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In its main environmental story today –  “On climate bill, Democrats work to overcome Graham’s immigration objections” — the WashPost said:

In some ways, the problem that proponents of climate legislation face is that they’re pursuing a policy goal that is not much of a hot-button political issue. Environmental activists had a well-attended event Sunday on the Mall, with musical stars Sting and John Legend, but immigration reform advocates are likely to dwarf that turnout with dozens of rallies across the country Saturday.

Yes, the biggest single climate rally in U.S. history is dismissed by comparison with the hypothetical cumulative turnout of dozens of future rallies on immigration.  Who says the media isn’t fair?  Apparently preserving the health and well-being of countless future generations isn’t “hot-button” enough for the media to be interested [kind of an ironic phrase, considering the rally was for action of global warming].

The “problem” for the White House (and Senate Majority Leader Reid) is that if they push immigration first, they kill both bills — knowingly — and they break a long-standing (and oft-repeated) commitment to three major constituencies:  environmentalists, clean energy types (like me), and young voters.

I am not an immigration analyst, so let me quote The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait from Friday, writing about the possibility that “Senate Democratic leaders have decided to try to put immigration reform first on the agenda”:

This strikes me as a terrible idea. First of all, climate legislation is just plain more important than immigration reform. The latter is important, but the former is dire. Given that Republicans may well take control of the House in November, and could easily hold it for a long time, this year could literally be the last chance to pass climate legislation, however watered down.

Now, I suppose I could be persuaded of the merits of this move if it seemed clear that the climate bill had little chance to pass and immigration stood a great chance to pass. But this does not seem to be the case….

It’s true that immigration splits the GOP. But it also splits the Democrats, who have a lot of members representing heavily white, working-class areas. Increasing the political salience of immigration at a time when unemployment is over 9% does not seem like a good strategy to help them. Also keep in mind that the House has already passed a climate bill, but hasn’t passed an immigration bill.

Indeed, Politico persuasively suggests that the cost of shelving climate for immigration is probably to kill both….

If this is Reid’s decision, the White House needs to come down hard on him. It’s outrageous to sacrifice a chance to make progress on the biggest single policy challenge merely to increase the reelection chances of one Senator. This episode also shows, again, why it’s a bad idea to have your Senate leader hail from a state that leans toward the opposing party.

There’s some good background on the timeline of events from Brad Johnson’s WR post, “Whisper Campaign Derails Climate Bill Rollout.”  I’ll have more to say about Graham’s role shortly.

Finally, for those who want to read about the Earth Day event in the WashPost, you have to go to the Style section, “Earth Day’s moment in the sun,” which has some great pictures, like the one above.  I’ll post more on the event when I get the videos.

The Alfa Romeo TZ3 Corsa by Zagato is not a design exercise, nor does it take inspiration from the 90 years of collaboration between Zagato and Alfa. The TZ3 Corsa race-car is basically a gift from Zagato to Alfa Romeo honoring 100 years of races and victories across the whole 20th century.

The TZ3 Corsa weighs in at only 1,870 pounds and is powered by a 4.2L dry sump V8 engine making 420-hp. Mated to a 6-speed sequential gearbox. the TZ3 Corsa goes from 0-62 mph in less than 3.5 seconds with a top speed of more than 185 mph.

Think of it as a Alfa Romeo 8C with racing roots and history brought altogether.

Alfa Romeo TZ3 Corsa by Zagato:

Press release:

Milano, April 2010: Zagato Atelier announces the introduction of the Alfa Romeo TZ3 Corsa at the XII Villa D’Este Concours d’Elegance.

The TZ3 Corsa is not a design exercise. It does not take inspiration only from the 90 year collaboration between the two brands, neither only from the Milanese conjunction between Alfa Romeo and Zagato.

The TZ3 Corsa is a race car, honouring 100 years of races and victories across the whole 20th century.

It celebrates men and machines of the Alfa Romeo Zagato common tradition:

Scuderia Ferrari of the 20’s and 30’s, Alfa Corse of the 40’s and 50’s, Autodelta of the 60’s and 70’s up to the latest Scuderia Zagato of the 80’s and 90’s.

Recalling these racing emotions, the TZ3 Corsa is based on a mono shell carbon fibre tubular chassis, coupled with a tubular frame and a lightweight aluminium body.

It boasts Technical Partners such as OMP and Pirelli.

Following Zagato’s gentlemen-driver heritage, the car has been commissioned by the Alfa Romeo Zagato collector Martin Kapp, during the Zandvoort Tribute to Zagato event, where more than 130 Alfa Romeo Zagatos were celebrating the 90th Anniversary of the brand.

Martin Kapp owns, among his Alfa Romeo Collection: SZ coda tonda and SZ coda tronca, TZ and TZ2, Junior Z and S.Z..

Tribute to the 100th anniversary of Alfa Romeo’s Racing Heritage:

Alfa Romeo and Zagato achieved the best results since the beginnings thanks to the Mille Miglia victories of the 1500 6C, the 1750 GS and the 8C 2300 Zagato of the Scuderia Ferrari. Already in 1933 an official advert of the Alfa Romeo 8C proclaimed: “The Spider that, with the trio Alfa Romeo – Scuderia Ferrari – Carrozzeria Zagato, brought countless victories in the homeland and abroad for the honour of Italy.”

Even the grandiose Quadrifoglio Verde was placed on the bodies of Zagatos of the Alfa Corse team numerous times. Among the most glorious moments is the victory of the Formula 1 championship of Juan Manuel Fangio, aboard his Alfa Romeo 159 bodied by Zagato, as well as the victorious Alfa Romeo 3000 CM bodied in 3 samples by Zagato.

During the 60’s, the list of absolute victories of the Giulia TZ and TZ2 by Zagato for the Autodelta of Ing. Carlo Chiti, was never-ending. Some of the most memorable victories included the 1964 12 hours of Sebring, the Targa Florio, the Nurburgring, and the 24 hours of Le Mans.

The single-brand Alfa Romeo S.Z. championship emphasized the Alfa Romeo ES30’s (Experimental SportsCar 3000) technical and dynamic abilities. The S.Z. delivered, and continues to so today, constant performance and driving pleasure to the Gentlemen drivers of the Alfa Zagato team, across the most important racetracks in Europe.

TZ3 CORSA Specification Sheet

TECH DETAILS

General Data
Curb Weight – 850 kg
Wheelbase – 2500 mm
Track
Front: 1622 mm
Rear: 1617 mm
Length – 4345 mm
Height – 1200 mm
Width – 1944 mm
Seating Capacity – Driver + Co-driver

Engine
Configuration – V8, dry sump
Displacement – 4200 cc
Power – 420HP Manual adjustable engine calibration

Drive train
Gearbox – 6 speed sequential “tractive”
Suspensions – Ohlins Push road

Tyres

Front: 245/645 “18 – Slick 640
Rear: 285/645 “18 – Slick 650

Chassis
Layout – Front/Mid Engine – Rear Drive
Frame – Carbon fiber Monoshell +Carbon fiber arms
Body – Hand Made aluminium body

Performance
0 – 100km/h – sub 3.5 sec
Max Speed – over 300 km/h

Technical Partners:

OMP – A Genoese company – with over 37 years of experience in the design and production of equipment for competition cars – has supplied a range of its accessories for the new Alfa Romeo TZ3 Corsa, specifically a set of WRC seats made out of carbon fibre, racing seatbelts, a steering wheel made out of carbon fibre, and an aluminium fire extinguisher. Products which represent a constant research into new technologies and a continuous study of innovative design forms.

PIRELLI – Pirelli participates in the presentation of the Alfa Romeo TZ3 Corsa in the role of a technical partner, equipping the car with its PZero, the most performing tyres of the Pirelli product range, developed for motorsport. Thanks to the renewed collaboration with Alfa Romeo and Zagato, Pirelli confirms itself as a leader in the high-end and as the main technological reference partner for the most prestigious automotive companies.

– By: Kap Shah

   

Yes, ladies and gentleman, my wish has finally come true: a proper Tower Defense type of game has hit the App Catalog. Defensive Warfare ($2.49 in the App Catalog) is a full on place upgradeable towers (guns, AA-rocket launchers and slow- ‘em-down emp weapons) and prevent different classes of vehicles, both air and ground, slow and fast, from reaching the other end of the map. 

Gameplay is enjoyable for the most part, but the game does get rather frustrating in the more advanced levels as the AI has a tendency to stop concentrated fire on passing units and aim at whatever units come into range, diluting the effectiveness of my towers and preventing me from advancing through the last few levels. Still, it’s an exciting (and very welcome) entrant into the App Catalog, will most certainly get better as time goes on, and is a  great sign of things to come.  

Just buying something from an anonymous seller on Craigslist — or any number of other sites — can be a risky proposition in its own right. But police in Oakland say there’s been a rash of recent incidents where victims purchased items off Craigslist only to be robbed at gunpoint when they show up to take receipt of their purchases.

To help cut down on the number of these incidents, the police have issued the following four tips for how to minimize your odds of becoming a victim:

1. Do not agree to meet in a secluded or residential area. Highly populated and well-traveled areas are better.

2. Do not travel to any location with a large amount of cash.

3. Leave if someone or something looks suspicious.

4. If you are robbed, give the subjects the property they are asking for; your life is worth much more than your property.

Rash of holdups prompts Oakland police to caution online shoppers [Oakland Tribune]

Listen up, Xtina Stans: Christina Aguilera is set to unveil her comeback video, “Not Myself Tonight,” to the world in a special premiere event on Vevo.com this Friday, April 30!

In celebration of Christina’s return to the charts, ChristinaAguilera.com will be releasing a promo still from the official music video everyday this week.

(Check out your first sneak peek above….)

Don’t forget to mark your calendars — Christina’s dance-infused comeback LP, Bionic, debuts June 7.

Facebook wants to ride its new Open Graph protocol past Google on the road to Internet domination. But first, they’re going to have to get past Sen. Chuck Schumer.

The New York senator wrote a letter to the FTC asking them to look at Facebook’s privacy guidelines. Facebook’s new plug-ins allow users like you and me to see articles, or music, or restaurants our friends have “liked” throughout the Internet. Information that used to live in a news feed on Facebook will now follow us around the Web. What was once merely public is now really, really public.

In the long run, Facebook’s newest invention is probably a good thing. It will make online shopping better when websites can tell us what kind of jeans our friends liked. It will make online advertising more lucrative when smart phone ads serve up ads for restaurants and shops we support on Facebook. But rather than be asked to opt-in to this brave new world of smart sites and smarter phones, Facebookers’ information is automatically slurped into the matrix. Opt-in is the default; opt-out is the option.

Schumer wants to flip that around and offer users more upfront control over their accounts. Fine. He can ask, but it’s extremely unlikely that the FTC will decide that the Facebook’s new tool violates privacy any more than their old default opt-in rules. In fact, it’s extremely unlikely that most users even care. An opt-out world — that is a world where control is more important than privacy — is the world we’re living in.

So ultimately, it’s good that Schumer is asking. Facebook is onto something powerful and potentially revolutionary with Open Graph, but it has a dubious record of loosening privacy rules when it makes architecture changes. The company has changed its privacy settings so often it appears to have once even confused its founder into making public pictures that he later reclaimed behind a privacy wall. If Schumer’s letter accomplishes nothing more than to scare Facebook into freezing its privacy policy and to make more users aware of how they can opt-out of Open Graph, Facebook can continue to innovate while its users understand that ultimately we have the power to turn it off.

Actualización: Hemos incluído el video de ADAC con el test de la Citroën Nemo.

La falta de ESP (control electrónico de estabilidad) ha llevado a los coches gemelos Citroën Nemo y Peugeot Bipper a fallar las pruebas conocidas como del alce, de ADAC. A modo informativo, la prueba del alce consiste en volantear para esquivar un objeto imaginario yendo a velocidad de carretera. El ADAC efectuó la prueba a una velocidad de 80 km/h en los dos vehículos del Grupo PSA que no cuentan con ESP, comparados contra el Fiat Qubo que tiene ESP como adicional.

Los resultados son evidentes, ya que el Citroën Nemo volcó durante la prueba y el coche de Fiat se mantuvo estable durante la maniobra (dado el resultado del Nemo, el Bipper ni siquiera se probó). Hay que considerar que este tipo de vehículos tiene un centro de gravedad bastante alto y que son muy propensos a volcar en una maniobra semejante. De manera que el control de estabilidad es obligado para vehículos de este tipo.

El Grupo PSA ya ha reaccionado anunciando que equipará a los Citroën Nemo y Peugeot Bipper con ESP de serie en los próximos meses, postergando a los modelos diesel para septiembre de este mismo año.

Cabe recordar que en el 2005 el Dacia Logan falló de la misma manera en estos tests del ADAC, a lo que Renault respondió que la prueba se había hecho con el modelo equipado con llantas de aluminio opcionales, que provocaban un desllantado inmediato en un viraje muy cerrado. Parece que Renault hizo sus propias pruebas con el modelo equipado con llantas de chapa, que resultaron exitosas.

Vía | Autobild

Gizmodo’s commenter community is the best in all the interworld. But it doesn’t just take care of itself. We need someone to spend an hour or so a day moderating comments, for a little cash and a lot of glory. More »

by Agence France-Presse

Photo courtesy talkradionews via FlickrWASHINGTON—Washington played host Sunday to another ‘tea party’ rally, but this time the tea was green and the message of the thousands who gathered on the National Mall was pro-environment, not anti-government.

“It’s nice to be at a tea party,” British pop icon Sting said, referring to the vocal conservative and predominantly white activist movement that is vehemently opposed to President Barack Obama’s administration and health-care reforms in particular. “A green tea party, where people know what’s going down, for a change,” he continued, as he took the stage to close out nine hours of music and pleas to save the planet, organized in honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.

Before Sting, hip-hop artists The Roots, Bob Weir of legendary rock band the Grateful Dead, and John Legend were among the acts who blasted through heavy-bass sets on a temporary stage set up on the Mall, with the Capitol as a backdrop.

When the sets ended, local and international politicians, stars, and activists took center stage to plead for the planet.

In a videotaped message, President Barack Obama said Earth Day “has always been about coming together for a cause bigger than ourselves” and urged the thousands gathered under the hot spring sun on the mall to form a united front against climate change.

Former president of Costa Rica Jose Maria Figueres, who is now a member of the global action committee of the Earth Day Network, warned that, when it comes to climate change, “we have to get it right the first time—we can only have a plan A because there is no planet B.”

Avatar director James Cameron teamed up with three actors from his blockbuster movie—CCH Pounder, who played the Na’Vi matriarch; Laz Alonzo, who played a Na’Vi warrior; and Giovanni Ribisi, who played earthling Parker Selfridge—to call on what he said were 200,000 people gathered on the Mall “to be warriors for the Earth.”

“You have to leave here today and fight the deniers. You have to fight the people in doubt and make them understand the urgency of climate change legislation,” Cameron said. “You need to be warriors for the Earth and create change, but your tools will not be physical weapons but words,” said Cameron, whose movie Avatar is about the Na’Vi people’s fight against strip-miners from Earth who want to gut the Na’Vi planet, Pandora, for its precious mineral, unobtainium.

Civil rights icon the Reverend Jesse Jackson urged Americans to ditch their cars in favor of mass transportation. “I applaud President Obama for the start he has made towards more mass transit, more rail lines, more green jobs. and weatherization … Mass transit is a major key” in the fight against global warming, Jackson said.

For the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, taking to the stage to promote a cause was alien. “People have put us on a kind of pedestal and I’ve been reluctant to use that for political or ideological purposes,” he told reporters. “But this is important enough for me to speak out on. The environment is important and if you have kids, it’s hugely important,” Weir said.

The celebration on the Mall came ahead of what was supposed to be the introduction of a new compromise energy and climate bill in the Senate. But those plans were thrown into disarray on Saturday when influential Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina abruptly pulled his support for the bill, saying he was outraged over a decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to move an immigration bill in the Senate ahead of it.

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Since the economic crisis, people everywhere have been calling for a major review of the way banks function in the world today. In a big step towards a Robin Hood Tax, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) has made substantial progress in redressing the balance between banks and the rest of society by calling for major taxes on banks and hedge funds.

But as well as taking from the rich, Robin Hood also gave to the poor. The IMF tax should not just be about saving money in case banks mess up again, it must also deliver hundreds of billions of pounds to help millions of people hit by the economic crisis here and abroad, and to fight climate change. Only then will it become a true Robin Hood Tax.

The IMF proposal

The IMF is proposing two taxes on banks and financial institutions.

They want a flat levy on all financial institutions to help insure against a future bank crisis. And they want a tax on the profits and incomes of banks and other financial institutions such as hedge funds to help pay for the costs of the current crisis.

The IMF proposed tax is not a transaction tax, which is what the Robin Hood Tax campaign has been calling for (0.05% on all transactions), it is a tax on profits and incomes of banks and other financial institutions.

The IMF did analyse a transaction tax. They said it was practical and that many countries already have them. But they concluded it was not the best way to repay the costs of the crisis and that further investigation of it was beyond the remit of the mandate given to them by the G20.

Fighting poverty and climate change

The IMF tax is a major step towards a Robin Hood Tax, but it fails on two counts. It’s not ambitious enough and makes no commitment to helping the poor and fighting climate change.

The Robin Hood Tax campaign is about instigating a tax on banks that will raise billions every year to help both the poor and the planet. We believe that a tiny tax of 0.05% on all transactions is the best way to achieve this.

However, if the IMF tax on profits can also raise hundreds of billions and be linked to fighting poverty and climate change we would be hugely supportive of it.

What are the politicians saying?

The parties in the UK all want to tax the banks – but the taxes they are talking about would only raise around 7 billion pounds each year. This wouldn’t raise any where near enough to fight poverty and climate change.

All three parties need to show much more ambition. They need to take fighting poverty and climate change seriously. A tiny tax on the banks could raise hundreds of billions of pounds, making a huge difference where it’s really needed.

Give and take

The IMF did not dismiss a transaction tax – they said it was practical, but favoured another kind of tax on profits and bonuses.

If this proposed tax delivers hundreds of billions of dollars for the poor both at home in the UK and abroad then it becomes as much a Robin Hood Tax as a tax on transactions.

Robin Hood was a champion of the poor. Banking and finance is the most profitable industry in the world. Since the crisis, banks have bounced back and made hundreds of billions of dollars of profit and still paid out huge bonuses.

And that is the point of the Robin Hood Tax campaign. Banks can afford to pay an ambitious tax, and whether it is the IMF proposal or not, we must see hundreds of billions of dollars raised from the banks each year used to help those who need it most.

Investigators haven’t yet stepped into the Upper Big Branch Mine in Southern West Virginia — the site of this month’s explosion that killed 29 miners — but experts suspect that a blast that severe could only be caused by a large accumulation of methane gas, likely exacerbated by the presence of coal dust.

Today, however, Massey Energy claimed that wasn’t the case, citing air samples taken in the hour prior to the explosion. The Washington Post reports:

Air samples did not show high levels of explosive gases just before an explosion in a West Virginia coal mine that killed 29 workers, and what caused the disaster remains unknown, the mine’s owner said Monday.

Massey Energy Co. board director Stanley Suboleski said the samples were taken by a foreman as part of a shift change exam of the mine, just “tens of minutes” before the blast. The examination also showed that air flow in the Upper Big Branch mine was fine.

Massey has been on the hot seat since the April 5 blast — not only for the sheer number of safety violations the coal giant has racked up in recent years (including citations at the Upper Big Branch related to ventilation and the accumulation of combustibles) — but for allegedly fostering a company culture where safety played second fiddle to production.  Indeed, former Massey workers have charged that a disregard for safety precautions has been Massey’s M.O. for years.

Stay tuned. This story is sure to have legs.

Might We Suggest…

• Flickr Adds Nearby Feature to Mobile Web Client for Android
  Flickr has announced a rather cool update to their mobile web client.  The Mobile Nearby page ties your web browser and GPS together to determine where exactly it is you are in the world and then pre…

Raw milk yogurt is a sort of holy grail for traditional foods enthusiasts, coupling the enzymatic and probiotic components of both fresh milk and fermentation in one glorious, creamy, lovely food.  Served over baked oatmeal or soaked oatmeal porridge, on its own or as a basis for savory dipping sauces, a good yogurt can find its way to nearly every meal if you let it.

Raw milk yogurt, thanks to the effects of food enzymes, has a tendency to be a touch runnier than the stuff you find in grocery stores or what you might make in your own kitchen from boiled or pasteurized milk.  For this reason some of the very best raw yogurt is prepared using a combination of fresh cream and fresh milk rather than milk exclusively.  If you follow the fermentation process with straining, as you would for labneh, the resulting product would be even thicker and creamier and you could, in turn, use the accompanying whey in properly preparing grains and flours through soaking or even as an addition to your morning smoothie.

In preparing a classic, or thermophilic, yogurt at home with raw milk, you do need to heat the milk slightly and culture it in a warmed environment.  We heat the milk only to 110° Fahrenheit (about 43° Celsius) which keeps food enzymes and naturally occurring beneficial bacteria intact and thriving. Other cultured dairy foods ferment at room temperature and can also be made with raw milk.  I also recommend culturing with Bulgarian or Greek starters which are available online (see sources) and which produce a rich, tangy and super creamy product.

Raw Milk Yogurt Tutorial(…)
Click here to read the rest of How to Make Raw Milk Yogurt (639 words)

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by Larry Shapiro

Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) decision
to withdraw from discussions with his Senate colleagues regarding climate
legislation has been greeted by some well-meaning environmentalists as a reason
to bash President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)
for their alleged lack of commitment to climate legislation. I think this is a mistake. Instead, the environmental community should examine
its own limitations in trying to make sense out of this situation.

Graham blasted what he described as “a
decision by the Obama administration and Senate Democratic leadership to move
immigration instead of energy.” Instead of reflexively agreeing with Graham
and thereby placing themselves at odds with supporters of immigration reform,
environmentalists should reflect upon the reasons why immigration reform is at
this moment a far more politically compelling issue than climate for Senate
Democrats to tackle.

There is actually a social movement associated with immigration
issues. Perhaps even two movements—one on each side. I don’t think
those of us focused on climate issues have anything similar that we can point
to.

Four years ago, when there was a huge wave of pro-immigration
rallies, I was in Columbia,
S.C. There was a rally of
at least 5,000 people, overwhelmingly Mexicans and Central Americans, outside
the state capitol. As a New Yorker who grew up believing that New York is the center
of the immigrant universe, I was quite impressed by two things. First,
there are lots of immigrants everywhere now. Second, people who have a
lot to lose by demonstrating in public were willing to do so in one of the most
conservative states in the Union. 

Immigration reform divides Republicans and helps Democrats energize
their political base. Big businesses that depend on cheap immigrant
labor have a very different orientation from that of the Lou
Dobbs crowd. So Republican efforts
to pander to the anti-immigrant portion of their party come with significant
risks.

Not so for the Democrats, especially in the Senate. There are likely to be competitive Senate
races in any number of states this November in which Latinos form substantial
portions of the electorate. Nevada is one of those
states, and even a politician who is often as principled as Reid is driven in
large part by self-preservation.

But it’s not just Nevada. Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, and Illinois
all have large Latino populations and races that may be close. The immigration issue will energize a portion
of the Democratic base in each of those states. 

Is there a single state with a contested race in which the Senate
Democrats will truly be helped by a climate bill? I can’t think of one.

So the Obama/Reid political calculation that immigration should go
before climate makes sense for them. The vast majority of politicians—and I have no reason to think Obama and Reid are exceptions to this rule—operate in the world of practical politics. By developing a vibrant movement that is backed up by electoral power,
immigration-reform supporters have given leading Democrats a reason to believe
that action on immigration reform will be politically helpful to them. We haven’t done the same on climate.

Environmentalists who complain about this misunderstand the nature
of politics. Moreover, they are morally
wrong. 

All four of my grandparents were immigrants. I would like to make sure that people looking
for a better life in the 21st century have the same opportunity to flee poverty
and oppression that my grandparents had.
I hope my environmental colleagues feel the same way. 

So complaining would be futile.
We would be asking practical politicians such as Obama and Reid to place
a higher priority on a policy that may be politically dangerous for them than on
one that aids their political prospects. There may be many reasons why
doing something worthwhile on climate is a political problem for many politicians,
but one reason is the fact that we have not developed a true movement that
could support them if they go down that road.

Finally, with no movement capable of forcing a
robust response to the climate crisis, the only way Sens. Graham, John Kerry
(D-Mass.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) could have gotten the Senate to pass a
bill would have been to appease the special interests at the root of the
problem. All indications were that the
proposed bill would have propped up the coal and power industries with billions
of dollars while forcing low and middle-income Americans to pay higher energy
costs. The bill also would have stripped
EPA and state governments of much their legal authority to implement innovative
climate solutions. In short, I’m not
sure we’re missing much.

If we really believe that addressing climate change requires a
massive social change, it is naive to believe that we can make that change in
the absence of a massive social movement.
The beginnings of that movement are visible. We see it in the tremendously successful
efforts to stop development of coal plants and in the enthusiasm for green jobs
in many communities throughout the country.
But this movement has not yet been built.

Those of us working to address climate change can learn some
important lessons from supporters of immigration reform. We should take this opportunity to learn
those lessons, rather than merely express our frustration. 

Related Links:

‘Green tea party’ closes out U.S. Earth Day celebrations

Obama climate agenda in turmoil after Republican pulls out of compromise

Graham says he’s going to bail on the climate bill

Samsung and Yahoo have teamed up and extended a "Strategic global partnership for mobile" that will effect Android phones as well as phones running Samsung’s bada OS. What does this mean for you? Well if you’re planning on buying an Android-powered Samsung phone you might be in the same shoes as Motorola Backflip users on AT&T. Samsung phones may replace standard-on-Android Google services with Yahoo services for search, email, contacts, calendar, news, and weather. Yowza. So for those of you thinking of purchasing a Samsung Galaxy S, would this affect your decision? Let us know in the comments! [via BusinessWire]

As everyone in the tech-savvy world knows, Gizmodo scored a major media coup earlier this month when it obtained a prototype of Apple’s next-generation iPhone 4. The fancy piece of hardware had been left behind in a bar by a hapless Apple engineer (his last Facebook post before his fateful memory lapse: “I underestimated how good German beer is”), and Gizmodo paid $5,000 to the person who found the phone. Apple officially reclaimed its phone last week, but that may not be the end of the story. Now reports have surfaced that Silicon Valley police are investigating the incident, as purchasing the lost property may have violated criminal statutes. CNET heard it from an a law enforcement official:
Apple has spoken to local police about the incident and the investigation is believed to be headed by a computer crime task force led by the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office, the source said.
Since the phone wasn’t stolen, it isn’t immediately obvious what laws may have been violated. But CNET reports that several old state laws may give prosecutors the grounds they need:
Under a California law dating back to 1872, any person who finds lost property and knows who the owner is likely to …

[JURIST] Chinese authorities have arrested a prominent Tibetan writer after he signed a letter critical of the Chinese government’s relief efforts following the recent earthquake in the western Qinghai province, a family friend said Monday. Tra Gyal, who writes under the pseudonym Zhogs Dung, was reportedly arrested while working at the Nationalities Publishing House in the provincial capital Xining. Tra Gyal helped organize private donations for those left homeless in the remote Yushu county, a Tibet Autonomous Prefecture, by asking Tibetans not to send donations through official channels but rather to travel to the county themselves to guarantee their donations reached those in need. It is unclear whether Tra Gyal’s detention is related to his criticism of the earthquake relief efforts.
In February, a Chinese court sentenced human rights activist Tan Zuoren to five years in prison on subversion charges after he documented the lethal consequences of substandard construction in the Sichuan province’s 2008 earthquake, which left some 90,000 dead. A Chinese court sentenced another earthquake activist, Huang Qi, to three years in prison in November on the charge of illegally holding state secrets. Huang was a critic of the Chinese government’s handling of the 2008 disaster. After the quake, he posted articles online criticizing the government’s response and talked to foreign media outlets about how some children’s deaths were the result of poorly-built schools. Amnesty International issued a statement in July urging China to drop the charges against Huang and release him from custody.

Though it resembles the Tour 9630, the BlackBerry Bold 9650 is a whole new bag of tricks. If you count more memory, a trackpad, and Wi-Fi as a “whole new bag of tricks.” Aaron takes it for a spin at WES 2010.

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