Eideard

Understand that half the “Change” Obama has to bring to the government of these United States is the elimination of Cheneyesque corruption and cronyism – and reversing Bush Era stupidity.

Sure blends into the landscape doesn’t it?

More than six years after sending the first Stryker armored vehicles into desert combat, the Army has decided that it’s probably a good idea to start painting them tan so they will blend in with the environments in Afghanistan and Iraq…“Strykers will blend into surroundings better. They’re less likely to stand out like silhouettes…”

The Army and its contracting agencies have been talking about changing the color of the Strykers since 2004, according to Butts, “but nothing firm was planned out until now.”

RTFA. There is some real “insight” displayed by soldiers and officers who just discovered that standing out like a sore thumb isn’t an advantage.

The production line vehicles can only be ordered in one color; so, green it is unless the Pentagon changes to desert tan – for everywhere.

The number of people accessing the net on mobile phones could soon outstrip the capacity of networks, experts warn.

When you see a tech article that includes “experts warn” in the first sentence, understand that the whole concept was probably offered to the publisher by a PR firm employed by those who are profiting from the technology in the warning. Or their own in-house spin merchants.

Mobile data traffic looks set to rise 25 fold by 2012, said mobile analyst firm Informa. The boom could present operators with problems as revenues generated by those using such mobile data services will only double over the same time period.

“Revenues from data are increasing much slower than traffic,” said Dimitris Mavrakis, mobile network analyst from Informa. “Where operators are experiencing exploding data traffic, revenues are not following them.”

Ah-hah. We get the hook early on. We are enjoined to help the poor, struggling wireless carriers to increase their profits – or we shall all die in a hell absent adequate mobile phone access.

Graham Carey, a spokesman for network optimisation firm ByteMobile, said the history of mobile networks also made it harder to handle the always-on nature of many smartphones and laptops.

Then, we get a listing of the micro-disasters that only can be solved by heading off Net Neutrality at the pass – letting the operators raise prices and minimize usage.

“What’s going to happen if carriers do not respond appropriately? They are going to crush the user experience.”

As if wireless companies ever cared about or considered “the user experience”.

Humbug!

This very day, Monday October 26, in the year of Our Lord 2009, at a huge event in Fort Worth, Texas, the latest motivational sensation will explain to a breathless convention how to make good decisions, lots of money and a big reputation. The name of this wonder of the world? George W Bush. Oh my God. Yes, the stumbling folksy Messiah is about to appear back on the radar screen, bearing a formula for personal success. Just when you thought it was safe to go out again.

The event at which the ex-president will be speaking is described online as a “motivational mega-show that packs more inspirational firepower than a stick of dynamite!” Right. Will they have some hideously crippled folk from Baghdad to testify about the effects of dynamite on one’s prospects for success? No, thought not. Dubya will be paid $100,000 for a 40-minute speech showing how you can get in touch with your inner eejit. Maybe he’ll use the money for supplies of OxiClean to get the blood off his hands.

But here’s something even crazier.

The Messiah has appeared at an Ikea store in Glasgow. No, not Dubya. Jesus Christ has shown up in a toilet at the Braehead store of the Swedish furniture giant. Embedded in the gents’ wooden toilet door at Braehead, a bearded face with long hair can be seen…

One shopper is quoted as saying: “It takes you by surprise. It is really clear in the wood. I was only heading to the toilet and found God. It’s certainly not what you expect to find in an Ikea store.” Indeed not. If the image starts bleeding, the Braehead store will become a mega pilgrimage site. Thousands of punters will be able to get a toilet blessing from Jesus as well as a self-assembly wardrobe…

Did I tell you about the Canadian who saw the face of Jesus in a burned fishcake? No, I can’t go on. I’m mildly hysterical already. Meanwhile, George W Bush is getting ready to walk on stage to talk about success.

The world isn’t going mad. It’s simply run by the inmates – and they’re already mad.

Designed for fleet customers – the types who have for long relied on those heavy, white-paneled vans – the IDEA sports two important numbers: a 40-mile all-electric range and almost 40 mpg once the battery is depleted and the powertrain shifts to charge sustaining mode. The EV range was, until this week, limited to 30 miles, but Bright put in a new 13 kWh battery pack, which has the side benefit of qualifying the vehicle for a higher PHEV tax credit from the federal government. Bright has calculated that each IDEA using the new pack will save government operators “18 cents per mile, reduce gasoline use by 1,500 gallons per year, and reduce CO2 emissions by 16 tons per year.”

The fuel savings are just part of the IDEA, though. From the very beginning, the van was designed with input from fleet operators and drivers. The functionality that fleets need was paired with the lightweight mentality of RMI’s Hypercar, which shares at least a little DNA with the IDEA and resulted in the asymmetrical rear doors, a built-in bulkhead and a passenger seat that doesn’t move and can turn into a desk. The seat also offers third, walk-through position that gives the driver easy access to the sidewalk without needing to exit the vehicle on the traffic side. Also, since the passenger seat does not adjust forward or backward, the passenger airbag could be simpler. It’s somewhat astonishing how much mileage the engineers could squeeze out of dozens (probably hundreds) of little changes compared to traditional fleet vehicles…

Behind the seats sits a beautiful carbon fiber bulkhead. Right now, the bulkhead is a little too close to the windshield, cramping the cabin a bit. In the production version of the IDEA, the divider will be moved back a bit in response to user suggestions. While most delivery vans don’t have a bulkhead built in, Bright engineers noticed that most delivery vans get one installed right away and so designed the IDEA to come with one standard. This single decision resulted in a lot of other, surprising benefits.

For one thing, the wall (which might not be carbon fiber in the production model), helps strengthen the vehicle and transfers crash loads better than not having a bulkhead. Also, by confining the driver cabin to just the two seats, the heating and cooling units don’t need to work as hard and therefore can be smaller. The benefits mean that, by adding the bulkhead, the IDEA actually became lighter than it would be without that part.

If I was still working at traffic management for the right sort of corporation, I’d get us on the waiting list for these critters. RTFA article for details, more photos, road test. Purpose-built makes a lot of sense – and even keeps beancounters happy – if the design is as inclusive as this. Something that seems to be happening, more and more, nowadays. That’s a topic for another post sometime.

Folks who make this blog a regular stop know my only hope/criticism in advance. I wish they planned for a pickup truck version.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Leaders of East Asian countries have laid the groundwork for a European Union-style bloc that will cover half the world’s population…

The proposal for the so-called East Asian Community project was mooted by Yukio Hatoyama, the Japanese prime minister, to fellow leaders at the summit, saying the region should aspire to “lead the world”.

Japan is not a member of Asean, but if the project materialises, it – along with South Korea, China, India, Australia and New Zealand – would be part of ASEAN, which includes Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Other Asean member states are Brunei Darussalam, Burma, Cambodia, the Philippines and Cambodia.

Severino said a more cohesive Asia would have a bigger role in global affairs, especially after the region overcame the global economic crisis more quickly than the West. “It’s not just Asia coming together economically but politically as well. The more integrated you are, the more forceful you are,” Severino said.

ASEAN is already committed to setting up a single Southeast Asian free trade zone by 2015, creating a bloc with a total GDP of more than $1 trillion.

Asean still has major issues to resolve given its diverse membership, our correspondent said.

“There’s a huge difference in income between the countries. Singapore is the richest with a GDP a hundred and fifty times higher than Myanmar, the poorest in the bloc,” she said.

“Politically, the differences are even more diverse,” Vaessen said.

“You have democracies, you have monarchies, you have all kinds of different regimes in the region and it’s very difficult to find some kind of common ground.”

The easy bit is that unlike many Western politicians, there aren’t requirements on politics, morality and God that have to be agreed to before commerce is supported. They haven’t too many Republicans.

History was made without fanfare on Saturday.

Jessee Vasold, William and Mary’s first transgender homecoming queen, took the field at halftime of the Tribe’s game against James Madison wearing a red shirt, black pants and a small silver lip ring to applause and not much other notice.

Vasold, a junior, and the other members of the homecoming court were introduced to the crowd, posed for pictures, and walked off the field…

Vasold identifies as “gender-queer,” a catch-all term for those who identify with something other than traditional male or female gender roles.

“Normally, it really just depends on the day, how I dress,” said Vasold, who prefers gender neutral pronouns – “ze” instead of he or she and “zir” instead of him or her. “I don’t identify as a woman. It really just depends on the day and the occasion…”

William and Mary president Taylor Reveley had no problem with Vasold’s selection, made in nominations and voting by students.

“I knew Jessee before,” he said. “(It’s) a little more publicity than normal for a homecoming queen, but it’s just fine…”

Not unusual – is the way a person’s lifestyle choices should be accepted. Something that so-called Libertarians should be called upon to respect.

As for the bigots and backwards, well, sorting out those hangups is someone else’s job – not mine. Like Dr. King famously said – and I paraphrase – I’m not working to get fools to love everybody, just quit lynching people they hate.

Members of Congress signed up by the score when they were invited to this weekend’s “pro-Israel” conference. But then the faxes and emails started to roll in, denouncing the organisers as “Jewish Stalinists”, the “surrender lobby” and terrorist sympathisers.

Some members of Congress scuttled for cover, admitting they had little idea what the organisation behind the conference – an upstart Washington lobby group called J Street, which wants to turn US policy on Israel on its head – stands for…

They predicted that J Street and those who launched it – Jeremy Ben-Ami, a former domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, and Daniel Levy, a former adviser to Israeli cabinet ministers and one of the authors of the Geneva peace initiative – would be swiftly marginalised as a niche group backed by obscure peaceniks with little influence.

But the organisation opens its first national conference in Washington…with a stamp of legitimacy from a White House that is clearly sympathetic to its view. General James Jones, Barack Obama’s national security adviser and one of his point men on Israel, is to make a keynote speech. About 140 members of Congress have pledged their support, even after others backed away, and former Israeli cabinet ministers and generals will be in attendance…

The Israeli ambassador has refused to attend the conference, while the traditional pro-Israel lobby has accused J Street of being “obsequious to terrorists and hostile to Israel” and a “disreputable pseudo-pro-Israel organisation”…

But in recent years, Aipac, the ZOA and other groups have drawn closer to the hard right in America, particularly the neocons and Christian evangelical organisations, as the conflict in Israel is framed largely in the context of terrorism while hardline governments pay little more than lip service to peace and a Palestinian state.

Levy says J Street was born out of a belief that many American Jews are now alienated from those who claim to speak in their name.

RTFA. Long article with much detail. Nothing I haven’t known or witnessed for years as a civil rights activist, as an activist for peace.

But, the average American voter is as ignorant of the divisions within the Jewish community as is Congress. And whoever lobbies the latter with enough bucks and promises of votes – is good enough as far as Congress is concerned.

Uwayezu (L) and his sponsor, Giuseppe Betori, archbishop of Florence

The Vatican has come under renewed pressure to purge its ranks of suspected killers after a second Rwandan Catholic priest accused of involvement in the 1994 genocide was found to be working in Italy under an assumed name.

An international arrest warrant is being prepared by Rwanda for Father Emmanuel Uwayezu following the discovery that he is working in a parish at Empoli, near Florence. It will accuse him of direct complicity in the massacre of more than 80 students, aged from 12 to 20, at a Catholic school where he was headmaster.

One of the few survivors lives in Britain. She still has nightmares and is too afraid to be identified by name. Last week she identified Uwayezu and described how he brought soldiers to the school at Kibeho and conspired with them to have the Tutsi students killed.

“He seemed to be happy with what he was doing. He told us to stay in the classroom. Some people who were working in the kitchen were shot in front of his eyes but he did not say a word. Others were hacked to death, raped or buried alive,” she said. “Now Uwayezu is enjoying his life. Is he really a father [priest]?”

Uwayezu denied taking part in the genocide and said he had tried to save the students. He said their deaths still haunted him. He is a Hutu like another notorious Rwandan priest, Athanase Seromba, who joined the campaign to exterminate Rwanda’s Tutsi minority and who also ended up in Florence.

After the genocide they both escaped to Italy with the help of Catholic supporters and began new lives as priests with the approval of Florence’s archbishop. Seromba, who was found in Italy by The Sunday Times, is serving a life sentence after being convicted of slaughtering 2,000 of his parishioners by bulldozing his church as they cowered inside. He was the first priest to be tried by a United Nations war crimes tribunal for genocide and crimes against humanity…

RTFA. I suppose he thought that working as a priest in Italy was pretty good cover. Especially given the “thorough” vetting his bosses probably put him through when hired. Right?

Meet Bailey. She’s a registered therapy dog, but you won’t find her in hospitals or nursing homes. Instead, Bailey makes weekly visits to libraries and schools. She sits quietly or snuggles up to kids as they read her a book. And no, she’s not napping, and the kids don’t have treats in their pockets. She’s actually helping these children learn to read…

The philosophy is simple. Children who are just learning to read often feel judged or intimidated by classmates and adults. But reading to a dog isn’t so scary. It won’t judge, it won’t get impatient, it won’t laugh or correct if the child makes a mistake. In a nutshell, dogs are simply excellent listeners. And for shy kids or slow readers, that can make all the difference.

Kathy Klotz is executive director of Intermountain Therapy Animals, which runs a nationwide program called R.E.A.D. — Reading Education Assistance Dogs. She says there’s another benefit of reading to the dogs that she didn’t anticipate: confidence.
“A factor that we never planned for, that turned out to be really important, is that the child feels like they’re letting the dog understand the story,” she says. “They get to be the teacher, the storyteller, the one who knows more than the dog for a change. …They just blossom when they get to be the one who knows more than the dog.”

The children know they’re not actually teaching the dog, of course, but the for the kids, the idea that they know more than the dog and can share their knowledge is a powerful one. And now that volunteers are aware of that aspect, Klotz says they actively foster the idea of the child as the teacher.

RTFA. Interesting, educational details and processes at work here.

We’ve a similar program here in Santa Fe for several years. Works well and – so far – none of the local bureaucrats or nutballs have gotten in the way. All it does is keep on producing results helping kids to read.

Verizon and AT&T mobile cell towers given to McCain’s campaign

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is the top recipient of campaign contributions from large Internet service providers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast over the past two years, according to a new report from the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics. McCain has taken in a total of $894,379 (much of that money going to support his failed 2008 bid for the presidency), more than twice the amount taken by the next-largest beneficiary, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) $341,089.

Meanwhile, McCain has emerged as the ISPs’ biggest champion against new “network neutrality” rules from the Federal Communications Commission, which voted Thursday to move forward in the process to adopt such rules. Shortly after the FCC vote, McCain introduced a bill (the “Internet Freedom Act“) that would block regulation of the nation’s largest broadband networks.

Net neutrality rules would amount to a federal mandate that broadband providers cannot block or hinder the internet traffic of any web site or service, regardless of whether or not that site or service completes with a similar site or service offered by the ISP itself. In other words, a telco ISP could not limit bandwidth used for Skype VoIP traffic, while maximizing bandwidth available for its own VoIP service.

As Congress considers legislation that would codify net neutrality into law, cable and phone companies are hoping to cut a better deal on Capitol Hill than they are likely to get from the FCC, the Sunlight Foundation’s Bill Allison says…

The telecom interests also targeted House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. ($275,275), Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus, D-Mont. ($248,999) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell ($198,972).

Congressional democracy in action. Money buys everyone. Senior politicians cost the most.