World’s First Commercial Flight Powered by Biofuel

Virgin Atlantic carried out the world’s first flight of a commercial aircraft powered with biofuel on Sunday in an effort to show it can produce less carbon dioxide than normal jet fuels.

Some analysts praised the jumbo jet test flight from London to Amsterdam as a potentially useful experiment. But others criticized it as a publicity stunt and noted scientists are questioning the environmental benefits of biofuels.

“This breakthrough will help Virgin Atlantic to fly its planes using clean fuel sooner than expected,” Sir Richard Branson, the airline’s president, said before the Boeing 747 flew from London’s Heathrow Airport to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.

He said the flight would provide “crucial knowledge that we can use to dramatically reduce our carbon footprint,” he said.

Sunday’s flight was partially fueled with a biofuel mixture of coconut and babassu oil in one of its four main fuel tanks. The jet carried pilots and several technicians, but no passengers.

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Virgin Atlantic spokesman Paul Charles predicted this biofuel would produce much less CO2 than regular jet fuel, but said it will take weeks to analyze the data from Sunday’s flight.

“It’s great that somebody like Richard is willing to put some of his billions into an experiment aimed at reducing the climate change impact of aviation,” said James Halstead, an airline analyst at the London stockbroker Dawnay Day Lochart.

“But there are a lot of unanswered questions about the usefulness of biofuels in the battle against global warming,” he said.

The flight is the latest example of how the world’s airlines are jumping on the environmental bandwagon by trying to find ways of reducing aviation’s carbon footprint.

These efforts have included finding alternative jet fuels, developing engines that burn existing fuels more slowly, and changing the way planes land.

The experiment by Virgin Atlantic and its partners — Boeing, General Electric and Imperium Renewables — also comes at a time when high oil prices and the U.S. economic slowdown are promoting consolidation in the airline industry.

Aircraft engines cause noise pollution and emit gases and particulates that reduce air quality and contribute to global warming and global dimming, where dust and ash from natural and industrial sources block the sun to create a cooling effect.

About a year ago, the European Commission, the executive of the European Union, said greenhouse gas emissions from aviation account for about 3 percent of the total in the EU and have increased by 87 percent since 1990 as air travel cheapened.

Charles said Virgin’s Boeing 747-400 jet and its engines did not have to be redesigned to use biofuel on the test flight.

He said CO2 emissions on a normal flight are generally three times the fuel burned, and that technical engineers on the test flight would take readings and analyze data to estimate its greenhouse gas emissions.

-from FoxNews.com

Poor People Use Yahoo, Richies Use Google

Hey, don’t kill the messenger. But online marketing firm Hitwise has published a socioeconomic demographic rundown of Yahoo and Google users. And, without giving too much away, you might not want to tell your friends that you still use Yahoo (or that your Armani suit is a knock off).According to Hitwise data and this Lifestyle Quadrant Analysis, while lots of people are using Yahoo search (those are the dots in the upper left), groups that have spent more that $500 or more online tend to use Google (those are the dots in the lower right, the bigger dots designate $500+ spenders). So while Yahoo has the “struggling societies” market cornered, Google is fairly pleased with their “affluent suburbia” and “upscale America” user base.

Obama, McCain sweep Potomac primaries

While Sen. John McCain was inching toward the Republican presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama staked a claim as the Democratic front-runner.

Obama’s wins in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia primaries propelled him past Sen. Hillary Clinton in the race for delegates.

According to CNN calculations, Obama has 1,215 delegates to Clinton’s 1,190.

To clinch the Democratic nomination, a candidate must get 2,025 delegates.

Obama had led in pledged delegates, but Clinton had held the lead when superdelegates were factored in.

Superdelegates, a group of almost 800 Democratic Party officials and leaders, are not required to make their votes public and are free to change their minds.

The Illinois senator has now won eight consecutive contests.

McCain, the presumptive nominee for the Republican party, has 812 delegates to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s 217, according to CNN estimates.

GOP candidate needs 1,191 delegates to secure the nomination.

“The change we seek swept through Chesapeake and over the Potomac,” Obama told supporters Tuesday night.

“We won the state of Maryland. We won the commonwealth of Virginia. And though we won in Washington, D.C., this movement won’t stop until there is change in Washington, D.C., and tonight we’re on our way.”

Obama did well with Democrats across race and gender lines Tuesday night, and seems to be eating away at Clinton’s backbone of support: women.

According to exit polls out of Virginia and Maryland, Obama won roughly 60 percent of the female vote — a demographic that has carried Clinton to success in past primaries. Clinton fared worse among men — more than two-thirds in both states chose Obama.

Meanwhile, Obama scored his highest percentage of African-American support to date, winning close to 90 percent of that voting bloc in each state.

The two evenly split the white vote in Virginia, while Clinton slightly beat Obama among whites in Maryland.

In most past primaries, Clinton has held an edge among white voters. Tuesday, Obama even beat Clinton among Latino voters, a group that has heavily favored Clinton in most past primaries.

In Virginia and Maryland, Latinos went for Obama over Clinton by 6 points, though their support was not decisive in either contest — only 5 percent of Democratic primary voters in Virginia and 4 percent in Maryland were Latino.

The only demographic Clinton won was white women, who broke for her over Obama by 10 points in Virginia and 13 points in Maryland.

Clinton turned her attention to Texas, which holds its primary on March 4.

-from CNN.com

Mysterious Illness Forces Girl to Survive on a Diet of Mints

A U.K. teen eats only Tic Tac mints after a mysterious illness has left her unable to tolerate any other food, it is being reported.

According to a report on NewKerala.com, at one time, doctors believed Natalie Cooper, 17, suffered from bulimia because she would vomit after eating any type of solid food. But they soon realized the illness, which remains a mystery, was out of her control.

The girl, from Maidstone, Kent in the U.K., was diagnosed with the condition four years ago. She now receives all her nutrients from a specially formulated feed given to her in through a tube, it was reported.

She eats Tic Tacs, which do not make her vomit, to help her believe she isn’t hungry, the Mail reported.

“I went from Trebor Extra Strong Mints to Polos and ended up with Tic Tacs,” she is quoted as saying.

The feed tube has helped the teen go from a lean 70 pounds to a healthier 98 pounds, according to the report.

-FoxNews.com

Obama wins Maine caucuses

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama will win Sunday’s Democratic caucuses in Maine, sweeping the weekend’s presidential contests.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Obama was leading Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York 59 percent to 40 percent. At stake are 24 delegates to August’s Democratic national convention in Denver.

Obama’s projected victory follows a sweep in Saturday’s Louisiana primary and Democratic caucuses in Nebraska, Washington and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Those contests gave him a lead over Clinton in pledged delegates to the convention, but Clinton still held a narrow edge over Obama when “superdelegates” — elected officials and party leaders — are included in the tally, according to CNN estimates.

After Saturday’s results and a split decision in last week’s Super Tuesday contests, Clinton shook up her campaign Sunday by replacing campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle with longtime adviser Maggie Williams, her campaign announced Sunday.

-CNN.com

Creationists seek foothold in Europe

After the Sunday service in Westminster Chapel, where worshippers were exhorted to wage “the culture war” in the World War II spirit of Sir Winston Churchill, cabbie James McLean delivered his verdict on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

“Evolution is a lie, and it’s being taught in schools as fact, and it’s leading our kids in the wrong direction,” said McLean, chatting outside the chapel. “But now people like Ken Ham are tearing evolution to pieces.”

Ken Ham is the founder of Answers in Genesis, a Kentucky-based organization that is part of an ambitious effort to bring creationist theory to Britain and the rest of Europe. McLean is one of a growing number of evangelicals embracing that message — that the true history of the Earth is told in the Bible, not Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.”

Europeans have long viewed the conflict between evolutionists and creationists as primarily an American phenomenon, but it has recently jumped the Atlantic Ocean with skirmishes in Italy, Germany, Poland and, notably, Britain, where Darwin was born and where he published his 1859 classic.

Darwin’s defenders are fighting back. In October, the 47-nation Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog, condemned all attempts to bring creationism into Europe’s schools. Bible-based theories and “religious dogma” threaten to undercut sound educational practices, it charged.

Schools are increasingly a focal point in this battle for hearts and minds. A British branch of Answers in Genesis, which shares a Web site with its American counterpart, has managed to introduce its creationist point of view into science classes at a number of state-supported schools in Britain, said Monty White, the group’s chief executive.

“We do go into the schools about 10 to 20 times a year and we do get the students to question what they’re being taught about evolution,” said White, who founded the British branch seven years ago. “And we leave them a box of books for the library.”

Creationism is still a marginal issue here compared with its impact on cultural and political debate in the United States. But the budding fervor is part of a growing embrace of evangelical worship throughout much of Europe. Evangelicals say their ranks are swelling as attendance at traditional churches declines because of revulsion with the hedonism and materialism of modern society.

“People are looking for spirituality,” White said in an interview at his office in Leicester, 90 miles north of London. “I think they are fed up with not finding true happiness. They find having a bigger car doesn’t make them happy. They get drunk and the next morning they have a hangover. They take drugs but the drugs wear off. But what they find with Christianity is lasting.”

Other British organizations have joined the crusade. A group called Truth in Science has sent thousands of unsolicited DVDs to every high school in Britain arguing that mankind is the result of “intelligent design,” not Darwinian evolution.

In addition, the AH Trust, a charity, has announced plans to raise money for construction of a Christian theme park in northwest England with a 5,000-seat television studio that would be used for the production of Christian-oriented films. And several TV stations are devoted full-time to Christian themes.

All this activity has lifted spirits at the Westminster Chapel, a 165-year-old evangelical church that is not affiliated with nearby Westminster Abbey, where Darwin is buried.

In the chapel, Rev. Greg Haslam tells the 150 believers that they are in a conflict with secularism that can only be won if they heed Churchill’s exhortation and never, ever give up.

“The first thing you have to do is realize we are in a war, and identify the enemy, and learn how to defeat the enemy,” he said.

There is a sense inside the chapel that Christian evangelicals are successfully resisting a trend toward a completely secular Britain.

“People have walked away from God; it’s not fashionable,” said congregant Chris Mullins, a civil servant. “But the evangelical church does seem to be growing and I’m very encouraged by that. In what is a very secular society, there are people returning to God.”

School curricula generally hold that Darwin’s theory has been backed up by so many scientific discoveries that it can now be regarded as fact. But Mullins believes creationism also deserves a hearing in the classroom.

-from yahoo.com

This is  alarming at best.  That evolution is being attacked even in this day and age attests to the power of religion.  For those who believe in God to call evolution a lie attests to their own stupidity.  Who are they to say what is true when their religion has thousands of inaccuracies and is hypocritical.

“Why I Vote” by Jake Laperruque

I have always viewed this election as incredibly important, not just because it is a presidential election, not just because it is an election during a war, recession, and crisis in healthcare. I view it as important because 2008 is a chance to realign the country, to end the politics and political traditions that have caused all the problems we have and disillusioned the populace to what government ought to do.

This election is about issues, policies, proposals ideas, but it is about much more. It is about reaching out to the people, and acting in their interest, instead of catering to lobbyists and playing the same political games that have been common in Washington for my entire lifetime. It’s about having the courage to stand for an unpopular idea. It’s about admitting when you’re wrong. It’s about telling people the truth, even when they might not like the answer. It’s about looking towards individuals, and rejecting special interests. It’s about putting public benefits before political bickering and personal ambitions. It’s about being idealistic, and finally, for once, having a leader who above all else wants to do what is truly right.

The Democratic nomination is down to two candidates, and the differences between them are clear and obvious for me. One stood against a war when I and the rest of the country called out for it, and the administration and media labeled those who opposed it as unpatriotic. The other not only authorized and approved of it, but to this day refuses to apologize and say that her decision was wrong. One calls for all troops to be out by 2009, the other opens the possibility of leaving troops for training missions, permanent bases, forces to protect bases, and on going combat missions. One went to Detroit to give a speech on helping the environment and rebuilding the American auto-industry. The other says that it is wrong to raise taxes on those who make over $100,000 a year to prevent social security from collapsing. One has not taking a single dollar from special interests during this election and has stated he will not allow any lobbyists in his White House. The other takes money from the insurance industries that turn away dying Americans to increase their profit margins, and says that corporations being able to manipulate our government is a good part of the political process. One wears his minority status with pride but never exploits it, never tells you to vote for him because of it, never tries to make the election about black and white, but rather about what is best. The other uses gender stereotypes whenever it can be done to her advantage, has campaign officials say that anyone who cares about women’s issues must vote for her and those who endorse her opponent have betrayed women, and is even willing to engage in racial politics if it might help her. For Barack Obama to respond to his win in South Carolina by saying “I did not travel around this state over the last year and see a white South Carolina or a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina” is noble. For Bill Clinton to respond to it by saying, “Well, Jessie Jackson won South Carolina” is disgusting.

I see one candidate who is ready to look to the people, all of them, regardless of age, race, gender, or political affiliation. I see another who is willing to do anything – whether it be to ban flag burning, vote for war with Iraq, war with Iran, compromise on environmental policies, sell out to special interests, or use any dirty political tactic – to advance and achieve personal ambitions. I see one candidate who is happy to accept our broken system, and another who wants to create a new one.

Barack Obama is not a perfect candidate. His healthcare policy is not the best I’ve ever seen. His environmental stance is not the best I’ve ever seen. But I’ve never seen a candidate with whom I agree completely, even the one I believed in so much that I was willing to devote months of my life to.

But what I do agree with about Barack Obama’s campaign is its most fundamental principle:

This election is about change. And change does not just mean a Democrat and not a Republican. It does not just mean new policies. It is about changing the nature of the political system, changing the priorities of our politicians, changing the influence that corporations and special interests have, changing the ruthlessness of “the game” that puts winning elections over helping people.

It is about rejecting the idea of simply turning a new page, and instead trying to write a new book.

For my entire life I’ve only seen presidents named Bush and Clinton. For my entire life I’ve lived under leaders who have lied to their people. For my entire life, I’ve had to accept the idea that the country is divided between red and blue, liberal and conservative. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of a government that is unprincipled, unwilling to take risks, and unable to listen to people over politicos and lobbyists advising them on how best to win the next election. And I’m sick of people saying that there is nothing wrong.

I want a New America. And Barack Obama is the only candidate who offers it.

Just One Other Thing I’d Like To Leave You With.

There Are Two Video Links Below, And I’d Ask You To Watch Both In Their Entirety.

The First Is The Moment I Realized I Would Never Be Satisfied To Vote For Hillary Clinton.

The Second Is When I Decided I Would Be Proud To Vote For Barack Obama.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Isi6c2s353c&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iVAPH_EcmQ

-a note by my friend Jake Laperruque, who spent months working for the Edwards campaign and now devotes his time to supporting Obama here at Washington University in St. Louis and the surrounding areas.

Official: 16GB iPhone available and 32GB iPod touch — both $499

Out of the rumor mill comes the 16GB iPhone, now official. Ever since the 16GB iPod touch was announced in September, we all knew it was just a matter of time until Apple could bung the same NAND capacity into their chubbier iPhone. The surprise is a new 32GB iPod touch for the same $499. No other changes and certainly not 3G. Both are available immediately.

-Engadget.com

Baby shampoo study raises chemical concerns

Baby shampoos, lotions and powders may expose infants to chemicals that have been linked with possible reproductive problems, a small study suggests.

The chemicals, called phthalates, are found in many ordinary products including cosmetics, toys, vinyl flooring and medical supplies. They are used to stabilize fragrances and make plastics flexible.

In the study, they were found in elevated levels in the urine of babies who’d been recently shampooed, powdered or lotioned with baby products.

Phthalates (pronounced thowl-ates) are under attack by some environmental advocacy groups, but experts are uncertain what dangers, if any, they might pose. The federal government doesn’t limit their use, although California and some countries have restricted their use.

Animal studies have suggested that phthalates can cause reproductive birth defects and some activists believe they may cause reproductive problems in boys and early puberty in girls.

Rigorous scientific evidence in human studies is lacking. The current study offers no direct evidence that products the infants used contained phthalates, and no evidence that the chemicals in the babies’ urine caused any harm. Still, the results worried environmental groups that support restrictions on these chemicals.

-MSNBC.com

 

Giants upset Patriots to win Super Bowl XLII

The New York Giants won Super Bowl XLII with a last-minute touchdown, upsetting the New England Patriots’ hopes of becoming the first team since 1972 to complete a National Football League season undefeated.

The Giants beat the Patriots 17-14 in Sunday night’s championship game, giving New York its first NFL title since 1991.

Giants quarterback Eli Manning was named the game’s Most Valuable Player — a year after his brother, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, took the same honor.

”There’s something about this team,” Eli Manning told The Associated Press. ”The way we win games, and performed in the playoffs in the stretch. We had total confidence in ourselves. The players believed in each other.”

The heavily favored Patriots, who have won three of the last seven Super Bowls, went undefeated in the regular season and playoffs.

A win Sunday would have made them the first team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins to go undefeated.

“It was good enough for 18 wins. It’s just the most important one we ended up losing,” said Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who twice previously has taken Super Bowl MVP honors. “I’m sure we’re all going to wake up tomorrow more disappointed.”

The Giants drew first blood with a first-quarter field goal, and their vaunted defense went on to sack Brady five times during the course of the game.

New England came back with a one-yard touchdown run by Laurence Maroney early in the second quarter and led 7-3 at halftime.

After a scoreless third quarter, the Giants hit the end zone early in the fourth to make it 10-7. A 6-yard touchdown pass from Brady to wide receiver Randy Moss with 2:42 left put the Patriots back on top — and the pressure on Manning

With just under a minute remaining, Manning wriggled free of what looked like a certain sack to throw a 32-yard pass to David Tyree, putting the Giants on New England’s 24-yard line.

Four plays later, Manning connected with wide receiver Plaxico Burress on a 13-yard pass to reclaim the lead and win the game.

”It’s the greatest feeling in professional sports,” Burress said after the game as he was overcome by emotion.

Taking over with 35 seconds remaining, Brady was sacked once and threw three incomplete passes on the Patriots’ final possession.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick crossed the field and shook the hand of Giants coach Tom Coughlin with a second left on the clock, then going to the locker room and missing Manning’s final kneeldown.

Giants wide receiver Amani Toomer, who had six catches for 84 yards, credited his team’s physical play for the win.

“They tried to just bully us around,” Toomer said. “We’re a more physical team than them, and it showed today. We punched them in the mouth, and they didn’t want anymore.”

-CNN.com