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Simon Singh – the journalist who has been sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association for having the temerity to write that they happily promote bogus remedies — has won a big victory in the UK: he has the right to argue that his statement was opinion, and not a statement narrowly (and, in my opinion, incorrectly) defined by a judge.

Rebecca has the lowdown at Skepchick (some NSFW, but totally funny, language there), as does Steve at Neurologia. While this doesn’t mean Simon has won the case, it does mean he can continue his arguments, when before he had been stopped cold by a judge.

The BCA is looking ever-more ridiculous, mean, and venal in this case. We already know that many of the claims made by chiropractors and by the BCA specifically are totally wrong. The heat is on these guys. Now we can hope that the BCA will be handed their heads in this case… and if we really grab the brass ring, the UK’s awful libel laws will get reformed, too.

We’re on the verge of a huge, huge win here. It hasn’t happened yet, and there is much to do. But the light is there, on the horizon.

As some of you may already know, Sprint recently lost their title as the NFL’s official wireless service sponsor to Verizon. With the NFL draft just a few days away, many were wondering what the carrier would do to as a reaction. Sprint began rolling out text messages this week to some of their Android users advising them of a new Sprint Football Live application. Whereas previous iterations of their NFL Live apps were wrappers and portals for the official (mobile) website, this version seems to offer more unique mobile content with Sprint branding. As you can see in the pictures the app provides draft information, a mock draft, and access to exclusive blogs from around the internet.

Please note that this only available to customers on Sprint’s network. As for now this means Hero and Moment owners are the only folks able to take advantage of the app. If you happen to be among the lucky few, point your Android browser to http://gospv.com/sfls or run the preloaded older NFL Live app for an update prompt.

Source: AndroidCentral

Might We Suggest…

• Sprint NFL Mobile Live Gives You Football On the Go
  Are you an NFL fan? Are you frustrated about not being able to get the latest news and information about the games being played simply because you are away from a television? Afraid that if you went …

Para os fãs das 500 milhas de Indianápolis e do Camaro, essa é uma boa chance de adquirir uma réplica do Pace car da Indy 500, modelo que vai ter sua edição limitada em andamento. Segundo a Chevrolet, apenas 200 unidades da réplica serão construidas e vão ser vendidas nas melhores concessionárias, segundo o relatório de vendas de 2009.

Curiosamente, essa é a primeira vez que um modelo de Camaro originado do Pace Car da Indy 500 vai ser construído pela chevrolet. A General Motors já havia construído réplicas de pace cars em 1969, 1982 e 1993, e a versão 2010 é baseada no Camaro 2SS, com um motor V8 de 400 cv e uma transmissão automática de seis marchas.

Entre os detalhes do carro estão rodas de alumínio polido de 20 polegadas, faixas brancas, além da arroceria e do motor serem da cor laranja e o logo do evento das 500 Milhas de Indianápolis nas portas. O seu interior possui uma decoração luxuosa. O vice presidente da Chevrolet, Jim Campbell, aposta nessa edição do veículo, direcionada para os apaixonados pelas Indy 500 nos EUA (coisa que é muito comum por lá).

Réplica do Pace Car da Indy 500

Via | Inside Line

In one of my previous posts about iPhone apps for home cooks, a reader commented and mentioned it would be nice to see a similar roundup of Android apps. I thought that was a great idea, so here is Round One of Android apps for the home cook!

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Etiquette on the iPad is white space on the map. It’s not a smartphone. It’s not a laptop. It’s something new. As early adopters, the opportunity to define proper etiquette is ours. More »

Fewer babies were born in 2008 than the prior year, and it appears to be linked to the recession, a new study shows.

The number of births in 25 states where data was collected fell to 2.29 million in 2008, down from 2.33 million a year earlier, according to the Pew Research Center.

The birth rate — the share of women between ages 15 and 44 who gave birth – also fell in 20 of the 25 states. The overall birth rate dropped 1.6% to 68.8 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age.

The researchers relied on state level data to help parse the relationship between births and economic trends in the region. The 25 states surveyed account for 54% of all women of childbearing age in the U.S. and the same percentage of babies born annually.

“The analysis suggests that the falloff in fertility coincides with deteriorating economic conditions,” the report says. “There is a strong association between the magnitude of fertility change in 2008 across states and key economic indicators including changes in per capita income, housing prices and share of the working-age population that is employed across states.”

Arizona, for example, experienced the largest decline in birth rate: a 4.6% drop in 2008. Of the 25 states, it had the second largest decline in per capita income in 2007 and was listed sixth in terms of change in home prices.

In contrast, North Dakota was one of the few states where the fertility rate rose. Its per capita income also grew the most and its foreclosure rate was the second lowest of the 25 states in 2007.

The correlation, however, didn’t extend to fertility rates and state-level employment and unemployment rates.

It’s not unusual for birth rates to dip during economic downturns and previous studies have shown that Americans have postponed having children because of this recession. “Over the past decade, birth rate trends roughly mirrored the nation’s economic ups and downs,” the report states. “Birth rates dipped slightly in 2001 and 2002, then began growing again in 2003 before peaking in 2007.”

Nationally, the 2007 birth rate was the highest in nearly two decades. It began declining in 2008 and preliminary data for the first six months of 2009 indicates the trend continued last year as well.

Ontario wins again!

The CBC reports that Schletter Inc., which manufacures solar-panel mounting systems, announced today that it is opening an office in Windsor (which, incidentally, is south of Detroit). The move allows the German company to take advantage of Ontario’s feed-in tariff, which pays about 87 cents per kilowatt hour for solar power.

Schletter Canada General Manager Ryan Kelly cited the province’s Green Energy Act, along with its proximity to the United States as factors in putting the plant in Windsor.

Schletter’s is the most recent in what seems like a constant stream of green energy companies opening operations in Ontario, including Enphase Energy, Bosch Solar and Samsung.

Schletter’s 25,000-square-foot Windsor plant will make fixed aluminum racking systems for residential rooftop units and industrial installations, according to The Windsor Star.

The company has another plant in Tucson, Ariz.

The Janadesar village in the arid Marwari region of India teamed up with the Jal Bhagirathi Foundation on World Toilet Day to compete for a Guinness Book of World Records’ title.

Photo © Andrea Hart

Children from Janadesar march and chant their way to the village’s newest toilet. Toilet facilities added to their school have made learning better, they say.

By Andrea Hart
Circle of Blue

JODHPUR, INDIA – More than 840 people in a rural village of the water-scarce Marwari region in Northwest India joined potentially the world’s longest toilet queue late last month. Residents of the Janadesar village had marched and eventually aligned themselves in front of their newest toilet, built in time to celebrate World Toilet Day.

Instead of using the recently constructed facility, villagers chanted and held hands to form a symbolic toilet queue to raise awareness on health and sanitation issues in the area.

The event was hosted by the Jal Bhagirathi Foundation, an NGO based in the state of Rajasthan, India that works on water security issues in Marwar.

“The response from the community was immense, I was not expecting so many people,” Kanupriya Harish, JBF’s project director, told Circle of Blue. “I was expecting about three to five hundred participants. And now I think they’re very proud of their village.”

Roughly three-fifths of Rajasthan is covered by the Thar Desert–the world’s ninth largest subtropical desert–including part of Marwar. According to USAID figures, it is one of the most densely populated arid regions in the world, and has a diminishing groundwater resource and longer droughts.

Photo © Andrea Hart

A mother and daughter who stood at the front of the line are among the first of the 845 people to sign the petition for the Guinness Book of World Records.

Just one of eight people who live in rural areas of Rajasthan have access to toilets, according to a health survey by the Indian government in 2008. During the World Water Day conference in Nairobi, Kenya in March, the World Heath Organization and UNICEF released a study that found the scarcity of toilets in the developing world is a persistent problem despite a decade of global recognition.

The study, Progress on Sanitation and Drinking Water: 2010 Update, revealed that while the Millennium Development Goals for access to drinking water are on target, progress has stalled with sanitation. “Among the 2.6 billion people in the world who do not use improved sanitation facilities, by far the greatest number are in Southern Asia,” according to the report.

Janadesar is a departure from the norm and could be a model for how other rural and poor regions in Asia solve what is now considered the most important global sanitation problem. Some 80 percent of the 220 households in Janadesar meet the seven sanitation requirements established by the Jal Bhagirathi Foundation (JBF) and Wells for India, a charity based in Great Britain that works on water issues in the region. These include: the handling of drinking water, the disposal of wastewater, the disposal of human excreta, the disposal of garbage and animal excreta, home sanitation and food hygiene, personal hygiene and community sanitation.

Of the 200 water-scarce villages JBF works with, Janadesar has emerged over the last several years as a pioneer in increasing access to sanitation facilities.

But when JBF co-launched its health and sanitation campaign in Janadesar with Wells for India in 2008, villagers were apprehensive to mobilize and behavioral change was slow at first. “It took six months to build the first toilet,” Harish said. “People didn’t understand or accept the design. They also didn’t understand that it’d be low-cost.”

Photo © Andrea Hart

The son of the Jal Bhagirathi Foundation’s project director, Kanupriya Harish, helps lead the procession through the village to the toilet. Harish has worked on improving sanitation in Janadesar for two years.

Eventually after a series of educational campaigns and community meetings people started building. The lower castes in the villages have lead the movement’s growth, Harish said. “It is the landless, and the so-called lower castes in India, who’ve come forward and made the toilets because people who had land could go to their own land to defecate.”

Among the 20 percent of Janadesar residents who currently do not meet sanitation standards, most are from higher castes, she added. Meanwhile the sanitation campaign has been especially empowering for women. It was a female day laborer who borrowed construction material to build the first toilet in the community. “She used to get beaten up when she went out the fields to the bathroom,” said Harish.

Now with the increasing access to toilets, women can defecate at safer times and under safer conditions when they are menstruating or pregnant. Harish says the female role as change agents for sanitation in the villages was embodied in the World Toilet Day event.

“For the first time in this toilet march, we had women leading–we couldn’t do this earlier. We couldn’t get women to participate so openly in functions.”

JBF has submitted the signatures of the 845 toilet queue participants to Guinness Book of World Records officials for review.

Circle of Blue’s daily news editor Andrea Hart spent ten days shadowing the Jal Bahgirathi Foundation in India. This is the first of a series of stories based on that research. Reach Hart at [email protected].

Photo © Andrea Hart

An example of the interior of a toilet that has been in use in Janadesar. JBF hosted town meetings and launched an educational campaign to show villagers how to construct low-cost toilets.

Photo © Andrea Hart

In honor of World Toilet Day, nearly 850 Janadesar villagers aligned themselves in front of this newly constructed toilet. Eighty percent of Janadesar’s households have access to a toilet, making the village a leader in sanitation issues in the region.

The Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is seeking a fine of $16.4 million against Toyota Motor Corp. for failing to notify the department of a “sticky pedal” defect in its cars for at least four months.

Under U.S. regulations, auto manufacturers are required to inform the agency within five days of determining that a safety defect exists in its vehicles.

“We now have proof that Toyota failed to live up to its legal obligations,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “Worse yet, they knowingly hid a dangerous defect for months from U.S. officials and did not take action to protect millions of drivers and their families. For those reasons, we are seeking the maximum penalty possible under current laws.”

In a statement released late last night Toyota said:

Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) received notice from NHTSA on April 5 (in the United States) that NHTSA is seeking a civil penalty. TMC is now considering its response. Toyota has and will continue to practice its philosophy of satisfying consumers with high quality vehicles that are safe and reliable, and responding to consumer feedback with honesty and integrity.

The NHTSA is still continuing its investigation to see of the Japanese automaker committed any additional violations that may warrant additional penalties.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: CNNMoney

I’m loving what Jeff in LA did with the Lack shelving unit. The sliding doors and hairpin legs are just perfect.

He says, “After discovering your site and seeing some of the other lack media cabinet hacks, I thought I’d send some photos of my own. Yeah, I know, I need to do something to hide those wires between the TV and the cabinet.

My materials were:
1 white Lack shelving unit
1 12-foot dual-channel aluminum rail guide from a local cabinet hardware store
4 stainless hairpin 8″ legs from Ianmaclean.com
A piece of 1/4″ scrap plywood I had laying around
Raw walnut veneer
Watco danish oil
Spray adhesive
Two 2″ brushed nickel sliding-door handles

Tools:
A jigsaw
A utility knife

It was pretty straightforward.  I cut the aluminum slider channel into two sections matching the interior length of the cabinet, and screwed them in.  I measured and cut my plywood into two long doors, then cut the walnut veneer into matching sheets, but slightly oversized.  I sprayed adhesive on the plywood and the back of the veneer, then stuck them together and trimmed the excess veneer off the edges.  I rubbed them with Watco danish oil and lightly sanded them with very fine sandpaper to give them the rich color.  Using the jigsaw, I cut 2-inch holes in the door panels and pressed in the circular handles, securing them on the backside with a glue gun (I could have used the tiny nails that came with the handles).

Usually, the slider rails are sold as separate upper and lower guides where the upper guide is twice as deep, allowing you to make shorter doors that can be lifted up and out for removal.   But I wanted the aluminum rail to be as low-profile and invisible as possible, so I used the shallower lower guide for both top and bottom. Plus, I was a cheap bastard and this saved me from having to spend another $35 for another 12-foot aluminum track.  So these doors cannot be lifted out for removal.  I loosened the screws on the lack cabinet, fit the doors in, then re-tightened the screws.

One snag was that my sheets of plywood were just thin enough to fit in the slider channels *before* applying the veneer, so with the veneer on they were too thick and snug to slide easily.  So I had to spend some time sanding the edges on the back side of the doors to thin them up.  In retrospect, I should have just bought some even thinner (maybe 1/8″) board.”

Steve Carell and Tina Fey swung by The TODAY Show Wednesday to chat up their new comedy, Date Night!

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

The stars of NBC’s The Office and 30 Rock, respectively, play a New York couple who try to spruce up their mundance life in suburbia with a night out on the town. Things take an unexpected turn for the worse — with hilarious results — when a white lies leads to a case of mistaken identity.

Date Night opens April 9.

Forzani Group Ltd. shares are up close to 5% in early trading Wednesday morning after the sporting goods retailer reported solid earnings results for its fiscal 2010 fourth quarter.

On Tuesday after market close, Forzani reported earnings per share of 75¢ on revenues of $372.9-million, versus last year’s EPS of 80¢ on sales of $380.8 million. Consensus estimates were for earnings of 73¢ per share. 

"This was an impressive performance given that the ski, snowboard and outerwear business was challenged by an unusually warm and dry winter in much of the country," said Keith Howlett, a Desjardins Securities analyst. 

He increased his price target to $18 from $16 and left his Buy rating unchanged. 

Robert Gibson, an analyst at Octagon Capital, maintained his $17.50 price target and Buy recommendation, as results met his expectations. 

He forecasted an increase in Forzani's margins over the next three years to 36% from 35.3%, and a decline in corporate store costs as a percentage of sales to 27.2% from 28.6%.

David Pett

Yahoo has finally remembered to update everyone on its latest developments for Yahoo Mail. As noted yesterday, Yahoo Mail got support for the OAuth authentication protocol a couple of weeks back, but Yahoo hadn’t made any official announcement. This has been now rectified and there are even a couple of new details to make up for the lapse.

“We’re super excited to announce that the Yahoo! Mail API now allows Read and Read+Write access to full message contents for any type of user. … (read more)

A roundup of economic news from around the Web.

Yuan Revaluation: Martin Wolf of the Financial Times looks at yuan manipulation. “I conclude that the renminbi is undervalued, that this is dangerous for the durability of global recovery and that China’s actions have not, so far, provided a durable solution. I conclude, too, that rebalancing is a necessary condition for sustainable recovery, changes in competitiveness are a necessary condition for rebalancing, real renminbi appreciation is necessary for changes in competitiveness, and a rise in the currency is necessary for real appreciation, given the Chinese desire to curb inflation. The U.S. was right to give talking a chance. But talk must lead to action.”

Confidence in Banks: Gallup has a poll that looks at Americans’ confidence in banks. “As the Senate considers financial reform legislation, a new Gallup poll shows that Americans’ confidence in banks has not returned on Main Street as it has on Wall Street. The percentage of Americans saying they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in U.S. banks is now 20% — not much different from the 18% of a year ago or the 22% of last summer. Four in 10 Americans currently say they have “very little” confidence in U.S. financial institutions.”

Housing: Felix Salmon looks at Fannie Mae’s National Housing Survey and finds Americans’ attitudes toward housing hasn’t changed much. “I think what we’re seeing here is a mindset utterly conditioned by the massive, decades-long bull market in housing. Never mind that that bull market has come to an end; the syllogism is simple. House prices always go up; housing is a bargain right now because prices have ticked downwards; therefore now must be a great time to buy. I see this mindset in New Yorkers who genuinely believe that $1 million is not a lot of money to pay for a 2-bedroom apartment, even when it comes with thousands of dollars a month in maintenance costs on top of that. Of course they never would have believed such a thing 10 years ago, but the anchoring effect of the housing bubble is astonishing to behold.”

Compiled by Phil Izzo

If you own a Nexus One or have been contemplating acquiring one, here’s some more incentive to do just that.  Yesterday, the Nexus One blog announced that the anticipated Nexus One Car Dock was available for purchase for $55 via (you guessed it!) the Google store at http://www.google.com/phone.

The Nexus One Car Dock is similar to a dash mount for a run of the mill GPS – which makes sense because the N1 comes stock with Google Maps Navigation.  According to Google, “You can mount the dock on the windshield or dashboard, and it ships with an adhesive disc that lets you attach it to a textured surface as well. The dock comes with a charger to fit into your car’s 12V utility socket, and the holder can rotate for flexible orientation.”

When you cradle your N1 in the dock, the Car Home app is automatically loaded, giving you quick access to maps, navigation, and other features.  The Dock also doubles as a charger for your N1.  Much like the desktop dock, the three dock pins underneath the N1 allow it to charge without the need of a micro USB cable.

The release is below.  Whether you currently own the N1 or have been holding off, where does the Nexus One Car Dock fit into your life?  Sound off in the comments!

From Google’s Official Nexus One Blog:
Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Drive Safely!
Be sure to follow all the local laws and exercise caution when using your phone’s features and car dock while driving.

Via Google

At the 2010 New York Auto Show last week, Mitsubishi Motors North America CEO Shinichi Kurihara announced that the Japanese automaker is planning an all-new compact car that will hit markets in 2012.

The new model will be a little smaller than the size of the European B-segment and will fit below the brand’s Lancer mode.

The car will be launched on a global scale and will be powered by a small 1.2L or 1.3L 4-cylinder engine.

– By: Kap Shah

Source: AutoWeek