Archive for February 10th, 2008

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In another strange pastime of mine, I happen to really enjoy reading books about urban planning, touched off by what I felt to be a groundbreaking book by Jane Jacobs, Death and Life of Great American Cities.

The book describes in dry, yet powerful detail, how Jacobs’ felt about modernist planners who “destroy communities and innovative economies by creating isolated, unnatural urban spaces.” Instead, Jacobs argued for a dense and mixed-use urban aesthetic that would preserve the uniqueness inherent in individual — like certain neighborhoods in New York City.

Whether or not you agree with Jacobs, suburbia did provide many families with clean surroundings and bigger houses and amenities (not to mention a longer commute). Today’s New York Times looks at ways to take the ideal of suburbia and try to reinvent the concept.

In an article called “Can we uninvent suburbia?” Andrew Revkin looks at what a variety of different voices are saying about the matter, including:

  • The End of Suburbia, an award-winning 2006 documentary, provides a fascinating overview of how the sprawled lifestyle evolved, the hidden — and not so hidden — costs, and what lies ahead.
  • An article in the Sunday version of the Times that computes the environmental costs of suburbia.
  • A great link to a website that follows “dead malls” as part of a process Revkin calls “retrofitting.”

As elections are getting closer and closer, it will be interesting to see what vision of America the American voters stand behind.

Zack Miller is the managing editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund.

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Subdivisions Built for Blacks Preserved
Seattle Times - Thomas Berkely, for example, who helped finance what became Berkely Square, was a black civil rights activist. One challenge to historic recognition is how much the areas have changed. In Delaware, owners have made improvements from new windows to

Darling: a menace to Britain
Times On the internet - Yet in finance the City of London meets Tokyo or New York on level terms as a major player. The City of London earns the living of the United Kingdom. Without the City’s earning power, Britain might dwindle into an insolvent dwarf, the Northern Rock

G-7 Growth Warning May Prompt Additional Rate Cuts, Lower Taxes
Bloomberg - Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) — Group of Seven officials, warning of further financial-market turmoil, indicated they’ll be forced into more interest-rate cuts and tax reductions to shore up the global economy. Finance ministers and central bankers ended a

Alistair Darlings confidence seems misplaced
Times On the internet - Since the start of financial turbulence last summer, I have believed that Britain, because of its exceptional dependence on finance and housing, would suffer more than other huge economies and certainly more than the United Says. Why does the

Supervisors Oppose Bill That Would End Proffers
Washington Post - The bill was approved by the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday and could be voted on by the full Senate this week. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) has not taken a position on it. Supporters of the legislation cite a study by Stephen Fuller , director of

US says Iraq car bomb kills 23 civilians
Miami Herald - Business Monday | National | International | Personal Finance | Technology | Small Business | Friday Business Report Food | Health | Home A vehicle bomb exploded Sunday near an Iraqi checkpoint in an open-market area north of Baghdad, killing at least 23

Loan restrictions amount to a kind of redlining
Baltimore Sun - many in places generally assumed to have relatively healthy market conditions — you’re going to need more cash up front. That will be the case even if the area risk designation has no real applicability to the house you hope to purchase or finance.

McCain a ‘true conservative,’ Bush states
Miami Herald - Personal Finance John McCain is a “true conservative,” President Bush says, even though the likely Republican presidential nominee might have

US Judge Blocks Bandar Funds Transfer
Newsday - In addition, the accounts in question were audited on an annual basis by the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Finance on behalf of MODA.” In London, lawmakers disclosed last month that Britain’s head of overseas intelligence had warned that Saudi Arabia

Tsvangirai to challenge Mugabe in election
News.com.au - Former finance minister Simba Makoni announced last week that he planned to challenge President Mugabe at the March 29 elections in a move welcomed by the MDC, leading some commentators to predict Mr Tsvangirai wouldn’t contest the polls. His

Dollar firms ahead of RBA statement
News.com.au - Also out this day are the ANZ job advertisements survey for January and housing finance numbers for December. Friday night (AEDT) saw further evidence of a struggling US economy, with the Commerce Department there reporting that wholesale inventories

Staples sees recession, wields knife
Boston Globe - And finance executives are closely scrutinizing employee expenses - even the public relations team is being asked to use second-day mail instead of the more costly overnight delivery. Staples workers will also feel the cuts: Bonuses will be about

Imagine a network of foot ferries
Seattle Post Intelligencer - It would offer a common vision, recommended ideal practices and finance options. Under our proposal, ports would be asked to consider appropriating capital funds for foot ferry docks, parking and boat buys or leases. Private developers would help

Clinton replaces campaign manager
Miami Herald - Personal Finance Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton has replaced campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, naming longtime aide Maggie Williams to

Army sniper convicted of killing Iraqi
Miami Herald - Business Monday | National | International | Personal Finance | Technology | Small Business | Friday Business Report Food | Health | Home A U.S. Army sniper convicted of killing an unarmed Iraqi civilian and planting evidence on his body was sentenced Sunday

Clinton has lead with party insiders
Miami Herald - Personal Finance Hillary Rodham Clinton retains her lead among suddenly critical Democratic Party insiders even as Barack Obama builds up

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WirePosted tips us to a story about a group of scientists who are heading to Antarctica to study organisms that thrive in climates too extreme for most other life forms. The team will be visiting a lake that has a pH “like strong Clorox,” the sediments of which “produce more methane than any other natural body of water on our planet.” The scientists hope to learn about the potential for life in other unforgiving climates, such as those on Mars or the various ice-covered moons in the Solar System. Expedition leader Richard Hoover was quoted saying, “This will help us decide where to search for life on other planets and how to recognize alien life if we actually find it.” We’ve previously discussed Antarctic microbes as they related to conditions on Mars.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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ktulus cry brings news of a device that can power portable gadgets, prosthetic joints, and other mobile appliances by harvesting energy generated by walking. Researchers are working on making the device — still a moderately cumbersome 3.5 pounds — smaller while maintaining its energy harvesting capacity. CNet has a write-up with more photos and a diagram of the device. “In the mode in which the brace is only activated while the knee is braking, the subjects required less than one watt of extra metabolic power for each watt of electricity they generated. A typical hand-crank generator, for comparison, takes an average of 6.4 watts of metabolic power to generate one watt of electricity because of inefficiencies of muscles and generators. A lighter version would be helpful to hikers or soldiers who don’t have easy access to electricity. And the scientists say similar mechanisms could be built into prosthetic knees other implantable devices such as pacemakers or neurotransmitters that this day require a battery, and periodic surgery to replace that battery.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ponca City, We Love You writes “NASA announced last week that members of the general public will have a opportunity to suggest a new name for the cutting edge Gamma-ray Big Area Space Telescope, otherwise known as GLAST, before it launches in mid-2008. NASA wants a name that’ll capture the excitement of GLAST’s mission and call attention to gamma-ray and high-energy astronomy. ‘We are looking for something memorable to commemorate this spectacular new astronomy mission,’ stated Alan Stern, associate administrator for Science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. ‘We hope someone will come up with a name that is catchy, simple to state and will help make the satellite and its mission a topic of dinner table and classroom discussion.’ The period for submitting names closes on March 31, 2008. Participants must include a statement of 25 words or less about why their recommendation would be a strong name for the mission.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Housing crisis slashes results at Weyerhaeuser - Toronto Star

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vortex2.71 sends us to the Seattle Times for an account of two studies published in the prestigious journal Science pointing to the conclusion that almost all biofuels used this day cause more greenhouse-gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels are taken into account. “The benefits of biofuels have come under increasing attack in recent months, as scientists took a closer look at the global environmental cost of their production. These plant-based fuels were originally billed as superior than fossil fuels because the carbon released when they were burned was balanced by the carbon absorbed when the plants grew. But that equation proved overly simplistic because the process of turning plants into fuels causes its own emissions — for refining and transport, for example. These studies… for the first time take a detailed, comprehensive look at the emissions effects of the big amount of natural land that is being converted to cropland globally to support biofuels development.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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