The Incipio Leather Hipster Pouch for Palm Pre is a tank of a leather case. I don’t mean that in just that it will protect your Pre well against daily threats, it’s actually also notably heavy in comparison to some other cases, including the identically designed Incipio Sports Holster. The stitched leather case was designed specifically with the Pre in mind, so you can count on it to provide a good fit without being too tight or too loose.
Blog
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Despoluição dos Rios e Ribeiras de Potugal
Fiz este thread para falar da despoluição do recursos hidricos do país.
Espero que comecem a surgir novidaddes rápido.
contribuiam com as inicativas de que tiverem conhecimento.
Alguém tem uma tabela que indique o nivel de despoluição dos recursos hidricos de cada concelho. -
When Should Children First Visit The Dentist?
As recommended by the AAPD and ADA, you should bring your child in to see your dentist by no later than their first birthday, or even by the time they get their first tooth, usually between the age of 6 to 12 months.
What Can I Expect At My Child’s First Visit
The dentist can perform a simple visual exam to evaluate your child’s oral health and determine their risk for developing dental disease. A gentle cleaning and fluoride application is usually performed by a dental assistant. Usually, no x-rays are taken at this appointment. The dentist will also look for relatively common and uncommon oral conditions affecting infants, such as tongue-tie, missing teeth, abnormal teeth, and other conditions. A dentist can also provide anticipatory guidance to parents to help prevent potential problems and dental disease, and to answer questions parents may have about their child’s new teeth and oral health. Also, your infant will become familiarized with the dental office setting in a positive way, before they get bombarded with negative propaganda from their older siblings, peers, or even dental-phobic parents.
For more information visit the Silver Star Dental Practice in Lincoln Ca or call 916.434.6220.
Tags: dentist, children’s, dental, kid’s dentist, general dentist, family, Lincoln, dentist, Dental, tooth, oral health, prevention, baby teeth, xylitol, primary teeth, deciduous teeth, Sacramento, Placer County, fun, home, Laser, Carifree, sedation options, risk assessment, practice, personalized, murals, video games, dietary counseling, anticipatory guidance, minimally invasive, brushing, flossing, toothpaste, bacterial
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The Tuktoyaktuk Pingos
Canada, North America | Weird Weather Phenomena
A pingo, also called a hydrolaccolith, is a mound of earth-covered ice found in the Arctic and subarctic that can reach up to 70 metres (230 ft) in height and up to 600 m (2,000 ft) in diameter. The term originated as the Inuvialuktun word for a small hill.
In fact, a pingo is a ‘periglacial landform,’ which is defined as a nonglacial landform or process linked to colder climates. They are essentially formed by ground ice which develops during the winter months as temperatures fall. The plural form is “pingos”.
Pingos usually grow only a few centimetres per year, and the largest take decades or even centuries to form. The process that creates pingos is believed to be closely related to frost heaving.
Pingos eventually break down and collapse. The current estimate is that pingos can last about 1000 years. Tuktoyaktuk in the Mackenzie Delta has one of the highest concentrations of pingos. Other places with pingos include Alaska, Greenland, and the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. In Siberia, pingos are known as bulganniakh, from the Yakut language.

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Button Wants to Compete in the Dakar Rally
Jenson Button admitted that he would be interested in competing in the Dakar Rally as a privateer. The reigning champion of Formula One is apparently a big fan of the South American event and, during the Autosport International gala this weekend, told the media that contesting in the famous cross-country rally is a personal aim of his, for the moment.However, he did mention that he would do it only as a privateer, because he wants to have no pressure on his shoulders when rallying. The solut… (read more)
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Reportagem: O que vem aí para ajudar o trânsito de SP
Fonte: http://revistaautoesporte.globo.com/…+TRANSITO.htmlO que vem aí para ajudar o trânsito
Falamos com autoridades e apuramos o que está sendo feito para São Paulo não parar
André Mendes

Congestionamentos: sinônimo de desperdício, estresse e baixa qualidade de vida
O trânsito é um assunto corriqueiro na vida de quem circula pela maior cidade da América Latina e por diversas outras em todo o país. Tanto é verdade que músicos brasileiros vêm revelando seus talentos ao recitarem canções relacionadas ao tema. Na música Trânsito Engarrafado, os integrantes do grupo Mastruz Com Leite protestam contra os perigos nos congestionamentos. Letra semelhante ao hit Caso Comum de Trânsito, cantado por Belchior. Já a dupla sertaneja Bruno e Marrone e os pagodeiros do Swing & Simpatia preferem exalar paixão nos sucessos Trânsito Parado e Trânsito do Amor.Correlações à parte, os números da metrópole assustam. De acordo com o Detran-SP (Departamento Estadual de Trânsito de São Paulo), a capital totalizou 6.705.024 veículos (somando motos, automóveis, ônibus, caminhões, reboques, entre outros) em 2009. No estado foram 20.143.576.
Como a contagem estimada da população realizada pelo IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geometria e Estatísticas) em julho de 2009 apontou que a cidade possui 11.037.593 habitantes, a matemática representa que para cada duas pessoas existe um carro.

São Paulo já tem mais de 6,7 milhões de veículos, quase um para cada dois habitantes
A frota total emplacada na cidade no ano passado foi de 335.443 automóveis, média de 27.953 novas unidades por mês. Com quase mil novos carros sendo emplacados por dia, os engarrafamentos se tornam inevitáveis. Estatísticas do Detran-SP informam que o maior registro de trânsito na história de São Paulo aconteceu às 19h do dia 10 de junho de 2009. Naquela véspera de feriado prolongado de Corpus Christi, com chuva e diversos acidentes, a capital computou 293 quilômetros de congestionamento.Segundo o consultor Cyro Vidal, conselheiro e presidente da Comissão de Assuntos e Estudos sobre o Direito de Trânsito da Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil de São Paulo (OAB-SP), a cidade tinha 15 mil quilômetros de vias disponíveis para circulação veicular em 1970. Na época, eram 900 mil veículos na metrópole. Quarenta anos depois a extensão passou para 17 mil km. Ou seja, enquanto as vias aumentaram apenas 13%, a frota cresceu quase 900%.
A cidade tem que ser cicatrizada para abertura de novas vias. São Paulo precisa ter a mesma mentalidade de Nova Iorque (EUA), que desapropriou locais para aumentar suas vias e desafogar o trânsito, opina Vidal. A inoperância do poder público municipal não permite isso. É preciso ter coragem cívica e vontade política para resolver este caos, esbraveja.
Aplicação de medidas diminui índices
Medidas implantadas em junho de 2008 como a Zona de Máxima Restrição de Circulação de Caminhões (ZMRC), inclusão dos caminhões no rodízio municipal e restrição aos fretados ajudaram a desafogar o tráfego paulistano. Números da Secretaria Municipal de Transportes de São Paulo apontam que houve redução da média de lentidão no último ano. Em 2007, a média era de 109 km, subiu para 115,5 km em 2008 e caiu para 108,5 km no ano passado.
A Secretaria informa que também foi reduzido em 28% o volume total de caminhões em circulação nos horários de pico e 62% na área da ZMRC. Além disso, houve 11% de queda nas ocorrências: a média que em 2008 era de 108 ocorrências/dia envolvendo caminhões foi diminuída para 97,5 por dia no ano passado.

Reforma na Marginal Tietê: obras pretendem dar um alívio aos constantes congestionamentosAcho que o trânsito de São Paulo é difícil, mas não podemos dizer que é um caos. Fazemos o possível diante de uma frota que cresce cada vez mais. Temos medidas de curto, médio e longo prazo para controlar isto, afirma Alexandre de Moraes, secretário Municipal de Transportes de São Paulo.
De acordo ele, a Secretaria vem trabalhando para retirar vagas para carros nas ruas e nas chamadas Zona Azul. Já que não podemos criar vias, temos que ganhar ruas que já existem. O viário não foi feito para veículos estacionarem.
O secretário antecipa que foi aberta uma licitação para edificação de 64 garagens com 400 vagas cada. É o que chamamos de verticalização da Zona Azul. Serão construídas em pontos estratégicos para estimular os motoristas a fazerem integração com o metrô e com os ônibus, explica Moraes. O tempo estimado para que todo o processo fique pronto é de 18 meses.

Trecho sul do Rodoanel: promessa de desafogar o trânsito na Avenida dos Bandeirantes a partir de março próximo
A principal esperança de melhora para a população paulistana, no entanto, está no fim das obras da Marginal Tietê e do trecho sul do Rodoanel. As obras estarão concluídas no fim do próximo mês de março. Além disso, estamos terminando um estudo que começou em março de 2009 e irá nortear nossas próximas ações. Analisaremos neste relatório, por exemplo, quais caminhões vindos de outras cidades não precisarão passar pela capital, revela o secretário.Moraes também mencionou a licitação para a primeira etapa do Monotrilho da Zona Sul, que terá 11,3 km de extensão e vai transportar 30 mil passageiros por hora. Tudo estará pronto em 2012, garante.
De acordo com a Secretaria, a grande inovação em termos de tecnologia será o PRIAV (Programa de Identificação Automática de Veículos), que vai permitir o monitoramento de toda a frota da cidade em tempo real, por meio de chips instalados em todos os veículos.

Novas estações do metrô devem ser usadas em conjunto com as garagens verticais para tirar carros das ruas
Além de oferecer a possibilidade de acompanhamento online do trânsito em toda a cidade, o PRIAV vai tornar a fiscalização mais inteligente facilitar a localização de carros roubados e de veículos clandestinos. Vamos licitar neste ano e pretendemos implantá-lo junto com o IPVA (Imposto sobre Veículos Automotores) de 2010. O programa vai ajudar no trânsito e diminuir assustadoramente os índices de furtos e roubos, afirma o secretário.Moraes descarta a implantação de pedágio urbano e diz que o contingente de marronzinhos aumentará neste ano – hoje são três mil profissionais da CET nas ruas. O orçamento total da Secretaria Municipal de Transportes de São Paulo para programas em 2010 é de R$ 1,8 bilhão.
Na opinião de Cyro Vidal o Rodoanel é uma necessidade inevitável e o PRIAV não dará certo. Não vejo solução com pedágio urbano e o PRIAV é falácia. Entre inúmeras outras ações, o Rodoanel é a saída, pontua.
Carro na garagem
O trânsito faz parte da vida dos cidadãos paulistanos e mescla sentimentos como resignação e indignação. Helio Andrade, 23 anos, estava cansado de gastar mais de duas horas diárias nos congestionamentos. Decidiu comprar uma moto e deixar o seu automóvel na garagem. Moro a 15 km do trabalho e demoro cerca de 50 minutos para ir e uma hora voltar todo dia.
O analista de TI reside na Vila Andrade, divisa com o bairro do Morumbi, e trabalha próximo a Osasco. Ele tem um Chevrolet Corsa hatch e acaba de comprar uma Yamaha YS 250 Fazer. Mesmo pagando IPVA, seguro obrigatório e seguro particular não utilizarei o carro nos dias de semana, somente aos sábados e domingos. Continuarei com o automóvel pela segurança, conforto e necessidade de uso em possíveis emergências, diz Andrade.
Helio classifica as motos como veículos perigosos, mas acredita que utilização do meio de transporte durante a semana irá melhorar sua qualidade de vida. Vou economizar tempo, dinheiro e não ficarei tão estressado como nos engarrafamentos, finaliza.

O analista de TI, Helio Andrade: ideia de ir de moto e deixar o carro para uso eventual
Consta no site da Secretaria da Fazenda do Estado de São Paulo que metade da arrecadação do IPVA vai para a capital e os outros 50% para o Estado. Para este ano está prevista a arrecadação de quase R$ 9 bilhões com o imposto. Já Vidal conta que a previsão de arrecadação em multas de trânsito para a Prefeitura de São Paulo é de R$ 580 milhões em 2010.Fica então a esperança de que a Prefeitura e o Estado de São Paulo invistam os recursos de forma sábia e consigam sanar a hipnose que é o trânsito paulistano.
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Restaurants – Athens
I couldn’t find any existing thread so I start this one for restaurant reviews …Mellilotos Restaurant, Athens
As reviewed in the New York Times, January 17, 2010
By Charly WilderThis family-run, weekday-only restaurant specializing in organic dishes opened last July in the lobby of a commercial building just off Syntagma Square. But youll forget about the narrow restaurants meager décor when you take your first bite of the salmon baked in paper and topped with finely chopped fennel, leek, dill and celery root, in a delicate reduction sauce made from spinach and a tree resin called mastika (12 euros, or about $17 at $1.40 to the euro).
Konstantinos Siopidis, the 38-year-old chef, created the dish five years ago for his wife, Despina Kouklinou, 33, who now runs the restaurant while her husband, her mother and her younger brother do the cooking. At the time, Mr. Siopidis was running the kitchen of an upscale Athenian restaurant, but he was continually frustrated when the owner insisted that he use canned goods and pre-prepared ingredients and serve food that was no longer at its peak of freshness. So the young couple began planning what would become Mellilotos.
We decided to sell food how we like it and follow our philosophy, Ms. Kouklinou said.
All of the food at Mellilotos is fresh, free of preservatives and prepared to order not a vegetable is cut beforehand. They dont use any frozen or canned ingredients, instead preparing their own broths and stocks using traditional preservation methods. Rather than buy from large distributors, the couple carefully select products from farmers many of them friends or relatives throughout Greece. Their cheese comes from a friend who raises goats on Amorgos Island, southeast of Athens. Ms. Kouklinous godfather sends freshly bottled olive oil from his pesticide-free grove on the island of Kithira, and her grandmother sends beans, figs and grape leaves that she grows in her private garden in Macedonia.
The bulk of the restaurants business comes from delivery orders, and with so many hotels nearby, the daily rotating selection of dishes like the fresh chickpea soup (6.50 euros), remarkably succulent beef roasted with zucchini in fresh tomato sauce (8.50 euros), or a macrobiotic salad with lentils, bean seedlings, cherry tomatoes, pickled peppers and a traditional salty yellow cheese called kefalotyri (6 euros) offers visitors a tasty alternative to room service.
Mellilotos, Xenofondos 15 (inside the lobby on left); (30-210) 322-24-58. Open Monday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The chef, Konstantinos Siopidis, of Mellilotos.

New York Times article
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/01/17…tml?ref=travel -
Coming Soon to a Liberal Bastion Near You A Republican In Teddy’s Seat…?!
The latest polls have the Lt. Colonel of the Army National Guard and former “Cosmo’s Sexiest Man” Scott Brown pulling ahead of anti-hockey, terror-disbelieving Martha Coakley.
The Dems are even pulling out the ‘big guns’…Bubba was there and Obama is on his way. Lest the pundits divert the issue from the people being opposed to this disasterous health care bill to blaming the candidate –Coakley won her bid for Attorney General easily….with over 70% of the vote.
Will the Dems ignore the message? Will they pretend the fact that a no-name Republican is polling this close to getting a seat weighed down by a Kennedy for over 40 years means THE PEOPLE are upset over Health Care and spending?! Will they give the Tea Party movement some validity? (Of course these are rhetorical questions…they’ll probably just find a way to blame Bush for the loss…)
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Kia Venga 2010, precios disponibles
Kia acaba de publicar los precios oficiales de su último monovolumen, se trata del Kia Venga 2010. Kia ha decidido sacar a la venta este nuevo modelo para hacer frente a la competencia durante este nuevo año.

Estará disponible en 4 versiones, Basic, Concept, Drive y Emotion. En cuanto a la motorización, también tendremos cuatro entre los que elegir, un 1.4i CVVT 90 Cv, un 1.4 CRDI 75 CV, un 1.4 CRDI 90CV y un 1.6 CRDI 128 CV.
A continuación os dejo con el listado de precios:
- Kia Venga 2010 1.4i CVVT 90 CV Basic 14.250€.
- Kia Venga 2010 1.4i CVVT 90 CV Concept 15.300€.
- Kia Venga 2010 1.4 CRDI 75 CV Concept 16.400€.
- Kia Venga 2010 1.4 CRDI 90 CV Drive 17.750€.
- Kia Venga 2010 1.6 CRDI 128 CV Emotion 19.550€.
Related posts:
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How The EFF Lost Its Way By Defending Hate Mongers And Tunnel Rats
Free speech is a basic human right and is essential to creativity and innovation. But every society places limits on this, particularly when it transgresses into “hate speech” – which disparages someone or some group on the basis of race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, and so on. Calls to violence are tolerated even less. These often lead to jail terms.The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been the tech world’s champion of free speech since its inception in 1990. I have always admired this group for defending the oppressed. But when organizations achieve too much success, they often develop a sense of confidence and arrogance that, when unchecked, leads to their downfall. They begin to believe they can “do no evil”. A recent statement by the EFF makes me wonder whether it has reached this stage and needs to have its “Google China” moment. Michael Arrington wrote in 2007 that the “EFF may be getting a tad overzealous in its desire to defend our right to violate copyright and other intellectual property laws, and needs to take a step back and consider if the oppressed are now becoming the oppressor”. I’m beginning to believe that Michael was right.
Let me explain the background of a case which the EFF has just passed judgment on so that you can decide for yourself whether this is indeed the situation.
The anti-immigrant groups and xenophobes I’ve written a lot about see the H-1B visa issue as the beachhead in their battle against skilled immigrants. Nearly all foreign skilled professionals (such as engineers, scientists, and doctors) need this visa to work in the U.S. As with the tax system, Medicare, and the big bailout, the H-1B visa program has its flaws and is occasionally abused. You don’t see much visa fraud in Silicon Valley, because skills and competence are the only things that matter. But for grunt-type IT work, cost is a bigger factor. Most large service companies are highly ethical and go by the book. There are, however, a few shoddy body shops that bring in low-skilled workers and pay them below market wages. These are a small minority. Nevertheless, they make an easy target.
One of the most vocal members of the anti-immigration alliance is a computer programmer who calls himself “Tunnel Rat” (he doesn’t have the courage to reveal his real name). He maintains several websites (ITgrunt.com, Endh1b.com, and Guestworkerfraud.com) that focus on attacking Indians, Hindus, and H-1B workers, whom he calls “curry-scented slumdogs”. His websites are laced with racial slurs and profanity in English and Hindi and openly advocate hatred and violence.
Here are some examples from these websites.
Immediately after the massacre at the Fort Hood military base in Texas last November, which left 13 people dead and 29 wounded, Tunnel Rat put up a blog post that tried to link the killings to the H-1B program. It said:
“American tech professionals have been forced to cower to the Indu-Invaders in I.T. because if they stood up for themselves, they would be labeled racists. And thus, like the Feds, they said nothing, even as they were training their slumdog replacements and packing their boxes”.
A few days later, a gunman shot six people in Orlando, Florida. According to CNN, Jason Rodriguez had worked for a year at RS&H, a facilities and infrastructure consulting firm, as an entry-level engineer before he was put on several months of probation and fired for “performance issues”. Then he worked at Subway for two years before losing his sanity. Kim Berry, President of a group called the Programmer’s Guild (which claims to represent the technical and professional workers of America, and which, according to Wikipedia, had 400 members at what was presumably its peak in 1999), posted on a blog suggesting that the murders might not have happened if RS&H (which has 800 employees) had not applied for six H-1B visa slots in 2007 and 11 in 2008.

Tunnel Rat piled on:
“It is my belief that Rodriquez was pushed aside to make room for an H-1B… I predict that this is just the beginning of a massive wave of violence as middle-aged American men reach their breaking point and start to settle scores. … H-1B program is now a national security issue. We can’t have an invasion of curry-scented pod-people displacing millions of Americans”.
All of this is bizarre, despicable and disgusting, but other than the racial slurs, may not cross any lines. It is still free speech. Here is a posting from Tunnel Rat that does cross the line:
Now that the slumdogs have taken over Google, I can no longer trust them to protect my anonymity… That is why I am protecting myself and my family by stockpiling weapons and ammo… My greatest hope is that some techie goes crazy and acts out violently against his slumdog replacement and the collaborators that hired the feral jackal. That techie in Pittsburgh was way off the mark by going after women at a gym. If he was going to kill himself anyway, he should of stopped off at the nearby law offices of Cohen & Grigsby.
[Cohen & Grigsby has been in the news for a talk one of its lawyers gave on how to work the H-1B system].

In another post he responds to an Indian concerned about his racist remarks: “You should be concerned about THIS [link to article about violent attacks against Indians in Australia].” Tunnel Rat also gloated about having emailed the person “pictures of dead Indians and other nasty things” and said:
Here’s a deal, SLUMDOGS. Get rid of Vineet Nayar, “the highly respected CEO of HCL Technologies” and I will stop blogging. Here’s a picture, so you can identify the FAT FUCK… Go ahead, eliminate that fucker. I promise I WILL STOP BLOGGING… The ball is in your court.
I can cite many more examples of threats of violence and “retribution”, but I am sure you get the idea.
One of the companies maligned, Apex Technology Group, filed suit against these sites. In late December, a New Jersey court ruled in favor of Apex and ordered the sites to shut down, although allowing them enough time to file an appeal.
After the decision, the EFF put up a blog post criticizing the takedown order and claiming that the “… order dangerously overreaches. By restricting access to entire websites, it places a prior restraint on all of the speech on the websites, even if that speech is unrelated to Apex”. EFF argued that this would be like “a court shutting Amazon.com or Yelp.com because of a disparaging review of a single product”. I’m not sure whether this is a good analogy. In my mind, those sites clearly cross the line from protected speech into terroristic threats or harassment. A better analogy would be a Jihadi site posting hateful propaganda and calls to violence. These sites use the same techniques: posting misleading information and hateful rants and suggesting that readers do something to right the alleged wrongs.
So I e-mailed the author of the EFF blog post, Kurt Opsdahl, a senior staff attorney at EFF, to ask him what gives. I asked what if the site EFF had been defending were attacking African-Americans or Jews: would EFF be taking the same stand? What if the site had been advocating a holocaust or calling people “niggers” instead of “slumdogs”: would this cross the line? I also told him that I had received death threats traced back to the domain names in question via email and in the reader feedback section of BusinessWeek in articles I had written about immigration.
Kurt would not respond to the substance of what I asked. The jist of his response: “A court order should not shut down any website unless the entirety was not protected speech. While a ‘true threat’ is not protected speech, there are many views which are protected, even if repugnant”.
What shocked me about Kurt’s response was this comment: “I have not read the sites, since they were offline before this matter came to our attention”. I find this absolutely unbelievable. Doesn’t the EFF know how to search the Google cache? Doesn’t it have a responsibility to ensure that it is using its power effectively and wisely?
What sort of “power” does the EFF have exactly? Right after its blog post, ComputerWorld’s Patrick Thibodeau wrote this article condemning the judge’s decision, which, like the EFF statement, didn’t even mention the nature of the speech on the site ordered to be shut down. (Patrick has been a vocal opponent of H-1B visas, something else he does not disclose in his coverage). Likewise, the San Francisco Chronicle and The Oakland Journal posted articles holding up the EFF blog post as a shining beacon of justice. The favorable media coverage became a major victory not only for opponents of H-1B visas but also for the general white supremacist, neo-Nazi, “kill all dark foreigners” crowd. Nice company, EFF. I’m sure you’ll get invited to the David Duke annual Christmas party soon.
You can debate the merits of the EFF stance from a legal standpoint. But the EFF cannot function in a contextual vacuum. I am certain its employees feel overworked and underpaid like those of many other non-profits. But, by siding unwaveringly with some of the most hateful sites on the Internet and not even mentioning the nature of those sites, the EFF betrayed its charter of upholding justice. A simple Google cache search would have easily shown Kurt and his colleagues that the sites in question were vitriolic. By giving Tunnel Rat a free pass, the EFF encouraged several major media outlets to echo its one-sided defense of the ability to talk about killing and hurting Indians and H-1B holders. If people want to have a debate about whether H-1B visas are good for America, let’s have it. But if the most spirited response they can muster is to threaten the lives of their opponents, they’ve already lost the debate.
The only silver lining on this dark cloud is that it has brought this sort of xenophobia and racism out in the open. The anti-immigrant groups have claimed to be fighting a righteous battle for American workers. Now it is clear what lies beneath the surface. They can only fight with hate because logic escapes them.
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El hueco de la civilización
Buenos Aires*Título cita a Omar castillo
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Rare “corpse plant” blooms at Milwaukee Public Museum

(Photo: Milwaukee Public Museum)The Milwaukee
Public Museum’s titan arum flowered on January 15, 2010 after a month-long
wait. Most of us will never get to see a blooming titan arum
in person because they are endangered in the wild and are not all that common
in cultivation. It takes several years for the plant to bloom and then the
flower (one of the world’s largest) only lasts for a short time.“The titan arum
is one of the wonders of the plant world because of its sheer size and rapid rate
of growth,” says Neil Luebke, curator of botany at the Milwaukee Public Museum.Indeed, the museum’s titan arum, which stands at 7 feet 8 ½ inches tall, grew
several inches a day since the shoot emerged from the soil in mid-December. The
plant expends so much energy growing so quickly that it can’t sustain itself
for long and usually only stays open for two days, according to Luebke.Known as the
world’s tallest flower, the titan arum is technically the world’s largest
unbranched cluster of flowers. (The largest single flower is rafflesia arnoldii, which
can grow up to 3 feet wide.) In the wild titan arums can grow to be over ten
feet tall, but in cultivation the world
record is 9.55 feet. A spokeswoman at the museum dubbed the exotic plant:
the “Godzilla of the plant world.”A blooming titan
arum usually draws large crowds because it’s so rare, but also because of the
foul odor it emits. It smells like rotting flesh or decaying meat, which is why
it’s also known as the “corpse plant.” The smell is so intense that the human nose can
detect it from over a half mile away.The horrid smell
attracts pollinators from afar. In nature the corpse plant only grows in the
rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia. They are threatened because of rain forest
destruction. The International Union of Conservation lists them as vulnerable.
(Photo: Milwaukee Public Museum)Check out Yahoo! Green on Twitter and Facebook.
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Force India Will Miss Valencia Test
Force India joined Red Bull Racing in being only the second of the established teams of Formula One not to launch their 2010 challenger prior to the official start of the off-season winter testing. Consequently, the Silverstone-based team will also skip the maiden test of the month of February, scheduled to take place on the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia.The news was revealed by the team’s leading driver Adrian Sutil, via an interview with Formula One’s official site. While most of the t… (read more)
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Esta cidade também é clássica [ Thread para apreciar]
Acompanho o SSC há quase um ano (:nuts:), mas sempre tive medinho de entrar nesse fórum de marmanjos, com poucas mulheres.Mas resolvi entrar e começo mostrando o perfil ‘sophistiqués’ do Rio, pois não só de praia vive a cidade mais bonita do Brasil:)
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Week in tech: Google vs. China edition
Google and China dominated the news this week. First came Google’s decision to stop censoring search results in China and the announcement that it is prepared to abandon the country over the issue. The move came amid revelations that Chinese hackers spied on human rights advocates around the globe by infiltrating Google’s network.
Next came the reaction. Google’s dramatic decision to call out Chinese hackers and its decision to stop censoring search results has prompted an extraordinary worldwide reaction. Here’s what we learned.
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