On Dec. 17th Tom Vilsack was chosen as Obama’s nominee to be the next U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. Vilsack ran on the 2008 campaign for president and has ties to Monsanto.
Vilsack has repeatedly demonstrated a preference for large industrial farms and genetically modified crops, as Iowa state governor, he originated the seed pre-emption bill in 2005, effectively blocking local communities from regulating where genetically engineered crops would be grown; additionally, Vilsack was the founder and former chair of the Governor’s Biotechnology Partnership, and was named Governor of the Year by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, an industry lobbying group. Vilsack has also been known to travel in the Monsanto jet. Tom Vilsack wiki
Ross Dress for Less isn’t limited to the title for messiest.
Pretty much every Thrift store is like this and some major department stores too are cluttered and don’t have leave any appeal to shop for more than 10 minutes. Who needs more time anyway.
By Philip Rucker – Washington Post Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who is in Washington this week to press his foundation’s education and global health agenda, said he is keeping an open mind about taking a role aiding the incoming Obama administration.
"Certainly my full-time job is being chairman of the foundation," Gates said. "If there was some committee or pretty focused task where I could contribute, I’d be glad to consider that, and I hope that the things we’ve learned about education — including the mistakes we’ve made — I hope we do get a strong dialogue and I’m very optimistic we’ll have that with these people."
Kicking off that dialogue, Gates met with Vice President-elect Joe Biden at Obama’s Washington transition headquarters yesterday afternoon. A transition official said Biden and Gates discussed "a wide range of issues, including global health and development, as well as the need to improve resources for secondary education, particularly for community colleges."
And Gates described to the incoming vice president the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is the world’s largest charitable foundation, built with the personal fortunes of Gates and billionaire investor Warren Buffett, a long-time Obama supporter who also acts as an economic adviser to the president-elect. Via Washington Post Blogs.
On Nov 30th, the fastest production electric vehicles in the U.S. went head-to-head. While their first meeting had a number of issues, most notably the underfilled Tango battery pack, and the Tesla’s non-upgraded drivetrain, the 1/4 mile time is quite close and indicative of races to come.
In this race, the Tango got 92.15mph in 14.480 seconds, beating its 14.7 "dial" handicap and thus losing the competition; the Tesla got 101.23mph in 14.666 seconds, slower than its 14.5 "dial" handicap and allowing it to proceed to the next round. (Two rounds later, the Tango’s driver got behind the wheel of the Tesla and also beat its "dial" handicap… and thus lost!)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Top U.S. phone company AT&T Inc said it will eliminate 12,000 jobs, or about 4 percent of its workforce, in a fresh wave of cuts to cope with an economic downturn that has exacerbated a decline in traditional phone sales. ADVERTISEMENT
Joining a raft of companies slashing costs to survive a slump in spending, AT&T said on Thursday it will cut the jobs over the remainder of 2008 and 2009, and take a charge of about $600 million in this year’s fourth quarter for severance.
The carrier also plans to cut its 2009 capital spending from this year’s levels, though spending plans have not been finalized. AT&T said it would provide details in late January.
The cuts come as phone companies struggle with declining land line sales, as more consumers switch to wireless or alternative, cheaper services offered by cable and Internet companies. AT&T cited "economic pressures, a changing business mix and a more streamlined organizational structure."
The move follows AT&T’s April announcement of 4,600 job cuts, mostly in management, as well as a three-year plan disclosed at the end of last year to cut 10,000 jobs.
Shares of AT&T fell 2.5 percent to $28.36 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday afternoon. Via Yahoo Business.
Just weeks before the 2008 LA Auto Show, hybrid car and powertrain maker AFS Trinity is pulling out after saying that show management “muzzled” them by disallowing claims that their highly modified Saturn Vue plug-in hybrids can achieve 150 mpg.
In a statement, AFS Trinity said that “carmakers continue to seek tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, ostensibly to develop fuel-efficient vehicle technologies, but their conduct is evidence they are reluctant to embrace solutions they didn’t invent.”
EPA has been struggling with how to rate the fuel economy of plug-in hybrids — the most recent being a spat between EPA and GM about how to rate the upcoming Chevy Volt. So, for the LA Auto Show management to claim that AFS Trinity is not using approved EPA methods to estimate fuel economy, they’re kind of off base, because even the EPA doesn’t really know how to rate fuel economy with some of the new alternative powered vehicles. more at Gas2.0
Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) — General Motors Corp., criticized by U.S. lawmakers for its use of corporate jets, asked aviation regulators to block the public’s ability to track a plane it uses.
“We availed ourselves of the option as others do to have the aircraft removed” from a Federal Aviation Administration tracking service, a GM spokesman, Greg Martin, said yesterday in an interview. He declined to discuss why GM made the request.
Flight data show that the leased Gulfstream Aerospace G-IV jet flew Nov. 18 from Detroit to Washington, where Chief Executive Officer Richard Wagoner Jr. spoke to a Senate committee that day and a House panel the next day on behalf of a $25 billion auto-industry rescue plan. More at Bloomberg.com
Syndicate
Just weeks before the 2008 
Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) — 
