Blog

Review: 2010 Mercedes-Benz E350 4Matic weathers the storm with aplomb

2010 Mercedes-Benz E350 Sedan – Click above for high-res image gallery A November Nor’Easter had chewed its way up to New England, delivering a cataclysmic combination of rain and wind as we…

All-New 2011 Mazda5 coming to Geneva

2011 Mazda5 – Click above for high-res image gallery The Mazda5 has been around since 2006, going about its microvan business in relative obscurity, yet rewarding buyers with a healthy dose…

Officially Official: Mini unleashes the floodgates on Countryman crossover

Mini Countryman – Click above for high-res image gallery Following yesterday’s leaked images and teaser video, Mini has today officially opened the floodgates of pictures and information on…

Also of interest:

• Hyundai dealer auctions Genesis Coupe for $�16k, doesn’t want to honor deal
• More Bimmer leakage: 2011 BMW 335is images outted
• Report: Marchionne says Chrysler and Lancia could be merged within a year
• Audi A3 TDI getting 4th quarter Super Bowl ad featuring Cheap Trick

Browse our archive of Daily U-Turn posts or subscribe to the RSS feed

Daily U-Turn: What you missed on 1.20.10 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

We knew what airlines charge for Wi-Fi, and now we’ve found another handy resource—a chart outlining how much checking up to three bags costs on each airline. Meal prices are included as well, if you dare. [Orbitz]

Is there room for an Apple Tablet in the market? How popular will it be? Adriana offers up some industry buzz, along with a look back at Cupertino’s last try at a similar device. (For specs, check out Sydney’s hardware/UI rumor roundup!) 

Lookin’ a little naked there, Miranda. Miranda Kerr, the dimpled-cheeked Australian who has helped turned prancing around in your underpants an artform thanks to her work as a Victoria’s Secret Angel, smiles with her eyes and plays Peek-A-Boo with her naughty bits in this sizzling new layout for GQ’s February issue.

The 26-year-old supermodel is currently dating actor Orlando Bloom.

We last reported on the expanding Brangelina compound last winter and it looks like Brad Pitt was in the purchasing mood again. The always-on-top-of-things Big Time Listings reported that Pitt bought another house, which turns out to be the critical piece to unify all five of his properties in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Pitt’s most recent purchase is a home that was built in 1920 and is rather small with only two bedrooms on 0.25-acres. Turns out Pitt got quite the deal – the home was originally listed for $2 million.

Pitt’s other properties, which are all adjacent to each other, include:

5769 Briarcliff Rd, Los Angeles, CA 90068

On the other side of the Briarcliff residence, along Valley Oak Drive are:
5742 Valley Oak Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90068
5750 Valley Oak Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90068
5752 Valley Oak Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90068

According to Big Time Listings, all of the properties together results in more than 1.8 acres of land.

> See Hollywood Hills home values.

By Matt Hawes

Dr. Paul will be interviewed by CNN’s Rick Sanchez today around 4:45 pm eastern.  He will also be interviewed by Dom Giordano (out of Philly on WPHT 1210 AM) at 6 pm eastern.  Listen live here.

Be sure to tune in!

Update:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKi5vDicQ5k

By Matt Hawes

Last Friday, Dr. Paul was interviewed by CNN shortly before our Freedom Celebration concerning his time in Congress, President Obama’s first year, and whether things would be different under McCain.

by Rena Steinzor

A critical test of the Obama Administration’s commitment to reviving the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is teeing up behind closed doors at the White House.  Once again, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is cast in the role of regulation killer, supported by a slew of state and other federal agencies that are polluters in this scenario.  Other players include a nearly hysterical segment of the electric utility industry, which argues that labeling coal ash as a hazardous waste will prove prohibitively expensive, as well as a coalition of public interest activists that includes Robert Bullard, the father of the environmental justice movement.  The story has ample drama: a provable case of racial discrimination, companies as haughty as any on Wall Street, and an appealing heroine,  Lisa Jackson, the embattled EPA Administrator, who is the public face of this administration on the environment but, in a discordant replay of history, could be forced to fall on her sword by anonymous White House economists.  (Remember Bush II’s Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey, pushed to resign by the machinations of Vice President Dick Cheney?  Jackson has less prominent opponents, but just as much on the line.)

An industry victory on the issue would suggest that presidential appointees, confirmed by the Senate and presented to the American people as accountable for everything from food and drug safety to toxic chemical exposures in the workplace, are not really in charge of their agencies but instead could be compelled to become puppets for a White House staff any time a powerful industry screams loudly enough.

The most recent chapter in this saga begins in Kingston, Tennessee three days before Christmas, 2008.  A six-story-high earthen dam used to contain a coal ash waste pond at a power plant operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) collapsed, releasing more than 1 billion gallons of jet black sludge laced with arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, selenium, and thallium.  By volume, the spill was more than 100 times larger than the Exxon Valdez disaster, covering more than 400 acres of homes, farms, businesses, roads, rivers, and irreplaceable wetlands.  (See table at end of this post listing the chemicals commonly found in coal ash and their negative health effects.)

According to EPA data, nearly 600 similar earthen coal ash dams are spread across 35 states, including 50 so-called “high hazard” dams holding back tens of millions of tons of coal ash waste. In 2009 alone, U.S. coal-fired power plants produced more than 136 million tons of coal ash waste—more than enough to fill the boxcars of a train stretching from Washington, D.C., to Melbourne, Australia.  By 2015, industry will produce 175 million tons per year.  And the kicker is that if you live within one mile of a coal ash disposal site, you are twice as likely to live below the poverty line as the average U.S. citizen and 30 percent more likely to be a person of color.

EPA has fiddled with the coal ash problem for a quarter of a century.  In 1980, Congress enacted an exception to the tough federal statute directing EPA to regulate hazardous waste.  So-called “Bevill wastes” were exempt from regulation until EPA studied their characteristics comprehensively.  EPA was instructed to report back on coal ash by 1982.  Throughout the 1980s and 1990s EPA extemporized, studying the problem, venturing the opinion that no strict regulation was needed, reversing itself and promising to regulate coal ash as a “contingent” hazardous waste, and ultimately shelving these efforts during the Bush II Administration.  Years of work and millions of dollars later, we have amassed rock solid evidence that when coal ash waste is collected in unlined pits in the ground, it is extraordinarily dangerous to people, livestock, and wildlife, not to mention water quality.  The record includes EPA studies and a report by a blue ribbon panel of scientific experts at the National Research Council.  For an excellent summary of the issues, see congressional testimony by Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans.

EPA Administrator Jackson, who has embraced environmental justice as one of her top priorities, promised to break this gridlock and propose a rule controlling the disposal of coal ash by the end of 2009.  She sent the draft over to Cass Sunstein’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at OMB.  The draft was never released to any member of the public, although I suspect that industry lobbyists have a copy because they have already invented multiple toothless counter-proposals.  As we have reported before in these pages, Sunstein’s staff commenced a marathon of meetings with coal industry executives, their paid experts and lobbyists, state highway administrators who want to spread the stuff in road beds, and other opponents of the EPA rule—21 meetings at last count, more than on any other subject that has engaged OIRA’s attention for many years.

Obviously and sensibly embarrassed by how all this looks from the outside, the OMB issued a statement last week asserting something as silly as it is untrue:  “By executive order,” the official fantasized, “if a stakeholder on a proposal asks to meet with OMB (OIRA), they are required to take the meeting.”  Pressed on the point, OMB asserted that the executive order in question was EO 12866, which says nothing of the sort.

In fact, the order, issued by Bill Clinton in 1993 and continued through the Bush II Administration, is scrupulous about demanding that the lead agency in charge of a regulatory proposal (that would be EPA in this instance) afford the public an opportunity for “notice” (by publishing the proposal in the Federal Register) and “comment” (by receiving and reviewing all the written comments anyone may care to submit during a 30 to 90 comment period).  Sometimes, lead agencies even hold public hearings on particularly controversial proposed rules.  But this rule has not yet been proposed.  If it had been, EPA would be obligated to hear from all the stakeholders in the debate, but not OIRA economists, until it had decided what it wanted to do.  Not even the Bush Administration’s OIRA offered such a novel and absurd interpretation of its obligations.  If it had, it would have been a green light to industry to schedule meetings 24/7 for the rest of the administration’s term, thus delaying action forever.

I wish Jackson the best of luck in this grueling battle, as should anyone who hopes that the nation’s environmental policy will be crafted with a minimum of special interest politics, by experts who have spent a lifetime studying the science and law of these issues.  She does not deserve to get sandbagged by OIRA, and if she does, the American people, especially those living near coal ash catastrophes-in-waiting, will have much to lament.  If OIRA establishes its primacy over EPA, we can look forward to many more such intrusions in the future—a very discouraging omen, indeed.

Human Health Effects of Coal Combustion Waste Pollutants

Aluminum

Lung disease, developmental problems

Antimony

Eye irritation, heart damage, lung problems

Arsenic

Multiple types of cancer, darkening of skin, hand   warts

Barium

Gastrointestinal problems, muscle weakness, heart   problems

Beryllium

Lung cancer, pneumonia, respiratory problems

Boron

Reproductive problems, gastrointestinal illness

Cadmium

Lung disease, kidney disease, cancer

Chromium

Cancer, ulcers and other stomach problems

Chlorine

Respiratory distress

Cobalt

Lung/heart/liver/kidney problems, dermatitis

Lead

Decreases in IQ, nervous system, developmental and   behavioral problems

Manganese

Nervous system, muscle problems, mental problems

Mercury

Cognitive deficits, developmental delays, behavioral   problems

Molybdenum

Mineral imbalance, anemia, developmental problems

Nickel

Cancer, lung problems, allergic reactions

Selenium

Birth defects, impaired bone growth in children

Thallium

Birth defects, nervous system/reproductive problems

Vanadium

Birth defects, lung/throat/eye problems

Zinc

Gastrointestinal effects, reproductive problems

 Source: Earthjustice

Related Links:

Congressional coal ash defenders ignore damages back home

Will Google’s fight with China stymie climate negotiations?

The Climate Post: The only good strategy is a dead strategy

We’ve been spending a lot of time discussing the deceptive Humane Society of the United States recently. But there’s plenty of other news of note about HSUS’s philosophical ally in the animal rights industry: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

This week, PETA gave "Avatar" director James Cameron its “Outstanding Feature Film” award for having a message of animal empathy in his film. The news comes just days after Cameron told Entertainment Weekly that “I believe in ecoterrorism.” Now, we could give PETA the benefit of the doubt. But then again, NBA star Gilbert Arenas recently starred in a PETA anti-fur ad—coincidentally, a few days after he was arrested for brandishing four firearms in his team’s locker room.

PETA sure knows how to pick ‘em. (And if you think it should just stick to its bread-and-butter of scantily clad women, well, it’s already taking care of that.)

But PETA antics often drown out more important threats—such as appointed officials with PETA-inspired agendas. Today in Esquire, Harvard law professor Noah Feldman writes that Cass Sunstein, the White House regulatory “czar,” is “on everyone’s short lists” for a nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court should a vacancy arise. Sunstein, as we’ve exposed, has a history of animal rights radicalism, and believes that animals should be allowed to sue and that hunting should be banned outright.

So PETA is very tight with eco-terror cheerleaders and NBA thugs. It sure would be nice if they spent half as much energy playing with pets instead of killing them.

While few of us are bold enough to lay claim to Nostradamus-like powers of prophecy, it’s still interesting to read industry predictions. ReadWriteWeb recently released a list of tech predictions for 2010 and as of a yesterday, Senior VP Steve Rubel and the folks at Edelman PR agency uploaded their predictions entitled Digital Visions: 10 Ideas for the New Decade.

Sponsor

Writes Rubel, “The bigger opportunity for clients, we believe, is to identify the global, societal and technological trends that are reshaping how we think, act and buy – and to pivot into them early. Trends today tend to develop more slowly and are harder to see, allowing clients to take a more thoughtful, thorough and systematic approach.”

The PR company’s report certainly contains some insights; nevertheless, Edelman is likely to have come to these conclusions after suffering a number of social media-related setbacks. In the last decade Edelman employees have been featured on Wired Magazine editor Chris Anderson’s PR blacklist, lambasted by environmental bloggers and protesters for contributing to greenwashing and caught creating puppet blogs for Walmart without disclosing their affiliation.

As the new decade begins, Edelman draws on four key themes for the future including the pervasiveness of digital technologies, the move to mobile, budgeting for digital outreach and finally, social media ROI. While the essays are well-written, they’re also extremely biased and self-serving.

When I say “biased” I refer to the fact that PR agencies and tech bloggers such as myself have a special interest in making others believe their claims about social media. Ideas like social media “becoming a business driver”, knowledge of disruptive technologies being the key to survival and the “start-and-stop campaign approach” giving way to an approach “that’s on all the time” are great arguments for keeping us employed. The more you as a startup founder believe that you need to stay constantly connected to your customer, the more likely you are to read our industry blogs and hire long-term social media marketers.

However, in this soup of social media sentiment, there is some truth. Successful companies like Best Buy and Zappos are baking community engagement and social media into their operations, and services like Foursquare are giving rise to better loyalty programs. Whether or not your company has the bandwidth and budget to spend on location-based services and a full time social media strategy is up to you. Let us know your thoughts on the report in the comments below.

Discuss

(AP Photo/Jorge Cruz)

We’ve all seen the images of devastation in Haiti.  Curious as to how your donations are being utilized, or how America’s carriers are helping?  Below is a comprehensive list of what your wireless carrier is doing to assist in the time of crisis.

Verizon Wireless

• Offering free long-distance calling to or from Haiti from January 12th until 11:59 PM EST on January 31, 2010.  Offer applies to Verizon Wireless and Verizon landline customers.  (Press Release)
• Opening a Haiti Relief Connection Center at a Verizon Wireless retail store in Miami, Florida.  It has been open since January 15th.  (Press Release)
• Advanced $2,987,560 million to the American Red Cross based on dollars pledged by customers.  The monetary amount represents donations from 12:01 a.m. EST on Wednesday, Jan. 13 through 2 p.m. EST on Friday, Jan. 15.  (Press Release)

AT&T (Full Press Release)

• More than $10 million has been donated by customers.
• Donating $50,000 donation to a local charity.
• Coordinating the donation of 7,000 wireless phones to Voila, a Haitian wireless carrier and one of the only carriers with service in the country.
• Providing smartphones and service to Concern Worldwide, an international humanitarian organization, which is on the ground in Haiti helping with relief efforts.
• Adding to an earlier grant from AT&T by donating to two additional leading non-profit organizations.
• Expediting donations pledged by AT&T customers from their mobile device to the American Red Cross (customers type the word HAITI and send the message to 90999).
• Continuing a companywide employee giving program for several relief organizations.

Sprint (Full Press Release)

• Advancing 80 percent of pledged funds on January 22nd, with the remaining 20 percent being donated after the 60 to 90 day settlement cycle.  $3.1 million has been donated since January 12th.
• Waiving charges for text messaging to and from Haiti until January 31st.
• The Sprint Foundation is matching American Red Cross earthquake-relief donations made by Sprint employees from January 13th through January 31st.  Sprint and its employees’ total philanthropic contributions currently stand at $98,000.

T-Mobile (Full Press Release)

• Customers have donated more than $3 million since January 12th.
• Free calling to and from Haiti from January 12th until January 31st.
• Shipping heavy-duty trucks and cell sites to Haiti.
• Working to provide 10,000 unlocked cell phones and some solar-powered chargers.
• Working to advance donations on a weekly basis.
• T-Mobile and parent company Deutsche Telekom have committed nearly $200,000 to relief efforts to date.

If I’ve missed anything, please let me know through the comments (with a supporting link) and I will add it to the list.

At ATX 2010, taking place in Anaheim, California, from February 9-11, Renishaw will focus on its latest range of motion control products, including a true absolute optical encoder for rotary and linear applications, a unique track-mounted linear encoder scale system, and magnetic encoder chip.

Also shown will be the new QC20-W wireless ballbar which assesses machine tool positioning and servo control performance, and now includes a volumetric testing capability, plus a range of new touch probes and probe software that increase machine tool automation and improve process control. For visitors sourcing off-line measurement products, there will also be the opportunity to discuss Renishaw’s new retrofit service for co-ordinate measuring machines (CMMs), including MODUS™ the company’s first metrology software.

True absolute optical encoder
RESOLUTE™ is a true absolute optical encoder system that has excellent dirt immunity, and an impressive specification that breaks new ground in position feedback. Visitors to ATX 2010 will see that it gives an astonishing market-leading resolution of just 1 nanometer at 100 meters per second for both linear encoder and angle encoder applications. Absolute position is acquired immediately at system switch-on, so the exact orientation of axis and motor commutation angle are known without the need for a reference (datum) return. Large set-up tolerances also enable easy installation and high reliability, whilst low jitter and SDE (Sub-Divisional Error) meet the demands of high precision stages.

Linear encoder track scale
FASTRACK™ is a revolutionary track-mounted linear encoder scale system that combines ±5 µm/m accuracy, with the ruggedness of stainless steel, and the quick and easy installation of a carrier-type encoder system. Designed for applications that demand high accuracy and easily removable scale, ATX visitors will see that the FASTRACK scale system consists of two miniature guide rails that securely retain Renishaw’s new low-profile scales and allow them to freely expand at their own thermal expansion coefficient with almost zero hysteresis. If damaged, the scale can be pulled out of the guide rails and quickly replaced, even where access is limited, thus reducing machine downtime.

Magnetic encoder chip
Renishaw’s new AM4096 magnetic encoder IC developed by its associate company RLS d.o.o. provides UVW outputs with 16 poles (8 pole pairs), incremental, absolute, linear (potentiometer), tacho generator and sinusoidal outputs. Resolution is to 12-bit (4096 steps per turn) with a programmable zero position and it is capable of high speed operation to 30,000 rpm. Typical applications for the new on-chip magnetic encoder include commutation and high-speed motor control, position and velocity control, potentiometer replacement and optical encoder replacement.

The Gentech SCR Combined Sensors utilized in the DEF/AdBlue® tanks of diesel powered commercial vehicles with SCR emissions systems can now measure both urea solution level and qualty. The quality sensor, has been integrated into Gentech’s level sensor which is mounted in the top of the DEF/AdBlue® tanks on commercial vehicles. The development will be advantageous to OEM’s as they will be able buy a combined module that will handle DEF/AdBlue® tank quality and level requirements.

SCR
Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) is an exhaust after treatment method used with diesel engines to reduce NOx emissions. The SCR system relies on the injection of an aqueous urea solution into the exhaust stream in order to facilitate the reduction of NOx emissions. This aqueous urea solution (32.5% urea and 67.5% demineralised water by weight) is called Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) in North America and is called AdBlue® in other parts of the world. The quality of DEF and AdBlue® is strictly defined by ISO and DIN standards.

The S8000 Integrale cooled mirror hygrometer provides highly reliable, drift-free dew-point measurements in vacuums as low as 0.05 mbar, making it unique in its category. It is ideal for applications, such as oil refilling of transformers, which involve vacuum pumping.

Many high voltage transformers, especially those switching many thousands of kVA (such as the types found in power plant sub-stations), are filled completely with a refined mineral oil. This serves several purposes; most importantly the oil must act as a main part of the transformer’s insulation, though it also serves to cool the transformer.

Moisture inside transformers adversely affects the dielectric and insulating properties of the oil. Vacuum pumping the transformer enclosure is a common practice in the industry, with the sole purpose of minimizing the total moisture content prior to oil filling.

Optimal dryness is desirable at this critical stage and a reliable, accurate dew point measurement enables users to monitor the process and ensure that moisture is eliminated as much as possible. Together with its low-pressure capability, the S8000 can measure dew-points as low as -60°C with 0.1°C accuracy. Its fundamental chilled-mirror technology is drift-free so measurements are reliable over time. The design of the sensor head allows for excellent sealing both in high-pressure as well as in low pressure and vacuum applications, making it a highly versatile instrument.