Archive for August, 2008

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Belgium paradise for beer lovers

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

The other night I found my way home, a little tipsy after an evening in the Belgian town of Bruges. I’d been at my favorite bar in town, the ‘t Brugs Beertje, where not only did I get schooled in the many varieties of local beer, but also learned a few things about modern-day Belgian life.

I was a bit down on Bruges after a long day of visiting every sight in town. It’s inundated with tourists, especially when a cruise ship is docked. It seems nothing here is “untouristy.” The growing affluence in places like Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark brings predictability and homogeneity, along with high prices. It took staying out late and enjoying a couple of beers to jolt me back into a positive mind-set.

A good percentage of the tourists you meet in Bruges are beer pilgrims. For two nights in a row I’ve shared a table or bar with travelers, here specifically to enjoy the fine local beer. Run by Daisy, the ‘t Brugs Beertje is beloved among beer aficionados for stocking more than 300 Belgian varieties.

I grabbed a stool at the bar with an agenda: to check material on Belgian beers for my guidebook. I planned to pick Daisy’s brain, but several beer experts surrounded me, all happy to clue me in. Soon I had a chemistry lab of four different brews in front of me — each with its distinct beaker. A critical part of the beer culture here is the glass, which must fit the local variety.

Four brews were lined up in front of me: Zot (”the fool”), the only beer actually brewed in Bruges, is considered one of Belgium’s best. A kriek is made with bitter cherries. An apple lambic is what you’d order for friends who “don’t like beer.” The Chimay, brewed by Trappist monks, was new to me and perhaps the smoothest and most complex brew I had ever tasted. Finishing my glass, I thought: Chimay would almost make celibacy livable.

Sitting at the bar, I was surrounded by talkative Belgians. I mentioned how unpredictable the weather had been, and they explained they have “nice weather 20 times a day.” Loosened up by a few Zots, my Belgian stool mates started talking about their northern neighbors: “The Dutch have the worst beer, Heineken, but sell it all over the world. Belgians make far better beer, and it is barely exported. Those Dutch could sell a fridge to an Eskimo. The first thing the Dutch ask you is about money — how much people make and how much things cost — which is taboo here in Belgium.”

As I conversed effortlessly in English with a bunch of older Belgians, it occurred to me that the language barrier had sunk to new lows. This was really a switch. In the past, only young people were fluent enough in English to be able to clue me in on things. Consequently I would get a young perspective. Now that European schools have been teaching English for many years, even retired people likely speak the language. It’s a new age of communication.

Speaking of modern communication in Europe, it’s never been easier. Upon arrival at the train station, my first stop in this country, I bought a Belgian SIM card for my cell phone. When I asked where the shop was, the information person directed me to a machine. I popped a 10-euro bill (about $15) into the SIM card dispenser and got my chip with a Belgian phone number and 7.50 euros (about $11) of credit for making calls.

While communication is simple, the challenge for Americans is to survive on a weaker dollar. In Belgian restaurants (as in most of Europe), $30 is the going price for a main course in a decent restaurant. And no restaurant here serves tap water. They claim their tap water is “recycled” and that a bunch of people got sick drinking it a few years ago. So, apparently, the government doesn’t allow restaurants to serve it. That makes expensive eateries even tougher on the pocketbook.

That’s the bad news. The good news: You can eat cheap in the pubs. Go low end on the food — you can get hearty bowls of spaghetti for $10 — and go high end on the beer, sampling the best in Europe for $4 a bottle. This allows the poor American tourist to have two great beers and a basic meal for $18.

As a beginner in Daisy’s pub, I was extremely steep on the learning curve — but it was a fun education at an affordable price

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‘Tongue computing’ could help disabled

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

The tireless tongue already controls taste and speech, helps kiss and swallow and fights germs. Now scientists hope to add one more ability to the mouthy muscle, and turn it into a computer control pad.

Georgia Tech researchers believe a magnetic, tongue-powered system could transform a disabled person’s mouth into a virtual computer, teeth into a keyboard — and tongue into the key that manipulates it all.

“You could have full control over your environment by just being able to move your tongue,” said Maysam Ghovanloo, a Georgia Tech assistant professor who leads the team’s research.

The group’s Tongue Drive System turns the tongue into a joystick of sorts, allowing the disabled to manipulate wheelchairs, manage home appliances and control computers. The work still has a ways to go — one potential user called the design “grotesque” — but early tests are encouraging.

The system is far from the first that seeks a new way to control electronics through facial movements. But disabled advocates have particularly high hopes that the tongue could prove the most effective.

“This could give you an almost infinite number of switches and options for communication,” said Mike Jones, a vice president of research and technology at the Shepherd Center, an Atlanta rehabilitation hospital. “It’s easy, and somebody could learn an entirely different language.”

That’s quite a contrast to the handful of methods already available to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are disabled from the neck down.

The “sip and puff” technique, which lets people issue commands by inhaling and exhaling into a tube, is among the most popular. But it offers users only four different commands, limiting their options.

Control systems that use sophisticated pads to measure neck and head movements are also widespread, but using the hardware can be tiring, and frustrating on smaller electronics like computers.

And while newer innovations that track eye movement are promising, they can be costly, slow and susceptible to mixed signals.

The tongue, though, is a more flexible, sensitive and tireless option. And like other facial muscles, its functions tend to be spared in accidents that can paralyze most of the rest of the body, because the tongue is attached to the brain, not the spinal cord.

The tongue’s promise has long enticed scientists. In the 1960s, research work focused on turning the tongue into a primitive lens by attaching electrodes to the tissue. More recent studies have connected a camera that activates tongue electrodes in the shape of an object, helping blind people sense images.

A Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, newAbilities Systems Inc., has already designed a nine-button keypad placed on the roof of the mouth to control electronics.

Ghovanloo’s work, however, centers on creating a virtual keyboard instead of a physical one. He does that through a magnet about 3 millimeters wide that’s placed under the tip of the tongue.

The magnet’s movement is tracked by sensors on the side of each cheek, which sends data to a receiver atop a rather bulky set of headgear. It is then processed by software that converts the movement into commands for a wheelchair or other electronics.

After turning the system on, users are asked to establish six commands: Left, right, forward, backward, single-click and double-click. A graduate student who tested the technology was cruising the lab at will in a wheelchair, tongue firmly in cheek.

It’s an impressive display, and Ghovanloo said he hopes he could one day add dozens more commands that turn teeth into keyboards and cheeks into computer consoles. For example, “Left-up could be turning lights on, right-down could be turning off the TV,” Ghovanloo said.

Early tests involving Georgia Tech students are encouraging, and the team’s work has already attracted a $120,000 grant from the National Science Foundation and $150,000 from the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.

But plenty of challenges await. Researchers must pare down the bulky headgear, which looks like a prop from a 1980s movie, into a dental retainer. The team also must improve the software, tinker with the size of the magnet and boost the wireless battery’s charge.

Above all, they must find a way to keep costs in between the “sip and puff” systems, which can cost hundreds of dollars, to more sophisticated eye-tracking systems, which cost thousands.

Still, the research encourages Justin Cochran, a 26-year-old college student who watched a recent test.

The design certainly needs improvements. “It’s in its infancy and quite grotesque,” he said. But Cochran said its potential for almost limitless control options makes him want to shelve his “sip and puff” wheelchair.

“You could control not just your chair, your TV, your computer, but your entire life,” he said. “And it’s all one system.”

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Gustav headed for current that fuels big storms

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

The difference between a monster and a wimp for Gulf of Mexico hurricanes often comes down to a small patch of warm deep water that’s easy to miss. It’s called the Loop Current, and hurricane trackers say Gustav is headed right for it, reminiscent of Katrina.

Gustav is likely to reach this current late Saturday, experts say. What happens next will be crucial, maybe deadly.

If Gustav hits the Loop Current and lingers in that hot spot, watch out. If the storm misses it or zips through the current, then Gustav probably won’t be much of a name to remember.

The meandering Loop Current, located in the southeastern gulf, provides loads of hurricane fuel. It was a key stopover for nearly all the Gulf Coast killers of the past, including Katrina and Camille, said Florida International University professor Hugh Willoughby, former director of the government’s hurricane research division.

Lynn “Nick” Shay, University of Miami meteorology and oceanography professor, flew over the gulf Thursday in a federal hurricane research plane to measure the Loop Current. He saw Gustav’s forecast track going “right down the throat” of it.

“That’s kind of the scary part here,” Shay said. “You look at this and say, ‘Boy I hope this thing doesn’t really explode,’ but it probably will.”

It happened in 2005. “Katrina went over the Loop Current and intensified rapidly,” said Mark DeMaria, a Colorado-based expert on hurricane strength with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Then less than a month later a weak tropical storm named Rita followed Katrina into the Loop Current. Thirty hours later it was a Category 5 monster.

Both Katrina and Rita later weakened — which often happens_ to Category 3 storms by landfall.

In the last several years, meteorologists have focused more attention on the Loop Current, which is only a couple of hundred miles long and not even 100 miles wide. The evidence linking it to the worst storms is beyond circumstantial, Shay said.

What’s crucial is the depth of warm water in the current — several hundred feet — because it provides continuous high-octane fuel for a storm. Hurricanes use the heat from the water to grow stronger and in the process they churn up cooler water from below, which then slows or stops the feeding process. But in the Loop Current, the deeper water is also warm and it further feeds the storm.

The Loop Current constantly shifts, growing and shrinking and sending out smaller eddies. It’s now starting to contract, but not soon enough.

On Friday, the National Hurricane Center warned: “Gustav is expected to be a large powerful hurricane as it approaches the northern gulf coast.”

The one hopeful sign is that on his hurricane flight Thursday, Shay saw a pool of extra cool water north and west of the Loop Current. That could help counteract what he fears will be rapid strengthening.

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Some Hiroshima Survivors at Thyroid Cancer Risk

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

Some Japanese survivors of the World War II atomic bomb blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced key genetic changes that may have sparked the onset of a form of thyroid cancer, new research indicates.

Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is typically linked to a particular genetic mutation involving the so-called BRAF gene. But Japanese researchers say that among Japanese atom bomb survivors, a different and relatively rare disease trigger — involving the chromosomal rearrangement of the RET/PTC gene — seems to be to blame.

Though both mechanisms spur activation of the same enzyme-signaling pathway that leads to PTC, “the RET/PTC rearrangements were more common among cancers from individuals with higher (radiation exposure) doses, cancers that occurred earlier after the A-bomb exposure, and cancers among those who were at younger ages at A-bomb exposure,” noted study lead author Kiyohiro Hamatani.

Hamatani is chief of the laboratory of cell biology in the department of radiobiology/molecular epidemiology at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF), in Hiroshima. He and his colleagues reported their findings in the Sept. 1 issue of Cancer Research.

The finding is just the latest from a decades-long tracking of 120,000 Japanese atom bomb survivors. It comes on the heels of an analysis released this past spring that revealed that young children exposed to radioactive atomic fallout in the blasts faced a greater risk of adult cancers than those exposed to radiation while still in the womb.

With respect to radiation-associated PTC, the authors noted that other studies have uncovered evidence of similar (but not identical) chromosomal rearrangements among childhood survivors of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in Russia who later developed PTC.

In their study, Hamatani’s team found that between 1958 and 1998, there were 63 cases of thyroid cancer attributable to A-bomb radiation exposure, of which 90 percent were of the papillary variety.

They also extracted genetic material called RNA from thyroid tissue samples supplied by 50 patients who had been exposed to atomic bomb radiation, along with 21 patients who were not exposed.

The comparative genetic profiles revealed that younger men and women who lived close to the bomb site when exposed to radioactive fallout, and who went on to develop PTC, were more likely to have the less frequent chromosomal rearrangement.

Hamatani cautioned, however, that he and his colleagues still do not know exactly how radiation exposure might have contributed to the onset of RET/PET rearrangements. It’s even possible that radiation exposure may not have played a role in the development of PTC among patients who had the chromosomal rearrangement before they were diagnosed with the disease. Hamatani noted that, among childhood PTC cases in particular, such chromosomal shifts are relatively common, regardless of whether a child has been exposed to radiation or not.

Because of this, Hamatani stressed that any link between radiation and chromosomal changes, “needs to be confirmed with additional PTC patients in the future”.

In the meantime, Dr. Alfred I. Neugut, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and co-director of cancer prevention at New York Presbyterian Hospital, in New York City, said the association “makes biological sense.”

“The fact that radiation exposure is associated with thyroid cancer is well known and not news,” he noted. “But now, as research technology has caught up with scientific expectations, they’re now able to identify the specific chromosomal anomaly that causes the cancer. And, indeed, this is exactly what you would expect.”

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Dell 2Q profit drops 17 percent and stock plunges

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

Slashing computer prices helped Dell Inc. boost sales in its fiscal second quarter, but the No. 2 PC maker’s bottom line took a hit when efforts to cut costs failed to make up the difference.

Investors punished the stock Thursday on word that Dell missed Wall Street’s expectations for earnings and gross margin, calling into question the Round Rock, Texas-based company’s turnaround efforts.

Dell’s quarterly sales rose 11 percent to $16.4 billion, beating Wall Street’s view, and Dell said operating expenses fell to their lowest point in six quarters.

But for the three months ended Aug. 1, Dell’s profit plunged 17 percent to $616 million, or 31 cents per share. Excluding amortization and business realignment charges, Dell said it would have earned 33 cents per share, still short of analysts forecast of 36 cents per share, according to a Thomson Reuters survey.

In a conference call, Michael Dell, who returned as chief executive in 2007, acknowledged that Dell may have been overzealous in cutting prices to challenge its larger competitor, Hewlett-Packard Co., in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

“If I look at the situation in the second quarter, we would have to say it was more self-inflicted,” Dell said. “Whenever you’re restarting growth, what I can tell you is, it’s an imprecise process. (There were) some parts of the business where we were probably too aggressive.”

The company also deferred some services-related profit from that region to a later quarter.

Analysts had hoped Dell’s margin would hold steady at last quarter’s level of 18.4 percent, but instead it sank to 17.2 percent.

Sharon Cross, an analyst for Cross Research, said she wasn’t surprised.

“It is going to cost a lot of money to expand their business,” said Cross, who rates the stock a sell. Bullish investors had hoped cost-cutting would offset the aggressive pricing, Cross said, but “that obviously is not the case.”

Cross said she thought Dell cut prices in other regions, too. In a conference call, Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden indicated that as part of Dell’s increased presence in retail stores, the company using price cuts to win back-to-school shoppers.

Shaw Wu, an analyst for American Technology Research, also noted that Dell sold more low-end computers in the quarter, adding to margin woes.

In a tough consumer economy, companies such as HP can make up for weaker PC sales with better results from high-end servers or printers, but Wu said Dell’s business is so tied to PC sales that it has little choice but to cut prices.

“When you look at their arsenal, price is really their only weapon,” he said.

Dell, once the world’s largest PC maker, fell behind HP in 2006, but has been striving to reclaim the title. The company has cut more than 8,500 workers since it began a program of layoffs last year, and said it’s on track to cut 400 more by the end of the current third quarter.

Dell also said it still expects log more than $3 billion in cost savings by 2011.

The company did not give specific guidance for the current quarter, but said slower information-technology spending has spread from the U.S. to Western Europe and parts of Asia, and added that it expects that trend to continue.

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Study: 12 percent of Indian deaths due to alcohol

Friday, August 29th, 2008

Almost 12 percent of the deaths among American Indians and Alaska Natives are alcohol-related — more than three times the percentage in the general population, a new federal report says.

The report released Thursday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found 11.7 percent of deaths among American Indians and Alaska Natives between 2001 and 2005 were alcohol-related, compared with 3.3 percent for the U.S. as a whole.

Dwayne Jarman, a CDC epidemiologist who works for the Indian Health Service and is one of the study’s authors, said it is the first national survey that measures American Indian deaths due to alcohol. It should be a “call to action” for federal, state, local and tribal governments, he said.

The researchers obtained their statistics by analyzing death certificates over the four-year period.

The two leading causes of alcohol-related deaths among Indians were traffic accidents and alcoholic liver disease, each of which cause more than a quarter of the 1,514 alcohol-related deaths over the four-year period.

Also listed are homicide (6.6 percent of alcohol-related deaths), suicide (5.2 percent) and injuries in falls (2.2 percent).

There may be many more alcohol-related deaths than the study shows, in part because the CDC analysis did not count deaths related to some diseases for which alcohol is believed to be an important risk factor, such as tuberculosis, pneumonia and colon cancer.

The greatest number of tribal alcohol-related deaths — about a third of the total — occurred in the Northern Plains, where reservations are remote and often destitute, the study said. The lowest number of deaths were in Alaska.

Jarman said the study did not look at why there may be more deaths in the Plains but said it is consistent with previous studies.

“It may be a function of social perceptions of alcohol in that particular region,” he said. The report did not break down the numbers by tribe.

The study said more than 68 percent of the Indians whose deaths were attributed to alcohol were men, and 66 percent were people younger than 50 years old. Seven percent were less than 20 years old.

The study recommends “culturally appropriate clinical interventions” to reducing excessive drinking and better integration between tribal health care centers and tribal courts, which often deal with alcohol-related crimes.

Donovan Antelope, a spokesman for the Northern Arapaho Tribe, said alcoholism has been a problem for more than a century with many Indian populations.

“It has had a very negative impact on our day-to day life,” he said, adding that the tribe has started promoting alcohol-free events.

In general, American Indians suffer much higher death rates of most leading causes than the rest of the country. Besides alcoholism, drug use, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and suicide also are high.

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Consumers picked to test hydrogen car prototypes

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

Tom Albert drove his loaner Chevrolet Equinox like any other car.

He took it to work during the week, picked up groceries, and loaded up the back with bags of soil at the garden store. When his infant son was fussy, Albert drove the newborn around the block to calm him down.

The normal driving experience ended, however, when it came time to fuel the car. Aboard the silent vehicle, Albert had two filling stations to choose from in the Washington, D.C., area, and the fuel — hydrogen — was anything but typical.

Albert’s no-cost behind-the-wheel experience last spring was part of an ongoing program by General Motors Corp. to see if next-generation vehicles powered by hydrogen can become a reality. Automakers such as GM, Honda Motor Co. and BMW AG are putting several hundred vehicles into suburban garages, in cities and on the highway to see how they fare in day-to-day driving.

“I heard about it on one of the local news stations on my commute in, that they were offering the chance to drive these,” said Albert, an engineer who has always enjoyed tinkering with cars and applied online to participate. “For some reason they picked me.”

Hydrogen fuel cells have been part of the auto industry’s roster of advanced vehicles for years, and several companies are testing small fleets. They gained attention when President Bush announced in 2003 that the government would invest $1.2 billion to encourage their development.

Albert was among a small number of testers participating in “Project Driveway,” a program that allowed customers to provide feedback on the Chevrolet Equinox electric hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.

GM chose participants who live near a fueling station based on their level of interest in fuel cell technology and enthusiasm for new technology. The company covered the cost of the hydrogen fuel, insurance and maintenance.

The Equinox, which holds about 4 kilograms of pressured hydrogen in tanks, generates electricity from a reaction between hydrogen and oxygen and delivers the gasoline equivalent of about 43 miles per gallon. While hydrogen is highly flammable, the hydrogen would diffuse into the air in a nonflammable concentration if one of the tanks was punctured or leaked.

The zero-emissions vehicles, which emit droplets of water, still face high hurdles because of a lack of fueling stations and the high cost of developing the cars. Auto companies do not disclose costs, but the vehicles can cost $1 million and beyond because most are hand-built prototypes.

Hydrogen is typically extracted from natural gas, oil and coal, releasing carbon dioxide from those fuels into the atmosphere. Industry officials say using fossil fuels to make hydrogen is a transitional step, with the ultimate goal to produce it widely through renewable energy sources.

Patrick Serfass, director of technology development for the National Hydrogen Association, said using natural gas to produce hydrogen emits half the amount of overall emissions compared with a conventional gasoline-fueled vehicle.

The test drives are being held while consumers are paying close to $4 for a gallon of gasoline, offering a window into what petroleum-free driving might look like.

The industry estimates hydrogen can be produced for $3 a gallon of gasoline equivalent with current technology, while the government’s target is for the fuel to be available at $1.50 per gallon of gasoline equivalent by 2010.

In addition to the GM program, Honda is planning to lease about 200 FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cells to customers in California. One of the first customers is actress Jamie Lee Curtis.

The three-year leases cost $600 a month, which includes maintenance and collision coverage. The car has a range of about 270 miles per tank. Honda said it received 50,000 applications through its Web site but could only consider those living near stations in three southern California cities.

“You’re not sacrificing anything, and actually for me it’s an enhanced driving experience,” said Jon Spallino, a Redondo Beach, Calif., businessman who previously drove an older version of the FCX and will lease the Clarity.

“I think that’s a misconception people have, that you’re puttering around in an underpowered cramped little soapbox,” he said.

BMW has placed some of its Hydrogen 7 Series sedans in the hands of Hollywood celebrities and others for tests.

The Hydrogen 7 has an internal combustion engine that can run on gasoline or liquid hydrogen, an advantage because of the lack of hydrogen fueling stations. It can travel about 130 miles on hydrogen and shift to a gasoline-powered engine, with a range of 300 miles.

“It’s allowed people to live with these vehicles in a way that they don’t have to feel restricted in the distances they can travel or where they can go,” said BMW spokesman Dave Buchko.

Automakers say the tests show the cars can perform like a conventional vehicle, bolstering their argument that a network of fueling stations are needed. There are 61 operational hydrogen fueling stations in the United States, according to the National Hydrogen Association, and nearly half are located in California.

A panel with the National Academies of Science recently concluded the U.S. would need to invest $200 billion, including $55 billion in government funding, between 2008 and 2023 to make the vehicles viable.

The report estimated that the maximum number of hydrogen vehicles on the roads by 2020 would be 2 million, a tiny fraction of the nation’s fleet.

Albert said after more than 2,300 miles and two months in the Equinox, he sees the potential. He used the vehicle like any other and said the only limitations were the lack of fueling stations and the vehicle’s 200-mile range.

He offered plenty of suggestions to GM’s team, even feedback from his cranky baby. Albert’s first child, Tyler, was born Feb. 4, and the family jokingly called him the “first hydrogen baby.”

“As I was putting him in the car, I was wondering, ‘Is it the engine noise that quiets the baby or the road noise?’ We had no idea,” Albert said. After a short drive, Tyler’s cries subsided, offering some insight for future dads.

“We found out it’s probably the road noise and the motion,” Albert said with a smile. “It didn’t have much to do with the engine noise since there’s no internal combustion engine.”

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Analysis: A perfect night for Clinton, Obama?

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

For one evening, their political world was perfect. Or so it seemed.

Standing before thousands of delegates, almost half of them her backers, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton declared it time “to unite as a single party with a single purpose” and urged her followers to help elect once-bitter rival Barack Obama. “We are on the same team,” she said, after allowing the applause to build to a crescendo and linger, longer than usual — much like the Democratic primary race itself.

“Barack Obama is my candidate,” she said. “And he must be our president.”

But did she mean it? And would it matter?

True, her challenges Tuesday night were impossibly high, perhaps mutually exclusive.

She had to both promote her political future and unify her party. Clinton had to somehow convince people that she honestly thought Obama was ready for the presidency. But something stood in her way: Her words.

_Dec. 3, 2007: “So you decide which makes more sense: Entrust our country to someone who is ready on Day One … or to put America in the hands of someone with little national or international experience, who started running for president the day he arrived in the U.S. Senate.”

_March 2008. “I know Sen. McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House. And Sen. Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.”

_Feb. 23, 2008: “Now, I could stand up here and say, ‘Let’s just get everybody together. Let’s get unified.’ The skies will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect.”

There in no such thing as a perfect world, though the Clinton and Obama image teams tried their best to create one. Hundreds of “Hillary” signs danced before the TV cameras, bearing her breezy blue signature. Her misty-eyed husband, former President Clinton, watched from above.

By the time she was done, Sen. Clinton had delivered a strong, convincing affirmation of Obama and, just as importantly, a thumping of McCain. She did her part. Her husband takes the stage Wednesday and then Obama must make his case to the American people that he will be ready on Day One.

That there’s more to him than a single speech.

That he’s the perfect man for troubled times. She brought the party together, for one night anyway, and now it’s up to Obama to close the deal with voters.

Unlike Obama, she no longer needs to worry about her favorability ratings so there was no pulling punches.

“No way,” Clinton said. “No how. No McCain.”

She said McCain would be an extension of the Bush administration. No jobs. Poor health care coverage. High gas prices. Home foreclosures. “More war,” she said, “Less diplomacy. More of a government where the privileged comes first, and everyone else come last.”

In other words, Clinton seemed to say, even if Obama is everything she said during the campaign, he’s still a better candidate than McCain. The speech was as much of an attack on McCain as it was an embrace of Obama. “We don’t need four more years of the last eight years,” she said.

The crowd, Obama and Clinton delegates alike, loved it.

She took the high road Tuesday night because it was also her best road politically; if Obama wins, she still emerges as a central voice in American liberalism, replacing the ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy. And if Obama loses, as Hillary said he would during the campaign, she is blameless and the party can turn back to her without guilt in four years.

Behind the scenes Tuesday, the Obama and Clinton camps struck a tentative deal that would allow some states to cast votes in a roll call before somebody — possibly Clinton herself — cuts short the tally and asks the convention to nominate Obama by unanimous consent. This was her price for ending her historic bid for the presidency in a manner that, however messy, still left Obama in a stronger position than Kennedy left Jimmy Carter in 1980, when the Massachusetts senator extracted platform concessions and shrank from the traditional unity show at the final gavel.

But she did extract her price.

The bill came due Tuesday. The crowd. The applause. The promise of a vote Wednesday, and a speech laced 17 times by some variation of the pronoun “I.”

“You never gave up,” Clinton told her delegates, a phrase that so perfectly fits her. “You never gave up. And together we made history.”

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Japan firms to work on solar-powered ship

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

The race to go green has taken to the high seas with two Japanese companies saying they would begin work on the world’s first ship to have propulsion engines partially powered by solar energy.Japan’s biggest shipping line Nippon Yusen KK and Nippon Oil Corp said solar panels capable of generating 40 kilowatts of electricity would be placed on top of a 60,000 tonne car carrier to be used by Toyota Motor Corp.

The solar panels would help conserve up to 6.5 percent of fuel oil used in powering diesel engines that generate electricity at any given moment.

Solar panels for an average home usually generate 3.5 kilowatts of electricity.

The system is expected to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1-2 percent, or about 20 tonnes per year, said Hideyuki Dohi, general manager at Nippon Oil’s energy system development department.

Nippon Yusen will invest about 150 million yen ($1.4 million) in the solar panel system to be designed by Nippon Oil.

Solar panels capable of generating several kilowatts of electricity have been used on large vessels before but their use has been limited to power for the crew’s living quarters.

Damage to the panels from salt and vibration remain hurdles to be overcome.

The ship is scheduled to be completed in December.

“If it’s possible, we want to aim for the full commercialization of the system in the next three to five years,” Nippon Oil Executive Vice President Ikutoshi Matsumura told reporters.

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Big squeeze hits Chinese oil giant PetroChina

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

PetroChina is expected to report that its first-half net profit fell by at least a third, analysts say, as losses in its refining business eroded gains from surging crude oil prices.

Even last year when PetroChina’s market value briefly topped $1 trillion by some calculations trouble was brewing at the traded unit of the country’s leading oil and gas producer.

While other global oil giants are reporting record profits, Chinese government price controls prevent PetroChina and other domestic refiners from passing on higher costs for crude oil to consumers. So their refining operations are bearing heavy losses, despite billions of dollars in subsidies.

On Monday, Asia’s biggest refiner, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., or Sinopec, reported a 77 percent plunge in net profit, to 8.3 billion yuan ($1.2 billion), in the January-June half-year. That compared with 37.8 billion yuan in net profit a year ago.

The precipitous decline came despite 33.4 billion yuan ($4.9 billion) in subsidies in the first half of the year, Sinopec said.

In the first quarter, PetroChina reported that net profit plunged 31.5 percent to 28.8 billion yuan. First-half results are expected Wednesday.

Qiu Xiaofeng, a petroleum analyst at China Merchants Securities in Shanghai, estimates that PetroChina will report 48.5 billion yuan ($7 billion) in net profit for the first half, down about 40 percent from 81.8 billion yuan in January-June 2007.

“Chinese refiners are unable to match gains from the high price of crude oil in international markets due to controls on retail prices,” Qiu said.

Qiu is among analysts forecasting that, now that the Olympics have finished, Beijing will move to raise retail fuel prices in coming weeks to at least partly reflect rising costs for Chinese refiners, following increases of up to 18 percent in June.

“They should take advantage of this opportunity to adjust retail prices,” he said.

Yet, other policy moves could also either help, or hurt.

PetroChina was valued, according to some calculations, at over $1 trillion following its mammoth share offering in Shanghai last October, making it the world’s most expensive company by market capitalization, though not the most profitable.

But its share price has since sunk along with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index, which at Monday’s close of 2,413.37 was down 61 percent from the all-time peak reached on Oct. 16, 2007.

PetroChina gained 0.9 percent to 13.61 yuan on Monday, compared with its trading debut peak of nearly 44 yuan. It remains the biggest component in the Shanghai Composite Index, but its market capitalization has dropped to about $360 billion, including shares traded in mainland China, Hong Kong and New York, Qiu said.

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