RadarOnline.com has posted an image The National Enquirer is calling the “exclusive first photo” of Tiger Woods outside the Pine Grove Sex Rehab Clinic in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. This is the first time the disgraced PGA champ has been seen since the Nov. car crash that sparked a sex scandal linking Woods to at least 13 mistresses.
It seems that Apple may be inviting Microsoft’s Bing into the iPhone, at least according to BusinessWeek. In what could be some sort of bluff by Apple, Microsoft is apparently in talks to make Bing the default search engine on the iPhone, supplanting Google’s current position on the phone deck.
This does not mention if they’re moving away from Google Maps and YouTube, but by giving Microsoft the default search spot Apple could get a bit more revenue from traffic thrown at the provider.
BusinessWeek is positing that recent competitive moves by like the release of the Nexux One could have something to do with the decision to pursue another partner.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Over the past 30 years, the number of working mothers of children under the age of six has doubled, according to Early Childhood Education: Learning Together, a new textbook from McGraw-Hill Higher Education, written by BMCC Teacher Education chair Rachel Theilheimer, and Virginia Casper, a professor at the Bank Street College Graduate School of Education.
Educating young children is a growing field with many paths and pedagogies, and Learning Together, which also involved Bank Street and BMCC faculty as advisors, chapter reviewers and writers, introduces students to the best practices and career options available to them.
“I think it’s important for students to have a beginning gleam of the various roles they can take on, within early childhood education,” says Casper. “It may even be that they work in a classroom for 15 years, and then go back and gets a masters degree and do advocacy or work in a hospital in child life.”
Working with—and for—children
The book provides insight into wider contexts of early childhood education, such as globalization, immigration, and early childhood in non-western cultures, and shows how careers in the field tend to fork into two paths: working with children; being a caregiver or teacher, for example, or working for children, which could include becoming a researcher, toy creator, or children’s advocate.
“There’s a lot of room now within the early childhood field to move in different directions,” says Casper. “It’s not quite as hierarchical as it used to be.”
Theilheimer agrees. “Early childhood education has over the past decades become increasingly recognized as a field,” she says, also noting how increasingly mindful educators have become, of the role of parents and caregivers, in a child’s learning. “Working together with families is the only real way to understand children and their cultures—who they are and who they’re going to be,” she says.
Real voices and faces
Learning Together profiles a range of people involved in children’s early learning—women and men, parents and professionals from different backgrounds and regions of the country.
“We have what we call ‘Real Voices’,” says Theilheimer. “Some books have voices from experts, but we decided to have people with whom readers could easily identify. So for example, one person profiled is a BMCC alum who’s a kindergarten teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada, one is a woman from Arkansas who, when her child was only six months old was called away on reserve duty, and another is a mother from California whose daughter was born with multiple disabilities. These ‘real voices’ help students see themselves in the future in lots of different positions.”
Children change us
Growth is a function of change, and both abound in early childhood learning, facilitated by what educators call “the developmental interaction approach.”
Theilheimer explains. “There’s a familiar phrase now in education, which is ‘learning by doing’. And developmental interaction really is more than learning by doing, because it goes back to John Dewey’s idea that you ‘do’, in the world, then you have a time to reflect—that’s when children make and build things about what they’ve experienced, and adults can have a conversation about the learning, and end up learning how the children think and how the experiences influence them.”
Observation—of the child, and of one’s own reactions to the child—is a rich resource for educators presented in the book through reflective exercises, case material, and connections with National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) standards.
“We learn about children from children; we learn about the individual child, and then we also learn about what to expect in the future from other children. But another thing is that we learn about ourselves,” says Theilheimer.
“One of the things that happens to people who work with children is that we hear the voices of our parents and teachers coming out of our own mouths,” she says. “And if we stop and reflect, we can think about how we want to respond, and start learning from our interactions with children about who we can be—and that is a very, very powerful result of working in early childhood education.”
Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia | Natural Wonders
3,800 square-miles of salt flat spread out across Bolivia’s remote southwest. Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world, an endless sheet of hexagonal tiles (created by the crystalline nature of the salt), dotted with pyramids of salt. Despite the desert dryness, freezing night temperatures, and fierce desert sun, this landscape is not devoid of life. Pink flamingos, ancient cacti, and rare hummingbirds all live in the Salar de Uyuni.
During the wet season, the salt desert is transformed into a enormous salt lake, albeit one that is only six to twenty inches deep, traversable by both boat and truck. During this time, the shallow salt lake perfectly mirrors the sky, creating bizarre illusions of infinity. In the middle of this seemingly infinite salty lake is a hotel built entirely out of—naturally—salt.
Created from salt bricks held together with salt mortar, the hotel and everything inside it, including the chairs and tables, is made from salt. While the Hotel Playa Blanca has no electricity and little in the way of amenities, and its water must be trucked in, it does offer even more important and certainly rarer qualities: utter silence, an all-encompassing austere beauty, and an astonishing view of the night sky.
Also worth traveling to are the nearby Laguna Colorado and Laguna Verde. Laguna Colorado is a red-hued lake filled with thousands of pink flamingos, while Laguna Verde is a blue-green salt lake found at the foot of the volcano Licancabur. Its shifting aqua color is caused by copper sediments and microorganisms living within the lake.
According to show organizers, the Detroit auto show experienced more than 21,000 more attendees on Monday than last year on the same day. 61,112 people attended this past Monday, as opposed to 39,715 for last year’s Monday exhibition.
Numbers for the weekend attendance, though up from last year, were not as staggering, with Saturday attendance rising from 74,613 in 2009 to 83,715 this year, and 90,608 attendees on Sunday last year, to 96,623 this year.
NAIAS chairman Doug Fox said in a statement that organizers could not be more pleased with this year’s turnout.
“The positive vibe of preview week is spilling into our public days and we are looking forward to keeping the momentum to continue what has been an exciting time so far.” Fox said.
– By: Stephen Calogera
Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)
There has been some concern earlier this month when the Windows Mobile sessions at Microsoft’s MIX 2010 conference disappeared from the time table. At the time it was taken as evidence of a delay in the release of Windows Mobile, but here at WMPU we always suspected it was simply a clumsy attempt by Microsoft at news management.
Well, worry no longer. The Windows Mobile sessions are back at MIX10, with promise of the “next generation” in tow.
Yes, at MIX10 you’ll learn about developing applications and games for the next generation of Windows Phone. Yes, we’ll have Phone sessions, and we can’t say more…yet. Stay tuned and check back often or join the MIX mailing list.
MIX10 will be from the 15th to 17th March and should introduce developers for the first time to Windows Mobile 7.
Keep an eye on the MIX10 website, or alternatively our twitter account at twitter.com/wmpoweruser for more Windows Mobile news.
It sure is good to have Brock Lesnar back in the game. Lesnar and UFC president Dana White announced this morning that the UFC heavyweight champion has miraculously recovered from an intestinal disorder, is back training tomorrow and is slated to fight sometime this summer. That’s all great but we really missed Lesnar’s attitude, opinions and bravado.
Lesnar turned today’s teleconference into a campaign against the drive for universal healthcare in the United States.
"Our healthcare system is a little radical, but we’ve got the
best doctors in the world. I don’t believe a total reform is
necessary. We don’t need socialistic healthcare in America. The doctors in the United States gave me the best care possible."
Lesnar’s conservative/Republican stance on U.S. healthcare issues were fortified by a trip to Canada. After finding out that he was sick back in October, Lesnar hit Canada for rest and relaxation. That’s when things took a turn for the worse and he had to check himself into a Canadian hospital. Lesnar called it the lowest point of his struggle:
"They couldn’t do nothing for me. It was like I was
in a third world country. I had to get out of there."
Lesnar wouldn’t give exact details of his escape from the unnamed healthcare facility but he did say his wife helped him flee by "driving 100 mph" to get him to a hospital in Bismark, ND. Lesnar tried to smooth things over with many Canadians, who are sure to be a little insulted over his comments.
"I love Canada. I own property in Canada but if I
had to choose between care in Canada or the U.S., I definitely want to be in
the United States. I wasn’t at the right facility."
Lesnar tried to clarify things further by saying his statements were really more about President Barack Obama, the Democrats and those supporting universal healthcare.
"President Obama is pushing this healthcare and obviously I don’t want it. I’m
speaking behalf of Americans that don’t want this to happen."
When pushed by the Canadian Press’ Neil Davidson on specifics, Lesnar said he didn’t want to elaborate on his complaints about Canadian healthcare.
"The
hospital I was at, it wasn’t their fault. They had some machinery
that wasn’t working. We went to where we
could have [the proper testing] done."
Lesnar eventually landed at the Mayo Clinic where he was prescribed antibiotics. Weeks later, Lesnar said the issue had healed itself.
Cooking for the vegan is more or less like cooking for any other ethnic or religious group which restricts certain things from their diet. A little creativity will win you some big points with your vegan customers, and furthermore will help conquer a niche market. Vegans often mourn the lack of restaurants that cater to their needs. Providing some imaginative menu entries for vegan customers will make a happy patron who spreads good word of mouth to their vegan friends!
Understanding Vegans. . .
Vegans are vegans for any combinations of these reasons:
_Health_ The vegan diet includes whole grains, beans, soy products, olive oil, fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, and fresh spices. Resultantly, they argue, their diet is very high in protein, vitamins, beneficial monounsaturated fats, and antioxidants and other micronutrients, while being moderate in sodium, calories, and saturated fats. In addition, they automatically exclude those scary food contamination problems that strike their meat-eating counterparts, such as e. coli and mad cow disease.
It should be noted that there are essential vitamins missing from the vegan diet, most notably B12, iron, and calcium, which they must supplement by other means. Vitamin-fortified foods or vitamin supplements are usually used.
_Ethics_ Probably the biggest concern is for animal cruelty. Vegans typically wish to exclude any and all forms of “”animal exploitation”” – not just meat and leather, but even the products that you can obtain from an animal without killing it; because even milking a cow or shearing a sheep for wool is still exploiting an animal for a human’s benefit. This is a belief, when held, which varies in degrees of commitment from philosophy to religion.
_Environmental Responsibility_ The typical environmental impact talks about methane gas from domesticated animals being as bad for the ozone layer as emissions from car exhaust, and about how it takes this many acres of land to sustain one cow where the same acres could more efficiently be used to raise crops, and so on.
_Religion_ While religions which specifically require veganism are rare, several sects of Buddhism still require strict adherence to non-violence, including killing an animal. Parts of different philosophies, which usually focus on reducing the impact one’s life has on the Earth, also suggest or enforce vegan beliefs.
_Aesthetics_ It can certainly be argued, if you’ve been inside a slaughterhouse, that the factory-like process of butchering animals is unpleasant in smell and appearance. Vegans also boast that their food just plain tastes and looks better. They say that the elimination of salt, grease, animal fat, and so on keeps their palette clean enough to taste the real essence of fresh fruit and vegetables.
Vegan Cuisine. . .
One wonders where vegans would be without soybeans. Soy forms a big staple in the vegan diet, in the form of soy milk, soy meat substitutes, and tofu. It is interesting that vegans work so hard to create so many things out of soy beans that look, smell, and taste just like the meat and animal products they are trying to eliminate. Anyway, soy substitutes will be a big part of any large vegan banquet, particularly because soy is so easily fortified with other vitamins and nutrients.
International cuisine holds many wonders for the vegan dietary spectrum. In particular, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Southern Indian, Thai, Mesoamerican, East Asian, and East African cuisine have a rich tradition of recipes and dishes which happen to be vegan-friendly. This is due in part to some parts of the world having birthed their culture in a regional area that doesn’t have a handy livestock animal nearby, or just being poor grazing grounds to start with.
But also, many cultures of the world have a wealth of native crops which lend some interesting flavors to the cuisine. At least here, you can be a little envious of vegans – some of them are gourmets in their own right, and can regale you with tales of Indian curry, rice pilaf, almond deserts, salsa, baba ganoush, seven-grain bread, and various other cultural specialties. Particularly in contrast to the typical North American and European Union homogenized diets, which sometimes seem to consist entirely of hamburgers and fries or chips, the vegans certainly get a wider variety of flavors.
A chef can see this as an artistic challenge to be creative within a strict set of rules, and studying some vegan recipes and the menus at vegan restaurants should give you a host of inspiring ideas.
Meat substitute will usually be some form of tofu. Tofu comes in textures ranging from soft, which is about like yogurt or jello in consistency, to very firm, which is more like a hard cheese. Tofu is marvelous because it can take on the taste of virtually anything.
Make tofu bacon by slicing thin strips of hard tofu and frying in a skillet with vegetable oil, adding a couple drops of liquid smoke flavoring. Or grind hard tofu into a good hamburger and chili substitute. The medium-texture tofu can be used for a cheese substitute. And soy, itself, can be made into anything from milk to yogurt to ice cream, some of it tastes as good if not better than its animal exploiting counterpart.
For great info on vegan vitamins, vegetarian supplements and nutrition, visit www.vegetarianvitaminsguide.com today!
 |
US $7.95 End Date: Saturday Jan-23-2010 8:16:05 PST Buy It Now for only: US $7.95 Buy it now | Add to watch list |
Understanding Vegans is a post from the Vegetarian Vitamins Guide blog where you can find suggestions and advice from vegetarians and vegans on vegetarian diets, supplements, vitamins and overall nutrition.
Related Vegetarian Vitamins Posts:
Newsgator has acquired Tomoye, a social networking platform for Sharepoint. The acqusition makes Newagator one of the largest enterprise collaboration companies in the Enterprise 2.0 space and positions it as a vendor with the deepest ties to the Sharepoint environment.
Details of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition buoys Newsgator’s reputation as an enterprise collaboration provider, almost exclusively for the Sharepoint platform.
Sponsor
Newsgator says it now has 2.1 million paying users, which it claims makes its the largest social computing vendor. It’s a claim we are a bit skeptical about as there are so many possible ways to define exactly what it means to be a social computing vendor.
Newsgator has always had deep ties with Microsoft. it began as a news aggregator that embedded into Outlook. In recent years, Newsgator has transformed into a collaboration provide that is clearly focused on integrating with Sharepoint. Microsoft seems to look kindly on Newsgator as a partner. In contrast, companies like Jive, that integrate with Sharepoint, are seen more as competitors.
The acquisition appears to give Newsgator deeper social networking capabilities but perhaps more so gives it a position in the Government 2.0 world.
Tomoye was founded in 2000. Its most significant installation is with the U.S. Army, where it has 150,000 users. Customers include the Federal Reserve Bank, The United States Air Force and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Filed under: Videos, Chevrolet, GM
What do you get when you drop a Corvette ZR1-sourced supercharged V8 tuned to output 705 horsepower into the engine bay of a Chevrolet Camaro? You have one very fast pony car. Add Hennessey performance parts to keep that power focused on the road and you’ve got Mustang-thumping tour-de-force the likes of which the world has… well, you get the point.
The folks at Hennessey want to make sure that their modded Camaro is worthy of its hefty price tag, so they have little choice but to test their high-powered beast on the road and at the track. Tough job. Hit the jump to watch the HPE700 LS9 Camaro as it takes on the road course at MSR Houston. We can’t get enough of the sound of the LS9 V8 mill as it pushes the Herculean Camaro to 130 miles per hour on the straights, and watching the Camaro hit 1G in the turns doesn’t suck either.
Gallery: Hennessey Camaro HPE700
[Source: Hennessey Performance]
Continue reading How’s She Handle? Hennessey’s ZR1-powered Camaro attacks a road course
How’s She Handle? Hennessey’s ZR1-powered Camaro attacks a road course originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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One of the best Tablet PCs I’ve ever used is the HP 2730p. The great construction combined with the thin convertible screen makes for a compelling tablet. The problem with the 2730p is that HP seems to have no desire to refresh the model, although an online slip by a school may indicate a refresh is forthcoming.
Mercy High School uses HP tablets on-site, and recently published a set of guidelines on how the program works. Of interest to those desiring a new tablet model is this little statement:
The Mercy Computing Package will be available from the Inacomp online store in May 2010. The designated HP 2740p tablet is not scheduled to be manufactured until Spring 2010. This is a non-consumer, professional model. This series of tablets are the only units which the Mercy IT Department services and supports in parts.
Of course, HP isn’t talking, but then it never does. To see how great the 2730p is, here’s a video I shot quite while back:
Except like 99% less stylish than predicted :banana:
Saben que hubo más modelos de autos en Uruguay que en la mayoría de los países de Latinoemérica?
Ejemplos exclusivos de Uruguay?
El escort 1300 y el 1600 (medio ingleses) en toda américa sólo hubo en Uruguay creo.
Bueno las creaciones autóctonas como INDIO, INDIANA, CHARRUA…
Panhard, Renault, Citröen, Peugeot durante mucho tiempo fueron casi exclusividad de Argentina Uruguay y Colombia, en muchos países de latinoamérica aún hoy no se conocen.
Quien tiene más?.. y fotos?
A ver que aparece en los cajones
Gregory T. Huang wrote:
The past week has been pretty busy in the Northwest, with a number of deals in software, Internet, electronics, and cleantech. And the activity wasn’t limited to Seattle—there’s a fair bit of news from Vancouver and Portland as well.
—Tantalus, a Burnaby, BC-based company that develops wireless networks for smart-grid applications, raised $14 million in equity financing led by Redpoint Ventures. It’s one of the bigger cleantech-related deals as of late.
—Cloudvox, a Seattle-based service that connects Web applications with phone services, was acquired by Chicago-based Ifbyphone, an Internet telephony firm. Financial terms were not disclosed.
—Beaverton, OR-based Avnera closed its $10 million Series D financing round, from new investor Onkyo and existing investors. Avnera develops technology for wireless audio chips and other consumer electronics applications.
—Seattle-based Gist, a startup focused on integrating information from the Web into people’s e-mail inboxes, announced that its software now works with IBM’s Lotus Notes communication and collaboration software, in limited release. It’s part of Gist’s strategy to push relevant information and updates to business people in order to make their meetings more efficient.
—Arch Venture Partners and Polaris Venture Partners, which both have Boston and Seattle operations, are paying $14 million for the assets of Iceland-based genomics firm deCode Genetics, as Ryan reported. DeCode (NASDAQ: DCGN) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November.
—Portland, OR-based AboutUs acquired Jyte.com, a social website that uses RPX, the flagship product from Portland startup JanRain. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. AboutUs is building a collaborative guide to the Web, and is backed by Seattle-based Voyager Capital.
—Bellevue, WA-based Visible Technologies landed $22 million in new funding, led by Investor Growth Capital, a new investor. Previous investors Ignition Partners, Centurion Holdings, In-Q-Tel, and WPP also participated in the round. Visible Technologies, which makes software to help companies and brands manage their online reputations, will use the funds to accelerate its global expansion, particularly in Europe.
—Seattle-based Big Fish Games expanded its partnership with Playfirst, based in San Francisco. Financial details of the multi-year deal weren’t given, but Big Fish will provide e-commerce and customer support services for PlayFirst’s game distribution portal, and PlayFirst gets access to the Big Fish game catalog.
Trwa rozbiórka budynku pod numerem 58. Znikaja jego oficyna, robotnicy zaczęli też pruć stropy we frontowej części. Niedługo po zabytku prawie nie będzie śladu
Kamienica jest własnością PGE Dystrybucja Łódź-Teren. Firma kupiła ją dwa lata temu od gminy. Za zabytek zapłaciła mieszkaniami o wartości 1 mln 925 tys. 800 zł i jeszcze w gotówce wyłożyła 3 mln 151 tys. 200 zł. Była to pierwsza tego typu transakcja, dzięki której miasto zyskało dzięki sprzedaży mieszkania komunalne.
Dzisiaj zabytek wpisany do rejestru znika z krajobrazu ul. Piotrkowskiej. – Ekspertyzy ujawniły bardzo zły stan techniczny elementów konstrukcyjnych budynku, potwierdzając nieopłacalność jego remontu – informuje Bartosz Wiśniewski, rzecznik PGE Dystrybucja Łódź-Teren.
Na rozbiórkę zgodziły się służby konserwatorskie. Ale tylko dlatego, że właściciel odbuduje kamienicę przywracając jej oryginalne piękno. Dzisiaj budynek jest pozbawiony wszystkich detali architektonicznych – zostały skute w latach 70-tych. (Podobnie stało się z domami pod numerami 50 i 82. Elewacja tej drugiej została przed laty odtworzona. Pierwsza ciągle czeka na remont)
Po rekonstrukcji kamienica, będzie miała cztery piętra, mansardowy, kryty w łuskę dach z lukarnami, czyli oknami doświetlającymi poddasze, siedem balkonów i bogato zdobioną elewację.
Firma zachowa i odrestauruje klatkę schodową, która będzie w tym samym miejscu co oryginalnie. Zadba też o pozostałe, nielicznie zachowane detale, czyli np.: płytki terakotowe w podestach.
Konieczność przywrócenia kamienicy oryginalnego wyglądu nie była niespodzianką dla PGE. Miasto już w akcie notarialnym zaznaczyło, że takie prace trzeba wykonać i uzgodnić je z konserwatorem zabytków. Przy podpisywaniu umowy gmina zabezpieczyła się także na wypadek chęci sprzedaży kamienicy przez nowego właściciela. W takiej sytuacji ma prawo odkupu budynku.
Rozbiórka potrwa do kwietnia. Wtedy też PGE chce rozpocząć rekonstrukcję zabytku. Budynek w stanie surowym ma być gotowy do końca roku. Przez kolejne 12 miesięcy będzie wykańczany.
W zrekonstruowanej kamienicy firma będzie miała swoje biura.
Źródło: Gazeta Wyborcza Łódź
by Terry Tamminen
Last week several hundred investors huddled together at the U.N. with government officials and non-profit groups to discuss one thing—carbon. They heard from U.S. climate change negotiator Todd Stern, international political royalty, and a host of economic prognosticators about topics including the recent talks in Copenhagen, potential Congressional action, and whether new clean tech would set us free from our fossil fuel addiction. And what was the take-away? That everyone expects someone else to make the first move.
To put this in perspective, Al Gore spoke about how investors put money to work based on assumptions. In the sub-prime mess, for example, he pointed out that we all assumed home values would keep rising to cover loans that people couldn’t afford and that securitizing such loans would spread the cost of a few defaults over a portfolio of generally good assets so investors would be OK. Once those assumptions were no longer true the markets crashed. He likened that debacle to the climate crisis, saying we assume today that oil and coal will always be plentiful and cheap and that carbon emissions will always be free.
Given that we now fight wars over declining oil reserves and can see the end of “cheap” coal (climate change, mountain top mining, air pollution, and mercury emissions are just a few of the costs that King Coal will soon have to absorb), the time when those assumptions fail may now be upon us—but investors are just as ill-prepared for this fundamental shift as they were for the sub-prime meltdown.
Mindy Lubber of CERES underscored Gore’s point by sharing a survey showing that almost half of the world’s leading money managers do not consider carbon risks when making investments. Although Copenhagen failed to get a global agreement on carbon pricing, the E.U. already imposes those costs and over half the states in the U.S. are poised to do so by 2012, so that omission is astonishing to say the least. Abbey Joseph Cohen of Goldman Sachs put an exclamation point on this myopia by saying her firm would gladly arrange financing for a new coal-fired power plant if the numbers made sense today—despite the fact that such an investment is a 50-year wager full of carbon-related uncertainty.
Against this backdrop, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said that governments hesitate to regulate carbon because they fear the new clean technologies are too costly under the current economic conditions. He urged investors to put up more money to mass-produce solar, hydrogen powered cars, and other technologies to lower costs, essentially saying that companies and their bankers would have to move to a low carbon economy before global governments could take meaningful regulatory action.
But Kevin Parker of Deutsche Asset Management said investors are waiting for government. He said they need “TLC” from government—transparency, longevity, and certainty—before they could shift money from high-carbon old technologies to the new, low-carbon ones. A statement issued by the investors’ network that hosted the event confirmed this game of chicken, saying, “Investors remain committed to taking action, but for us to deploy capital at the scale needed to truly catalyse a low-carbon economy, policy makers must act swiftly.”
So is the investment community engaged in a game of chicken or are they simply a bunch of carbon chickens? The U.N. event revealed the very real opportunity to profit while the majority are still making long-term bets on the carbon equivalent of sub-prime mortgages—giving too much debt to borrowers, who won’t be able to repay it, and hoping that bundling high-carbon investments in mutual funds or other derivatives will disguise the truth until its too late.
A smarter investor might do well to invest in companies and technologies that will be in big demand in a few quarters (not years) as global economies rebound and the demand for clean energy increases—and divest rapidly from those investments that depend too much on someone else going first.
Related Links:
Messaging that can save the clean energy bill
Copenhagen Accord is the priority, says U.S. climate envoy. But what about a binding treaty?
Senate needs to get back to work on clean-energy bill, says Washington rep
by Agence France-Presse
PARIS—World talks on climate change may not yield a legally binding pact by year’s end, U.N. climate pointman Yvo de Boer said on Wednesday, in his first public assessment after last month’s turbulent Copenhagen summit.
De Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said he had taken stock among a number of countries after the Copenhagen meeting. The mood among them was to forge an agreement this December on how to tackle climate change and then discuss further how to “package that outcome” as a treaty, he said in a webcast press conference from Bonn.
Last month’s marathon talks yielded the “Copenhagen Accord,” a non-binding document crafted by a small group of countries that account for around 80 percent of global carbon emissions. The accord was written by a couple of dozen leaders on the final day of the talks as the two-week meeting, hamstrung by textual wrangles and finger-pointing, faced collapse.
The failure to achieve a binding treaty disappointed those who had expected Copenhagen to crown an arduous two-year process with a treaty to roll back the threat posed by greenhouse gases and provide funds to poor and vulnerable countries.
Mauled by the experience, the U.N. forum is due to resume in the coming months, culminating this year with a ministerial-level meeting in Mexico in December.
“My sense, having spoken to about 15 or 20 countries so far, is that generally people want to reach a conclusion on the [twin negotiating texts] in Mexico and then they will be in a position to decide on how they want to package that outcome in legal terms,” De Boer said.
He also made clear that the Copenhagen Accord was not a substitute for the UNFCCC’s negotiation template. “It’s a political tool that has broad support at the highest possible level and that we can very usefully deploy to resolve the remaining issues that we have in the negotiating process,” he said.
The Copenhagen Accord set a broad goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), but did not specify the staging points for achieving this goal or a year by which greenhouse-gas emissions should peak.
Instead, countries are being urged to identify what actions they intend to take, either as binding curbs on emissions or voluntary action. $28 billion in aid has been pledged by rich countries for 2010-2012.
De Boer said he had asked countries to spell out by Jan. 31 whether they intended to be “associated” with the Copenhagen Accord or what sort of measures they envisaged. This was not a coercive deadline, he said, but simply intended to help him write a report on the outcome of Copenhagen.
“You can describe it as a soft deadline, there’s nothing deadly about it,” he said. “If you fail to meet it, then you can still associate with the accord afterwards. In that sense, countries are not being asked to sign the accord, they are not being asked to take on a legally binding target, they will not be bound to the action which they submit to the [UNFCCC] secretariat. It will be an indication of their intent and … [an] important tool to advance the negotiations.”
Related Links:
Last decade was the warmest ever, says NASA
The Climate Post: Asian ice granted temporary stay of execution
New Sierra Club chief brings confrontational style to the job
JDRF and BD Collaborate to Improve Insulin Pump Delivery
R&D Program Targets Opportunities to Improve Glucose Control and Help People with Diabetes Lead Healthier Lives
NEW YORK and FRANKLIN LAKES, N.J., Jan. 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) (NYSE: BDX) announced today an innovative program aimed at improving the treatment of type 1 diabetes by developing novel insulin delivery products to enhance the use of insulin pumps.
Through the program, JDRF will support BD’s research and development of new products that deliver insulin from a pump to a patient in either an infusion set or patch-pump configuration. Research indicates that there are significant opportunities to enhance pump therapy by improving convenience as well as minimizing pain, kinking, occlusions and site infections. An additional goal of the program is improving the speed at which insulin works. These enhancements are intended to improve how people with diabetes control their insulin therapy and have a positive impact on their overall level of glycemic control.
"Better control means better health outcomes for people with diabetes," said Alan Lewis, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of JDRF. "Constantly improving the technological tools to dispense insulin will lead to greater adoption of these methods and healthier lives. That’s why we view this collaboration with BD as vital to our goal to provide a bridge to the cure for type 1 diabetes."
The JDRF will invest $4.3 million in milestone-based financial support over the next few years for these projects.
"Providing reliable, convenient and cost-effective insulin delivery options is vital to helping people manage diabetes," said Linda Tharby, President, BD Medical – Diabetes Care. "This collaboration with JDRF demonstrates BD’s commitment to leveraging our expertise as a leader in insulin injection and acute care infusion to improve the patient experience for insulin pump users."
The evaluation of new delivery technologies, including BD microneedles, will be an important objective of this program. Microneedles are tiny needles that deliver insulin just beneath the skin, increasing the speed of insulin uptake and may be virtually pain free. Microdelivery technology development will focus on improved glucose control and ultimately the use of the technology as a critical element of closed-loop artificial pancreas systems. One day these systems might sense blood glucose levels and automatically administer the proper dosage of insulin in response.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks and kills off the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, a hormone that enables people to convert food into energy. It affects children, adolescents and adults.
To manage this disease, people with type 1 diabetes need to measure their blood sugar and pump or inject insulin throughout the day to keep blood sugar levels within a healthy range. This daily routine continues for life because insulin does not cure diabetes.
According to JDRF’s estimates, approximately 400,000 of the 3 million people in the United States with type 1 diabetes use insulin pumps, which became commercially available in the 1980s. Pumps offer flexibility and precision in controlling diabetes, which is a constant challenge for someone with diabetes. In fact, research shows that most people with diabetes spend the majority of the day with blood sugar levels outside recommended ranges, which can lead to devastating and costly short- and long-term complications.
About JDRF’s Artificial Pancreas Project
The JDRF/BD research program is among the first major non-exclusive industry initiatives of the JDRF Artificial Pancreas Project. JDRF last week announced that it is partnering with Animas Corporation, a Johnson & Johnson company, in a non-exclusive four-year program to develop a first-generation artificial pancreas system. The eventual, ultimate goal of the JDRF Artificial Pancreas Project is speeding the development of fully automated diabetes management systems.
An artificial pancreas would measure blood sugar through a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) which continuously reads the glucose levels through a hair-thin tube inserted just below the skin, typically on the stomach. The CGM would beam those readings to an insulin pump. In an advanced system, the pump would house a sophisticated computer program that would automatically calculate the necessary amount of insulin, based on the CGM’s glucose readings, and deliver the right amount of insulin.
The development of an artificial pancreas system is an essential step toward an ultimate cure for type 1 diabetes a "bridge to a cure."
More information about the JDRF Artificial Pancreas Project is available at www.jdrf.org/artificialpancreasproject. http:///The site includes information for people with type 1 diabetes about research leading to the development of an artificial pancreas, as well as interactive tools, project timelines, chats with researchers, and access to information about clinical trials.
About JDRF
JDRF is a global leader in research leading to better treatments and cures for type 1 diabetes. It sets the global agenda for diabetes research, and is the largest charitable funder and advocate of diabetes science worldwide.
About BD
BD is a leading global medical technology company that develops, manufactures and sells medical devices, instrument systems and reagents. The Company is dedicated to improving people’s health throughout the world. BD is focused on improving drug delivery, enhancing the quality and speed of diagnosing infectious diseases and cancers, and advancing research, discovery and production of new drugs and vaccines. BD’s capabilities are instrumental in combating many of the world’s most pressing diseases. Founded in 1897 and headquartered in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, BD employs approximately 29,000 associates in approximately 50 countries throughout the world. The Company serves healthcare institutions, life science researchers, clinical laboratories, the pharmaceutical industry and the general public. For more information, please visit BD: Medical Supplies, Devices and Technology; Laboratory Products; Antibodies.
SOURCE Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
RELATED LINKS
Type 1 Diabetes: Dedicated to Finding a Cure : Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International
BD: Medical Supplies, Devices and Technology; Laboratory Products; Antibodies
http://www.artificialpancreasproject.com/
Volkswagen AG’s Audi brand will halt production of its A3 compact model at its plant in Ingolstadt, Germany, during February due to slow sales.
The two-door A3 isn’t sold in the United States right now but is set to arrive later this fall. Audi says that demand for the A3 has been low in due to the expiration of Germany’s version of Cash for Clunkers.
According to AutoObserver, more than half of the plant’s 4,500 employees will be out of work during the week of Feb. 15.
– By: Omar Rana
Source: AutoObserver
I constantly get them to add me to MSN as well, where I turn it all around on them, and sting them.
I even got $1000 out of one in 2002, thinking I was some kind of mark. Wrong.
Owned.
I got one of those Nigerian scammers to add me to MSN today. The convo was much shorter then my usual since quitting time is getting close.
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(3:13 PM) ****** *******: |
With that, the person went offline.
Fun times today at work. 😀
