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This is going on tonight.

The NFL Draft is tonight at 7:30 ET on ESPN/NFL Network.

ElevenWarriors has a look at the Buckeyes hoping to hear their names called over the next three days.

A lot of Browns fans seem to want Eric Berry at 7 and Colt McCoy in the 2nd round, that would be just fine with me. Thaddeus Gibson in the 3rd would be too good to be true.

The Cavs play game 3 tonight at Chicago (7:00 ET, TNT). Will the

And this.

Bulls be encouraged that they played so well in game 2? or discouraged that they played so well in game 2 and still lost? We will find out tonight.

It should be a nice sports evening.

Also, the Buckeyes had their spring game ‘draft’ yesterday (photos).

Scarlet Roster

• They get Pryor, but how much will he play?
• How often will Pryor throw to Stoneburner when they are on the field together?
• Mike Adams and Marcus Hall playing tackle together should be fun to watch.
• Dorian Bell and Storm Klein together as linebackers is a glimpse of the future.

Gray Roster

• Loaded at running back.
• Sabino is worth keeping an eye on.
• Kenny Guiton will get a chance to show what he’s got.

Draft Order

• Mike Adams was the #1 tackle taken which is nice to see.
• Nate Oliver was taken over Orhian Johnson at safety which is interesting, possibly because of his versatility (ability to play safety and star)?

And don't forget about this on Saturday.

Branden Castel takes the time to break the draft down in much greater detail as well as taking a look at which team has the ‘edge’.

Tony Gerdeman brings us Tressel’s thoughts on the draft.

And the guys over at TheSilverBullet chime in with some thoughts.

Finally, check out the guys over at WaitingForNextYear throughout the day for plenty of thoughts on the Cavs game as well as the draft tonight (if you are interested in a Browns-centric perspective).

If all of that doesn’t get you through the morning and/or afternoon I don’t know what will.

Have a good day everyone.

Speaking of Jim Jones, President Obama’s national security adviser, his speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy last night also offered an early glimpse of the administration’s long-awaited National Security Strategy. (I hear it’s going to actually come out the week after next, but the broad contours have been in place for a while.) Longtime Obama-watchers won’t really find it surprising to hear what Jones outlined:

In the coming weeks, we’ll be releasing a new National Security Strategy that formalizes the President’s approach—an approach that is rooted in and guided by our national security interests. These interests are clear and enduring.

· Security—we have an enduring interest in the security of the United States, our citizens and U.S. allies and partners;

· Prosperity—we have an enduring interest in a strong, innovative and growing U.S. economy in an open international economic system that promotes opportunity and prosperity;

· Values— we have an enduring interest is upholding universal values, at home and around the world; and,

· International Order—we have an enduring interest in an international order advanced by U.S. leadership that promotes peace, security and opportunity through stronger cooperation to meet global challenges.

Security, prosperity, universal values, and an international order advanced by American leadership—these are the interests that the President and his Administration are working to advance around the world every day, including in the Middle East.

“An international order advanced by American leadership” is a term you can expect to hear a lot. Contrast all this with the 2002 National Security Strategy from President Bush. That one was about how the terms of the international system — particularly the stuff about not invading other countries unless attacked — don’t necessarily apply to America.

The Pentagon’s 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review also nodded in the direction of the National Security Strategy, and the broad contours of what the QDR contained on the subject align pretty closely with what Jones detailed yesterday.

As a college campus, we are called on to find solutions to global problems. It’s a challenge that we each face daily, and I am continually impressed by the innovative thinking that takes place on our campus.

It is with that challenge in mind that I am proud to announce the completion of the first version of the UT Knoxville Climate Action Plan (CAP), and I can think of no better time than on Earth Day to share it with you.

As you know, maintaining and enhancing UT Knoxville’s place as a national leader in campus sustainability is one of the strategic goals for our campus, and this plan is at the heart of that effort.

UT Knoxville is a signatory to the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. The commitment lays the groundwork for our nation’s higher education community to take a leadership role in mitigating human influence on climate in our day-to-day operations, curriculum and research. One step in the commitment is to implement a plan by which the campus will become climate neutral.

To be climate neutral means that, in the process of going about our missions of teaching, research and service, the activities of our campus will either not emit greenhouse gases or will offset the emissions we produce.

The goal of climate neutrality is lofty, and this plan recognizes that fact by dividing the process into a series of progressive steps over the coming decades with a target of total climate neutrality by the year 2061. If that sounds like a long time, it is. The CAP is the definition of a living, breathing document. If we do our job right, the plan will change over time as new technologies become available and the face of our campus evolves.

Our Facilities Services Department has shown strong leadership in working with many others on our campus to draft this plan and by leading many of our sustainability efforts. This goal is not one that any single department can meet alone.

In the next several months, you can expect to hear from staff of facilities services on ways that you and your colleagues can help UT Knoxville become climate neutral. I hope you, your friends and colleagues will take the time to meet with them and talk through the ways you, and your department, can help meet the plan’s benchmarks.

The plan is available online at the Make Orange Green Web site, http://environment.utk.edu. Just click on the “Climate Action Plan” link on the right-hand side of the page. A form is available for you to share your feedback and ideas for future versions of the plan.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Blanche Lincoln’s (D-AR) aggressive derivatives bill passed committee yesterday and now awaits its merger with the chamber’s broader financial reform bill. It contains a controversial measure which would forbid the use of federal funds to assist any financial institution on the brink of collapse due to derivatives gone bad. While this will probably have a great deal of populist appeal, it appears to be in direct conflict with both versions of financial reform floating around Congress and general market stabilization efforts.

Ties Regulators Hands in Some Financial Crises

Both the House and Senate bills call for resolution funds that regulators would use to wind down large financial firms. Those funds would cover the costs incurred during that process, so that taxpayers wouldn’t be on the hook for another bail out. The FDIC would be in charge of that fund, yet the derivatives bill specifically forbids the FDIC from using its power to go towards the obligations of institutions that run into trouble due to derivatives. Isn’t it conceivable, however, that money due to derivative counterparties is precisely the kind of cost these funds might need to be used for? If the end is to stabilize a financial panic, then calming the market could depend on alleviating the fear of a catastrophic domino of swap dealer failures.

The bill also forbids the Federal Reserve from using its emergency lending authority to provide a loan to a firm that might be in trouble due to derivatives. Again, this means that the Fed won’t be able to exercise its authority to stabilize the financial markets if a derivatives-related disturbance causes instability.

Think AIG

Perhaps the prototypical example of a big systemically intertwined firm that ran into trouble due to derivatives is AIG. A large portion of its bailout funds were famously used to cover some of its derivatives (swaps) obligations to big investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Societe Generale. This new legislation would make that bail out impossible.

While that might sound great to populists everywhere, how would the U.S. government have stabilized the financial system if this legislation were in place prior to the financial crisis? Remember, even to wind down AIG, costs would have surfaced that needed to be addressed in order to prevent the market’s collapse. The proposed resolution fund created by assessments on big financial institutions might have covered such costs instead of taxpayers, but it wouldn’t be able to be used according to this legislation.

(Nav Image Credit: Justin Ruckman/flickr)

by Tom Laskawy

“Parents can be the most positive, powerful force in a country or they
can be disgusting, backstabbing traitors. When little Johnny comes home
and says, ‘I didn’t get my nugget today,’ it’s wrong to say ‘Oh, all
right, darling,’ and give him some [expletive] horrible Lunchable and a
pack of potato chips and a luminous drink.”

—Celebrity chef and “Food Revolutionary” Jamie Oliver speaking to Jane Black of the Washington Post

Related Links:

Scientists show ‘growing’ fuel is waste of energy

Ask Umbra’s Earth Day book giveaway

Go green this Earth Day: Quit smoking

Well, it is official, Android has finally been ported over to the iPhone. Oh, and did I mention that it is dual-boot! This is something that is completely incredible and really made me drop my jaw.   Currently, the port is still in alpha despite most features working, but if you have a spare iPhone lying around and don’t mind putting in a little bit of work you could have this on your iPhone. I know I plan on trying it.  Check out the video to see how it’s done! Simply amazing!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Source: Boy Genius Report

Might We Suggest…

• Mint App Will Come to Android
  There’s good news for those Android users who are looking for a budgeting and expense tracking app! Mint, the company behind the popular finance app that has been very successful on the iPhone platfo…

There’s a lot of circumstantial evident that mtDNA haplogroup U5 was brought to Europe by the first anatomically modern populations. Though this haplogroup is extant around frequencies of ~10% in modern European populations, with the highest proportions in northern Fenno-Scandinavia and the east Baltic region, extractions of DNA from hunter-gatherer remains in northern Europe yield very high proportions of this lineage. This is not totally surprising, in the early aughts Bryan Sykes wrote a book, The Seven Daughters of Eve, and correctly pointed out that the coalescence for the U5 lineages is very deep in Europe, suggesting that it has had a lot of time to diversify. Sykes’ main thesis though was that most of the genetic heritage of Europe predates the expansion of Neolithic farmers within the last 10,000 years. The rough implication was that ~80% of the ancestry of modern Europeans could be derived from people who were resident within the modern boundaries of the continent of Europe during the last Ice Age.

But Ancient DNA extractions and more thorough analyses of modern population variation are muddling the picture somewhat. Some of the lineages which were presumed to be Paleolithic, such as R1b, may not be so. But the fact remains that we do know that modern humans began to settle Europe within the last 40,000 years, and extirpated the Neandertals within 10,000 years of their initial arrival. Unless those initial populations were totally replaced, there has be a very ancient lineage which dates to the Paleolithic, and in particular the Ice Age. U5 is the mtDNA lineage which is the best candidate, and its frequencies within modern European populations may be a clue to who the real “aboriginals” are. For example, the Sami have very high frequencies of U5, which may be ironic in light of theses that the Finnic populations of the Baltic are hybrids between populations from eastern Eurasia and native Scandinavian groups (the other group which high frequencies of U5 are Basques).

In any case, that is why U5 is of some interest, though the “golden age” of mtDNA & Y studies is probably in the past. A new paper in PLoS one surveys central and eastern European groups, , The Peopling of Europe from the Mitochondrial Haplogroup U5 Perspective:

It is generally accepted that the most ancient European mitochondrial haplogroup, U5, has evolved essentially in Europe. To resolve the phylogeny of this haplogroup, we completely sequenced 113 mitochondrial genomes (79 U5a and 34 U5b) of central and eastern Europeans (Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Russians and Belorussians), and reconstructed a detailed phylogenetic tree, that incorporates previously published data. Molecular dating suggests that the coalescence time estimate for the U5 is ~25–30 thousand years (ky), and ~16–20 and ~20–24 ky for its subhaplogroups U5a and U5b, respectively. Phylogeographic analysis reveals that expansions of U5 subclusters started earlier in central and southern Europe, than in eastern Europe. In addition, during the Last Glacial Maximum central Europe (probably, the Carpathian Basin) apparently represented the area of intermingling between human flows from refugial zones in the Balkans, the Mediterranean coastline and the Pyrenees. Age estimations amounting for many U5 subclusters in eastern Europeans to ~15 ky ago and less are consistent with the view that during the Ice Age eastern Europe was an inhospitable place for modern humans.

The simple reality is that much of northern Europe was not habitable during the Last Glacial Maximum, so naturally hunter-gatherers would rapidly expand to settle the new territory as it became accessible. This may be why the Basques have a more diverse array of U5 lineages than the Sami, northern populations are sampled from the diversity of the southern. But after the expansion it may be that the original genetic substrate of Paleolithic Europe was heavily overlain by agriculturalists, and it is only in the far north and east than the Paleolithic populations persisted because of ecological parameters. This is why I suspect that a deeper analysis of northeast European genetics will give us some clues as to the demographic process of the shift from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to agriculture.

Serious safety concerns continue to mount for the AP1000, a new type of nuclear reactor proposed for power plant sites across the Southeast.

A report released yesterday warns that the design of the Westinghouse reactor makes it particularly vulnerable to through-wall corrosion — already a widespread problem with existing commercial reactors — and thus the possibility of leaking radiation in the event of an accident. The report was commissioned by the AP1000 Oversight Group, which involves more than a dozen nuclear watchdog organizations.

“The potential consequences of a radiation release to the environment from a small hole or crack in the AP1000 containment are significant,” according to the report by Arnold Gundersen, a nuclear engineer with Fairewinds Associates of Burlington, Vt. and a former senior executive in the nuclear power industry.

His concerns about the reactor’s design are supported by Rudolf Hausler, a corrosion engineer with NACE International, a Houston-based organization devoted to the study of corrosion. Hausler states in an affidavit attached to the report that he agrees with Gundersen’s assessment “in its entirety.”

The groups behind the report — which include the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Friends of the Earth and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy — are calling on the Obama administration to suspend the licensing process for the AP1000 reactors as well as consideration for taxpayer-backed construction loans. They also urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the NRC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards to launch an investigation into the design flaw.

“We believe the Obama administration must put the brakes on,” says BREDL Science Director Lou Zeller.

Part of what’s known as the Generation III+ reactors, the AP1000 uses an untested hybrid containment system that involves a freestanding steel containment with no secondary containment, which currently licensed reactors have. In the AP1000, the containment is surrounded by a shield building — but one that’s not designed to filter radioactive gases that may leak from the containment in the event of an accident. In fact, the AP1000 is designed to act like a chimney and draw any leaked radioactive vapors directly into the environment.

Gundersen says Westinghouse needs to revamp the design to include radiation filters in the openings of the shield building. “This step must be taken to protect public health and safety,” he says.

Westinghouse dismisses the concerns, with company spokesperson Vaughn Gilbert telling the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer that “environmental groups holding press conferences against nuclear plants are not surprising to us.”

Mistaken assumptions?

Gundersen explains that the design of the AP1000 invites corrosion by allowing the establishment of a moist, oxygenated environment in the open gap between the steel containment and the shield building. Potential sources of moisture include damp air at plants located near the ocean or in humid climates, drift from the plant’s own cooling towers, or leaks and test sprays from the 8 million gallon cooling-water tank slated for the reactor’s roof.

Holes caused by corrosion have already penetrated the walls of containment buildings and liners at currently operating nuclear power plants in the U.S. and elsewhere. U.S. plants where through-wall holes and cracks have been documented include AEP’s Cook plant in Bridgman, Mich.; Dominion’s North Anna in Louisa County, Va.; FirstEnergy’s Beaver Valley near Pittsburgh, Pa.; Progress Energy’s Brunswick plant near Wilmington, N.C.; and Southern Company’s Hatch plant near Baxley, Ga.

In all, Gundersen’s report documents at least 77 instances of containment system degradation at U.S. reactors since 1970. Besides through-wall holes and cracks, these include at least 60 instances of reactor liners pitted by corrosion to the point that they no longer meet the minimum required wall thickness to protect the public from radiation.

Yet Westinghouse’s safety analysis for the AP1000 does not account for the corrosion problems in operating reactors, while assuming — incorrectly, according to Gundersen — that the probability of radiation leaking from the AP1000 containment is extremely low.

“Westinghouse has not examined the likelihood of through-wall rusting,” Gundersen says.

The concerns about the AP1000 corrosion problem come on top of other serious safety issues with the reactor’s design. Last year the NRC said Westinghouse failed to demonstrate the adequacy of the AP1000 shield building to protect the reactor from outside threats such as tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes. The NRC also raised concerns about whether the shield building will be able to support the massive emergency cooling water tank on top of it.

“It’s probably time to pull the design until they resolve these serious questions,” says John Runkle, a North Carolina-based environmental attorney who represents the AP1000 Oversight Group.

Construction license applications have been filed with the NRC for 14 AP1000 reactors in the United States — two each at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Bellefonte plant in Alabama, Progress Energy’s Levy County plant and Florida Power & Light’s Turkey Point plant in Florida, Southern Company’s Plant Vogtle in Georgia, Progess Energy’s Shearon Harris plant in North Carolina, and Duke Energy’s Lee plant and SCE&G’s Summer plant in South Carolina. Earlier this year, the Obama administration approved $8.33 billion in federal loan guarantees for the Vogtle reactors.

Construction is already underway on four AP1000 reactors in China’s Shandong and Zhejiang provinces, with more being planned for that country. The plants are being built by a consortium involving Westinghouse, a Pennsylvania-based firm owned by the Toshiba Group of Japan, and The Shaw Group of Louisiana.

(Illustration of AP1000 and photo of Beaver Valley nuclear plant hole from Gundersen’s report.)

Professor Bainbridge suggests that the timing of the Goldman suit may be suspicious, but not in the way that Republicans have claimed. From the Wall Street Journal:

Last Friday, the same day that the government unexpectedly announced its Goldman lawsuit, the SEC’s inspector general released his exhaustive, 151-page report on the agency’s failure to investigate alleged fraudster R. Allen Stanford. Mr. Stanford was indicted last June for operating a Ponzi scheme that bilked investors out of $8 billion. He has pleaded not guilty. 

Guess which of these two stories was pushed to the back pages? The SEC did its part by publishing the Stanford report so deep in its Web site that more than a few of our readers had trouble finding it. Yesterday, the SEC management’s response to the report was available on the agency’s homepage, yet it provided no links to the report itself.

Little wonder. The report is damning for an SEC that wants the public to believe it has turned the corner after the Bernie Madoff disaster. The commission has made young Fabrice Tourre of Goldman Sachs a household name for his debatable disclosures to institutional investors. But many individual investors will be more interested in learning the story of Spencer Barasch. He’s the SEC enforcement official who sat on various referrals to investigate Allen Stanford and then, after leaving the SEC, performed legal work for . . . Allen Stanford.

In one part of Pellegrini’s testimony, a government official asked him: “Did you tell (Schwartz) that you were interested in taking a short position in Abacus?”

“Yes, that was the purpose of the meeting,” Pellegrini responded.

“How did you explain that to her?” the government official said.

“That we wanted to buy protection on traunches of a synthetic RMBS portfolio.” Pellegrini said.

Olha, sempre ouvi brincadeiras a respeito das mulheres no volante, uma frase super manjada como “mulher no volante, perigo constante“, e por ai vai. Eu particularmente nunca fui muito fã de brincadeiras assim, até mesmo porque o maior número de acidentes de carro envolvem motoristas do sexo masculino. Mas dessa vez, garotas, me desculpem pois essa aqui fez jus à frase que ouço há tantos anos.

Como mostra a câmera de vigilância de um estacionamento, uma senhora de 62 anos chamada Tripta Kaushal foi condenada na última semana em Richmond Hill, Canadá, por não ter tanta prudência assim ao volante enquanto manobrava a sua BMW X5 em uma vaga.

Após verem o vídeo, podem achar que na verdade ela estava pilotando um tanque de guerra, pois com muita facilidade ela consegue fazer o inimaginável, que é “escalar propriedades alheias”. Após o acidente, ela mostrou ser uma senhora muito “ligeira” e fugiu da cena, o que lhe custou uma multa de $500 e o direito de dirigir apenas das 7hs às 19hs. E também demonstrou que a BMW X5 é um belo carro para “terrenos acidentados”. Fica a dica!

Via | Top Speed

Halo: Reach will be available in standard, Limited and Legendary editions when the game launches this fall. Full details on the contents of the Limited and Legendary editions are below:

Halo: Reach Limited Edition – $79.99 (USD)
In addition to the game disc and manual, the Limited edition includes:

• Game disc housed in recovered ONI ”black box”
• An exclusive Elite armor set for use in multiplayer modes
• Artifact bag containing Dr. Halsey’s personal journal and other classified documents and effects that unravel long held secrets from the “Halo” universe

Halo: Reach Legendary Edition – $149.99 (USD)
The complete “Halo: Reach” collection. In addition to the game disc, manual, and the complete contents of the Limited edition, the Legendary edition includes:

• Noble Team statue expertly crafted by the artisans at McFarlane Toys. Individually molded, hand-painted and individually numbered, this statue is a must-have for any serious “Halo” fan
• UNSC-themed custom packaging
• An exclusive multiplayer Spartan armor effect

The standard edition of Halo: Reach will have an estimated price of $59.99 USD.  The two special editions will be available only while supplies last and I’ll let you know when they’ll be available for pre-order. Until then, I’ve posted some high rez pictures of some of the items mentioned above.

In other Halo news, Bungie’s latest Halo: Reach ViDoc, titled Carnàge Carnivàle was also released today. We’re only a few short days away from the Halo : Reach multiplayer beta which starts May 3rd. As a reminder, you will need your Halo 3: ODST game disc to participate in the beta.

eBay has seen a very solid first quarter, with both revenue and income increasing. PayPal has proven one of the company’s strong points, as always, but the Marketplaces division is also seeing a solid growth. The results were slightly above market expectations, but lowered estimates for the second quarter brought down the share price after the anno… (read more)

It’s been a not-so-secret bug that not all apps in the Android Market have been available on all handsets. And it’s been particularly egregious on the HTC Legend, with such apps as Google Goggles, Barcode Scanner and Twidroid not appearing. Turns out it’s had something to do with apps that can access the phone’s camera, and HTC has issued a firmware update. We’ve seen similar issues with the Droid Incredible and our AT&T version of the Nexus One. Hopefully fixes will arrive sooner rather than later. [HTC via Engadget]

Filed under: Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, MISC

Fiat and Ferrari aren’t the only ones undergoing a comprehensive restructuring as longtime rival (both on and off the track) McLaren has announced a major reorganization of its operations and several management changes.

The biggest shift for McLaren is the split between McLaren Automotive (which will produce the new MP4-12C supercar) and the McLaren Group (which operates the racing team). The roadcar unit is being split off into its own operation, based out of the McLaren Production Centre, which shares its grounds with the McLaren Technology Centre next door.

The two companies will now report to two separate boards, which will in turn be accountable to separate shareholders. But to keep things sufficiently confusing for the rest of us, most of the key players – including executive chairman Ron Dennis, team principal Martin Whitmarsh, CFO Andy Myers, incoming legal counsel Tim Mumane and shareholders Mansour Ojjeh and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Essa al-Khalifa – will continue to serve on the boards for both companies. Richard Lapthorne, who was until now serving as non-executive chairman of the single unit before the split, will be leaving the company. Details in the press release after the jump.

[Source: McLaren]

Continue reading McLaren announces comprehensive restructuring, management changes

McLaren announces comprehensive restructuring, management changes originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 22 Apr 2010 07:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Once the gold standard among profitable automakers, Toyota Motor Corp. has fallen on hard times in recent months, and now credit rating agency Moody's Investors Service has joined the chorus of negativity.

Tadashi Usui, a Japanese analyst with Moody's in Tokyo, downgraded the credit rating for Toyota and its subsidiaries on Wednesday night to Aa2 from Aa1, with a "negative" ratings outlook.

"The ratings action reflects the ongoing low level of profitability evident at Toyota, and which we expect to continue for an extended period, Mr. Usui said in the report. "Moreover, its product quality and recall challenges — largely centred in the United States — have created significant uncertainty over whether it can maintain the pricing power it has historically achieved over its rivals."

And with global auto sales expected to be sluggish in 2010, along with persistent overcapacity, Toyota's profit margins could remain well below "what is appropriate for its rating level until 2012 at the earliest and possibly beyond," he said.

Mr. Usui is also concerned about future litigation costs related to the product recalls.

However, the fact that Toyota is Japan's largest automaker — and likely to remain so — means there will be government and banking support if it really needed it.

"This assumption has lifted its rating by one notch from what it would be otherwise," he said.

The highest rating available with Moody's is Aaa, while Aa (and its relative 1,2 and 3 qualifiers) is still considered high quality.

Eric Lam

Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are heading back to the big screen for a third Men In Black movie, FOX News’ Showbiz 411 Column has learned.

The duo will reteam as Kay and Jay — roles they originated in the 1996 original — in a 3D sequel, we hear. MIB director Barry Sonnenfeld reportedly told Showbiz 411’s Roger Friedman that, despite rumors of Will’s departure, the actor has signed on to return. Sonnenfield hinted that MIB could roll into the cinema just in time Memorial Day weekend 2011.

The last Men In Black film hit theaters in 2002. To date the hit franchise has earned over $1 billion at the international box office.

…Sort of.

While the entire Mideast-centric wing of the foreign-policy community waits to see if the Obama administration will actually offer its own plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with an independent Palestinian state — to say nothing of the bated breath in Mideast capitols — Jim Jones, President Obama’s national security adviser, sounded warm, soothing tones last night about the U.S.-Israel relationship to a leading pro-Israel group, the center-right Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“There has been a lot of distortion and misrepresentation of our policy recently,” Jones said, getting that out of the way. “We will never forget that since the first minutes of Israeli independence, the United States has had a special relationship with Israel. And that will not change.” And he continued on in that vein. It even got subtle: As Israel tries to rebrand itself as a tech-centric “start-up nation,” Jones said the U.S.-Israel bonds were “the bonds of pioneers in science, technology and so many fields where we cooperate every day.”

Bona fides affirmed, Jones’ speech attempted to thread several needles: convincing Israel and its American advocates that taking risks for a two-state solution right now is in both the Israeli and American interest; that the U.S. is about to take action on Israel’s enemy, Iran, and so Israel needs to reciprocate on the peace process; and that the Obama administration’s broader national security strategy — ensuring nations fulfill their international obligations and uphold the rights of their citizens as the key to global security, prosperity and dignity — is inextricably tied to Mideast peace. “We recognize that peace must be made by the parties and cannot be imposed from the outside,” Jones said, echoing a recent formulation of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “At the same time, we understand that the status quo is not sustainable.” He called for the resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations — pointedly eliding the indirect talks the administration has for weeks tried to use as a bridge to direct talks:

So it is time to begin those negotiations and to put an end to excuses. It is time for all leaders in the region—Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab—to support efforts for peace. It is time for today’s leader to demonstrate the courage and leadership of Anwar Sadat, King Hussein, and Yitzhak Rabin.

That looks like the Fierce Urgency of Now again. Jones left hanging in the air the prospect of an Obama peace plan — he didn’t touch on the idea at all — but the thrust of his speech was about the need for concerted and immediate action on peace. The vectors point in the direction of such an Obama peace plan if those talks don’t get underway, and Jones closed by emphasizing that the Obama administration isn’t going to relent on Mideast peace: “This is the work we will continue to pursue in the months and years ahead… not only for the sake of America’s security, but for the world’s.”

In a week when all eyes were on a phone found in a bar, Dell has been leaking information about its mobile roadmap. Dell looks to make a splash in this space this year as details about several phones and handheld devices would indicate. The company looks committed to the Android platform, but not exclusively as the Lightning with Windows Phone 7 demonstrates.

The Dell Lightning is the first look we’ve gotten of a real handset running Windows Phone 7, and it looks like a dandy. The Snapdragon processor, which seems to be rapidly becoming the standard against all other are judged, is running a 4.1-inch OLED screen that looks gorgeous in the leaked photos. The Lightning is a portrait slider with a QWERTY keyboard which will make quite a few folks happy. In addition to all of the hardware goodness packed in the Lightning, leaked details indicate it will get an LTE upgrade in the last quarter of this year. Oh my, the Dell Lightning is looking mighty tasty.

Several Android phones are in the works by Dell, including the Thunder which has a hardware design that looks similar to the Lightning without the slider and with Android on board. The Thunder is reported to also have a 4.1-inch display, and Dell is following HTC’s route by putting its own shell on top of Android to make it distinguishable from the competition. The “Stage” UI follows a familiar route by integrating social networking into the UI, in a very attractive package. The Thunder is also reported to be coming in an LTE version late this year.

Dell is not forgetting those looking for a cheaper, simpler phone, as the Flash proves. This handset will have a slower processor and more sedate design, but with the same Android and Stage UI as the Thunder. There will be a smaller 3.5-inch screen on the Flash, and all of the standard features one expects in a smartphone. The Flash is expected in early 2011.

We have been teased by Dell with handheld Android tablets for quite some time, but haven’t seen any hit the market yet. That teasing has been cranked up to a high level with new information about the Dell Streak, the 5-inch handheld tablet that is now reported to get the latest version of Android in September. This news is exciting as it may mean we’ll actually be able to buy one of these puppies soon. The Streak is looking mighty fine with its dual cameras hinting at video conferencing.

A big shout out to our friends at Engadget for getting all of this “secret” information about Dell’s mobile roadmap. We understand no German beer was involved, which is no small feat.

Image credit: Engadget

Related research from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

Marketing Handsets in the Superphone Era

For now, let’s chalk this up in the rumor category. A user from 4Chan has posted a few pictures of a myTouch running Android 2.2. He says a new feature in 2.2 will be the ability to set the market to automatically update your apps when they become available.

We’ve seen our fair share of fake screenshots in the past but this one looks like it could be real. All of us have had days where we just don’t want to update apps over and over. This new feature would make this process as painless as it can be. The only downside I see in this is when an app is updated to a broken version or to one that has limitations put on it. But, over all this will be a good thing especially if they can incorporate some way to downgrade apps back to the original functioning version. 2.2 are rumored to be released next month so if it does, we’ll see if this is true or not.

The differences are clear – Apple’s selling phones and associated content faster than Nokia.

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) smartphone shipments grew by 50 percent in the year’s first three months, compared to 131 percent more iPhones reported this week.

But Nokia isn’t juicing the uses for these smartphones – sales from services (ie. Nokia’s Ovi suite) are 12 percent down from last year at €148 million.

Nokia still shifts more phones than Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) – it sold 21.5 million “converged mobile devices” in the quarter, compared with 8.75 million iPhones.

But the first phone powered by Symbian^3 – the upgrade that’s critical to improving an OS that’s now seen as relatively clunky – is now forecast to ship in Q3, delayed from Q2. CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo told analysts this is “close to our milestone date” – but shares took a dive.

“It’s a painful thing to delay something a bit,” Kallasvuo said. “But meeting the quality requirements is the right thing to do. It will be more intuitive, more fun and faster.” Analysts piled in with unflattering questions, like: “Can Nokia be fast and big, or just big?”

It must be both, Kallasvuo said. “We are not going for the high end with Symbian only, but also going for the even higher end with Maemo,” he added, somewhat optimistically, referring to the Linux-based smartphone OS.

Operating profit bounced back 787 percent to €488 million on three percent higher net sales of €9.5 billion.

For its coming Q2, Nokia expects 10 percent higher mobile volume across the industry, but expects no higher market share for itself compared with last year.

One thing’s going okay – sales from the Navteq mapping subsidiary are up 41 percent, and Nokia has got 10 million downloads for the free GPS navigation service since introducing in January.

North America continues to be Nokia’s slimmest market – devices and services sales down 27 percent over the year to just €219 million, and its share of the market down 21 percent to just 2.7 percent. But sales grew fastest in Latin America (42 percent) and Middle East/Africa (30 percent).