the same point. There is a compelling argument out there that there is no entitlement crisis. The logic goes like this: the entitlement crisis is a Medicare crisis; the Medicare crisis is a medical inflation crisis; medical inflation is national, rather than specific to Medicare; therefore, our fiscal crisis is not specific to our entitlements, but instead a Gordian Knot that entangles the entire medical system. In short, reforming Medicare is really, really complicated. A lot more complicated, at least, than announcing that you’ve raised the taxable income ceiling by a few thousand dollars and indexed it to life expectancies.

With one debate remaining for our potential Prime Ministers, Katy Wright looks at last week’s questions and what’s on the bill for Thursday night.

The next leaders’ debate on Sky takes place in two days. I find the entertainment factor of the debates is significantly increased by following the Twitter comments at the same time. While the tweets are no analytical commentary they are eagle-eyed in their appraisal of style! Last week, surges would occur any time there was a bit of drama or comedy in the debate – Gordon Brown’s “get real Nick” over Trident, Nick Clegg’s flattery of a female audience member, or another anecdote from David Cameron about who he’d met.

My feeling about the international debate as a whole was that it did not really focus on the international very much! We heard about Afghanistan but nothing about the people there; we heard about the banks, but nothing about the potential of a Robin Hood Tax; and we heard nothing about international development or aid. Then the debate very quickly moved on to expenses, pensions and immigration. Our parliamentary officer Jonathan Tench (@jonnytench) was busy tweeting for Oxfam – he summed it up well with his tweet, “‘uffffff’ on behalf of all our Oxfam followers who wanted to see the parties grilled on global poverty”.

We did however get a question on climate, which was great news. The leaders were asked what action they had taken in their own lives to reduce their emissions – a fair question, but to my mind it doesn’t acknowledge that these men are vying to become a world leader. Of course we should expect a personal lifestyle commitment from them – that goes without saying. But what we really need to know is what necessary domestic and international decisions they are going to make to tackle climate change. When you’re Prime Minister you can do more than insulate your loft – you can insulate everyone’s loft, provide money to help shield the world’s poorest people from the effects of climate change, lead negotiations for a global climate deal, and invest in a domestic green economy.

So, one debate left! And it’s going to be on the economy. I think it’s a pretty safe bet that a question on the banks will come up – and when it does, I’ll be waiting for an answer on the Robin Hood Tax. That will really be something to tweet.

Oxfam and the 2010 General Election

By Matt Holdridge

From Politifact.com:

Democrats like to parry Republican criticism of the recently passed health care law by talking about how it includes ideas that originated with conservatives. During an interview on NBC’s Today show on March 30, 2010, President Barack Obama offered a specific example.

Obama told host Matt Lauer that “when you actually look at the bill itself, it incorporates all sorts of Republican ideas. I mean a lot of commentators have said this is sort of similar to the bill that Mitt Romney, the Republican governor and now presidential candidate, passed in Massachusetts. A lot of the ideas in terms of the exchange, just being able to pool and improve the purchasing power of individuals in the insurance market, that originated from the Heritage Foundation. …”

We zeroed in on the notion that the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that is no fan of Obama’s health care law as a whole, might have “originated” the idea of the health insurance exchange — a virtual marketplace where individuals can purchase health insurance. Our interest only grew after we received an e-mail from Heritage president Ed Feulner that blasted Obama’s claim.

After analyzing the facts, the conclusion,

We agree with Heritage that the differences between its original vision and the version enacted into law are not trivial, and are enough to undercut the president’s effort to secure a Heritage Foundation seal of approval for his bill. But the president helped his case by wording his statement with extreme care. Intentionally or not, he gave himself subtle linguistic running room by saying that “a lot of the ideas” for the exchange came from Heritage, including the concept of “just being able to pool and improve the purchasing power of individuals in the insurance market.” Even if not all of the ideas in the two plans are identical, we feel that it was fair of him to say that “a lot of the ideas” are in common, including the notion of pooling. So we conclude that the president’s statement qualifies as Mostly True.

Dan McCarthy, senior editor of the American Conservative magazine and C4L contributor, put it this way, 

“Every think tank on the left and right knows that its recommendations will undergo some deformation before they make their way into law, if they ever do,” McCarthy told PolitiFact. “Heritage might prefer state insurance exchanges with greater individual choice, including for workers already covered by their employers. But I don’t imagine Ed Feulner would be complaining at all if a Republican president or a Republican Congress had passed a plan that deviated from the Heritage blueprint to the same degree that Obama’s bill has. While it’s not true that ‘lots of’ the specifics in the Obama plan were dreamed up by Heritage, the overall approach is similar to policies Heritage has long championed, including the individual mandate as well as the insurance exchanges. This is only controversial because the wrong party happened to pass the law, and it’s poison for any conservative to be identified with it.”

What do you think? Do many on the right only have “sour grapes” because it wasn’t them who passed the sweeping health care reform bill? 

Since it’s launch in January, Vodafone UK customers have been anxiously anticipating the arrival of the Nexus One.  In a matter of days (April 30th), they’ll be able to go to a local store and pick one up.  For Free.

Effective immediately, customers can pre-order the Nexus One at zero cost providing they agree to a 24-month contract.  For as low as  £35 a month, subscribers  get 600 minutes, unlimited text, and 1GB of mobile internet and webmail.  It will be interesting to see what kind of numbers the Nexus One does when people can walk into a store and hold it before buying.

Might We Suggest…

• Vodafone UK Showing Nexus One “Coming Soon”
  Back when the Nexus One was launched, the Google store listed a placeholder for Vodafone and Verizon with a “Spring 2010” launch.  With the season technically kicking off next Saturday, Vodafone appea…

Article Tags: John O'Sullivan, NZ Climate Scandal

New Zealand climate scientists embroil themselves in as much of a climate data fraud scandal as Climategate and with eerily similar methods and results.

The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition (NZCSC) in its article ‘NIWA Challenged to Show Why and How Temperature Records Were Adjusted’ (February 7, 2010) provides its readers with an insight into the climate scandal dubbed ‘Kiwigate.’

NIWA is New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research and is accused of repeatedly frustrating NZCSC in its attempts to get government climatologists to explain how they managed to create a warming trend for their nation’s climate that is not borne out by the actual temperature record.

According to NZCSC, climate boffins cooked the books by using the same alleged ‘trick’ employed by British and American doomsaying scientists. This involves subtly imposing a warming bias during what is known as the ‘homogenisation’ process that occurs when climate data needs to be adjusted.

Homogenisation Explained

When such data adjustments (homogenisations) are made, scientists must keep their working calculations so that other scientists can test the reasonableness of those adjustments. According to an article in Mathematical Geosciences (April 2009) homogenisation of climate data needs to be done because “non-climatic factors make data unrepresentative of the actual climate variation.”

The article tells us that if the raw data is not homogenised (or, in this case, “fudged” according to sceptics) the “conclusions of climatic and hydrological studies are potentially biased.”

Click source to read FULL report from John O’Sullivan

Source: climatology.suite101.com

Read in full with comments »   

Let’s face it it can be pretty annoying when you fire your game up and it says you have to download a patch before you can proceed. A lot of patches aren’t exactly quick downloads, especially

We’re all aware of the existence of the LG LU2300, aka the Aloha when it comes to the US. LG has released another Snapdragon powered Android device in Korea, the LG KU9500/SU950. These handsets have a few things in common but unlike the 2300 the 9500 is an all touch screen device.

The picture above is the LG 2300 and the one at the bottom is the LG9500. Both phones are running Android 2.1 at some point. When the LG LU2300 comes out it will have 1.6 but it will be updated shortly after its release to 2.1. they also share a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPUs, 3.5-inch AMOLED 800×480 touch screen displays, and 5-megapixel cameras.

LG announced these devices will have a new feature called “LG Air Sync”, this will allow the handsets to share contacts, calendar, mail, photos, music, and videos with a PC or web server wirelessly. Couple this with the new “Scan Search”, which is some type of augmented reality software, and LG may have some top tier devices on their hands. Pricing for these phones has not been released yet.

[via unwiredview]

By Matt Hawes

Reid will once again try today to advance Dodd’s bill to further entangle the government in the economy, benefit big Wall Street companies like Goldman Sachs, and give the Federal Reserve even more power.

Via Politico:

Senate Democrats are doubling down on financial reform, forcing a second consecutive procedural vote Tuesday even though there have been no reported breakthroughs that would significantly change the outcome of Monday night’s failed vote.

The short turn around between votes is part of the Democrats’ larger strategy of forcing Republicans to vote repeatedly against a motion to proceed on the sweeping regulatory reform package. Democrats hope they can eventually wear down enough Republican senators who will vote to begin debate on the Democratic bill, but there is no sign that Republicans have any cracks in their unity….

Read the rest.  Keep contacting your senators and urge them to fight for true reform!

Quite aside from the questions about Massey Energy’s role in the recent blast that killed 29 miners in West Virginia has been the question of whether the Mine Safety and Health Administration had the power to close the mine based on its long history of safety violations.

And the answer, according to a number of mine-safety experts, is an emphatic yes.

Ken Hechler, the former West Virginia congressman who was lead sponsor of a 1969 law that overhauled mining safety, said this week that while most of the fault lies with Massey, his bill “clearly” authorized MSHA officials to close unsafe mines.

“This is a case not only of the operator thumbing his nose at the strictly legal requirements and regulations,” Hechler said in a phone interview. ”It also involves a failure of [MSHA] itself to act aggressively against the mine in order to ensure that either the conditions be made safe as provided in the law, or to toughen the enforcement … to close the mine.

“There is sufficient legal authority under the circumstances that we know are present in that mine — a highly gassy mine — [for MSHA to have closed it],” Hechler added.

Complicating the issue, Massey and other coal companies have launched a strategy in recent years of filing more and more protests against safety violations — a trend that’s created an enormous backlog of citations and prevented MSHA from establishing the “pattern of violations” required to shutter entire mines. Yet, according to some experts, MSHA could have closed that loophole on its own, but simply chose not to confront the coal companies over a reform they oppose.

“[MSHA] was soft-pedaling,” a former MSHA manager told TWI recently. “Staying in the background, keeping a low profile — and you can’t do that with this industry. You’ve got to use a big stick.”

There are signs that the administration has gotten the message. Not only has President Obama kept the story on the front pages — most recently with Sunday’s visit to commemorate the 29 miners killed in the blast — but the Department of Labor yesterday announced that it will propose new “pattern of violations” rules governing the closure of troubled mines. Critics of the current policy, though, might not be pleased about the timeline: The proposed rules are not scheduled for release until January 2011.

Joule Biotechnologies, a Cambridge, Mass.-based ethanol developer, has closed $30 million in a  second round of funding from a group of undisclosed institutional and private investors.

Joule plans to use the cash to expand  a pilot plant in Leander, Texas. That plant is 25,000 gallons of ethanol per acre per year and 15,000 gallons of diesel per acre per year. The funds will also support ongoing research and development work. Joule is developing proprietary microorganisms that (at least on paper and in the lab) turn photons, water, and C02 directly into ethanol fuels — see the diagram below.

In a prepared statement Bill Sims, Joule president and CEO, said:

Propelled by this latest funding round, we intend to execute on an aggressive timeline to market by hitting key proof points that will substantiate the quality of our product and the scale and efficiency of our process.

Separately, the company also announced that it was changing its name from Joule Biotechnologies to Joule Unlimited — see full press release.

See below if you missed part 1!

After the first male pro-athlete passed me on his bike to begin his run, I hung around the bike start/finish area for quite awhile. It was truly uplifting to see everyone push themselves so hard. At one point, all I could hear was CLICK CLICK CLICK as everyone clipped into their bike pedals. However, there was one guy who appeared kind of flustered and I think he may have clipped into both pedals without getting a little bit of a start and then he just toppled straight over onto the pavement! I felt so bad because you could tell he was freaking out a little bit, trying to get up and out of the other biker’s ways. When he finally got his footing and pedaled away, I yelled, “YOU ROCK, DUDE, KEEP GOING, YOU’RE AWESOME!!!”

I wanted to get a good spot for when the runners came in. Found a nice place right at the finish line.

Here’s a video. I apologize that it is turned sideways, but in my excitement, I did not even realize.

Cameron Dye 1:48.44. He beat the 2nd place finalist by 20 seconds. yikes!

I watched as the top 10 male ran in…but I was mostly just waiting for the females!!

The announcer informed us that it might be neck-and-neck for the top spot for females.
Eventually, at 1:58.49 Sarah Haskins made it over the finish line! 
I must be honest, when she ran past us, I almost wanted to cry. Tears welled in my eyes. It was  EPIC!  The enthusiasm from the audience was mind-blowing and really made you happy just to be watching such an amazing accomplishment. The human body and mind are amazing.

And here is my crappy video. Obviously I did not film her very well because I was too busy screaming, haha!!

Insert any word for “inspiring” here!

Can you believe this now? Google announced yesterday that it is dropping plans to create a Nexus One for Verizon. So until further notice you can place a big red check next to no Nexus One for Verizon, let alone CDMA compatible Nexus One’s for any network that supports that network frequency.

Not to worry though folks at Verizon, you will proudly be able to purchase the HTC Incredible this week, a mighty incredible phone (pun intended). So pick up the long faces and enjoy 50,000 apps and Android 2.1 the Incredible ships with.

Article Tags: John O'Sullivan, Nasif S. Nahle

Another scientist finds further evidence that our oceans and sub-surface material, not greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, control Earth’s climate.

Among a steady groundswell of scientists eager to contradict the faltering greenhouse gas theory of man-made global warming, comes ‘Induced Emission and Heat Stored by Air, Water and Dry Clay Soil‘ by Professor Nasif Nahle.

Oceans Drive Climate, Not Trace Gasses

The internationally-acclaimed professor, from Monterrey, Mexico, exposes the weakness of the greenhouse gas theory for its failure to consider that other processes are important in the atmospheric radiative heat transfer event. A former Harvard and UCLA graduate with degrees in science and mathematics, Nahle confidently states, “I demonstrate that the climate of Earth is driven by the oceans, the ground surface and the subsurface materials of the ground.”

Warmists Miscalculate Heat

A dwindling band of supporters of the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) still cling to the discredited notion that 50% of the energy absorbed by atmospheric gases (especially carbon dioxide) is re-emitted back towards Earth’s surface, heating it up.

Nahle, whose areas of expertise ranges from Physics to Biology, Ecology, Bioeconomy and Biophysics, attacks this flawed assumption, “The problem with the AGW idea is that its proponents think that the Earth is isolated and that the heat engine only works on the surface of the ground.”

Instead, Nahle’s robust calculations prove that photon streams from oceans, the ground and other subsurface materials, both day and night, succeed in overwhelming the emission of photons from the atmosphere, returning them to space.

Click source to read FULL report from John O’Sullivan

Source: climate-change.suite101.com

Read in full with comments »   

Now Levin is grilling a Goldman employee as to why they continued to sell a deal that the head of the division had described as “a shitty deal”.  The banker is trying to explain that he’s a salesman, not a fiduciary, with little success.  What I want to know is–didn’t these guys learn a damn thing from the show trials of the last decade?  These are the kinds of things that should never, ever be committed to any form that can be subpoena’d by a committee.

Eighties star Molly Ringwald, famous for her roles in John Hughes Brat Pack hits like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles (Which just so happens to be my favorite movie!), tackles family, friendships, and finding the perfect mascara in Getting The Pretty Back, her new lifestyle guide for fortysomethings.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Getting The Pretty Back is available now.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

[JURIST] A US military official has said that the US is in negotiations to transfer non-Afghan detainees at Bagram Air Base back to their home countries, Al Jazeera reported Tuesday. The military intends to return the detainees to their countries of origin in anticipation of a transfer of the facility to Afghan authorities at the end of the year. Although the military has refused to confirm the number of foreign nationals being held at the base, it is believed that approximately 30 to 60 are being detained. Rights of foreign nationals in US overseas prisons continue to present pressing legal questions as the Obama administration contemplates handing additional authority over to the Afghan government. Compounding the issue is the fact that detainees at the facility have recently alleged torture at a secret prison housed within the air base, bringing the facility into sharper focus for the US government.
Alleged prisoner abuse linked to the war on terror in Afghanistan has received international attention. This month a retired Canadian military officer who served in Afghanistan said that Canadian soldiers believed that prisoners may have been abused after being transferred to prison facilities in Afghanistan. Human rights groups have also criticized military procedures in the country. Earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed habeas corpus petitions on behalf of four detainees held at Bagram Air Base, claiming that none of the men has engaged in hostile behavior directed at the US, nor are they members of groups that purport to do so. In January, the US Department of Defense released a list of names of 645 prisoners detained at Bagram in response to a Freedom Of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU last September. Prisoners at Bagram have launched previous habeas corpus challenges in US courts but thus far have been less successful than those held at Guantanamo Bay.

It’s rare to see our political leaders use common sense when making decisions, so when they do, we should celebrate. House Republican leaders led by House Minority Leader John Boehner have reportedly sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking her to allow the use of Skype for video conferencing purposes. Broadband Breakfast quotes the following bits from the letter:

Among these barriers is the current House rule prohibiting members of Congress from using certain video-conferencing software applications such as Skype…often expensive, video teleconferencing activities with their constituents, but forbid them from using Skype – which is practically free – for such activities…We are certain that Skype, an increasingly relevant communication tool for Americans already widely used in the private sector, could be easily implemented in Congress in a manner that would not reduce the security of the House IT infrastructure.

Indeed, Skype is no longer a curiosity among early adopters. With more than 560 million subscribers, many of which are in the U.S., it makes perfect sense for politicians to use the technology.