The state is facing big budget problems and other issues, but Gov. M. Jodi Rell is asking citizens to take time out from their day in order to vote for Middlebury’s Katie Stevens on American Idol. Stevens, a 17-year-old high school student, has been a long-running contestant on the show – surviving multiple rounds to make it this far.
Eric Danton has the details at http://blogs.courant.com/eric_danton_sound_check/2010/04/katie-stevens-jodi-rell-american-idol.html
The Wii, the Xbox 360, and the PS3 all have online capabilities. But according to this report, the PS3 has the biggest percentage of units that are connected to the internet.
Health care reform issues are clearly not off the table for conservatives, and abortion seems to be the new battleground. According to Americans United for Life (AUL), more than two dozen states are now working on legislation aimed at closing what state lawmakers believe is a loophole for abortion and federal tax dollars. “This was the biggest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade,” says AUL President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest, referring to the new health care reform measure. Missouri state Senator Scott Rupp is among those who believe it is necessary for state legislatures to act in response to the federal law. Rupp heads up the state senate committee that quickly passed proposed legislation which would ban any health insurance exchange, like the ones states will create under the new federal law, from offering policies that cover elective abortions. “There are multiple issues where taxpayer funds can and would be going to fund abortions,” according to Rupp.
Many in the pro-choice community say the push for state laws is a politically-motivated smokescreen. “These initiatives are really unnecessary,” says Planned Parenthood’s Laurie Rubiner, adding, “There are no federal funds being used to pay for abortions and that’s made very clear in the bill.” Rubiner also points to the Executive Order signed by President Obama, negotiated primarily to allay the fears of pro-life Democrats headed up by Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI). The order served to reassure that group to the point of winning key “yes” votes on health care reform, but not everyone’s convinced. “The truth is, everyone knew that the Executive Order was just a fig leaf that was meant to cover up the fact that they were going to pass this huge expansion of abortion funding,” says Yoest.
Planned Parenthood has pledged to work against state efforts to restrict abortion coverage options. Rubiner says it’s also important “that people understand what’s really behind these initiatives” calling them “very political.” It’s certainly an issue that could work its way into state and national elections this fall. Political analysts like Michael Barone say, “I think it’s a fair question to ask a candidate, ‘Are you for or against such provisions?’” Lawmakers want to be clear: this isn’t a referendum on the legality of abortion. “We’re just saying we don’t want our tax dollars to go to fund these types of things,” Rupp says.
Posted by John Byrne at 1:30 p.m.
Mayor Richard Daley defended Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias today, saying the candidate should not step aside despite revelations about family-owned Broadway Bank.
"Why should he step aside? Tell me," Daley said. "He went through the primary."
"Everybody knew that, what was happening to the bank, so why?" the mayor added.
The Tribune reported earlier this month that Broadway Bank loaned a pair of Chicago crime figures about $20 million during a 14-month
period when Giannoulias was a senior loan officer in a story that provided new details about the bank’s
relationship with the convicted felons.
Broadway Bank had already lent millions to Michael Giorango when he and
a new business partner, Demitri Stavropoulos, came to the bank in
mid-2004. Although both men were preparing to serve federal prison
terms, the bank embarked on a series of loans to them. The bank also is in financial trouble.
Earlier this year, Daley offered a similar defense for pawnbroker Scott Lee Cohen — who withdrew as the Democratic lieutenant governor nominee amid embarrassing revelations about his private life. Daley invoked Cohen today while talking about Giannoulias.
""You forced one candidate out for lieutenant governor, because you didn’t like his profession or his personal life," Daley said. "It’s really interesting, it’s just very interesting how people go through a primary, and say ‘You have to step aside because we don’t like what happened.’ "
In both the Cohen and Giannoulias cases, Daley invoked the sanctity of the primary election.
But the mayor declined to defend the importance of the primary election process in the race for Cook County assessor, where Democratic nominee and county Democratic Party Chairman Joseph Berrios has chastised Forrest Claypool — a former Daley chief of staff — for running as an independent rather than participating in the primary.
"I’m not going to get into all that," Daley said when asked about Berrios’ criticism of Claypool. "Everybody’s arguing about the primary. This is the general election and people are going to decide in the general election what’s going to come."
Thousands are expected to converge on downtown Los Angeles to honor LAPD Officer Robert J. Cottle, killed March 24 in Afghanistan while on Marine Reserve duty. Cottle, 45, was traveling with three other Marines in the Marja region of the country, which has been the focus of an intense U.S.-led offensive against Taliban forces in recent weeks. Their armored vehicle struck an improvised explosive device, killing Cottle and another Marine and seriously wounding the two others, said LAPD Capt. John Incontro, who oversees SWAT operations.
Renault y Nissan, mediante su alianza, siguen promoviendo masivamente el transporte eléctrico, añadiendo un nuevo compromiso a los más de 50 que ya tienen actualmente firmados en todo el mundo. Alberto Ruiz Gallardón, Alcalde de Madrid y Olivier Paturet, Director del programa de la alianza, firmaron el acuerdo.
El plan MOVELE, actualmente gestionado por, la Fundación Movilidad tiene diferentes pilares: ser Madrid una de las primeras ciudades en contar con los vehículos eléctricos producidos por la compañía para promover el car sharing, búsqueda de socios para desarrollar infraestructuras de carga en los parkings y la implicación de las entidades locales, donde se incluyen las empresas.
La importancia de que los futuros clientes de Nissan en Madrid puedan conducir su modelo eléctrico Leaf a partir de 2011 y así poder apreciar las ventajas de esta nueva forma de movilidad limpia es muy importante para nosotros.
Olivier Paturet y el Alcalde se mostraron a favor de desarrollar las sinergias entre la estrategia de cero emisiones de Nissan-Renault y el plan MOVELE, además anotándose el tanto en promover la ciudad inteligente y una mejora de la calidad del aire. Una buena noticia poder contarnos entre los pioneros en todo el mundo en este aspecto.
Fuente | Renault
The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas was in favor of raising the rate charged to banks on emergency loans last month, but it found little support from others in the U.S. central bank.
Minutes of the latest discount rate meetings, released Tuesday, showed that the Fed board members in Washington on March 15 were all in favor of keeping the discount rate at 0.75%. The board, which includes Chairman Ben Bernanke, has the final word on the rate.
“The directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas had voted on March 11 to establish a rate of one percent,” the minutes from the March meetings showed. However, the other 11 Fed district banks were in favor of maintaining the rate at 0.75%.
As an incremental step away from its emergency-lending efforts, the Fed raised the discount rate by a quarter point to 0.75% on Feb. 18.
The rate had been lowered aggressively early in the financial crisis to give commercial banks added incentive to come to the Fed for money. After the move, the Fed stressed it didn’t mean that broader loans to companies and households were also about to increase.
With the crisis still unfolding, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher tried to lobby the Fed to push interest rates higher to combat inflation. However, in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, he said inflation was now low on his list of worries.
Malicious items are something that every computer user will encounter at one point or another, whether it’s a malicious email or a fully blown virus, even if you are equipped the latest antivirus client. Malicious software
can be disguised and distributed in a number of different and ingenious
ways which makes it increasingly difficult for security applications to
identify, let alone protect against. One other problem is that, even if
you find an application that works, they tend to be overblown
and are usually far larger than necessary.
Microsoft
Malicious Software Removal Tool 3.6
is a basic security utility that ensures you are protected against the very
latest
malicious threats. The application scans and checks your system,
automatically removing any unwanted items as well as displaying a full
report at the end of each scan. Use the Microsoft download page to ensure you are equipped with the latest version.
We’re back after a couple (erm, more like a month) off, but we’re back with a vengeance. And here’s what we want to know: Android games are growing by leaps and bounds, as is the hardware we’re playing them on. And, so, what’s your favorite racing game? Head on into the forums and let us know. For your troubles, we’re giving away 10 Invisible Skins from the folks at invisibleskinz.com. We’ll take submissions until 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
Filed under: Classics, Convertible, Auctions, Ferrari, Celebrities
We reported just a couple of weeks ago that the replica Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder – built atop an MG for use in the cult classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – was heading to the auction block. But with the auction fast approaching, the man who played Ferris has publicly discouraged anyone from actually buying the replicar in question.
The remarks were made by Matthew Broderick – the actor put on the map by his lead role in Ferris – at the debut for The Addams Family, a remake of another classic, starring his longtime friend Nathan Lane. Speaking with journalists from the red carpet, Broderick recalled that the car “often didn’t start” when they were filming and characterized it as “unreliable”. If you say so, Ferris, but that’s hardly cause to drive out through a glass wall and into the ravine below. Thanks for the tip, POV!
[Source: New York magazine]
Even if you have the means, Ferris would not recommend picking up his Ferrari California movie-prop originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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This morning Cooper Industries announced the purchase, for an undisclosed amount, of wireless smart grid developer Eka Systems. On Monday Sunnyvale, Calif., Maxim Integrated Products said it would pay $315 million for Teridian Semiconductor, a developer of power monitoring device based in Irvine, Calif.
On Eka, Cooper Industries says the company’s technology is at an early stage of development with little change of going commercial anytime soon. “This acquisition represents a long-term commitment to this space as we plan to make significant additional organic investments in this product line,” Cooper explained in a prepared statement.
Maxim said Teridian had a 50 percent market share in the fast-growing system-on-chip (SoC) energy measurement market. Maxim will use Teridian’s market position to accelerate its sales of existing power management systems.
There has been a steady flow of smart grid M&A deals over the past year. Last summer GridPoint acquired the energy business of Canadian web technology services company Lixar SRS and V2Green a company that develops technology to manage the charging of electric cars. Also, Sensus, a North Carolina company with $670 million in annual revenues, bought Boise, Idaho-based Telemetric, a provider of communication solutions for smart grid systems. And in September Google-backed Silver Spring Networks acquired home energy management startup Greenbox SRS.
According to recent market research reports less than half of the nation’s top 20 power utilities are using analytical software to comb through the mountains of data generated by the growing number of smartgrid devices being deployed, mostly as demonstration projects. Smart grid demonstrations are going on in Chicago, the Bay Area and Miami.
Going fully commercial for smart grid companies will require lots of cash. That’s one reason blue-chip, straight technology companies with deep pockets like Google, IBM and IT giant Cisco Systems, are committing significant investments to smart grid initiatives as they want to get in early on what they believe could be the next tech-boom. The federal government is also investing, having committed nearly $4 billion to smart grid projects to increase the “reliability, efficiency and security of the nation’s [electricity] transmission and distribution system.”
Regarding long-term funding some companies, including Silver Spring, which so far has raised $275 million across multiple VC rounds, is now looking to raise more cash via an upcoming IPO managed by Morgan Stanley.
Either way much like the rest of the clean energy sector, smartgrid’s steep cash requirement ensures for more M&A transactions (and IPOs) in the future.
Thousands of people have applied to with NASA to be astronauts since 1959, but less than 400 have been chosen. The lucky few must complete about four years of training before getting launched into space. This training includes miles of sustained running in 120-pound space suits while holding weights, enduring extreme temperatures, and being plunged into frigid water, dropped from airplanes, and flung about in motion simulators. All this punishment makes for great pictures, allowing the rest of us to simply watch and perhaps feel a little better about being earthbound.
All images courtesy NASA
1957: The Gimbal Rig was engineered to simulate the tumbling and rolling motions of a space capsule and train the Mercury astronauts to control roll, pitch and yaw by activating nitrogen jets, used as brakes and bring the vehicle back into control. This facility was built at the Lewis Research Center, now John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field.
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With money-losing Palm (NSDQ: PALM) actively looking for a buyer, HTC has admitted to Bloomberg that it is weighing the pros and cons of having its own operating system.
In a phone interview, Cheng Hui-ming, HTC’s CFO, said: “We continue to assess, but that requires a few conditions to justify.” adding, “There are many multiple factors to be considered together, rather than a simple statement as to own or not to own.”
HTC may have to do its analysis quickly if it is indeed interested in Palm as reports indicated earlier this week. Since then, Reuters reported that Palm reached out to Chinese Telecom-maker Huawei for preliminary acquisition talks. While their sources indicated that they didn’t go anywhere, a laundry list of other companies have been named as potential suitors, such as Lenovo or Dell. HTC’s Cheng said the company has no specific timeframe for deciding whether it should have its own platform, and declined to comment on whether they were considering Palm.
There’s some logic to HTC wanting to own its own operating system. Companies, like Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and BlackBerry, that own the entire process from hardware to software have a more integrated experience. Meanwhile, HTC relies on third-party platforms, like Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile to make phones. However, HTC would have to worry about what those two companies would think of it becoming a direct competitor on the OS front.
Huawei has just started making phones based on the Android operating system, however, it mostly sells back-end infrastructure and competes with Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Siemens. Whether it would be interested in owning the OS is unclear. Android is attractive because it is free.
Every device maker is plagued by lookalikes mass-produced in the far east, and Apple is no exception. The fakes themselves, while always pretty terrible, often have looked mighty close to the real thing as far as hardware design. It only takes a single rogue iPhone to spawn a thousand exact replicas as far as dimensions, shape, and materials. Well, Apple’s taking steps to prevent this, though I somehow doubt they’ll prove too effective. They’ve been granted a patent covering the “ornamental design” of the iPhone and its pals — it better be a very specific design they’ve patented, since most phones are lozenge-shaped with big screens now.
The patents were filed in 2007 (for the iPod Touch) and 2009 (likely after the 3GS design was finalized and on the market). That’s not such a long wait, really. I’ve been waiting on a patent for my iPhone heart-replacement chest-dock for like five years now. I know, since before the iPhone came out! What can I say, I just think ahead!
What does this mean for you? Well, the chances of having your phone switched out for a fake by some sleight of hand at a bar is greatly reduced. Also, you’ll need to shut down that Apple knock-off sweatshop you’ve been running in the sub-basement of your office building. Yeah, you’ll just have to find some way to make do without it, I’m afraid.
[via MacStories]
Gilberto Esparza has designed a self sustaining hybrid robot that derives energy from bacteria present in polluted water. These robots are called ‘Plantas Nomadas’ or Nomadic plants because they carry plants on them and use the water to nourish them. These robots use microbial fuel cell technology. The bacteria present in dirty water is broken down and converted into energy required for sustaining the robot while the excess energy is used to sustain the plants it carries.
These robots can play a major role in helping riverside communities to deal with the problem of polluted water in a green way.
[treehugger]
Europe Finds Clean Energy in Trash, but U.S. Lags
The lawyers and engineers who dwell in an elegant enclave here are at peace with the hulking neighbor just over the back fence: a vast energy plant that burns thousands of tons of household garbage and industrial waste, round the clock. The Vestforbraending plant in Copenhagen, the largest of the 29 waste-to-energy plants in Denmark. Their use has reduced the country’s energy costs.
Far cleaner than conventional incinerators, this new type of plant converts local trash into heat and electricity. Dozens of filters catch pollutants, from mercury to dioxin, that would have emerged from its smokestack only a decade ago.
In that time, such plants have become both the mainstay of garbage disposal and a crucial fuel source across Denmark, from wealthy exurbs like Horsholm to Copenhagen’s downtown area. Their use has not only reduced the country’s energy costs and reliance on oil and gas, but also benefited the environment, diminishing the use of landfills and cutting carbon dioxide emissions. The plants run so cleanly that many times more dioxin is now released from home fireplaces and backyard barbecues than from incineration.
With all these innovations, Denmark now regards garbage as a clean alternative fuel rather than a smelly, unsightly problem. And the incinerators, known as waste-to-energy plants, have acquired considerable cachet as communities like Horsholm vie to have them built.
Denmark now has 29 such plants, serving 98 municipalities in a country of 5.5 million people, and 10 more are planned or under construction. Across Europe, there are about 400 plants, with Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands leading the pack in expanding them and building new ones.
By contrast, no new waste-to-energy plants are being planned or built in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency says — even though the federal government and 24 states now classify waste that is burned this way for energy as a renewable fuel, in many cases eligible for subsidies. There are only 87 trash-burning power plants in the United States, a country of more than 300 million people, and almost all were built at least 15 years ago.
Instead, distant landfills remain the end point for most of the nation’s trash. New York City alone sends 10,500 tons of residential waste each day to landfills in places like Ohio and South Carolina.
“Europe has gotten out ahead with this newest technology,” said Ian A. Bowles, a former Clinton administration official who is now the Massachusetts state secretary of energy.
Still, Mr. Bowles said that as America’s current landfills topped out and pressure to reduce heat-trapping gases grew, Massachusetts and some other states were “actively considering” new waste-to-energy proposals; several existing plants are being expanded. He said he expected resistance all the same in a place where even a wind turbine sets off protests.
Europe Urged to Share Power Across Continent
Renewable energy in Europe should be generated and distributed on a continental scale to make the greatest contribution toward reducing greenhouse gases, according to a report that raises significant challenges for a fragmented region.
The report, to be released Tuesday, was compiled by the European Climate Foundation, a group financed by philanthropic organizations, using studies carried out by McKinsey, a consulting firm.
Among its recommendations is a gigantic power cable that would link solar farms in Spain with energy-hungry countries like Poland. Such a link could ship huge volumes of so-called clean electricity, but it could face political opposition in countries like France.
The report underscores how various renewable power sources, including wind from the North Sea, will need to be linked on a transcontinental grid to generate a secure and reliable supply of alternative energy to substitute for fossil fuels.
Such a grid would probably be easier to build in countries that span continents, as in the United States and China. In Europe, power grids remain largely confined to countries, with limited cross-border connections.
The report, to be presented in Brussels to the European Union energy commissioner, Günther Oettinger, and the climate commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, said that cross-border connections would need to change if clean power was to be distributed more widely.
“Transmission must develop from a minor trading and reserve-sharing role to one that enables significant energy exchanges between regions across the year,” according to the report.
The addition of a huge interconnector crossing France could help French utilities export more nuclear power, but it also could cut into those exports by providing customers with an alternative source of electricity.
Climate treaty realities push leaders to trim priority lists
As prospects for a binding global climate treaty this year have evaporated, leaders and environmental advocates have focused their efforts on reaching agreement on a few top priorities, including preserving tropical forests and helping developing countries cope with climate change.
The U.N.-sponsored climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, in December are increasingly viewed as an interim step to a final deal. Many heads of state and activists had hoped that they could produce a successor agreement to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The climate pact’s first period ends in 2012.
Instead, negotiators have begun to focus on what U.N. Foundation President Timothy E. Wirth calls “the building blocks” of a global climate strategy.
In an interview Monday, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said that it was overly ambitious to include everything from emissions targets to technology transfer provisions and funding for preventing deforestation. “We cannot expect all of this in an agreement covering all issues. But what I hope is we are able to make some progress on some issues.”
U.S. special envoy for climate change Todd Stern said the administration was focused on bringing essential elements for an eventual treaty “to some level of closure” by the end of the year. “There’s a bunch of work to be done,” he said.
Connie Hedegaard, who led the climate talks in Copenhagen last year and serves as European commissioner for climate action, said that focusing on those priorities could help win over the leaders of some developing countries. “Why don’t we focus on content: specific actions, specific deliverables,” Hedegaard said. “Then they could see there’s something in it for them.”
The divide between rich and poor countries was evident over the weekend in Bonn, Germany, where delegates from 175 nations met for a working session to lay the groundwork for this year’s talks. The procedural debate, on questions such as whether to include the U.S.-brokered Copenhagen Accord in the ongoing U.N. talks, became so contentious it prompted committee chairwoman Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe to comment Sunday, “If we can’t agree on this, then we may have problems when we really start negotiating.”
White House Rhetoric May Signal Climate-Bill Surge
With the bruising health care debate over, President Obama’s top economic adviser left little doubt last week that energy and climate has taken its place atop the administration’s agenda.
During a 30-minute speech (pdf) at a Washington energy conference, Larry Summers, the head of the White House’s National Economic Council, used lofty rhetoric to warn of the long-term consequences if Congress fails to follow through this year on a sweeping overhaul of how the nation generates and uses energy.
“Read the history of great nations,” Summers said. “Read how they succeed and read how they fail. Their ability to mobilize to solve problems before they are absolutely imminent crises is what determines their longevity.
That’s why this task of economic renewal is so important broadly. And that’s why I believe it is so important that we move for economic reasons to pass comprehensive energy legislation.”
Summers, a former Treasury secretary and president of Harvard University, went on to outline ways a climate and energy bill can help the U.S. economy grow, from creating short-term jobs to reducing uncertainty and increasing confidence for new private-sector investments.
“Ultimately, economic policy choices, like investment decisions for a family, involve seeking opportunity and involve minimizing risk,” Summers said. “If you think about the risks to our ecology, the risks to our security, we minimize those risks with comprehensive energy policy. And if you think about the opportunity to lead in what is really important, we maximize that opportunity with comprehensive energy legislation. That’s why energy is so crucial a part of President Obama’s economic strategy.”
Advocates for U.S. action on climate change welcomed Summers’ remarks, saying they saw in them an important message from the Obama administration. With the health care bill signed into law, key White House players are turning their attention to an energy debate that will demand considerable heavy lifting if an energy and climate measure is going to have a chance to pass the Senate and reach the president’s desk before the midterm election.
“It was very important symbolically that the rest of the White House, beyond Carol Browner and CEQ, is getting engaged in this battle,” said Dan Weiss, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, referring to Obama’s top climate and energy adviser and the Council on Environmental Quality.
Renewable energy helps fuel Dow above 11,000
The benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 11,000 for the first time since stock markets began their nosedive 18 months ago. And the rebound in investor and trader confidence seems to be taking renewable energy and clean technology stocks with it.
An uptick in the price of a barrel of oil, the coming 40th anniversary Earth Day celebrations and renewed focus on energy and climate legislation in Congress could once again be sparking market enthusiasm, at least for the short term, market watchers are speculating.
But the upturn could prove short-lived as some banks and investment firms remain wary of the sector’s long-term performance, warning their clients of shrinking public support for subsidies and an end to government stimulus spending globally.
The Dow settled at 11,005.97 at the closing bell Monday. That’s just 0.1 percent higher than Friday’s closing level, a rise of only 8 points. But it represents the first time the stock market index broke the 10,000 range since the bankruptcy of Wall Street icon Lehman Brothers Holdings sent the entire financial system into a tailspin more than a year and a half ago.
Solar company stocks, in particular, have been performing well at the close of the year’s first fiscal quarter. That’s despite ominous news of rapidly shrinking subsidies that have been the real engine of growth for the industry. Several large European nations have been announcing steep cuts to their feed-in tariff programs, through which governments guaranteed higher subsidized electricity prices for solar power generation, in a bid to plug huge budget deficits.
Among U.S. firms, First Solar saw its shares rise by 2.3 percent last week, and the stock bounced up again by more than 3 percent in trading Monday. Holdings in the largest solar company in the United States closed yesterday at almost $128 per share, from about $124 at the beginning of the day. The stock rose to nearly $130 in the first half of the day before settling back.
MEMC, a wafer supplier, rose by more than 5 percent last week and bumped up again by nearly 2 percent Monday. Competitor LDK Solar’s share price rose by 11.9 percent last week and rose almost 4 percent higher still yesterday. Analysts cite rising prices for their products as reason for the strong performance.
“Prices are expected to further increase in 3Q10,” Credit Suisse analysts said in a new report.
Joe Bastardi, who goes by the title “expert senior forecaster” at AccuWeather, has a modest proposal. Virtually every major scientific body in the world has concluded that the planet is warming, and that greenhouse-gas emissions are the main cause. Bastardi, who holds a bachelor’s degree in meteorology, disagrees. His theory, which mixes volcanism, sunspots, and a sea-temperature trend known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, is that the earth is actually cooling. Why don’t we just wait twenty or thirty years, he proposes, and see who’s right?
This is “the greatest lab experiment ever,” he said recently on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show.
Bastardi’s position is ridiculous (which is no doubt why he’s often asked to air it on Fox News). Yet there it was on the front page of the Times last week. Among weathermen, it turns out, views like Bastardi’s are typical. A survey released by researchers at George Mason University found that more than a quarter of television weathercasters agree with the statement “Global warming is a scam,” and nearly two-thirds believe that, if warming is occurring, it is caused “mostly by natural changes.” (The survey also found that more than eighty per cent of weathercasters don’t trust “mainstream news media sources,” though they are presumably included in this category.
Alimentation Couche-Tard's credit rating has been placed under review by Moody's Investor Services following the convenience store's hostile bid for Casey's General Stores Inc.
"The review for downgrade considers Moody's belief that Casey's would represent a relatively large sized acquisition which has the potential to increase ACT's initial adjusted pro-forma leverage from roughly 3x to over 4x, said the credit rating agency on Monday.
Couche-Tard said Friday that it has launched an unsolicited US$1.9-billion to take over U.S.-based Casey's. The offer, worth US$36 per share, was rejected
by Casey's management, who accused Couche-Tard of "trying to buy
U.S. companies on the cheap."
Shares in Couche-Tard have risen since the bid was made public. Casey's stock, meanwhile, has jumped to US$39.
The Moody's review will focus on Couche Tard's plans to finance the potential transaction, including an assessment of its resulting balance sheet, liquidity profile and plans for future debt reduction.
The Quebec convenience store's rating would likely be downgraded if Moody's concluded that the company's adjusted debt/ EBITDA moved towards 4x, with cash flow relative to adjusted debt levels in the "low single digits."
"While ACT has a favorable track record of integrating acquisitions and
additional acquisitions are contemplated for in its current rating, the
proposed acquisition of Casey's has the potential to stretch ACT's key
credit measures beyond the bounds that Moody's currently expects," the
rating agency said.
Vishal Shreedhar, an equity analyst at UBS AG, said the Casey proposal marks a strategic departure for Couche Tard, noting in the past that it has acquired assets at low prices with significant opportunity for merchandising improvement.
"We view CASY’s operations as high quality, with a strong merchandising component," he told clients in a note to clients.
"The strategic rationale for this deal: increased scale, entry into new territories, leveraging Casey's strong balance sheet and merger synergies."
Mr. Shreedhar said the deal could be accretive to Couche Tard, based on purchase price of between US$36 and US$45.
A successful bid would be paid for in cash, however Couche Tard's management will remain disciplined and not overpay, he wrote.
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Scott Ullman, our regional training coordinator, will be touring Mendocino County next week. On Wednesday, April 21, he’ll be in Fort Bragg for a full-day of free training. With sponorship from the Cleo Foundation we’re presenting Fundraising Day for Mendocino County and North Coast Nonprofits. Scott will teach several of our most popular training classes including Fundraising in a Challenging Economy, Your Board and Fundraising, and Introduction to Foundation Directory Online. The day will end with a Meet the Grantmakers panel of local funders. Click a the link above for the full agenda and to register for the programs.
On Friday, April 23, Scott will travel over to Ukiah and present How to Approach a Foundation: From Initial Contact to Getting Funding –What Does It Take?. He will then host another Meet the Grantmakers panel of Mendocino funders. If you are in the area be sure to join Scott.