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17
May 12

A Motoring Gadget I’d Love to See Live Fast, Die

While writing my last column on the revamped Gadget Show, it got me thinking about available tech and how it could improve motoring.

Obviously, I want to avoid invasive tech, such as external speed control (all Transport Planners, please note: If you cut the speed on a motorcycle when it is in a corner, it WILL run wide. And running wide could well send the bike into the other lane. On a single-lane carriageway, that could be tantamount to murder).

I like the idea of tech that monitors the traffic around you and takes action to maintain a sensible distance, but again this raises the issue of cutting speed and the knock on effects mentioned above.

But how about something that highlights the emotional state of the driver in front of you? This must be possible. Into the steering wheel of the vehicle (and maybe even the twistgrip on a motorcycle), insert diagnostic kit that monitors heart rate, perspiration levels, that sort of thing? The results of the information gathered could be displayed on a panel Windows 7 Product Key, rather lke the “P” plates that newly-qualified drivers often feature. To make it easy to read, it could be a simple colour-code. So blue=calm, pink=agitated, red=angry. Pick up on the colour displayed and give the angry driver a wide berth. That bit of space might give them the chance to calm down and get home safely!

Of course, eventually we will go to meet our maker. At this point, we will probably require a hearse. Recently, the BBC got very carried away in an aricle about a German undertaker, who ha s built a motorcycle sidecar hearse, powered by a Harley-Davidson (hence the attention, no doubt). But they appeared to miss the fact that Britain has not only had sidecar hearses before the Germans, but that we have the two fastest sidecar hearses in the world!

The Reverend Paul Sinclair, 46, of Heather in Leicestershire, set a new record of 117.6mph on his Suzuki Hayabusa powered sidecar hearse at Elvington Airfield.The previous record of 114.1mph was held by the Reverend Ray Bidiss, on his Triumph Rocket powered sidecar hearse. Wonderfully, the Rev Sinclair feels he can go faster, as next time he will wear his leathers rather than the ceremonial garb he wore during his record-breaking ride Windows 7 oem key! He said “I was a bit apprehensive about the reception I’d get from the other riders as I’ve arranged funerals services for many of their late friends. That’s why I turned up in the same smart, black clothes I’d wear for a service. Next time I’m going to wear my leathers Office 2007 Key, which are a lot more streamlined, next time. I’m confident I can top 120mph, no problem.”

Good luck with the next attempt, Rev Sinclair.

As we’ve mentioned hearses, time for an obituary, this time for a motorcycle. Honda has consigned the CBF600N to the scrapyard. The CBF series was forced in our faces by Honda, as this appeared to be the way Honda wanted us to go motorcycling. And being forced in someone else’s direction isn’t something that sits well with bikers; it is fair to say that we want to be different, hence our choice of machine. And us bike press are people too. So we don’t like being dictated to either. Which might explain some of the negative press aimed at the CBF range – and the 600s in particular.

Now I like challenging preconceptions, so the CBF600N (there is a faired ‘S’ version as well) is an ideal bike for me to try out. Is the CBF600 a dull, commuter bike? Or is it a no-frills, back-to-basics bike?

Click here for the full road test

To me, the CBF needs to be judged on it’s own merits, with the preconceptions and bias put to one side. Try one out – if you like it, they can be had for bargain-basement prices as dealers want to clear their stock.

Honda are replacing the CBF600 with the NC700X. This is a bike that could transform motorcyling. Working closely in conjunction with Honda’s car division, the engine that is being used is essentially half of a Honda Jazz car engine. And it is frugal. 78mpg has been reported. I’m hoping to get to test ride one in the next month – watch this space if I can get the ride organised in time.

And fuel economy is the theme of next month’s article. I will be putting in the miles to test some fuel economy figures. Not going into too much detail, but I and my bike will be test-monkeys for the next few weeks, providing the base settings for an examination of what goes into the bike and what effect, if any, this has on the price of riding.

Come back here for the results in about 4 or 5 weeks time.

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17
May 12

Love and Gravity

Buckminster Fuller said, “Love is metaphysical gravity.” I agree. What else could it be? Without gravity you would float like an astronaut in a spacecraft. Up and down would mean nothing to you. Your slightest motion would send you tumbling head over feet or rolling uncontrollably. If you pushed hard against a wall, you would shoot backward fast until you hit another wall. If the lights in the spacecraft went out, you would have no way at all of orienting yourself.

Without love cheap replica watches, the same thing happens. Every experience of anger, jealousy, resentment, and fear sends you spinning out of control. You have no way of knowing up from down except what your anger shows you, and it always shows you that you are right and someone else is wrong, that you are a victim and someone else is a villain. The more you act in anger, jealousy, resentment, or fear, the more painful consequences you create. You careen helplessly, spinning, rolling replica watches, hitting walls you can’t avoid, and colliding with others.

Love grounds you. It orients you. Love brings your awareness to others and yourself. Love opens your mind and heart to others and yourself. Love settles you and gives you balance. When you choose to become sensitive and caring instead of frightened and selfish, your anger turns to appreciation replica watches, your jealousy to gratitude, and your resentment to caring. You cannot lose your orientation: When your deeds harm others you are in fear, and when you create harmony, cooperation, sharing, and reverence for Life, you are in love. The ground beneath you is always solid.

That is why mystics say that only love is real. Now we are all becoming able to see for ourselves that we are parts of a larger fabric of Life, and experience for ourselves what Bucky saw so clearly: Gravity calls you to the Earth. Love calls you to Life. And they always will.

Love,

Gary

For more by Gary Zukav, click here.

For more on love, click here.

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17
May 12

George Will Obama’s Open Mic Comments Show He’s

George Will discusses President Obama's open mic comments on the "This Week" roundtable.

ABC’s George Will said that President Obama’s open mic comments asking the Russian president Dmitri Medvedev for “flexibility” and “space” on missile defense until after November’s election reinforced perceptions that he is “kind of slippery, very aloof, and mildly disdainful” of the views of American voters.

“What this does Best Tattoo Kits, what people say when no one’s listening, or so they think, gives you some insight into who Mr. Obama really is,” Will said on this morning’s “This Week” roundtable. “And this reinforces a narrative, which is that he’s kind of slippery, very aloof Tattoo Ink For Sale, and mildly disdainful of those people who inhibit his flexibility: AKA the American public.”

At the end of a meeting last Monday with Medvedev, President Obama was overheard saying on a hot mic, “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense Handmade Tattoo Machine, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space… This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.”

Obama explained the remark the next day, saying, “The only way I get this stuff done is if I’m consulting with the Pentagon, with Congress, if I’ve got bipartisan support and frankly, the current environment is not conducive to those kinds of thoughtful consultations.”

Will said Republicans were right to pounce on the comments, saying they showed President Obama’s disdain for the public, similar to his remarks during the 2008 election saying that voters in small towns in the Midwest “cling to guns or religion… as a way to explain their frustrations.”

But Matt Bai of The New York Times Magazine said President Obama’s remarks were unremarkable.

“Are we really shocked that the president of the United States thinks that he may have more political maneuverability after he’s re-elected than he does during an election?” Bai asked. “Do we think that this set off, you know, at the Kremlin, this set off waves of jolting surprise that he might have more flexibility?”

Former White House environmental adviser Van Jones agreed, saying, “Everybody knows you’re not going to be negotiating arms treaties in the middle of election campaigns.” Jones then praised Obama’s work with Russia on reducing nuclear stockpiles.

“This is a president who recognizes that the number one threat to American security is a loose nuke in the hands of terrorists that cannot be deterred,” Jones said. “He has picked up Ronald Reagan’s mantle of trying to get us to nuclear disarmament.  And he is moving forward aggressively.”

But conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter said the open mic comments showed President Obama is willing to “give in” to Russia on missile defense.

“You wouldn’t need to wait until after the election with more flexibility if this were going to be a popular policy, to give in to, as [Mitt] Romney correctly says, one of our leading geopolitical enemies,” Coulter said. “The fact that he’s making deals — or planning to make deals with … a country that is sending nukes and dangerous materials to terrorists, and it is a problem for the United States.”

SHOWS: This Week

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17
May 12

The Wall Street Journal’s Convoluted Whitewash of

Today, one of the most convoluted, opaque editorials (”The Dimon Principle”) that the Wall Street Journal has been able to muster, alluding to JPMorgan Chase’s $2 billion trading loss, opened with the following hosanna to Jamie Dimon Starbrite Tattoo Ink, and slap on the wrist to those in government and elsewhere who now feel that Dimon’s aggressive prop trading policies have finally come home to roost:

Employees at J.P. Morgan may think that CEO Jamie Dimon’s primary rule is to minimize risk. But Washington politicians now have their own Dimon Principle: Use mistakes at a bank run by an admired CEO to expand government control over financial markets.

The editorial goes on breathlessly in technical hodgepodge jargon, with nary a mention of the obdurate and relentless policies initiated by Dimon to turn JPMorgan Chase into a casino on a scale barely known nor countenanced before. There was the eye-opening broad exposé in the very same Wall Street Journal’s October 2010 article “JPMorgan’s Commodities Chief Takes the Heat”. (please also see “Bravo JPMorgan! Just What We Need Another Wall Street Casino”). The article details JP Morgan’s full court press ambitions “to build the No.1 commodities trading franchise on the planet.” Barely deterred by the events of 2008, JP Morgan was busy spending then $2 billion acquiring the trading assets of:

Bear Stearns and UBS Commodities in 2008
Sempra Commodities in 2010
Poaching traders and executives from rivals
Boosting its trading work force from some 125 in 2006 to 1,800 by October 2010

But building the casino wasn’t enough for Dimon. A little over a year later JPMorgan Chase took steps to buy the casino itself, acquiring a stake from that heralded provenance Tattoo Guns For Cheap, MF Global, in the London Metals Exchange, to make it the largest single shareholder (please see “JP Morgan Chase Banks on Buying Into The Casino”). At the time the Telegraph revealed that JP Morgan Chase was the “mystery trader” that bought Pounds1 billion worth of copper on the LME. That purchase, according to the Telegraph pushed up the price of copper to the highest level since the banking crisis in October, 2008. Now that’s banking as it should be Tattoo Gun Needles!

And the beat went on. As a prelude, to as Mr. Dimon would put it on NBC’s Meet the Press this Sunday, “There’s almost no excuse for it,” Bloomberg reported in April of this year that J.P Morgan’s treasury and chief investment office held a combined $355.6 billion of investment securities as of December 2011. At the time, the now departing Chief Investment Officer, Ina Drew was among JP Morgan’s highest paid executives in 2011, earning $14 million and whose imminent departure from JP Morgan was due, one can assume, in measure to the $2 billion and counting, debacle.

Yet it would appear Ms. Drew was simply or complexly following guidelines laid down over the years by the corner office where banking had become second fiddle to siren call of the roulette wheel.

Clearly, at JPMorgan the buck stops elsewhere.

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16
May 12

Washington – Postal Service to Scale Back Planned

This Saturday, Sept. 17, 2011 photo shows the local post office in Markham, Va. The financially struggling U.S. Postal Service sought Wednesday, May 9, 2012 to tamp down concern over wide-scale cuts Buy Herve leger strapless, revealing it will seek to keep thousands of rural post offices open with shorter hours. Under the emerging strategy, no post office would be closed. But more than 13,000 rural mail facilities could see reduced operations of between two and six hours. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Washington – The struggling U.S. Postal Service is trying to tamp down concern over its wide-scale cuts, saying it will seek to keep hundreds of rural post offices open with shorter hours.

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Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe tells a news conference the new plan will save the mail agency half a billion dollars each year while addressing concerns of rural residents most opposed to post office closings.

Previously, up to 3 Replica Karen Millen Dresses,700 low-revenue post offices were slated for closure or consolidation beginning sometime after May 15, many in rural areas. It was part of a multibillion-dollar postal cost-cutting effort to stave off the agency’s bankruptcy.

The Postal Service now plans to seek regulatory approval for the new plan and get community input, a process that could take several months.

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15
May 12

ReportBMW and Mini to share plug-in hybrids

Tattoo Supplies
From the whispers we’re hearing Tattoo Supplies, BMW plans on mixing its DNA with Mini even further. The Bavarian-obsessed minds at BimmerFile are reporting that the German automaker is currently hard at work on a partnership with Getrag to produce a new hybrid powertrain to be shared between both BMW and Mini. Details are skimpy at the moment, but BimmerFile has ventured a few guesses as to what we can expect from the platform when it debuts. Word is that the system will likely boast a plug-in capacity that it will probably show up on larger Mini models like the Countryman and its rumored BMW counterpart.

There’s also some indication that the hybridized drivetrain will keep the current 120 horsepower four-cylinder at the heart of the system. The move is only part of the BMW master plan to keep Mini as efficient as possible. BimmerFile also hints that Mini may see a small turbocharged three-cylinder engine debut in a few short years with more horsepower, less weight and greater efficiency than the current four-cylinder line up. Join those thoughts with the rumored arrival of a diesel Cooper on American soil, and it begins to look like Mini will be in a good position as fuel prices continue to edge upwards.

[Source: BimmerFile]

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14
May 12

RumormillMercedes-Benz A-Class AMG to bring 270 hp

A few months back, word began to spread that AMG is working on a performance version of one of Mercedes’ smallest cars. If true, it would not only mean giving the hi-po treatment to a segment hitherto untouched by the gents at Affalterbach Herve Leger sale, it could entail swapping a front-wheel drive hatch for a RWD platform. A month later Replica Emilio Pucci Dresses, this small car’s benchmarks were found out: the Golf R Replica Karen Millen Dresses, Audi S3 and BMW 1 Series. And a month after that the rumors began to coalesce around the B-Class as AMG’s subject of choice.

It turns out that the A-Class will be the first in line for an AMG makeover and the Ford Focus RS is also one of its targets. The diminutive Benz will get a four-cylinder Discount Bandage dresses, direct-injection engine with a pressure-wave supercharger that’s looking at an output of somewhere around 270 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque. That gumption will reportedly get to the wheels through a dual-clutch gearbox and then navigate yet more clutches in the rear-biased all-wheel-drive system.

A two-car line-up is planned: a five-door hatch and a CLS-like sedan. But we won’t see any of this until 2012 or so, when the next-generation A-Class arrives. And the U.S. is only expected to get the sedan version DKNY Clothes sale, which will wear the name CLC Cheap Karen Millen Dresses, salvaged from the C-Class sport coupe that ended production not a moment too soon.

[Source: Autocar]

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14
May 12

Bad Think

Justice Samuel Alito

Pop quiz: Suppose you’ve just discovered your boss has been embezzling from you for years. Since the 1990s, he’s stolen 30 percent of the return on your retirement investments each year. When did your boss actually swindle you? How long do you have to sue? A) He swindled you when he first came up with the scheme—if you didn’t figure it out and sue him then, you’re too late and he can keep your money. B) He swindled you when he shorted you for the first time—if you didn’t find out and sue him then, you’re too late. C) He swindled you from the first year right up until the end, when you found out about it and took the bastard to court. D) Stop bellyaching; you’re lucky to have a job.

If you answered C, you have a promising career in law—writing frustrated and angry dissents along with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If you answered A Chloe Dresses sale, B Cheap DKNY Dresses, or D, welcome to the majority of the United States Supreme Court. On Tuesday, in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority of the court that an employer who shortchanged a female employee for years, up until she retired, discriminated on the basis of sex only the first time this happened. Because she didn’t sue right away—she probably didn’t know she was being shortchanged until later—the court barred her claim as untimely, even though her employer continued to pay her less than men doing the same work until she left.

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It’s a bad decision. And at first, the Ledbetter opinion reads like ideological warfare: the right wing of the court struggling against precedent to gut a civil-law statute. But that may be unfair. In fact, the court’s argument follows from a widespread—though misguided—obsession with state of mind that many conservatives and liberals share.

Lilly Ledbetter worked for Goodyear for almost 20 years. When she retired in 1998, she was by far the lowest-paid employee in her position. She earned $3,727 a month; the lowest-paid male working in the same position earned $4 Herve Leger gown sale,286 and the highest-paid earned $5,236. Ledbetter proved that this disparity was because of her sex, and a federal district court in Alabama found Goodyear liable for sex discrimination. On appeal, Goodyear countered it hadn’t discriminated against Ledbetter—recently. Title VII, the federal law that protects employees from discrimination Herve leger strapless sale, requires them to file a charge within a short period of time (180 or 300 days, depending on the state) “after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.” In essence, Goodyear argued that any discriminatory decisions it might have made about Ledbetter’s pay were made long before she filed. Ledbetter’s low salary might have merely reflected her earlier, discriminatorily low pay rather than more recent gender bias. The 11th Circuit court of appeals agreed with Goodyear: Ledbetter’s claim was too late. On Tuesday, in a 5-4 split, a majority of the Supreme Court agreed.

The Ledbetter decision is practically perverse and conceptually wrongheaded. Practically speaking, Justice Alito’s opinion provides bad incentives for defendants and plaintiffs alike. Title VII’s 180-day or 300-day filing period is short, but it’s arguably fair in most cases, where the injury is discrete and obvious. An employee who is fired Cheap Chloe Dresses, denied a promotion, or required to trade sexual favors for fair treatment on the job knows precisely what has happened. He shouldn’t be allowed to “sit on his rights”—he should either file a complaint or resign himself to the decision and move on. But an employee who receives a discriminatorily low salary over time, like an investor who is cheated by her broker, may not know she is being shortchanged for years. She isn’t sitting on her rights because she doesn’t know that her rights have been violated. Meanwhile, the injury she suffers is ongoing.

Ledbetter basically grandfathers in longtime pay discrimination. If an employer pays a woman less because of her sex, and isn’t found out within the 180- or 300-day period, the employer can continueto pay the discriminatory wage. For employers Buy Missoni Dresses, the lesson is obvious—hide your misdeed for six months and you’re not only off the hook, you get to keep cheating. For employees, the lesson is equally clear: Sue early and often. If you suspect your boss might be discriminating with regard to your pay, you can’t afford to wait around until you’re sure.

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14
May 12

What Genocide

Bloggers are aghast that President Bush came out against a House resolution that would recognize the Armenian genocide. Also, Palestinians return to a Lebanese refugee camp formerly besieged by Islamists. And bloggers assess the discoveries made by this year’s Nobel laureates in science.

What genocide? Beginning in 1915 Discount Christian Audigier Clothes, up to 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered or displaced by the dying Ottoman Empire, an event that modern Turkey refuses to acknowledge Replica Hale Bob Dresses, to the point of criminalizing the discussion of it. The House foreign affairs committee voted Wednesday 27-21 in favor of a symbolic resolution that would recognize the Armenian genocide, much to the chagrin of Turkey’s Islamist government Discount Marc Jacobs Dresses, one of the United States’ strongest allies in the Middle East. President Bush said “this resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings.” Bloggers think otherwise.

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El Matador, an Irish nationalist who writes at ElBlogador, thinksrealpolitik is back with a vengeance: “For Bush and many of his predecessors, it has nothing to do with what is right or wrong, but rather a question of what suits the American Presidency best. Morality and justice don’t come into it. We saw the same sort of buffoonery during US interventions in Latin America in the 1970s. It seems that some people never learn.”

“Guy Fawkes” at lefty Daily Kosis appalled: “No less a monster than Adolf Hitler Chanel Dresses sale, when asked by one of his subordinates about whether the world would sit back and watch while they massacred thousands of untermenschen, responded that nobody remembered now what happened to the Armenians. Now it is happening again.”

Even some stalwart defenders of the administration can’t stomach this latest maneuver. Conservative Pam at Atlas Shrugs writes: “If the President won’t call genocide genocide and he won’t utter the name of the mortal enemy we face, Islamism, we are in for a world of pain.”

In a lengthy, informational post, Baron Bodissey at the Gates of Vienna looks at the issues that led acknowledgement of the atrocities to be repressed after World War I and then moves to present day, asking: “And why is our relationship with Turkey strained? What have we done to offend them? Is it strained because of that nasty little business in the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003, when the Turks denied the United States permission to enter northern Iraq via Turkey?” which caused “numerous additional American casualties, and allowed thousands of Baathists, criminals, and terrorists — who otherwise would have been interdicted by a northern front — to escape.”

“The irony of someone named Bush jilting the Armenians,” according to Countenance Blog, “is that, in 1988 Karen Millen Dresses sale, the first George Bush had the Armenian-American Governor of California, George Deukmejian … on his short list for a running mate. I wonder how he feels today, as he sees the son of the man who might well have made him Vice-President diss his own people like this.”

Finally, Joey Kurtzman, my colleague at Jewcy, has called for the firing of Anti-Defamation League Director Abe Foxman for the ADL’s refusal to recognize the Armenian genocide. At the Daily Shvitz blog, Kurtzman reminds readers that George W. Bush once spoke differently about historical fact when he was trying to drum up support for his tax policy: “The Armenians were subjected to a genocidal campaign that defies comprehension and commands all decent people to remember and acknowledge the facts and lessons of an awful crime in a century of bloody crimes against humanity.”

Read more about Bush and the Armenian genocide.

Homeward bound: Today Cheap Marc Jacobs Dresses, 500 Palestinians returned to the Nahr al Bared refugee camp in Lebanon months after fleeing a battle scene between the Lebanese Army and Fatah al-Islam, a jihadist group. More than 30,000 residents had been displaced and their homes destroyed during the conflict.

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13
May 12

Porsche considering selling 49% of sports car busi

Porsche has clearly gotten itself in way too deep in its attempt to take over control of Volkswagen Imitation Hermes Watches, and now it’s scrambling to find a way to relieve some of its crushing debt load. In addition to the possible €5 billion investment (nearly $7 billion USD) from Qatar Chronoswiss Replica Watches, Reuters is reporting that Porsche’s board is going to consider selling part of its car business to Volkswagen. VW AG has proposed a full merger, a plan that Porsche is resisting. Instead Fake Paul Picot Watches for sale, it could sell them a 49% stake in Porsche AG Wholesale Replica Blancpain Watches, the car business.

Ironically Replica Chronoswiss Watches, this whole ordeal began as Porsche tried to ensure that it retained access to Volkswagen systems and future components so that it could stay independent. Now Replica Tudor Watches, Porsche looks to be trying to avoid being subsumed into the company once pegged as its savior. Supervisory board Chairman Wolfgang Porsche has called a special meeting of the board for July 23 to discuss the company’s options.

[Source: Reuters | Image: Nigel Treblin/Getty]

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