pFiled under: a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/hybrids/" rel="tag"Hybrids/Alternative/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/green/" rel="tag"Green/a/pa href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/calcars-us-customers-could-prepay-for-plug-in-hybrids-at-10-00/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autobloggreen.com/media/2008/12/phev-comix.jpg" alt="" //abr /br /Here's an idea: a target="_blank" title="View CalCars: US customers could prepay for plug-in hybrids at $10,000 each on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/calcars-us-customers-could-prepay-for-plug-in-hybrids-at-10-00/"prepay /aa target="_blank" title="View CalCars: US customers could prepay for plug-in hybrids at $10,000 each on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/calcars-us-customers-could-prepay-for-plug-in-hybrids-at-10-00/"$10,000 /aa target="_blank" title="View CalCars: US customers could prepay for plug-in hybrids at $10,000 each on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/calcars-us-customers-could-prepay-for-plug-in-hybrids-at-10-00/"for a plug-in hybrid/a. When would you get it? By 2012, at the latest, and in the process you'd be saving Detroit. That's the idea from a target="_blank" title="View CalCars: US customers could prepay for plug-in hybrids at $10,000 each on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/calcars-us-customers-could-prepay-for-plug-in-hybrids-at-10-00/"CalCars/a anyway. Other news from the Electric Drive Transportation Association expo includes a proposal from the a target="_blank" title="View EDTA 2008: Medium Speed Vehicle Coalition makes the case for 35 mph electric cars on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/edta-2008-medium-speed-vehicle-coalition-makes-the-case-for-35/"Medium Speed Vehicle Coalition/a and the a target="_blank" title="View EDTA 2008: GM shows off EcoCar Saturn Vue on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/edta-2008-gm-shows-off-ecocar-saturn-vue/"EcoCar Saturn Vue/a. br /br / ul lia target="_blank" title="View CalCars: US customers could prepay for plug-in hybrids at $10,000 each on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/calcars-us-customers-could-prepay-for-plug-in-hybrids-at-10-00/"CalCars: US customers could prepay for plug-in hybrids at $10,000 each /a/li lia target="_blank" title="View EDTA 2008: The View from Congress on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/edta-2008-the-view-from-congress/"EDTA 2008: The View from Congress/a/li lia target="_blank" title="View EDTA 2008: GM shows off EcoCar Saturn Vue on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/edta-2008-gm-shows-off-ecocar-saturn-vue/"EDTA 2008: GM shows off EcoCar Saturn Vue /a/li lia target="_blank" title="View EDTA 2008: Medium Speed Vehicle Coalition makes the case for 35 mph electric cars on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/edta-2008-medium-speed-vehicle-coalition-makes-the-case-for-35/"EDTA 2008: Medium Speed Vehicle Coalition makes the case for 35 mph electric cars/a/li lia target="_blank" title="View Detroit Preview: Honda releases official pic of production Insight on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/detroit-preview-honda-releases-official-pic-of-production-insig/"Detroit Preview: Honda releases official pic of production Insight/a/li lia target="_blank" green="" autoblog="" on="" place="" better="" title="View Hawaii becomes a " href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/hawaii-becomes-a-better-place/"Hawaii becomes a "Better Place"/a/li lia target="_blank" title="View The Sun shines on the Renault Z.E. in first road test on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/the-sun-shines-on-the-renault-z-e-in-first-road-test/"The Sun shines on the Renault Z.E. in first road test/a/li lia target="_blank" title="View New Aptera website dishes fresh pics, more info on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/new-aptera-website-dishes-fresh-pics-more-info/"New Aptera website dishes fresh pics, more info /a/li lia target="_blank" title="View Tesla hires former Harley Davidson exec for sales/marketing post on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/tesla-hires-former-harley-davidson-exec-for-sales-marketing-post/"Tesla hires former Harley Davidson exec for sales/marketing post/a/li lia target="_blank" title="View Porsche donates Congestion Charge legal awards to charity on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/porsche-donates-congestion-charge-legal-awards-to-charity/"Porsche donates Congestion Charge legal awards to charity/a/li lia target="_blank" title="View Spyshots: Jaguar to power its XK sports car with a diesel on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/spyshots-jaguar-to-power-its-xk-sports-car-with-a-diesel/"Spyshots: Jaguar to power its XK sports car with a diesel/a/li lia target="_blank" title="View The state of the ethanol market depends on which hemisphere you're in on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/the-state-of-the-ethanol-market-depends-on-which-hemisphere-you/"The state of the ethanol market depends on which hemisphere you're in/a/li lia target="_blank" title="View GE Capital sends $5.7 million in rebates back to hybrid fleet customers on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/ge-capital-sends-5-7-million-in-rebates-back-to-hybrid-fleet-cu/"GE Capital sends $5.7 million in rebates back to hybrid fleet customers/a/li lia target="_blank" title="View Portugal pushing for more EVs in 2011 on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/portugal-pushing-for-more-evs-in-2011/"Portugal pushing for more EVs in 2011/a/li lia target="_blank" title="View SAIC starts joint venture for hybrids and EVs on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/saic-starts-joint-venture-for-hybrids-and-evs/"SAIC starts joint venture for hybrids and EVs/a/li lia target="_blank" title="View VIDEO: Dale Vince explains hydrogen conspiracy, baits Tesla in latest wind-car update on Autoblog Green" href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/video-dale-vince-explains-hydrogen-conspiracy-baits-tesla-in-l/"VIDEO: Dale Vince explains hydrogen conspiracy, baits Tesla in latest wind-car update /a/li /ul p id="title_1388743" class="post_title" /pp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/04/autobloggreen-for-12-04-08/"AutoblogGreen for 12.04.08/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.autoblog.com"Autoblog/a on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 06:06:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/03/calcars-us-customers-could-prepay-for-plug-in-hybrids-at-10-00/Read/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/04/autobloggreen-for-12-04-08/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/forward/1390539/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/04/autobloggreen-for-12-04-08/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/oXBosswhuK6NqFe-6GfjOr88KXI/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/oXBosswhuK6NqFe-6GfjOr88KXI/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=1h2lCiC8"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=1h2lCiC8" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=WepHItIT"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=WepHItIT" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/autoblog/~4/xU_iedoKj3M" height="1" width="1"/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/33509?ns=guardianpageName=Education%3A+Faith+schools+urged+to+end+selection+on+basis+of+religionch=Educationc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Faith+schools%2CSecondary+schools%2CPrimary+schools%2CSchools%2CReligion+%28News%29%2CUK+newsc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CSchools+Educationc6=Donald+MacLeodc7=2008_12_04c8=1128668c9=articlec10=GUc11=Educationc12=Faith+schoolsc13=c14=h2=GU%2FEducation%2FFaith+schools" width="1" height="1" //divpFaith schools should stop selecting pupils on the basis of their religious background in order to promote social cohesion, the Runnymede Trust, a charity set up to promote a multi-ethnic Britan, said today. /ppA report, Right to Divide? Faith Schools and Community Cohesion, examines how faith schools operate and is based on consultations with more than 1,000 people over the last two years./ppThe trust's proposals, launched at a conference attended by the education minister Sarah McCarthy-Fry, will reopen the fierce arguments provoked by the government's failed attempts two years ago to impose quotas of pupils from other religions on faith schools. /ppAlan Johnson, then education secretary, was forced to back down after strong protests from the Catholic and Anglican churches in favour of a voluntary code. br / br /The Runnymede Trust has identified six key recommendations, which the report's authors say will clarify the role of faith schools within England's education system./ppIt argues that the schools should end selection on the basis of faith, as they should be "for the benefit of all in society rather than just some"./ppIt says: "If faith schools are convinced of their relevance for society, that should apply equally for all children./pp"With state funding comes an obligation to be relevant and open to all citizens."/ppThe report calls for pupils to be given a greater say in how they are educated, and claims there is little discussion about children's voices in the faith schools debate./ppIt says faith schools should address concerns that they educate a disproportionately small number of children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds./ppAnd it argues that faith schools should value all young people, regardless of religion, while religion should be more highly valued in non-denominational schools. /ppThe report also says religious education should be a part of the core national curriculum./ppIt concludes that faith schools "should remain a significant and important part of our education system, offering diversity in the schooling system as a means of improving standards, offering choice to parents, and developing effective responses to local, national and global challenges in education."/ppFigures put forward in the report show that there are more than 4,600 Church of England primary and secondary schools in England, over 2,000 Roman Catholic schools, 26 Methodist primary schools, 88 schools of other Christian denominations, 27 Jewish schools, seven Muslim schools, two Sikh schools, and two of other denominations./ppThere are more than 11,100 state primary schools of no religious character, and 2,756 secondary schools./ppThe Accord coalition, which argues faith schools should not be able to discriminate against pupils or staff on grounds of religion, welcomed the report./ppAccord chairman, Rabbi Jonathan Romain, said: "We are witnessing a major change in attitude towards faith schools: previously flavour of the month, they are now being seriously questioned - both in the way they operate and whether they serve the public good. /pp"It is a debate that is long overdue and may save much heartache later."/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/faithschools"Faith schools/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/secondaryschools"Secondary schools/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/primaryschools"Primary schools/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/schools"Schools/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/religion"Religion/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/nMcGeWus2yd03JNwzsSFvuYQ8As/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/nMcGeWus2yd03JNwzsSFvuYQ8As/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

New proposal pitched to Treasury Department could create 'mother of all re-fi booms' with lowest rates since early '60s
• Bailout Audit Riles Critics From Both Parties
• FOX FORUM: Treasury Secretary Should Go, Now

All options were on the table as the automakers' proposals and an urgent appeal for $34 billion in aid were scrutinized ahead of congressional hearings.

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/18937?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+US+report+predicts+nuclear+or+biological+attack+by+2013ch=World+newsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Terrorism+-+international%2CAl-Qaida+%28News%29%2CObama+White+House+%28News%29%2CUS+news%2CPakistan+%28News%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CUS+Electionsc6=Ewen+MacAskillc7=2008_12_03c8=1128278c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Global+terrorismc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FGlobal+terrorism" width="1" height="1" //divpA congressional investigation into weapons of mass destruction today offered a chilling prediction of terrorists mounting an attack using biological or nuclear weapons within the next five years./ppThe six-month inquiry singles out Pakistan as one of the likeliest sources of such an attack. The target could be the US or some other part of the world./ppThe report, by the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, concludes that "unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013"./ppIt adds that "terrorists are more likely to be able to obtain and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon"./ppPresident George Bush welcomed the report, saying the threat posed was the greatest facing the US and was "dangerously real". He said that after the 9/11 attacks, he had put in place policies tackling the threat and he was leaving a good foundation for his successor./ppThe incoming Barack Obama administration, which is to make proliferation of weapons of mass destruction a priority, was briefed on Capitol Hill today about the findings in the 132-page report./ppThe commission, which was led by the former Democratic senator Bob Graham and by former Democratic senator Jim Talent, was given six months to complete the report. It follows on from the work of the commission that investigated the 9/11 attack./ppGraham told reporters at the press conference that a biological or nuclear attack within the next five years was not inevitable and the commission's reports included a series of recommendations, that if implemented, could diminish the threat. Recommendations include creation of a White House post focusing on proliferation and more emphasis on diplomatic efforts./ppThe team's remit ranged from lack of security at biological labs in the US to the safety of nuclear stockpiles in Russia. It conducted 250 interviews with scientists, analysts, intelligence agencies and the military./ppThe report concludes the risk from biological or nuclear weapons is higher than sceptical foreign policy and defence analysts have suggested. Those analysts had pointed to the complexity of transporting biological or nuclear weapons and the limitations of a nuclear "dirty" bomb, whose radius of damage is minimal compared with missile-delivered warheads./ppThe report disagrees, saying: "No mission could be timelier. The simple reality is that the risks that confront us today are evolving faster than our multilayered responses. Many thousands of dedicated people across all agencies of our government are working hard to protect this country, and their efforts have had a positive impact. But the terrorists have been active, too and in our judgment America's margin of safety is shrinking, not growing."/ppIt adds that much dangerous biological and nuclear material around the globe is "poorly secured and thus vulnerable to theft by those who would put these materials to harmful use, or would sell them on the black market to potential terrorists."/ppAs well as the threat from stateless militant groups, the commission expresses concern about the danger posed by proliferation of nuclear weapons to states such as Iran, saying the Obama administration must stop it from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability./ppIt points to Pakistan, both at the state level and among stateless groups, as one of the areas of most concern. "Were one to map terrorism and weapons of mass destruction today, all roads would intersect in Pakistan," the report says./ppTalent told the press conference in Washington today: "It is the epicentre of a lot of these dangers." He said the report had been drawn up before the Mumbai attacks./ppThe commission recommends that Pakistan be top priority for the Obama administration in terms of terrorism and proliferation. Proposals include eliminating terrorist safe havens through military, economic, and diplomatic means, securing nuclear and biological materials in Pakistan, countering and defeating extremist ideology, and constraining a nascent nuclear arms race in Asia./ppOther recommendations include strengthening the non-proliferation treaty and other international safeguards, creating a US national security force appropriate to the 21st century and developing a more coherent strategy for countering ideologies that leads to terrorism./ppAt home, the commission was disturbed at the apparent lack of security at laboratories dealing with dangerous biological materials. Government investigators, sent to check on the vulnerability of such sites were able gain access to the outside of these buildings and observe work inside./ppIt was lucky that they were from the government and not al-Qaida operatives as these were precisely the lethal trove that the terrorists have been seeking for years, the report says./ppThe government investigators watched a pedestrian simply stroll into one of the buildings through an unguarded loading bay./ppThe commission recommended tighter oversight of the 400 research facilities and 15,000 staff engaged in such work. Another recommendation is the establishment of an anthrax preparedness strategy./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/terrorism"Global terrorism/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/alqaida"Al-Qaida/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/obama-white-house"Obama White House/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/pakistan"Pakistan/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/5ayVmDk13JpnMX1fJUUSKCdWnYI/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/5ayVmDk13JpnMX1fJUUSKCdWnYI/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

CHICAGO (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama said on Wednesday struggling automakers have put forward a "more serious" restructuring proposal to Congress but withheld judgment on the plans until hearings are held.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~f/reuters/topNews?a=5b9alfm4"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/topNews?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~f/reuters/topNews?a=x8X7cP9F"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/topNews?i=x8X7cP9F" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~f/reuters/topNews?a=hRfeGDZY"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/topNews?i=hRfeGDZY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/reuters/topNews/~4/PfqGU_SK7vc" height="1" width="1"/

An anonymous reader writes "For copyright activists, Christmas comes but once every three years: a chance to ask Santa for a new exemption to the much-hated Digital Millennium Copyright Act's prohibitions against hacking, reverse engineering and evasion of Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes protecting all kinds of digital works and electronic items. Judging from the list of 20 exemptions requested this year [19 shown], some in the cyber-law community are thinking big. The requests include the right to legally jailbreak iPhones in order to use third party software, university professors wishing to rip clips from DVDs for classroom use, YouTube users wishing to rip DVDs to make video mashups, a request to allow users to hack DRM protecting content from stores that have gone bankrupt or shut down, and a request to allow security researchers to reverse engineer video games with security flaws that put end-users at risk." Reader MistaE provides some more specific links to PDF versions: "Among the exemption proposals is a request from the Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic to allow circumvention of DRM protection when the central authorization server goes down, a request from the EFF to allow circumvention to install third party programs on phones, as well as a request for ripping DVDs for non-commercial purposes. There were also several narrow requests from educational institutions to rip DVDs for classroom practices."pa href="http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/03/1838206amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/12/03/1838206"/a/ppa href="http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/03/1838206amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/yP1EjgToB4tCoBI3AYYBCujzLTg/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/yP1EjgToB4tCoBI3AYYBCujzLTg/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/21rWGMZRkes" height="1" width="1"/

An anonymous reader writes "For copyright activists, Christmas comes but once every three years: a chance to ask Santa for a new exemption to the much-hated Digital Millennium Copyright Act's prohibitions against hacking, reverse engineering and evasion of Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes protecting all kinds of digital works and electronic items. Judging from the list of 20 exemptions requested this year [19 shown], some in the cyber-law community are thinking big. The requests include the right to legally jailbreak iPhones in order to use third party software, university professors wishing to rip clips from DVDs for classroom use, YouTube users wishing to rip DVDs to make video mashups, a request to allow users to hack DRM protecting content from stores that have gone bankrupt or shut down, and a request to allow security researchers to reverse engineer video games with security flaws that put end-users at risk." Reader MistaE provides some more specific links to PDF versions: "Among the exemption proposals is a request from the Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic to allow circumvention of DRM protection when the central authorization server goes down, a request from the EFF to allow circumvention to install third party programs on phones, as well as a request for ripping DVDs for non-commercial purposes. There were also several narrow requests from educational institutions to rip DVDs for classroom practices."pa href="http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/03/1838206amp;from=rss"img src="http://hardware.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/12/03/1838206"/a/ppa href="http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/03/1838206amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/EkDfjtzjnnOZ7frJyv6miqV2Pr4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/EkDfjtzjnnOZ7frJyv6miqV2Pr4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotHardware/~4/21rWGMZRkes" height="1" width="1"/

Derbyshire Arts Development Group was established in 1999 to pool the expertise of all the arts development organisations working within Derbyshire. The visual arts group of DADG started to look at ways to raise the low visibility of contemporary visual arts in the county – which is primarily due to a lack of venues – back in 2003, and commissioned London based Proboscis to research the potential for touring and showing visual arts across Derbyshire. The initial research included the commissioning of two site-specific works, Out of Curiosity by Lothar Goetz in Ashbourne, and Memories of the Little Things by Hannah Carvell at Erewash Museum Gardens in Ilkeston, in order to explore the potential for site-specific commissioning as an alternative to gallery exhibitions.br / br / Curator David Gilbert began a wider research and development process in 2006, which resulted in securing funding from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Arts Council England for a two-year programme of site-specific commissioning. Over the two years there will be at least four major site-specific commissions of national significance, and a programme of up to eight curatorial interventions across Derbyshire. br / br / Proposals are now being sought from artists, curators and arts organisations who would like to develop innovative proposals, with further information available at www.re-place.co.uk.img src="http://rhizome.org/syndicate/nothing.gif?f=announce" border="0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rhizome-announce/~4/473837984" height="1" width="1"/

h4No power to the people's network/h4 pAn FCC plan that would see every US mobile-phone base station equipped with eight hours of backup power has been rejected by the White House, on the grounds that the regulator failed to consult properly on the proposal..../p

psmallWily Ferret a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/"the Inquirer/a, Wednesday 3 December 2008. 12:34:00/small/ppi Glitch in the matrix /i/ppDEAR SIR I am writing to you with an urgent and confidential proposal of friendship. I am W. Ferret, husband of the late Marquess of Zuckerberg. After the death of my wife, as I was left clinging only to her beloved black sandals, I decided to carry on his life's.../pimg width='1' height='1' src='http://feeds.theinquirer.net/c/554/f/7127/s/27d33ee/mf.gif' border='0'/div class='mf-viral'table border='0'trtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/sendemail2.html?title=Google Chrome reckons Facebook is phishing traplink=http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/12/03/google-chrome-reckons-facebook" target="_blank"img src="http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/emailthis2.gif" border="0" //a/tdtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/bookmark.cfm?title=Google Chrome reckons Facebook is phishing traplink=http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/12/03/google-chrome-reckons-facebook" target="_blank"img src="http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/bookmark.gif" border="0" //a/td/tr/table/divbr/br/a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853518429/u/89/f/7127/c/554/s/41759726/a2.htm"img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853518429/u/89/f/7127/c/554/s/41759726/a2.img" border="0"//a

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divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/74903?ns=guardianpageName=Politics%3A+Welfare+and+crime+at+heart+of+Queen%27s+speechch=Politicsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Queen%27s+speech%2CPolitics%2CUK+news%2CWelfare+%28Politics%29%2CCriminal+justice+%28politics%29%2CPublic+services+policy+%28Society%29%2CSocial+exclusion+%28Society%29%2CPrisons+and+probation+%28Society%29%2CSocietyc5=Society+Weekly%2CPolicy+Society%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CBusiness+Markets%2CCommunities+Society%2CSocial+Care+Societyc6=Deborah+Summersc7=2008_12_03c8=1128040c9=articlec10=GUc11=Politicsc12=Queen%27s+speechc13=c14=h2=GU%2FPolitics%2FQueen%27s+speech" width="1" height="1" //divpGordon Brown put tough new measures on welfare and crime at the heart of today's Queen's speech as he attempted to broaden his political agenda beyond the current economic crisis./ppIn a concise statement Her Majesty outlined 14 government bills designed to show the government was "committed to helping families and businesses through difficult times"./ppThe speech paved the way for a crackdown on benefit cheats with claimants compelled to take lie detector tests. Those found guilty of fiddling the system will lose benefits for a month, in a "one strike and you're out" initiative./ppThe government is also proposing to give the public clearer information, mainly via the internet, on how criminals are sentenced in local courts. Communities are to be given a bigger role in deciding what form of community punishment local criminals should be forced to undertake./ppThe proposals mark a break by the prime minister from his focus on the economic crisis for the past five months and suggest he believes he needs to widen his government's programme if he is to claw back lost votes./ppThe government's legislative plan was scaled back from the 18 bills listed in May's draft Queen's speech to make way for new measures to deal with the financial downturn./pp"My government's overriding priority is to ensure the stability of the British economy during the global economic downturn," the Queen said./ppNew legislation is being drawn up to protect people's savings and reduce the likelihood of banks getting into difficulties./ppIn other proposals new legislation will be draw up to improve policing, reduce crime and disorder./ppLap dancing clubs will be reclassified as sex establishments, allowing councils greater scope to close them./ppAirport security will be enhanced and border controls strengthened by bringing together customs and immigration powers. Newcomers to the UK will have to earn the right to stay. /ppThe government also intends to introduce an equality bill to promote fairness, fight discrimination and introduce transparency in the workplace to address the pay gap between men and women./ppThe introduction of a lie detector test for benefit claimants is the most striking shift to a more populist programme, similar to Tony Blair's so-called "respect agenda"./ppSo far, 25 local councils administering housing benefit to 500,000 claimants are using "voice risk analysis technology" to test whether a claimant is providing false information./ppThe government introduced the technology in Harrow, north-west London, last year, but says it plans to make the technology available nationwide. In the first three months of using the technology Harrow saved £300,000, suggesting that levels of benefit fraud may be higher than government estimates. Ministers are cracking down on benefit fraud even though it is officially at its lowest recorded level, down 66% since 2001./ppThe government currently withdraws 13 weeks of benefit from anyone found making a fraudulent claim twice in five years, but said yesterday it intends to tighten this process by withdrawing four weeks' benefit for first-time fraudsters./ppThe benefit withdrawal will be taken against both those that suffer an administrative penalty as well as those found guilty in a criminal court. Currently the Department for Work and Pensions seeks court penalties only where the alleged fraud is worth more than £2,000./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/queens-speech"Queen's speech/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/welfare"Welfare/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/justice"Criminal justice/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/policy"Public services policy/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/socialexclusion"Social exclusion/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/prisonsandprobation"Prisons and probation/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/KvTbVxn5XsnuFUby8_s2BUetO0U/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/KvTbVxn5XsnuFUby8_s2BUetO0U/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

a href="http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117996690.html?categoryid=3431amp;cs=1amp;nid=2562"img vspace="4" hspace="16" border="0" align="right" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadgethd.com/media/2008/12/bcs09mini_120208.jpg" //aJust in case you thought 3D was only for a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/24/live-nfl-broadcast-to-air-in-3d-as-proof-of-concept/"Thursday night NFL games/a and a href="http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/03/19/fsn-southwest-preps-first-nba-regular-season-3d-broadcast/"NBA playoff matchups/a, Fox Sports is broadcasting the first college football game in the format January 8. CEO David Hill dropped the info during the 3D Entertainment Summit, acknowledging plans to bring the 3D feed to CES (finally, we won't have to miss the big game this year -- like we'd ever watch an SD feed stretched on cheap hotel plasmas) and select movie theaters, but balked at pushing technology forward. Citing costs absorbed by broadcasters in switching to high definition, he's looking towards consumer electronics manufacturers to turn over HDTV profits and start another round of upgrades for early adopters. While they argue over who picks up the check we don't expect more than a few demos here or there, but with a href="http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/11/24/panasonic-puts-forth-proposal-for-3d-standard-on-blu-ray-disc/"Panasonic/a, a href="http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/11/26/lg-to-launch-one-or-two-3d-tvs-in-2009/"LG/a and others already taking the baton it's just a matter of time, maybe when a href="http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/11/28/espn-snaps-up-bcs-rights-starting-in-2011-antenna-viewers-sol/"ESPN takes over/a things full time in 2011?pFiled under: a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/ces/" rel="tag"CES/a, a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/hdtv/" rel="tag"HDTV/a, a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/homeentertainment/" rel="tag"Home Entertainment/a/pp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/03/bcs-championship-game-live-3d-broadcast-coming-to-ces-movie-the/"BCS Championship game live 3D broadcast coming to CES, movie theaters/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.engadget.com"Engadget/a on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:22:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117996690.html?categoryid=3431amp;cs=1amp;nid=2562Read/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/03/bcs-championship-game-live-3d-broadcast-coming-to-ces-movie-the/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/forward/1389420/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/03/bcs-championship-game-live-3d-broadcast-coming-to-ces-movie-the/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/iYuFueioaGKlsWudgTnNMhjaK78/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/iYuFueioaGKlsWudgTnNMhjaK78/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=MfXUBoLl"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=MfXUBoLl" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=2dVKYWHy"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=2dVKYWHy" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~4/yzRcjhPmV88" height="1" width="1"/

The reason we have such a huge choice of low cost computers and all sorts of gizmos and gadgets, smart phones, and electronic toys is because of the amazing advances in chip designs. Hundreds of small chip design firms are producing incredibly advanced semiconductors that power a slew of innovative devices.

But the reason we have so much innovation in the chip industry is because of a manufacturing revolution that began more than twenty years ago. In 1987, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) was founded as a new type of chip company--it was a semiconductor foundry--it made chips for other companies.

This completely transformed the chip industry and ushered in an innovation explosion. Chip designers didn't have to build their own chip factories, they could buy production time from chip foundries. Previously, chip startups had to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, primarily to pay for chip production--yet their value was in the designs.

Chip foundries led to a dramatic cut in the cost of establishing a chip company. Investment now went into chip design, not building a manufacturing line and learning how to run it.

This simple manufacturing revolution is responsible for all the innovation in electronics. And that's a model that could be effectively applied in the automotive world, and unleash a wave of innovation.

Manufacturing expertise . . .

I support a bailout of the automakers for one key reason: manufacturing expertise. If they shut down then we lose many decades of manufacturing knowledge and processes--it would be hugely expensive to recreate.

That manufacturing expertise can be used to build a Hummer, or it can be used to build hybrids, electric cars, and anything with wheels and an engine.

There is a tremendous amount of innovation in transportation that could be unlocked if you didn't have to have build your own factory to make the vehicles.

General Motors and the other car makers know how to re-tool lines to make all sorts of vehicles. They know what designs, and components work, and what doesn't; they have relationships with parts manufacturers, they have software design systems, test systems, air tunnels, algorithms...

They also know how to get through the red tape of qualifying vehicles for US roads. There is a massive amount of knowledge and expertise within the Big 3 that could be applied to producing the greenest of green vehicles.

My proposal is to use government monies to convert the Big 3 auto makers into car making foundries, in a similar fashion to chip-making foundries. That way, small startups with great ideas could quickly get their designs into production without requiring massive amounts of capital and learning how to build and operate a car factory.

Tesla Motors . . .

Take a look at Tesla Motors, one of the most innovative car companies of the past decade. The Tesla Roadster is an innovative all-electric sports car made with a carbon fiber body that has a range of 244 miles and does zero to sixty in less than 4 seconds. It received Time Magazine's 2nd best inventions of 2008.

But you have to very rich to buy one of these $109,000 cars primarily because building a manufacturing line is so expensive. It also means that Tesla had to raise massive amounts of capital to fund the manufacturing lines. This means the innovative Tesla technology will take years to trickle down to mainstream models--yet that's where it's lower carbon-footprint would have the most value.

Tesla ran into lots of delays because of manufacturing problems, and also problems with some of the components.

What if Tesla contracted with GM to make its cars? GM would know how to quickly tool up a production run, it probably would be able to help out with some of the drive-train problems Tesla had. GM would know what things work and how to avoid many problems that Tesla had to learn the hard way..

It is this kind of manufacturing expertise that could be leverage across a new industry. Small startups with great designs and technologies could quickly come to market without having to build their own production lines.

Car foundries could set off a huge wave of innovation at precisely the right time when we are searching for more responsible and sustainable forms of transport. And the US could grab a leadership position with such a plan.

Let's turn the Big 3 auto makers into foundries that can create a platform for a new type of innovative auto industry.

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/88711?ns=guardianpageName=Politics%3A+Lie+detector+tests+to+catch+benefit+cheatsch=Politicsc3=The+Guardianc4=Queen%27s+speech%2CWelfare+%28Politics%29%2CLaw+%28News%29%2CState+benefits%2CMoney%2CSociety%2CSocial+exclusion+%28Society%29%2CPolitics%2CUK+newsc5=Society+Weekly%2CPersonal+Finance%2CUnclassified%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CSocial+Care+Societyc6=Patrick+Wintourc7=2008_12_03c8=1127796c9=articlec10=GUc11=Politicsc12=Queen%27s+speechc13=c14=h2=GU%2FPolitics%2FQueen%27s+speech" width="1" height="1" //divpBenefit claimants will face lie detector tests and will lose benefits for a month if found guilty of fiddling the system under proposals unveiled by Gordon Brown on the eve of today's Queen's speech. /ppThe "one strike and you're out" proposal is contained in a tough summary of the speech released yesterday by the Cabinet Office. The government is also proposing to give the public clearer information, mainly via the internet, on how criminals are sentenced in local courts. Communities are to be given a bigger role in deciding what form of community punishment local criminals should be forced to undertake. /ppThe proposals mark a break by the prime minister from his focus on the economic crisis for the past five months and suggest he knows he needs to broaden his political agenda if he is to claw back lost votes. /ppThe introduction of a lie detector test for benefit claimants is the most striking shift to a more populist programme, similar to Tony Blair's respect agenda./ppSo far, 25 local councils administering housing benefit to 500,000 claimants are using "voice risk analysis technology" to test whether a claimant is providing false information./ppThe government introduced the technology in Harrow, north-west London, last year, but says it plans to make the technology available nationwide. In the first three months of using the technology Harrow saved pound;300,000, suggesting that levels of benefit fraud may be higher than government estimates. Ministers are cracking down on benefit fraud even though it is officially at its lowest recorded level, down 66% since 2001./ppThe government currently withdraws 13 weeks of benefit from anyone found making a fraudulent claim twice in five years, but said yesterday it intends to tighten this process by withdrawing four weeks' benefit for first-time fraudsters. /ppThe benefit withdrawal will be taken against both those that suffer an administrative penalty as well as those found guilty in a criminal court. Currently the Department for Work and Pensions seeks court penalties only where the alleged fraud is worth more than pound;2,000./ppIn other proposals in the Cabinet Office's paper, the power of public servants to use force may be strengthened. The paper says: "The public looks to healthcare professionals, neighbourhood wardens and teachers to deal with unacceptable behaviour in public places. /pp"If they are not able to fulfil that role because they are not sure the law is on their side, or because they do not see it as part of their job, that sends the wrong message about what we as a society are prepared to tolerate."/ppIt also suggests most family intervention projects will grow so they reach 20,000 families with the most severe difficulties. The paper also proposes an alcohol code limiting "all you can drink" promotions, and setting conditions on premises in local hotspots./ppLap dancing clubs will be reclassified as sex establishments, allowing councils greater scope to close them./ppJames Purnell, the work and pensions secretary, was criticised yesterday for plans disclosed on Monday night to tighten the requirements on lone parents and on disabled people to do more to prepare themselves for work or face mounting benefit penalties./ppUnder Gordon Brown, ministers have played down Blair's respect agenda, believing it played into the theme of a "broken society" promoted by David Cameron. But there have been signs of a rethink over the past three months. /ppThe Cabinet Office paper tries to put the emphasis on fair rules in the context of the credit crunch. It says: "As everyone enters difficult economic times ... fair rules will become more important. /pp"If people perceive that not everyone is treated equally, that some get preferential treatment, that people who break the rules get away with it, respect for rules is undermined."/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/queens-speech"Queen's speech/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/welfare"Welfare/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/law"Law/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/statebenefits"State benefits/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/socialexclusion"Social exclusion/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/qSTIlBk-m1aU1GvqOeBh7EZYy-k/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/qSTIlBk-m1aU1GvqOeBh7EZYy-k/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p