Fed up with the defamatory content found on one website on the Internet, Bordentown Mayor James E. Lynch Jr. convinced City Council members to pass a law forcing the hosting service of that website to take down its pages.
The website BordentownMayorReallySucks.com greets visitors with a raunchy dose of criti… (read more)
Mini Beachcomber Concept
The Mini Moke is back… well, almost. Mini bosses are currently looking at whether or not to put the buggy-inspired Beachcomber concept into production. Mini says that the new Countryman based crossover concept was a huge hit at the 2010 Detroit Motor Show in January.
“We will come back to this to see if there is a business basis, as we were overwhelmed by the reaction. MINI will never show a concept that won’t make production,” said head of brand management Dr Wolfgang Armbrecht.
The Mini Beachcomber Concept was built around the road-going version of the Countryman, but gave up two doors to pay tribute to the Mini Moke – the legendary Mini-based take on the classic beach buggy.
Would you like to see the Beachcomber go into production? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section after the jump.
– By: Kap Shah
Source: AutoExpress
Germany may look like the healthy heart of Europe right now, but the country’s demographic position could see its competitive edge fall flat, according to Der Spiegel.
With all eyes currently on the short term crisis in European debt, observers may be overlooking Europe’s more long term demographic sickness. But Germany, faced with a declining birth rate and an increase in emigration that now sees more people leaving the country than entering, is starting to wake up.
The country has already tried policies to encourage family growth that have thus far failed, according to Der Spiegel. And Germany’s key country for immigration, Turkey, is now not such a boon, with net 10,000 Turks returning rather than coming to Germany.
But Germany’s problems still pale in comparison to many other European states, where declining birthrates and restrictive policies on immigration have halted population growth.
The issue of preventing immigration from all Muslim countries took center stage in recent local elections.
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2007: 6.6%
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2035: 10%
Change in working age population by 2020: -4.3%
Source: 2009 EU Aging Report
Luxembourg has the highest amount of foreign born citizens in any country in Europe.
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2007: 8.7%
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2035: 17%
Change in working age population by 2020: -1.1%
Source: 2009 EU Aging Report
Denmark has very strict immigration rules which prevent the wives and husbands of naturalized citizens from moving to the country for 28 years after their spouse’s naturalization.
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2007: 9.1%
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2035: 11%
Change in working age population by 2020: -4.3%
Source: 2009 EU Aging Report
The head of Bulgaria’s immigration team has recently been arrested for illegally helping foreigners get citizenship.
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2007: 8.3%
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2035: 9.0%
Change in working age population by 2020: -5.6%
Source: 2009 EU Aging Report
Czech pension profits grew by 720 Million Kc (40 Million) while membership grew in private pensions to 4.47 million people.
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2007: 7.8%
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2035: 7.6%
Change in working age population by 2020: -8.3%
Source: 2009 EU Aging Report
New EU rules on traveling without a visa are supplying a large amount of Balkan immigrants to Belgium since the beginning of the year.
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2007: 10%
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2035: 14%
Change in working age population by 2020: -3.5%
Source: 2009 EU Aging Report
Poland is keeping steady in its plan on pensions, hoping that a slight increase in returns and increasing the retirement age will allow the program to remain in good stead.
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2007: 12%
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2035: 9.3%
Change in working age population by 2020: -5.7%
Source: 2009 EU Aging Report
Hungary is attempting to take advantage of foreign discrimination against Indians by offering them places in their universities.
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2007: 11%
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2035: 12%
Change in working age population by 2020: -5.0%
Source: 2009 EU Aging Report
Italy experienced nationwide strikes of immigrant workers on March 1 showing the signs of tension within the country.
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2007: 14%
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2035: 15%
Change in working age population by 2020: -3.0%
Source: 2009 EU Aging Report
Sweden has a policy of “integration” for its immigrants giving them the language and cultural skills necessary to survive in the country.
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2007: 9.5%
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2035: 9.4%
Change in working age population by 2020: -6.0%
Source: 2009 EU Aging Report
Malta, a relatively closed post-colonial state, is experiencing an influx of immigration which some are saying is a positive move for its society.
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2007: 7.2%
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2035: 9.7%
Change in working age population by 2020: -7.1%
Source: 2009 EU Aging Report
Greece is making moves to give the children of migrant workers citizenship, but there is a substantial backlash to these political moves.
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2007: 12%
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2035: 19%
Change in working age population by 2020: -3.9%
Source: 2009 EU Aging Report
France is preventing an immigrant from Morocco from getting citizenship because he makes his wife wear an “Islamic veil.”
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2007: 13%
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2035: 14%
Change in working age population by 2020: -5.5%
Source: 2009 EU Aging Report
Finland experienced a 48% increase in asylum seekers last year, with most coming from Iraq and Somalia.
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2007: 10%
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2035: 14%
Change in working age population by 2020: -8.5%
Source: 2009 EU Aging Report
Slovenia’s pension scheme remained balanced for 2009, with spent and received 4.6 Billion Euros ($6.3 Billion).
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2007: 9.9%
Pension cost compared to GDP in 2035: 15%
Change in working age population by 2020: -6.6%
Source: 2009 EU Aging Report
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In this final post in our series of "Notes on the Making of A New Literary History of America," adapted from a talk given by co-editor Greil Marcus at the International Conference on Narrative, Marcus talks about what Ann Marlowe’s essay “Linda Lovelace’s Ordeal” (which you can read here) revealed about the evolution of the American voice—a progression central to the book. Parts one, two, three, and four in this series appeared earlier.
"
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When Ann Marlowe took up Linda Lovelace, she watched “Deep Throat,” and then found and read all four of Linda Lovelace’s autobiographies. The first two—in which Lovelace declared that she lived for violation and libertinism and loved every second—were written by others. The second two, written with a co-author—with Ordeal, in 1980, the book that mattered—she was a sex slave, violated at every turn. But what Marlowe found was, in a negative sense, the whole story our own book had put itself together to tell—the search for a national voice, a form of speech that everyone could understand, and speak in turn. The true speech of democracy. At bottom, the book was nothing more than hundreds of different speakers, calling out to each other, to the past, to the future, to the present they were trying to enact, to make up the language of the made-up country as if it were everyone’s right to found the nation for the first time.
“Lovelace’s voice,” Marlowe writes—Lovelace describing how her mother gave up the child Lovelace had at twenty—never even mentioning, Marlowe notes, if it was a boy or a girl, only that it was in Lovelace’s word illegitimate—“Lovelace’s voice is the studiously bland voice we hear every day from politicians, in the smugness of op-eds, in the passive-aggressive niceness of airline employees. Hypocrisy has always been with us, but the mimicking of the colorless tone of down to earth ‘good folks,’ of what was once called Middle America, seems to have become prevalent after World War II.” As Gerald Early guessed, and Marlowe found, Linda Lovelace spoke the speech of our time. “The deliberate impersonation of a blameless dailiness”—and what a phrase that is, “blameless dailiness” all but hiding its argument, that in the present day all speech is second hand, received, an impersonation—“may have been an artifact of television, television commercials, and the televising of political oratory. All of this created a national speech.”
That was the treasure of ashes the book finally unearthed, without for a moment looking for it. In the narrative the book itself was searching for, the cards lay where they fell, and the people who made the book picked them up where they lay.
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[JURIST] The Obama administration confirmed Tuesday that it will send 1,200 National Guard [official website] troops to the US-Mexican border in an effort to deter drug smuggling and illegal immigration. They will join the 300 National Guard troops and 26,000 border and customs officials already stationed at the border. The troops will assist [AP report] border agents in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, but will not be directly engaged in law enforcement activities. Additionally, the administration will request a $500 million supplemental appropriations bill from Congress in order to assist in law enforcement efforts along the border. Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) [official website] has expressed support [Miami Herald report] for the move, describing it as a good start. Arizona Senators John McCain (R) and Jon Kyl (R) [official websites] also described [press release] it as an “important first step,” but continued:
[T]he President is not sending enough troops. We believe the situation on the border is far worse today than it was [in 2006] due to the escalating violence between the Mexican drug cartels and the Mexican government. For this reason, we need to deploy at least 6,000 National Guard troops to the border region. The fact that President Obama announced today that he will only be sending one-fifth of the troops we believe are required is a weak start and does not demonstrate an understanding of the current situation in the region.
McCain and Kyl introduced an amendment [text, PDF] on Wednesday that would appropriate $250 million of unused funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 [text, PDF] to fund the deployment of 6,000 troops.
The deployment comes amid an effort by President Barack Obama to garner Republican support for proposed immigration reform legislation. Renewed pressure for congressional action on the issue has come after Arizona passed a bill [JURIST report] making it a state crime to be in the country illegally and requiring state police to verify the immigration status of those suspected of being in the country illegally. The bill has faced sharp criticism from Obama, Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and the international community [JURIST reports]. The effort is the first attempt at immigration reform since the failed [JURIST report] Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill [S 1639 materials] in 2007. In 2006, former US president George W. Bush [official profile] announced [JURIST report] the deployment of up to 6,000 National Guard troops to the Mexican border as a prime element in a wide-ranging plan to ‘fix’ problems created by illegal immigration.
Captain Jason Ford is on his fourth tour of duty with the U.S. Marines, his first in Afghanistan. I met him in 2003 during the buildup to the invasion of Iraq and again on the march towards Baghdad while he was serving with the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, the same unit I embedded with.
Now he’s the Commanding Officer of Charlie Company with the 1st LAR, based in a Combat Outpost known as South Station in the Helmand River Valley.
We joined him on a four hour foot patrol into a neighboring village where we sat down cross legged on the floor in the open-air living room of a tribal elder’s home. We drank the Chai tea they offered and I listened as the Captain worked to establish a relationship and trust with the elder and the large group of men and boys around him.
“We do these sit downs with them to try and let them know hey yes we’re here, we’re here to help, we’re the good guys and here’s why…” the Captain told me later, “but we’re not going to give you everything because we can’t be here forever. This is your country, your problem, and you guys gotta start addressing those problems.”
“In order to win this war, in order to finally be successful over here, we have to win the people.”
Ford grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, attended the Naval Academy (when I asked how he finished there he laughed and said “I graduated!”) and now lives in Southern California with his new wife.
“Before, the Marine Corps was everything. Now it’s the Marine Corps plus a wife so… “
So this may be his last tour of duty?
“When I do get home it will be time to go and start making babies and do that good stuff.”
“You got a new boss now?” I ask. “Yeah, absolutely!”
ExxonMobil convened its annual shareholders meeting in Dallas this week as the magnitude of the ongoing BP oil disaster grows. This is a reminder that oil companies need to be held accountable for their actions—both while the oil gushes from the ocean floor and 20 years after the spill. The Exxon Valdez oil accident that slimed Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989 is a chilling reminder of the need for government oversight and corporate accountability.
Exxon and BP’s broken record
Many would assume that BP—the company responsible for the Gulf Coast disaster—will cover the entire cost of cleanup. But we learned from the Exxon Valdez spill that the reality is very different:
The Exxon Valdez tanker spilled more than 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, which eventually contaminated approximately 1,300 miles of shoreline. The total costs of Exxon Valdez, including both cleanup and also “fines, penalties and claims settlements,” ran as much as $7 billion. Cleanup of the affected region alone cost at least $2.5 billion, and much oil remains.
Yet Exxon made high profits even in the aftermath of the most expensive oil spill in history. They made $3.8 billion profit in 1989 and $5 billion in 1990. And this occurred while Exxon disputed cleanup costs nearly every step of the way.
Exxon fought paying damages and appealed court decisions multiple times, and they have still not paid in full. Years of fighting and court appeals on Exxon’s part finally concluded with a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2008 that found that Exxon only had to pay $507.5 million of the original 1994 court decree for $5 billion in punitive damages. And as of 2009, Exxon had paid only $383 million of this $507.5 million to those who sued, stalling on the rest and fighting the $500 million in interest owed to fishermen and other small businesses from more than 12 years of litigation.
Twenty years later, some of the original plaintiffs are no longer alive to receive, or continue fighting for, their damages. An estimated 8,000 of the original Exxon Valdez plaintiffs have died since the spill while waiting for their compensation as Exxon fought them in court.
Coastal regions and coastlines of the Prince William Sound are still contaminated. The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council’s 2009 status report finds that as much as 16,000 gallons of oil remains in the sound’s intertidal zones today. A 2001 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study surveyed 96 sites along 8,000 miles of coastline and found that “a total area of approximately 20 acres of shoreline in Prince William Sound is still contaminated with oil. Oil was found at 58 percent of the 91 sites assessed and is estimated to have the linear equivalent of 5.8 km of contaminated shoreline.”
Animals and ecosystems suffered immediately after the spill and still do today. Scientific American reported that, “some 2,000 sea otters, 302 harbor seals and about 250,000 seabirds died in the days immediately following the spill.” The researchers estimate that long term, “shoreline habitats such as mussel beds affected by the spill will take up to 30 years to recover fully.”
Most of the oil cannot be mopped up, In fact, only about 8 percent was ever recovered. Dr. Jeffrey Short of Oceana testified at a hearing on the 20th anniversary of Exxon Valdez that, “Despite heroic efforts involving more than 11,000 people, 2 billion dollars, and aggressive application of the most advanced technology available, only about 8 percent of the oil was ever recovered. This recovery rate is fairly typical rate for a large oil spill. About 20 percent evaporated, 50 percent contaminated beaches, and the rest floated out to the North Pacific Ocean, where it formed tar balls that eventually stranded elsewhere or sank to the seafloor.”
Exxon didn’t fail in its response efforts 20 years ago alone. BP actually joined Exxon in its response efforts—officially BP PLC, the same firm working to stop the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico now.
The Associated Press reports: “BP owned a controlling interest in the Alaska oil industry consortium that was required to write a cleanup plan and respond to the spill two decades ago…investigations that followed the Valdez disaster blamed both Exxon and Alyeska for a response that was bungled on many levels.”
The same lack of preparation persists today, as BP workers and trained local employees and officials scramble to contain the gushing oil.
BP has made huge profits over the last 10 years. In fact, during the early days of the Gulf of Mexico disaster, BP was making “enough profit in four days to cover the costs of the spill cleanup” so far.
BP made $163 billion in profits from 2001 to 2009 and $5.6 billion in the first quarter of 2010. And The Washington Post found that, “BP said it spent $350 million in the first 20 days of the spill response, about $17.5 million a day. It has paid 295 of the 4,700 claims received, for a total of $3.5 million. By contrast, in the first quarter of the year, the London-based oil giant’s profits averaged $93 million a day.”
Meanwhile, contamination in the gulf continues to worsen. BP CEO Tony Hayward bet there would be a “very, very modest” environmental impact on the region, but the gulf’s fisheries and shorelines will likely follow in the tragic path of the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill—ruined for decades after. Add thousands of gallons of chemical dispersants used for cleanup to this mix, along with their unknown but potentially toxic effects, and this only compounds the damage to public health, tourism, and the region’s greater economy.
NOAA has already shut down “nearly 20 percent of the commercial and recreational fisheries in the area because of the spill.” And U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke declared a fishery disaster in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday; the affected area includes Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
There is only more devastation to come to the communities in the region as their local populations and tourism industries suffer a blow not easily nursed back to health.
BP cannot be let off the hook like Exxon was. No matter what anyone does, most of the gushing oil cannot be recovered; this is why BP must be responsible for regional restoration and cleanup—as well as plugging the hole.
BP needs to be held accountable for stopping the oil gusher and for shouldering the safety, health, restoration, and cleanup costs for years to come. President Obama created an independent commission to investigate causes and cleanup options for the disaster, and Congress is attempting to raise oil spill liability caps. But more steps need to be taken to hold BP fully accountable for the aftermath of the disaster.
BP should be required to place its 2010 first quarter profit of $5.6 billion in an escrow account to provide compensation to the fishermen, those in the tourist industry, and others whose livelihoods are threatened. These funds should also be used for cleaning up the soon to be blighted shores.
We are reminded as one of the largest environmental disasters in history continues to unfold in the gulf that we are putting our economy, national security, and environment at greater risk every day that the Senate fails to pass comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation. Yet ExxonMobil and BP both bragged that 2009 was a year of safety and environmental improvements for them; BP even claimed that, “2009 was an outstanding year” for their exploration and production efforts.
The BP Gulf Coast disaster reminds us that the offshore oil industry as a whole carries extreme risks that the American people cannot bear. We must act now to dramatically reduce our oil use, and President Obama and leaders in both parties of Congress must provide the leadership necessary to develop a clean energy and climate solution that becomes law this year.
This is a repost from the Center for American Progress. Susan Lyon is Special Assistant, Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress.
For more information, see:
Natural user interfaces using gestures aren’t really new, but AirSwing, a technology developed by Toshiba, offers something unique: it neither requires expensive hardware nor substantial CPU resources to work. After installing AirSwing (which is in prototype stage) on your computer, all you need is just a conventional web cam as the input device to start.
In fact, NEC claims their UI system uses only 3% of the processing power of a 400MHz ARM 11 CPU. The way it works is that the display shows a semi-transparent image of the user, a menu and the content the user is supposed to interact with. It’s then possible move around or select pieces of content, for example flick through photos in a photo gallery, simply by making gestures.
The idea is that because AirSwing users see a picture of themselves on the screen, it’s clear for them where to “press” a virtual button or how to move hands at all times. Once it’s ready, Toshiba plans to market AirSwing to digital signage companies.
As you can see in the video below, Toshiba has some kinks to iron out before that can happen though:
In 2003, a company named Medien Patent Verwaltung showed Warner Bros. their technology to mark films in a way capable of tracing a pirated copy back to its origin theater. And allegedly, WB has been using the tech since…without paying. More »
Piracy – Warner Bros – Intellectual Property – Services – Copyright infringement
Via Prison Planet.com » Commentary
Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, May 27, 2010
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| Larry Summers wants Congress to “grit its teeth” and get busy on another worthless stimulus. | |
The bankster operative who helped destroy Glass-Steagall is back.
Larry Summers, Obama’s top economic adviser, has told Congress to “grit its teeth” and approve a fresh fiscal boost of $200 billion to keep growth on track, reports the Daily Telegraph. “We are nearly 8m jobs short of normal employment. For millions of Americans the economic emergency grinds on,” he said.
The M3 money supply in the United States is contracting at an accelerating rate that now matches the average decline seen from 1929 to 1933, despite near zero interest rates and the stimulus boondoggle.
“It’s frightening,” professor Tim Congdon from International Monetary Research told the Daily Telegraph. “The plunge in M3 has no precedent since the Great Depression. The dominant reason for this is that regulators across the world are pressing banks to raise capital asset ratios and to shrink their risk assets. This is why the US is not recovering properly,” he said.
No precedent since the Great Depression. Meanwhile, the corporate media has the public obsessing over Lindsay Lohan’s court-ordered ankle bracelet.
The M3 is a measure of the money supply. It began tumbling last summer. The stock of fiat money fell from $14.2 trillion to $13.9 trillion in the three months to April, amounting to an annual rate of contraction of 9.6 percent. The assets of institutional money market funds fell at a 37 percent rate, the sharpest drop ever.
In 2006, the Federal Reserve stopped publishing M3 figures. The Fed said it did this to save money. Nonsense. It did this to stop you from understanding what the big boys are doing with the money supply. It allows them to more effectively cook the books and keep you in the dark. It allows them to portray the largest economic crisis in history as a recovery.
Economists and others use ancillary data provided by the Fed to get an idea of what is going on with the money supply.
In 2008, the funny money supply experienced the sharpest contraction in modern history. The current “economic crisis” followed in short order. “The US economy is without doubt facing severe headwinds going into the autumn,” reported Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in August of that year. He wasn’t whistling Dixie.
Manipulating the money supply is how the banksters control economies and force nations to do their bidding. “The system is not being fixed and deliberately so. The elitists do not want it fixed. They want a collapse. This is the only way they can force people to accept world government,” writes Bob Chapman. “Many say they do know where it will end, but if they studied history they’d know exactly where it would end. It will end with the deliberate collapse of the financial and economic system and war, the way it always has.”
International bankers have choices. Either Iran or North Korea. Only time will tell if they will exploit these emerging crises and go for it as history and Chapman warn they invariably do.
Innova Dynamics, the advanced materials spinout from the University of Pennsylvania, will likely tap investors for a Series B sometimes in coming year, company CEO and co-founder Alexander Mittal tells G.E.R.
Mittal said the amount is still not settled but would likely be more than the $5.5 million raised as par of the Series A financing round announced yesterday and led by Rho Ventures. MentorTech Ventures also participated in the financing. Innova plans to use the proceeds from the Series A to hire new employees to scale and commercialize its flagship Innlay technology.
Innova’s Innlay technology can be used across various industries, including cleantech. Specifically, it can improve the efficiency of solar photovoltaic panels as well as fuel cells membranes.
In June climate negotiators will reconvene in Bonn, Germany for an interim meeting to discuss the working text of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, the international treaty that aims to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent climate change’s worst effects. A relatively new aspect of this conversation is how women can help adapt to climate change and their unique circumstances when it comes to the issue. They are severely affected by climate change yet underrepresented and not engaged in solutions. CAP’s Kari Manlove has the story in this repost.
Women are likely to be hit harder by climate change than men due their social roles and the simple fact that a majority—as much as 70 percent—of the world’s poor are women. As a result, they are much more devastated by natural disasters than men. One researcher concludes that women are 14 times more likely than men to die in a natural disaster such as a tsunami. Experts predict climate change will only exacerbate such inequities.
But over the last few years the increasing portfolio of climate solutions is beginning to include gender-sensitive approaches and women’s involvement. Observers realize that women need to be protected, engaged, and empowered for climate solutions to truly succeed. They also see that a vulnerable segment of the population is in fact one with mass potential to bring positive change.
Women are a largely untapped resource that we must use to effectively and justly combat climate change. They need to be harnessed to prepare communities for global warming’s effects, particularly in developing countries where warming will have the most severe consequences.
Women in developing countries have an intimate knowledge of the social and natural systems global warming affects. They are at the heart of their families’ and communities’ resource management and well-being, notably in rural areas. Women and girls, for example, are responsible for gathering cook stove fuel and producing 60 percent to 80 percent of the food in developing countries. According to the United Nations, women in Sub-Saharan Africa spend 40 billion hours a year collecting water. They can therefore provide valuable insight when it comes to formulating adaptation policies and implementing projects as fuel and water become scarcer and agricultural yields shrink.
The first step to making women full participants in adaptation is recognizing their value in international climate negotiations and supporting advocacy group work (more on both of these below). Next is finding concrete ways to integrate women into the planning, development, and execution of climate adaptation strategies.
Climate adaptation strategy literature is minimal, but observers often turn to experience with disaster risk reduction to craft informed approaches. The disaster risk reduction community is also giving gender issues more consideration, which involves evaluating regional, national, and local response systems through a gender lens, collecting supplemental data, and ensuring women have equal access to early warning systems and the resources for preparedness and disaster assistance.
Further, these techniques are made much more possible and effective with targeted financing, which is why some advocates argue that part of adaptation funding should be set aside for gender-specific training, community workshops, and disaster plans. It’s hard to disagree.
U.N. officials, UNFCCC country delegates, and nongovernmental organizations are beginning to integrate gender into their discourse and policy pushes. A handful of NGOs have more publicly championed ìgender justice,î such as the international antipoverty organization CARE and the Women’s Environment and Development Organization, or WEDO. They held side events at the Copenhagen climate change conference last year on this very issue, and groups like Climate Wise Women have since taken their message on the road.
Negotiators seem to be listening. UNFCCC interim negotiating text released in Bonn, Germany in June 2009 made 13 mentions of gender and 17 of women—a significant advance over previous texts, which excluded both. During the December meetings, NGOs maintained pressure to include gender-sensitive language in the final text, and several governments were on board. Finland, Ecuador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Iceland, Norway, the European Union, and several African countries supported gender-based language going into Copenhagen.
The Copenhagen Accord—the document that UNCCC delegates agreed to at the final plenary session of the conference—makes no specific mention of women or gender, but the tabled Ad Hoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperative Action, or AWG-LCA, text still contains gender-sensitive language (eight references) that will hopefully be retained through the 16th meeting of the U.N. Conference of Parties or COP16 in Mexico this year.
Groups like WEDO and GenderCC continue to push the United Nations to involve women at high-level climate negotiations. They note that at Copenhagen 30 percent of the country delegates were women. On the one hand, this was the peak for women’s engagement, but on the other hand it does not mirror reality. Similarly, in March U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon put together the Advisory Board on Climate Change Financing and appointed all men. The gender justice community subsequently voiced their concern over the apparent apathy to involve women in high-level discussions.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—while not explicitly a U.S. climate negotiator—has unabashedly placed women as a strategic centerpiece in her foreign policy approach. She appointed Melanne Verveer as her ambassador at large for global women’s issues and stated, ìWithout providing more rights and responsibilities for women, many of the goals we claim to pursue in our foreign policy are either unachievable or much harder to achieve.î
We should similarly place women on the front lines as we craft solutions to abate global warming and adapt to it. They embody much knowledge, responsibility, and unrealized potential, and are therefore essential if we’re to achieve any meaningful degree of success.
Kari Manlove is a Research Associate for the Energy Opportunity team at American Progress. This column was reposted from the Center for American Progress website.
For more information, see:
Julia Stiles — who became a bona fide teen star appearing alongside Heath Ledger in 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You — is reportedly in talks to join the next season of Showtime’s Dexter, Entertainment Weekly spilled on Wednesday.
While the actress’ potential role is currently under wraps, word is she’s very close to closing a deal that will see her join the cast when the fifth season of Dexter premieres next fall.
Series star Michael C. Hall is currently in remission after successfully battling cancer earlier this year.
Ontario's flower, the trillium, even looks like a windmill. Coincidence?
Siemens Canada is looking at building a new wind turbine plant in Ontario, according to a report in Bloomberg.
Siemens Canada Chief Executive Officer Roland Aurich said the company is considering multiple sites but is focusing on Ontario and isn’t far from making an announcement. The move would further bolster Ontario green credibility and could validate the blockbuster CAD $7 billion deal with Samsung for wind and solar projects signed in January. As part of the deal, Samsung pledged to attract other manufacturers to the province.
Aurich did not indicate that he had any discussions with the Korean company, but Ontario’s efforts to become a green manufacturing hub have been difficult to miss, with its generous feed-in tariff and aggressive green energy legislation.
Aurich said that Siemens is factoring the strength of the Canadian economic recovery into its decision-making process.
There are possibilities for a Canadian operation to also use that for export, but primarily we want to show Canada that we are a Canadian company, we manufacture things here, and we make sure the market is big enough.
2011 Chevrolet Volt
The 2011 Chevrolet Volt hasn’t even hit dealerships yet and General Motors’ engineers are already looking for ways to cut costs on the second-generation model. The battery-pack of the currentl model costs roughly $10,000 and GM is doing all it can to get that down by 50 percent by the time the next Volt is due.
GM’s new vice president of global vehicle engineering, Karl Stracke, says that the company is considering a wide range of possibilities including a rotary engines or a 2-cylinder gasoline engine making 15-18 kW. Stracke says the Detroit automaker is also looking at a diesel engine.
“The cost of the engine would be higher for the manufacturer,” said Stracke, “but the fuel costs would be cheaper for customers.”
Click here to read our first drive impressions of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt.
Refresher: The 2011 Chevrolet Volt is powered by 16-kWh, “T”-shaped lithium-ion battery that powers the electric drive unit, which allows it to drive 40 miles on battery power alone. According to GM’s preliminary specs, the system puts out 150-hp and a maximum torque of 273 lb-ft, allowing the Volt to go from 0-60 mph in about 9 seconds, hitting a top speed of 100 mph. The battery can be re-charged by plugging into a household outlet and takes less than 3 hours to recharge on 240 volts, and about 8 hours on a standard 120-volt outlet. The Chevrolet Volt also carries a 1.4 4-clyinder engine that allows the five-door, FWD sedan to travel additional miles while averaging a fuel-economy of 50 mpg. A fully charged battery and full tank of gas will allow the Volt to travel 300 miles.
All Photos Copyright © 2010 Omar Rana – egmCarTech.
– By: Omar Rana
Source: Inside Line
Playboy’s Kendra Wilkinson gets back in the headlines. A sex tape titled “Kendra Exposed” was discovered by Vivid Entertainment.
The torrent Download for the Kendra Exposed Video is one of the top searches now on the net. Vivid Entertainment had found the leaked video more than a month ago but they have claimed that it had been created back in 2005 for a special purpose when Kendra got of 18 years of age.
The 24-year-old actress from “Girl next door” is now upset and confused about the matter. She is disturbed with the distribution of Kendra Exposed video and she does not want it to be public now at any cost. She already tried to remove the videos from the web but she failed.
The video has Kendra with her former boyfriend during high school. Reports said that the ex-boyfriend leaked that sex tape video to some sources just after their separation.
On the website set up by Vivid you can see a preview of the tape along some still images to encourage you to buy the membership for the site which costs $29.95 for 30 days.
Related posts:
I am putting up these two pictures to show why I believe that the injection pressure of mud into the well has dropped, indicating that BP have filled the well, and are now holding pressure to see if there are any problems. I would assume, if none develop, that they will inject cement to seal the top of the well, sometime today.
Notice how the flow was longer and straighter in the first image, indicating that it was at higher pressure (velocity) and that now it blows out at much closer distance, meaning it doesn’t have the same pressure (velocity). There is a small caveat, and that is that I am assuming that there hasn’t been any significant erosion of the surface of the cracks between the two shots, and that may be a possible change, though not enough to cause the reduced throw distance of the central jet.
UPDATE: Here is a picture showing the ROV and the leaks – note the pipe on top of the riser that is also flowing mud.
This is a guest post by Heading Out of The Oil Drum –> (This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.)
Join the conversation about this story »
A preparadora americana IND trabalhou em um projeto ambicioso para a BMW M3. Houveram modificações em todo o veículo, visualmente, e na potência do esportivo também. Uma nova pintura “Azul Atlantis” foi feita, se extendendo até o motor, e o visual ficou muito agradável. Mas as mudanças não param por ai.
Algumas peças de fibra de carbono foram instaladas e uma nova suspensão ajustável foi inclusa. Um kit de freios da Brembo e escapamentos de titânio. Interiormente, o carro lembra muito o modelo M3 GTS, não existem bancos traseiros e existem painéis na porta, os bancos dianteiros são revestidos de couro.
Todas essas mudanças garantiram à modesta M3 “meros” 522 cv de potência. Vejam após o link algumas imagens do esportivo depois de sua transformação radical. O resultado realmente é de agradar os olhos. Não foi divulgado valores do modelo transformado.
Via | Top Speed
Today (May 27) the University awarded a total of 6,777 degrees and 81 certificates. A breakdown of the degrees by schools and programs follows. Harvard College granted a total of 1,562 degrees.
| Bachelor of Arts | Cum laude in field of concentration | Cum laude | Magna cum laude | Magna cum laude with highest honors | Summa cum laude in field of concentration | |
| Men | 389 | 221 | 23 | 90 | 27 | 35 |
| Women | 415 | 270 | 18 | 140 | 27 | 40 |
| Total | 804 | 491 | 41 | 194 | 54 | 75 |
| Bachelor of Science | Cum laude in field of concentration | Cum laude | Magna cum laude | Magna cum laude with highest honors | Summa cum laude in field of concentration | |
| Men | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Women | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Harvard College | 1673 |
| Bachelor of Arts | 1,659 |
| Bachelor of Science | 14 |
| Graduate School of Arts and Sciences | 864 |
| Master of Arts | 319 |
| Master of Science | 59 |
| Doctor of Philosophy | 484 |
| Graduate School of Business Administration | 907 |
| Master of Business Administration | 901 |
| Doctor of Business Administration | 6 |
| School of Dental Medicine | 90 |
| Specialty Certificates | 36 |
| Master of Medical Sciences | 13 |
| Doctor of Dental Medicine | 34 |
| Doctor of Medical Sciences | 7 |
| Graduate School of Design | 209 |
| Master in Architecture | 104 |
| Master of Architecture in Urban Design | 28 |
| Master in Design Studies | 25 |
| Master in Landscape Architecture | 37 |
| Master of Landscape Architecture in Urban Design | 4 |
| Master in Urban Planning | 27 |
| Doctor of Design | 9 |
| Divinity School | 155 |
| Master of Divinity | 56 |
| Master of Theology | 8 |
| Master of Theological Studies | 86 |
| Doctor of Theology | 5 |
| Graduate School of Education | 685 |
| Certificate of Advanced Study | 6 |
| Master of Education | 625 |
| Doctor of Education | 54 |
| Harvard Kennedy School | 577 |
| Master in Public Administration | 86 |
| Master in Public Administration (Mid-Career) | 204 |
| Master in Public Administration in International Development | 68 |
| Master in Public Policy | 208 |
| Doctor in Public Policy | 6 |
| Law School | 761 |
| Master of Laws | 161 |
| Doctor of Juridical Science | 11 |
| Doctor of Law | 589 |
| Medical School | 180 |
| Master in Medical Sciences | 27 |
| Doctor of Medicine | 153 |
| School of Public Health | 385 |
| Master of Public Health | 201 |
| Master of Science | 145 |
| Doctor of Science | 36 |
| Extension School | 703 |
| Associate in Arts | 6 |
| Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies | 128 |
| Certificate in Applied Sciences | 11 |
| Certificate in Environmental Management | 7 |
| Certificate in Management | 21 |
| Certificate in Publishing and Communications | 7 |
| Certificate in Technologies of Education | 1 |
| Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies | 522 |
All figures include degrees awarded in November 2008 and March and May 2010
Filed under: Minivan/Van, Etc., Japan, Electric
The plug-in aficionados of the Japan Electric Vehicle Club hit the track this weekend in a Daihatsu Mira Van with a 74 kilowatt-hour lithium ion battery to see how far they could go on a charge. The last time the crew attempted this feat in November 2009, they managed to squeeze out 345 miles before running out of juice.
This time out, the members reduced some mass with new features likes a carbon fiber seat and even lower rolling resistance tires from Toyo. The van used the same Sanyo battery as the previous record drive and continued rolling for an amazing 623 miles before running out of electrons.
Seventeen drivers participated in the 27.5-hour drive with an average speed of just under 25 miles per hour. While getting over 600 miles on a charge is certainly impressive, we aren’t likely to see many 74 kWh batteries in production vehicles any time soon thanks to their prohibitive cost. Plus, the driving style on the closed course was doubtlessly extremely conservative, which doesn’t bode well for real-world driving. Regardless, it’s quite a feat. A tip of the hat to Paul!
[Source: Electric Vehicle News]
Electric car travels record 623 miles on single charge originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 27 May 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
