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Posted by Hal Dardick and John Byrne at 12:40 p.m.

A key City Council
committee today overwhelmingly approved a proposal for a watchdog to
investigate aldermen despite criticism that the office will have almost
no power.

The Rules Committee voted 22-4 for the proposal to create the office of legislative inspector general. Ald. Joe Moore, 49th, the measure’s staunchest opponent, said he believes the full council will approve it at Wednesday’s meeting. (You can read the ordinance by clicking here: Download Councilproposal)

“I was sad to see a few of my reform-minded colleagues were reluctant to oppose this," Moore said.

Under the ordinance, the legislative inspector general would be chosen
by aldermen and not be allowed to even proceed with an investigation
unless someone filed a signed-and-sworn complaint and the little-known
Board of Ethics found “reasonable cause” for the investigation to
proceed.

If the inspector general then decided to level formal charges, the
Board of Ethics would sit in judgment.

During its 23-year history, that board hasn’t found a single case of
wrongdoing by aldermen. Over that period, more than 20 aldermen have
been convicted of crimes.

While he is used to being on the losing side against council forces
loyal to Mayor Richard Daley, Moore found himself allied today with
aldermen like Ald. Bernard Stone, 50th, who believe no inspector general should have the authority to probe council members.

Some aldermen conceded today that they had to take action of some kind,
with elections coming next year, after Mayor Richard Daley earlier
proposed allowing the city inspector general to investigate aldermen.
Currently the IG can only investigate the mayor’s administration.





“This is a work on progress,” added Ald. Richard Mell, 33rd, chairman
of the Rules Committee that recommended approval of the measure. “At
least it’s a first step, hopefully, for a meaningful ethics ordinance.”





Asked if he’s concerned voters will regard the proposal as a paper tiger, Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, said his constituents aren’t focused on the issue.


 


"I wasn’t aware there was any groundswell," Burke said after the vote.
"I haven’t heard from any of my voters about it, but I think it is what
it is. Certain people will never be satisfied. I think this is a
reasonable approach to an issue that needs to get 26 votes and this
will get 26 votes."





Aldermen said Daley’s office was involved in the negotiations over the
measure, and the mayor today signaled he was OK with key provisions in
the plan.


 


"That will be up to (aldermen) to explain the final result," Daley said
when asked if the proposed legislative inspector general is strong
enough to provide real oversight.


 


The mayor said the important thing is that some kind of City Council
inspector general be created by the body, just as other levels of
government have internal investigators.


 


Asked about Moore’s complaints, Daley said critics should make their case to their colleagues.


 


"That’s up to them," Daley said.

by Lester Brown

One way to correct market failures is tax shifting—raising taxes on activities that harm the environment so that their prices begin to reflect their true cost and offsetting this with a reduction in income taxes. A complementary way to achieve this goal is subsidy shifting. Each year the world’s taxpayers provide at least $700 billion in subsidies for environmentally destructive activities, such as fossil fuel burning, overpumping aquifers, clearcutting forests, and overfishing. As the Earth Council study Subsidizing Unsustainable Development observes, “There’s something unbelievable about the world spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually to subsidize its own destruction.”

A fishing trawler.Photo via winkyintheuk via FlickrThe perverse nature of harmful subsidies is especially apparent in the case of oceanic fisheries. Partly as a result of these subsidies, there are now so many fishing trawlers that their catch potential is nearly double the sustainable fish catch. Three fourths of ocean fisheries are now being fished at or beyond capacity or are recovering from overexploitation. If we continue with business as usual, many of these fisheries will collapse. The cod fishery off the coast of Newfoundland in Canada is a prime example of what can happen. Long one of the world’s most productive fisheries, it collapsed in the early 1990s and may never recover.

In the end, governments need to eliminate fishery subsidies. Shifting these subsidies, which encourage destructive overfishing, to the creation of marine parks to regenerate fisheries would be a giant step in restoring oceanic fisheries. A U.K. team of scientists led by Dr. Andrew Balmford of the Conservation Science Group at Cambridge University has analyzed the costs of operating marine reserves on a large scale based on data from 83 relatively small, well-managed reserves. They concluded that managing a network of marine reserves governing 30 percent of the oceans would cost only $12–14 billion—much less than the $22 billion in harmful subsidies that governments dole out today to fishers. Balmford said, “Our study suggests that we could afford to conserve the seas and their resources in perpetuity, and for less than we are now spending on subsidies to exploit them unsustainably.”

Falling water tables pose another problem that could be partly addressed through subsidy shifting. The drilling of millions of irrigation wells over the last half century has pushed water withdrawals beyond recharge rates, in effect leading to groundwater mining. The failure of governments to limit pumping to the sustainable yield of aquifers means that water tables are now falling in countries that contain more than half the world’s people, including the big three grain producers—China, India, and the United States.

In some countries, the capital needed to fund a program to raise water productivity can come from eliminating subsidies that often encourage the wasteful use of irrigation water. Sometimes these are energy subsidies, as in India; other times they are subsidies that provide water at prices well below costs, as in the United States. Removing these subsidies would effectively raise the price of water, thus encouraging its more efficient use.

On the climate front, carbon emissions could be cut in scores of countries by simply eliminating fossil fuel subsidies. Iran provides a classic example of extreme subsidies when it prices oil for internal use at one tenth the world price, strongly encouraging car ownership and gas consumption. If its $37-billion annual subsidy were phased out, the World Bank reports, Iran’s carbon emissions would drop by a staggering 49 percent. This move would also strengthen the economy by freeing up public revenues for investment in the country’s economic development. Iran is not alone. The Bank reports that removing energy subsidies would reduce carbon emissions in India by 14 percent, in Indonesia by 11 percent, in Russia by 17 percent, and in Venezuela by 26 percent.

Your tax dollars at work?Some countries are already doing this. Belgium, France, and Japan have phased out all subsidies for coal. Germany reduced its coal subsidy from a high of 6.7 billion euros in 1996 to 2.5 billion euros in 2007. Coal use dropped by 34 percent between 1991 and 2006. Germany plans to phase out this support entirely by 2018. As oil prices have climbed, a number of countries have greatly reduced or eliminated subsidies that held fuel prices well below world market prices because of the heavy fiscal cost. Among these are China, Indonesia, and Nigeria.

A study by the U.K. Green Party, Aviation’s Economic Downside, describes subsidies to the U.K. airline industry. The giveaway begins with $18 billion in tax breaks, including a total exemption from the national tax. External or indirect costs that are not paid, such as treating illness from breathing the air polluted by planes, the costs of climate change, and so forth, add nearly $7.5 billion to the tab. The subsidy in the United Kingdom totals $426 per resident. This is also an inherently regressive tax policy simply because a part of the U.K. population cannot afford to fly, yet they help subsidize this high-cost travel for their more affluent compatriots.

While some leading industrial countries have been reducing subsidies to fossil fuels—notably coal, the most climate-disrupting of all fuels—the United States has increased its support for the fossil fuel and nuclear industries. Doug Koplow, founder of Earth Track, calculated in a 2006 study that annual U.S. federal energy subsidies have a total value to the industry of $74 billion. Of this, the oil and gas industry gets $39 billion, coal $8 billion, and nuclear $9 billion. He notes that today these numbers “would likely be a good deal higher.” At a time when there is a need to conserve oil resources, U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing their depletion.

A world facing economically disruptive climate change can no longer justify subsidies to expand the burning of coal and oil. Shifting these subsidies to the development of climate-benign energy sources such as wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal power will help stabilize the earth’s climate. Shifting subsidies from road construction to rail construction could increase mobility in many situations while reducing carbon emissions. And shifting subsidies from building logging roads to planting trees would also reduce carbon emissions while helping protect and restore forest cover worldwide.

In a troubled world economy where many governments are facing fiscal deficits, tax and subsidy shifts can help balance the books, create additional jobs, and save the economy’s eco-supports. Tax and subsidy shifting promises greater energy efficiency, cuts in carbon emissions, and reductions in environmental destruction—a win-win-win situation.

For more information on economic restructuring see “Lowering Income Taxes While Raising Pollution Taxes Reaps Great Returns” at www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/book_bytes/2010/pb4ch10_ss2.

Adapted from Chapter 10, “Can We Mobilize Fast Enough?” in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), available on-line at www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/books/pb4

Data and additional information available at www.earthpolicy.org

Related Links:

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Before the Massey mine disaster, there was Crandall Canyon

Bizarre ag policy, ethanol cage match, and more

Jake Gyllenhaal is “okay” with being single and in an introspective place after the death of his beloved pal Heath Ledger changed his priorities.

Gyllenhaal called it quits with longtime girlfriend Reese Witherspoon in December and has since adopted a relaxed outlook on life, he tells GQ Magazine’s May edition:

“I think it’s important for every man to find the right woman and every woman to find the right man….Who am I to say what the most important thing in life is? The best answer I could give to any of those things is that I really don’t know. Particularly right now in my life.”

Alex Pollock does, and the results are not pretty:

Consider a new, independent regulatory bureaucracy filled with ambitious officers and staffers who are interventionist by ideology, believers that people need to be guided for their own good according to the tenets of “behavioral economics,” social democratic by faith, and closely aligned to numerous “consumer advocates.” They will hardly be content with the project of “improving disclosure,” important as that is.

They will ineluctably embark instead on allocating credit in terms of “improved access” and “fairness.” In other words, they will promote expanding riskier loans, in spite of the fact that making people loans they can’t afford is the opposite of protecting them.

This is why, if such an organization is to be created, it is absolutely essential that it be truly part of, and subordinate to, a regulatory body also charged with financial prudence, safety and soundness, and balancing risks. Better would be not to create it at all, but rather to centralize the responsibility for clear, straightforward key information in a relevant existing regulator—the Federal Trade Commission, for example.

Speaking at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia, was asked at the start of an hour-long presentation what he meant during recent congressional testimony when he waded into the treacherous waters of the Mideast peace process. His testimony that the lack of progress on Mideast peace helped set the “strategic context” for the region in which approximately 200,000 U.S. troops operate has been the subject of persistent criticism and, he said, “misconception.”

He didn’t mean, he said, that U.S. troops were directly endangered by the persistence of the conflict, nor did he formally request to have responsibility for security assistance to Israel and the Palestinian territories transferred to U.S. Central Command. But the conflict “does contribute, if you will, to the overall environment in which we operate,” Petraeus said. Reiterating a theme from his testimony, he cited that “moderate leaders” in the region typically tell him that the intractability of the conflict “gives the radicals, the extremists, the argument that the only time they have made progress on the issue has been when there is an intifada.”

Petraeus associated himself with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s near-contemporaneous remarks to AIPAC, particularly the stuff she said about how Israel “is, has and will be an important strategic ally of the United States.”

By Matt Hawes

On Monday, Congressman Paul will appear on CNN’s American Morning around 7:10 am eastern.

Update:

Article Tags: You could not make it up

Dr Jim Salinger has been in the thick of it.

Over the past few months, the veteran climate scientist – one of the most recognised men in New Zealand science – has staved off repeated criticism of his climate change work by sceptics, including Rodney Hide and the ACT Party.

His work, and that of other climate scientists, is repeatedly questioned in the debate about whether the planet is heating up, and if humanity’s carbon-burning activities are responsible. Critics have even had a crack at his decades-old Victoria University PhD, which contributed statistics to Niwa’s Seven Stations temperature series – research which showed an increase in temperatures around New Zealand.

“No, I’m not worried, because my research is based on facts, and I reach conclusions,” the 62-year-old says confidently.

“When my PhD thesis was done in 1981, I wanted to work out what was happening with New Zealand climate, particularly temperatures. In those times, we weren’t considering `the greenhouse effect’, and I thought `this is an interesting topic, see if New Zealand’s climate has changed’,” Salinger says.

Source: stuff.co.nz

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“We just stumbled upon the idea of buying tents,” says Atlanta Pastor Shaun King. Initially he and others had tried to send equipment and even surgeons to help out, but soon realized the simple idea of shelter wasn’t so simple…or for that matter available.

You might remember that while in Haiti reporting on the earthquake, our crew made it to an orphanage that was in dire need of food, water, medical treatment and shelter. At the time, Twitter, e-mail and Facebook had many of us on the ground in Haiti moving from location to location, we reported while volunteers helped so many of those in need. Well even though some time has passed, the rainy season in Haiti has come and we continue to follow this tragic story.

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The last time we checked in with Shaun and a few others on the web who were doing whatever they can to help Haiti, they were starting a new website and initiative to get tents for those in need of shelter. Called ‘ahomeinhaiti.org’, donors didn’t have to send money and with it uncertainty about where their money was going, they could buy the tent online and have it delivered. The idea has caught on and Shaun tells me, “I don’t even go camping, but i am now a tent expert!”

As people started to move on with their lives and the story of Haiti’s troubles slips to the back pages, Shaun met some unlikely friends with big time name recognition like actress Eva Longoria, who has signed onto the project and promoted it on ‘Twitter’ and during live interviews on television. At first the organization was excited about help to get the word out, but like anyone they were skeptical. That all changed tho when donations and tent orders spiked again and as of right now, more than 5,000 tents have been bought by donors so far.

The tents are not foolproof and they aren’t a long-term solution, but they will help through this rainy season. We saw some arrive before we left the area a couple of months back and they do make quite a difference when you see people living under sheets and tarps held up by branches on a tree or sticks stuck into the ground. Also the tent program doesn’t really compete with local vendors which has ben a complaint by many Haitians trying to get their businesses back on track amidst free food handouts for those in need.

Shaun also says that they have given tents to orphanages, hospitals, volunteers in Haiti who are starting their own tent cities and families they have met online or though family members living here in the states. The tents can cost anywhere from $100-$500 and are easily set up. This price may seem affordable to us here in the U.S., but for many Haitians that would be well out of their price range in a normal year, let alone after a massive natural disaster.

Below I have attached a couple of pictures that I grabbed of the tent cities and also some of the tents sent along by volunteers on the ground. Whether you want to help or not, what is so amazing is that this whole group of people mostly have never met. Through social networking and e-mails and phone calls, people from all over the country…known and unknown….are working together to make this happen. We saw it first hand when we linked up to find orphanages and people in need a couple of months ago and their hard work continues until this hour.
www.ahomeinhaiti.org for more info

My post on the religious make up of the Supreme Court is getting a bit of traffic spike due to current events. Specifically, John Paul Stevens, the high court’s lone Protestant, is set to retire, and two out of the three front runners are Jewish. Let’s assume that the future nominee is not Protestant (Elena Kagan, who is Jewish, is arguably the first choice). Statistically this is curious because ~50% of the the American population is Protestant. Assuming that a a Supreme Court justice is randomly drawn from the population you have a 0.20% probability that this would occur in a sequence of nine draws. Of course if Kagan is the nominee and confirmed all of the justices will be graduates of Ivy League universities, so there’s nothing random about the selection process.

Some of the commenters on the first post observed that the pipeline is probably going to shape the demographics of the high court. That is, elite law schools may simply have fewer Protestants than Jews or Catholics. I don’t know about that, but let’s look at Harvard University’s total demographic balance. I don’t see Catholic or Protestant breakdowns, but ethnic breakdown is public:

69% white
16% Asian
8% black
7% Hispanic

Hillel estimates that ~25% of Harvard’s undergraduate student body is Jewish. This means that no more than 44% of student body are white Christians (lower than the national average interestingly). Let’s use the American Religious Identification Survey to estimate Protestant/Catholic numbers according to proportions by each ethnic group. I get 47% Protestant and 17% Catholic at Harvard. This is probably an overestimate for both since I suspect that the irreligious would be a higher proportion within the Harvard student body than the general population, but the ratio between proportions may be more accurate. There are major caveats here, as I think the Catholic numbers are probably somewhat higher because of regional biases and such.

Why there are two, and possibly soon three, Jews on the high court doesn’t require much thinking to understand. There are a lot of Jews at elite academic institutions which produce future justices. With the filters we know of two or three Jews seems entirely reasonable, even expected. But I doubt there’s an enormous dearth of Protestants coming out of elite law schools. Rather, if there is a reason that we see so many Catholics, I think has to do with what some commenters were pointing out in regards to George W. Bush wanting to make sure he nominated people who had the “right” attitudes on abortion and the like. There of course plenty of Protestants with conservative attitudes, but they’re evangelical Christians who are underrepresented at elite institutions.

Which brings me to the point of this post, and the reason for the title: the exact numbers of Protestants, Catholics and Jews is pretty much irrelevant today in the United States. That is because Americans who are Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and even irreligious, have a fundamentally Protestant understand of how one “does” religion. To understand how and why I say American Catholics and Jews have a Protestant understanding of religion I recommend In Search of an American Catholicism: A History of Religion and Culture in Tension and American Judaism: A History. In Catholicism and American Freedom: A History John T. McGreevy outlines the realignment in the 1950s of Jews with elite east coast Protestants in the culture wars against traditional Catholicism, a reversal of the historical white ethnic coalitions within the Democratic party which emerged in the wake of the Civil War. In The Impossibility of Religious Freedom Winnifred Sullivan argues that American jurisprudence in the domain of church-state separation and accommodation is rooted in Protestant presuppositions. Finally, in The Cousins’ Wars: Religion, Politics, Civil Warfare, And The Triumph Of Anglo-America Kevin Phillips asserts that American Protestantism is fundamentally a dissenting faith which was aligned with the Whig party. I believe that this is most precisely the influence which frames how Americans of all faiths and no faiths understand religion.

And that is why it doesn’t matter if there’s a Protestant in name on the high court, Americans view religion through a lens which dissenting Protestants of the English speaking world pioneered in the 18th and 19th century. Recall that the Baptists of Virginia were aligned with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in their drive to disentangle the state from the church.

This means that on the coarse level you can’t tell much about a person when you find out they are Protestant or Catholic. Their views range across the full arc of American public opinion, and their conception of what their religious tradition entails is going to be strongly inflected by their politics. Social justice Protestants and Catholics arguably share much more with each other than with their more conservative or traditionalist co-religionists.

I’ll make this concrete and quantitative. The General Social Survey has a range of questions it asks. I looked at four of them which are “hot button”, constrained the time period from 1990-2008, and examined a range of religious groups and how they shook out. I combined some categories, so for Protestants the Evangelical includes Fundamentalists and Mainline includes Liberals (these two categories are for Protestants only). For Methodists, Presbyterians and Lutherans I threw all of the various sub-denominations into the same pot. I do know that there’s a lot of division between conservatives and liberals by sub-denomination in these groups, but I wanted a general sense of denominational diversity at a coarser scale.

The variables are:

ABANY- “Please tell me whether or not you think it should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal abortion if the woman wants it for any reason?”

HOMOSEX – “What about sexual relations between two adults of the same sex?” [Always wrong to not wrong at all]

PRAYER – “The United States Supreme Court has ruled that no state or local government may require the reading of the Lor’s Prayer or Bible verses in public schools. What are your views on this – do you approve or disapprove of the court ruling?”

SPKATH – “There are always some people whose ideas are considered bad or dangerous by other people. For instance, somebody who is against churches and religion….if such a person wanted to make a speech in your (city/town/community) against churches and religion, should he be allowed to speak, or not?”

Below all the proportions are for the more liberal response. Some of them, such HOMOSEX, have a wide range of potential responses and I simply picked out the most extreme liberal one (in that case, that homosexual sex is not wrong at all).

Here are the raw percentages:

	Yes to abortion on demand	Homosexual sex not wrong at all	Approve of ban on school prayer	Allow anti-religionist to speak
Evangelical	17	7	26	69
Mainline	46	23	35	77
Protestant	37	18	32	72
Catholic	38	30	42	76
Jewish	78	63	87	86
None	63	54	69	89
American Baptist	43	14	20	68
Southern Baptist	28	10	21	63
Methodist	46	22	39	75
Lutheran	45	25	43	79
Presbyterian	48	27	45	81
Episcopal	62	37	49	86

The variables are strongly correlated with each other, as is evident in this correlation matrix:

	Yes to abortion on demand	Homosexual sex not wrong at all	Approve of ban on school prayer	Allow anti-religionist to speak
Yes to abortion on demand	*	0.92	0.87	0.85
Homosexual sex not wrong at all	*	*	0.98	0.88
Approve of ban on school prayer	*	*	*	0.87
Allow anti-religionist to speak	*	*	*	*

I took each variable and simply averaged them out into a “Social issues index.” The higher the index, the more liberal.

There are two big take aways from this chart:

1) The group “Protestant” has a huge range of views contingent on denomination or theological conservatism

2) The group “Catholic” is solidly in the middle of the distribution between very liberal groups (Jews) and very conservative ones (Evangelicals)

As a point of fact it is obviously not correct to say that all Catholics are moderates. Rather, the class “Catholic” includes many different viewpoints, from those presumably as conservative as Evangelicals to as liberal as Jews. Similarly, though Jews are very liberal, the small orthodox minority is often very conservative (Eric Cantor, who is minority whip in the House is an example of this). And, unless one is a member of Opus Dei, a Hasidic Jew or Theonomist, arguably the vast majority of Catholics, Jews and Protestants in the United States share common presuppositions about the outer bounds of what is religion in a pluralistic society.

Addendum: Just so readers know, I’m really not the type too concerned about the race, religion or sex of Supreme Court nominees personally. As a straight atheist brown libertarianish man with a “Muslim name” I’ve never gotten into the habit of wishing for mentors, colleagues or friends were people who I could “identify with,” because frankly I’m a very special person with a unique perspective and experience which is unlikely to be replicated. This doesn’t change the structure of my argument above, but I thought I would head off any bidding war as to the relevance of diversity X or Y in the comments under the preconception that the person writing the post here actually cares about such things. My main concern is intelligence, curiosity, and frankly in the case of something with political importance, ideological affinity. That’s it. The rest are accidents. Though broader American society disagrees with my own viewpoint on this issue.

Motorola posted an updated schedule listing the timelines of Android 2.1 upgrades for their smartphone lineup. Several additions have been made since we last saw the list including the new Backflip, CLIQ XT, and Devour.

The CLIQ XT is essentially the same device as the original CLIQ (minus the keyboard) so it is no surprise that it will be updated in Q2 2010. AT&T’s Backflip also features the same internals of the CLIQ, but it has several customizations added by the carrier that will delay its update to Q3.

Rounding out the trio of new devices is the Verizon Devour, which has no upgrade planned at this time and is under evaluation. The Devour has a different processor than the CLIQ and Backflip so this is the likely reason why it still has no timeline for an upgrade to  Android 2.1. Thankfully, the Devour at least shipped with Android 1.6 (vs 1.5 on other Moto phones) which should make the wait for 2.1 a little easier.

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Filed under: Car Buying, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz

Report: Audi may have passed Mercedes in Q1 global sales, but BMW is still #1 originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A design patent, to be exact, meaning: You can’t make a brazen copy of the iPhone and iPod Touch’s “ornamental design,” or else you’ll get sued to death. Of course, this isn’t just about crude knockoffs. More »

Article Tags: ClimateGate, Newspaper Article

Stating that the IPCC will make efforts to ensure that its fifth assessment report carries no errors, its chairman R K Pachauri has ruled out stepping down even if the UN-constituted review committee finds faults in the procedures followed by the climate panel.

“Certainly not. But we will certainly implement any constructive recommendations that we get. As matter of fact, I would be responsible for implementing the recommendations. How can I walk away from that?” Pachauri said.

He was asked whether he would consider stepping down if the UN-constituted Inter-Academic Council review was to come to the conclusion that procedures have not been followed.

Accepting moral responsibility for the error in the fourth assessment report which had claimed that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, Pachauri said he also accepts the responsibility placed on him by the world governments by electing him as Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IIPC).

Source: hindustantimes.com

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Google unveiled a souped-up version of Google Docs to some 400 CIOs at its Mountain View, Calif. headquarters this week.

The snappier version of its cloud-based software was revealed at a day-long event Monday, titled “Google Atmosphere 2010.” Several Google executives touted how Google Docs performs faster and offers, at least for the moment, more collaborative bells and whistles than its competitors. That includes the capacity for up to 50 people to work on the same document at the same time, and a complete revamping of the underlying code.

via Google unveils souped-up Google Docs for corporate use – USATODAY.com.

Last.fm, a pesar de lo que se puede leer en muchos sitios, sigue emitiendo en streaming su radio personalizada. De hecho servidor la está escuchando mientras escribe estos apuntes. Lo que anuncian en su blog no es tanto que abandonen por completo esta modalidad, sino que eliminan la modalidad de música bajo demanda que introdujeron en 2008 y que seguía activa en algunos países (no en España). A eso suman que refuerzan su rol de indexadores de las escuchas de los usuarios gracias a su integración con un montón de servicios: Hype Machine, Spotify, Vevo, etc…

Cuando una empresa de servicios de música casi “empuja” a los usuarios a utilizar otros canales es que su apuesta estratégica ha cambiado con el tiempo. De hecho Last.fm lleva dando pasos atrás en su rol de emisora musical desde hace tiempo, probablemente porque las cifras a la CBS no acaben de encajarle: pago por licencias alto comparado con los escasos ingresos por publicidad (motivo por el cual la mayoría de sus emisoras son de pago en España). En todo caso no deja de ser extraño que apuesten de forma prioritaria sólo por tener los datos del usuario: no hay en la historia un servicio basado en la música cuyo mayor valor no pase por la música que permite escuchar. Claro que hay un perfil de “yonki” del scrobbling hacia Last.fm, por ejemplo un servidor: me molestan los servicios que no lo integran (desde Rockola a Yes.fm) y hasta poner música de un CD, pero la gente normal – la mayoría – no padece de este tipo de obsesiones.

PD: es posible que los nuevos caminos de Last.fm apunten a hacer más negocio con la música en vivo, que es hacia donde lleva años virando la industria. En ese terreno tener los datos de escucha de los usuarios sí que puede ser un arma poderosa, aunque si al final es otro quien emite las canciones de la mayoría, es probable que acabe teniendo él más información que tú.

A small Southern California charter high school has a fighting chance to snag the biggest graduation speaker of them all: the leader of the free world.

Environmental Charter High School in Lawndale has been selected as one of six finalists in the White House’s Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge. The winner will receive the honor of President Obama speaking at its graduation ceremony.

More than 1,000 schools nationwide entered the contest, meant to reward a top public school based on performance data and student-written essays about how their school has helped them prepare for college.

Principal Jenni Taylor said students and teachers were overwhelmed when they received a phone call last week from the White House.

The public charter school of about 460 students was founded in 2000 with a focus on environmental
stewardship and community service. Students must complete a senior
thesis project that challenges a social inequity in Los Angeles and
apply to a four-year university to graduate.

The school serves a mostly low-income population in and around
Lawndale and boasts a graduation rate of more than 86%. Of those
graduates, about 92% are accepted into four-year universities,
administrators said.

Taylor credits a group of student leaders — four seniors and one junior — with spearheading the application, which was submitted along with a rhyming YouTube video that begins with these verses:

We will not accept the status quo,

Which leaves our habitat in a state of woe.

We are not taught to memorize information.

Instead we learn by doing, sharing inspiration.

Later this week, a film crew will visit the school to produce a video that will be posted on the White House website on the competition.

The public will be able view videos for each of the finalists in the next few weeks and vote online for their three favorite schools. The short list will be sent to the president’s desk for a final decision.

Taylor said that clinching Obama as commencement speaker when some 76 seniors graduate in June would spotlight the school’s nontraditional approach to education and “show the nation there are new ways to do things.”

“We feel like what we’re doing can be a model for education reform, so it’s about making a point about educational reform and what it takes to inspire kids and get kids into college,” she said.

The other finalists are:

Blue Valley Northwest High School (Overland Park, Kan.)

Clark Montessori Junior High and High School (Cincinnati)

Denver School of Science and Technology (Denver)

Kalamazoo Central High School (Kalamazoo, Mich.)

MAST Academy (Miami)

— Tony Barboza

Photo: Student Gabriel Avenna demonstrates vermiculture, a form of using earthworms to compost food scraps. Credit: Environmental Charter High School

Palm, Inc. today announced that the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus phones will be available in Germany on both o2 and Vodafone on April 28.

“Following the success of the Palm Pre in Germany, we are excited to bring Pre Plus and Pixi Plus to the market for both o2 and Vodafone customers,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “With the choice of these two new Palm webOS phones, customers across Germany can stay connected so they never miss a thing.”

Found under: Nefonie, WePad, Android, Google, Tablet,

The Neofonie WePad is back on the scene again this time more information has been revealed regarding pricing and other aspects. The WePad was the 1st Android Tablet that got us all leaking mouth water all over the specs were and is still impressive but the number one notion is this can the Neofonie WePad bring some needed competition to the Apple iPadWhere competing with the iPad is concerned I really doubt the WePad will stand a chance but die hard Android lovers will most likely

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The federal deficit is running lower than the administration anticipated due to higher tax revenue and lower spending on federal bank bailouts. Is this good news? The Washington Post’s David Cho says the lower deficit is a “favorable number.” Economist Brad DeLong says it’s bad news because if unemployment is higher in 2010 than 2009, the federal government should be getting more torque behind the counter-cyclical spending levers and the deficit should be bigger.

They’re both right. Higher tax revenue from unchanged tax rates suggests the recovery is gaining steam and Americans are spending and earning more. Lower TARP spending is also good news because it means a healthier financial sector and fewer tax dollars sunk into unsalvageable government bailouts that would have to be made up with higher taxes later on. But DeLong’s broad point holds: it’s weird to celebrate lower deficits when unemployment is stuck near 10 percent, and it’s unclear why the Obama administration would want to point and brag about lower deficits while the Senate mulls over a $150 billion stimulus package that we won’t be able to pay for with this year’s tax receipts.

This is only the latest reminder that the way policymakers talk about the deficit is a bit schizophrenic. Obama tells us that the government should tighten its belt if families are willing to tighten theirs. Then he runs up the largest nominal deficit in history precisely because too many families have had to tighten their belts. He’s reluctant to say that high deficits are bad, because in a recession, they’re actually good policy. But then the administration “points out” to the Washington Post that the deficit is running hundreds of billions of dollars low (as though low deficits are inherently good news, again), just months before they want to sign another stimulus bill that will increase the deficit. If the White House has a deficit czar in charge on managing the message on the deficit, he isn’t doing a very good job.