From CNN’s Political Ticker : Defying President Obama, House Democrats voted Thursday not to bring up the tax package that he negotiated with Republicans in its current form. “This message today is very simple: That in the form that it was negotiated, it is not acceptable to the House Democratic caucus. It’s as simple as that,” said Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen. “We will continue to try and work with the White House and our Republican colleagues to try and make sure we do something right for the economy and right for jobs, and a balanced package as we go forward,” he said. The vote comes a day after Vice President Biden made clear to House Democrats behind closed doors that the deal would unravel if any changes were made. “Wow did the [White House] mishandle this,” a senior House Democratic Source told CNN. “Breathtaking. Members have major substantive concerns and they should have gently guided people to the finish line.” Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon said: “They said take it or leave it. We left it. This is a non-binding resolution, but sources say Speaker Pelosi will follow the wishes of the caucus. According to Roll Call, the vote was “virtually unanimous”: “The House will not take it up in its current form,” Defazio said after the Caucus decision. The voice vote was virtually unanimous, according to DeFazio. Meanwhile, TPMDC quotes a House source calling it a “vote of no confidence”: A House Democratic aide characterized the rebuke as a “vote of no-confidence” in the package — a ratification of the anger Dems expressed to Vice President Joe Biden at a meeting yesterday evening about the details of the plan and the fact that House Democrats were closed out of the negotiations. The vote itself does not scuttle the deal, which most Dems predict will pass with overwhelming support from House Republicans, and a small but significant amount of support from Dems. However, if Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to bring the bill to the floor, the calculus changes dramatically. Thus far, Pelosi has made no indication that she plans to thwart the President.
Continue reading …It has certainly been a long long road for Notion Ink , but the company is finally opening the Adam tablet pre-sale gates today. Now before you run off and grab your wallet, it appears that initial pre-orders will only be open to tried-and-true fans (apparently, they exist!) — Slashgear is reporting that at 1:30 p.m. EST registered commenters on Notion Ink’s blog will be sent the pre-order links. Then, about six hours later, the general pre-order page will be launched. Naturally, along with this news NI team is revealing detailed pricing, and as expected , there are lots of models to choose from. The entry level Adam will start at $375.33 and will pack a regular LCD and WiFi connectivity. Adding 3G shoots the price up to $425.33. On the higher end there’s the Pixel Qi model, which will start at $499.95 with WiFi and $549.99 with 3G. As for software, the company’s also released a lot of details on the Android skin it’s been working on, and we have to say it looks pretty snazzy, though we’d love to see this on a working unit. Either way, check out the screens in the gallery below. Of course, there’s one major question left: when will the Adam finally ship? Well, you won’t be getting it in time for Christmas, that’s for sure — if all goes as planned, they will be landing around January 6th. With that said, the tablet still hasn’t cleared the FCC and we still haven’t seen any live photos of this stuff in action, so click that pre-order button at your own risk. Gallery: Notion Ink Adam UI screenshots Notion Ink Adam pre-order to begin today, pricing starts at $375 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …photo: Deepwater Wind Rhode Island’s first offshore wind farm , and depending on construction speed perhaps the first in the United States, has more than doubled in proposed size. According to
Continue reading …Photo: Wikimedia Commons . In some cities, parks are replacing asphalt, and city dwellers are suddenly discovering new green space just steps away. To make cities more livable for an often growing population , government officials, activists and citizens are reclaiming unused or abandoned structures and lots and turning … Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …Looks like relief is in sight for new school MacBook Air owners suffering from display issues : you know, with the faulty logic boards, and the flickerin’ and the freezin’, and so on and so forth. MacBook Air EFI firmware update 2.0 comes highly recommended by Apple itself for all 2010 MacBook Air owners, with the company saying it will “resolves a rare issue where MacBook Air boots or wakes to a black screen or becomes unresponsive.” Sounds like a no-brainer to us! Hit up the source link to download this bad boy for yourself. Apple announces firmware update to relieve those nagging MacBook Air display issues originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Click here to view this media One of the favorite pretenses at Fox News is to pretend that there is some magical barrier of objectivity between their “opinion” anchors and their shows and their “straight news” hours featuring “real” reporters — guys like James Rosen. ‘Course, it’s all a farcical facade — their news segments are only marginally less biased than their opinion shows. Though they sure whine loudly enough whenever someone points it out. Just the past couple of days, Rosen has coughed up a couple of real hairballs demonstrating (once again) just how “fair and balanced” Fox News really is. First, on Bill O’Reilly’s show Tuesday, Rosen argued, with a perfectly straight face, that President Obama had raised some serious concerns about national security because he had described Republicans in Congress as “hostage takers” with whom he had negotiated: Rosen: One other point, Bill, if I may, and this should concern a broader spectrum than just the president and his supporters. And that is the potential national security implications of a president of the United States broadcasting to the world that he is willing to negotiate with hostage takers if he believes the hostage is being harmed. O’Reilly actually burst out laughing, assuming that Rosen was kidding. He wasn’t. Then yesterday, on Happening Now, Rosen followed up with a segment about Obama’s record regarding how well he’s keeping his promises. It featured a clip of Obama saying, “Look at what I promised during the campaign. There is not a single thing that I said that I would do that I have not either done or tried to do,” and “And if I haven’t gotten it done yet, I’m still trying to do it.” Rosen then told his audience: “That leaves little terrain as ground for contradiction, and yet the Pulitzer Prize winning website PolitiFact.com lists more than 500 broken Obama campaign promises. ” But as Simon Easter at Media Matters observes, that’s a far cry from what PolitiFact actually reports — namely, that of the 506 campaign promises they’ve monitored, Obama has actually broken only 24 of them : enlarge And the best part is that, because he said all these things on Fox News, Rosen will never have to run a correction. And Bill O’Reilly can keep laughing at his absurd “concerns”. Y’see, at Fox, spreading misinformation and lies and wild conjecture isn’t cause for correction. It’s the job description.
Continue reading …Click to enlarge image credits greenpeace and CAPP Activists can have a sense of humour, too. Greenpeace Canada has been running a campaign inviting remixes of these really corny ads being run by CAPP, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers . The ads don’t show big trucks and holes in the ground; they try to put a human face on the oil sands by having real people s… Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …Men with a low libido aren’t as uncommon as you might think. Here’s some insight into what causes a low sex drive in men and how to revive a libido that’s lagging.
Continue reading …Loose-lipped shock jock Howard Stern has signed a $500 million, five-year contract with SiriusXM radio. (Dec. 9)
Continue reading …A visit to Sparkpad’s website gives you little more than a “coming soon” teaser, but not all is lost, friends: new filings in the FCC’s database today are letting the cat out of the bag. We’re still not sure exactly how this stuff is going to be sold, but Sparkpad’s products are looking a bit like a Bug Labs for larger displays, seemingly allowing hobbyists and companies without massive R&D budgets to throw together Linux-based interactive products that run on photo frames ranging from 7 to 10.4 inches — and if that’s not big enough, there’s also some sort of option for remotely-operated displays of 15 inches and larger. The devices can be programmed using Flash, the Lua language, or — coming soon — using the Android SDK, making for a pretty versatile setup. Interestingly, Sparkpad’s manual points out that this is the platform used by the iGala touchscreen photo frame from a couple years back, so we’re guessing that the company is just now looking at opening up the underlying platform to all comers. Anyhow, yeah — if you’ve ever dreamed of programming your own DreamScreen , Sparkpad might be the way to roll. Sparkpad platform revealed by way of FCC, could make your wildest photo frame fantasies come true originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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