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Tag Archives: ford
The Good: Excellent gas mileage, high quality inside and out, makes driving efficiently fun.
The Bad: $32 grand for a family car, not long for this world.
The Verdict: Mercury finally has a sedan people want—too late to make a difference.
Watch our video review too!
A moment of silence, please, for Mercury.
Decades ago, Ford's midlevel brand had panache. During the Heyday of America (1945-1968), the brand was a step on the ladder to success; driving a Mercury meant while you may not be able to afford a Lincoln just yet, you'd pulled yourself up high enough by your bootstraps to graduate from those run-of-the-mill Fords. Much like Buick over at GM, Mercurys were just fancy enough to make their drivers feel slightly superior.
However, much like Buick, the brand lost their way in the last few decades of the 20th century, and spent much of recent history cranking out mildly gussied-up versions of Ford vehicles. (The last Mercury to differ in more than badging from a Ford product was the Cougar—and that cat went extinct in 2002.) So it was no surprise when Ford announced on June 2nd they'd be euthanizing the nameplate this year. While Buick escaped the executioner's block by virtue of its immense popularity in China, the 72-year-old Mercury remained unloved by any rapidly expanding consumer nations, and so we bid it adieu.
But come December, don't be surprised if the last Mercury to ever roll off the assembly line is a Milan Hybrid—because this is the first Mercury in a long time to instill in its owners that tiny feeling of supremacy. Sure, the car's pretty much a clone of the Ford Fusion Hybrid (though a bit less plebian to my eyes), but who cares? This car makes you feel just a bit better than all those clods in their Foci.
But in this eco-conscious age, those feelings stem less from the car's price (though if you can afford a car that costs more than $30,000 in this economy, you can probably pat yourself on the back) and more from the impressive fuel economy figures eked out by the gasoline-electric powertrain. By mating a 2.5-liter inline four-cylinder engine to a 275-volt nickel-metal hydride battery, the Milan achieves 41 miles per gallon around town and 36 mpg on the open road, according to the EPA. (Fast fact: at a combined 39 mpg, you could drive the Milan hybrid 1,111,500,000 miles on the amount of gasoline that could have been made from the crude leaked so far by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill! That's 2,326 round trips to the Moon!)
However, unlike some hybrids, the Mercury doesn't sacrifice much power on the altar of efficiency; the engine-motor combo creates a combined maximum of 191 horsepower, par for the midsized hybrid sedan segment where it competes. (The comparable Nissan Altima Hybrid and Toyota Camry Hybrid make 198 and 187 horses, respectively.) With the power traveling to the front wheels through a continuously variable transmission, the dash from 0 to 60 arrives in 8.5 seconds, according to a Car and Driver test of the mechanically identical Fusion Hybrid.
The trunk's interior latch appears aimed at kidnappees.
Impressively, the Milan/Fusion duo of hybrids can reach a claimed top speed of 47 miles per hour on electricity alone; I never quite reached that mark just on juice, but did once make it up to about 45 only on electrons. As John Mellencamp said, that's close enough for rock and roll. However, making maximum mpg means driving like a rock star is out of the question; a feathery touch on the accelerator is required to keep the inline four from leaping into action. Remember when your parents/driver's ed teacher/arresting police officer told you to imagine there was an egg under the pedal? If your aim is to use as little gasoline as possible in the Milan, it's best to picture a helium balloon tied to your right foot. Or better yet, actually tie a helium balloon to your right foot.
But there's an unexpected side effect to this: it makes driving slow fun. Instead of seeing how quickly you can swoop through the turns or bomb the quarter mile, the joy comes from toying with the formerly-known-as-the-gas pedal, trying to use as little energy as possible to move about without risking incoming gunfire from drivers behind you. (That's not a joke here in New York City.) In an increasingly common burst of creativity and wisdom, the folks at Ford Motor Company included multiple means of informing the driver just how eco-friendly s/he is being—most inventively, by including a virtual patch of vines on the digital instrument panel, which grows leaves when the car is driven efficiently and sheds them when you're pissing off the planet. Sounds stupid, but I found it surprisingly effective—and guilt inducing. ("NOOOOOO! THE LEAVES ARE DYING!")
Apart from the powertrain, the Milan is pretty much standard Ford material—which is to say, a lot better than it was five or more years ago. (Maybe it's time to reanimate that old "Have you driven a Ford lately?" tagline.) The gray leather seats in my tester were comfy on long hauls, but not particularly well-bolstered; of course, the hybrid Milan really isn't aimed at those who're big into hauling ass and taking license plate numbers, so this comes as little surprise. But the leather was soft, the plastic on the dashboard pleasant to the touch, and the interior proved quite appealing to at least four senses. (I did not lick it.)
This Milan was also equipped with Ford's Sync system, designed by Microsoft to make ease integrating your cell phone/iPod/microwave oven with the car's computer. It let me play music from my iPhone through Bluetooth, but wouldn't read my incoming text messages to me because my phone was "incompatible." Plus, Sync repeatedly "lost" my phone's signal, forcing me to dive into the car's submenus to manually reconnect. (I imagine the car did this passive-aggressively as part of a "I'm a Mac / And I'm a PC" interaction.)
But the rest of the car's tech proved well above and beyond what I expect from family sedans. The rearview camera and parking sensors were, as always, handy, and the navigation system never steered me wrong. (It does leave "bread crumbs" on the screen to track where you've been; after several days driving around New York City, however, it was starting to look like Little Billy's dotted line from The Family Circus.) The Sony-designed 12 speaker, 390-watt stereo knocked my ears out of the park; I never had to turn it up past 30 percent power. And having two 12-volt cigarette lighter-style and one household-style 110-volt three-prong outlets was quite nice. Finally, I could use my MacBook, my iPhone and my iPad all at once without fear of low batteries—while driving!
[Editor's note: he did not actually do this. But if Apple wants to give us some freebies so our passengers can try it, we won't say no.]
The Milan will all but certainly be the last new car made by this septuagenarian brand, unless Ford decides to reward the brand's tiny audience of fans and unveils a Mercury version of the Mustang. (The Pegasus?) But this hybrid's virtues have earned it a place in the brand's history—not just because it was the last in a long line of Mercurys, but because it was the last Mercury anyone could drive and feel proud that they were doing so. Death will guarantee the Milan Hybrid shall remain a rarity on our roads; the company sold only 1, 486 in 2009, and pre-extinction-purchase-fever aside, I doubt the company will sell more than that this year. (In contrast, the Fusion Hybrid sold 15,554 units last year.) But those 3,000 owners can take pride in knowing they're driving a unique version of the best family sedan Detroit has made in a very long time—and that's starting to mean something again.
So with that, we say goodbye to the brand with a phrase most apt for a car company named after the messenger of the gods:
Godspeed, Mercury.
Fuel Economy: 41 city/36 highway (EPA estimate)
Key Competitors: Toyota Camry Hybrid, Nissan Altima Hybrid, Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid
Tagged as ford, hybrid, mercury, milan, review
We apologize for the lengthy delay between posts (things have been hectic at CCO these days, including a change of location and the accompanying 10 day lack of Internet); we'll have a full review of the Mercury Milan Hybrid posted soon, though. (Yes, folks, Mercury still makes cars. And this one is pretty good.)
To whet your thirst in the meantime, though, here's another FoMoCo novelty for you. We spotted this Ford Fiesta in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the epicenter of douchy coolness in America. While you've probably already started seeing ads for the Fiesta, this example is part of the "Fiesta Movement" – the group of young hip people chosen to be brand ambassadors for the car before its full launch. These Movement Fiestas are more rare than Ferrari Enzos, so we're pretty excited to have seen one today. (Also, we're kinda surprised Ford hasn't taken them back by now.)
Tagged as brooklyn, fiesta, ford
New York Auto Show – Ford
Ford's press con was devoted to touting their eco-friendly lineup and future. Among the cars they showed off was an electric Focus "produced for the Jay Leno Show" (I came very close to heckling, "I'm with Coco!").
But the "big" news was devoted to the company's hybrids. They boasted of their four current hybrids – however, given that two of those are Mercury twins identical to their Ford counterparts, this is like having Red Delicious and Macintosh apples and claiming you have two kinds of fruit.
So to no one's surprise, Ford brought out a Granny Smith – a hybrid version of the Lincoln MKZ. Pretty much the same as its Ford Focus and Mercury Milan triplets, the MKZ differs in that not only does its digital gauge grow leaves…it also grows apple blossoms.
Seriously. That was it.
Tagged as auto show, ford, hybrid, lincoln, mercury, mkz, new york
2010 Detroit Auto Show Recap
Well, it's mid-January again, and all you car nuts out there know exactly what that means – it's Detroit Auto Show time! Because as the Detroit Tourism Board will tell you, there's no better time to venture to America's home-grown Thunderdome than when it's cold enough to freeze mercury.
Still, so long as the heat in the Cobo Center works, journalists from across the globe will cram their North Face parkas and .357 Magnum Colt Pythons into overnight bags and journey to Motor City for one of the largest auto shows in the world. This year was a bittersweet one for the three home-team automakers: bitter for GM, who saw four divisions exorcised from its corporate ranks after tossing all its self-respect into Lake Michigan by declaring bankruptcy and taking federal bailout money; but sweet for Ford, who managed to avoid Chapter 11 and saw its first profitable quarter in nearly two years.
And Chrysler? Well, they're owned by Fiat now. Actually, do they even count as one of the Big Three anymore?
Regardless of whether Chrysler considers their home in The Boot of Italy or The Mitten of Michigan, in the minds of most people, they still count as a good ol' American boys. Unfortunately, Chrysler/Fiat considered new model revelations and press conferences excessive expenditures this year, and simply left their models out on the floor for perusal. (At least they showed up, unlike Porsche and Nissan. Uncool, guys.) Luckily, though, plenty of other new models and concepts came into the light at the show. Here are the best.
Audi e-tron concept
Astute readers of this blog may be thinking, "Didn't I already see the e-tron?" And the short answer is, yes, you did. But not this one. Audi has, somewhat inexplicably, decided to use the exact same name for this smaller electric sports car concept as they used for their larger, R8-based version. The difference, you see, is that the R8-based original is just called "e-tron," while this new concept is…the "e-tron." Come on, Audi! You're German – Germans make up new words all the time by smashing them together. Couldn't you call it the "Smallersilverelectricsportscar?"
Regardless of what you call it, the baby e-tron will reportedly run from 0-60 in 5.9 seconds with a top speed of 124 mph, thanks to a pair of electric motors with a combined output of 204 horsepower. Of course, since the baby e-tron is just a concept, this could be entirely hypothetical; the show car may well be powered by a hamster on a wheel for all we know.
More importantly for car fans, the e-tron 2-seater's design may be a preview of Audi's rumored upcoming R4 sports car. There's no way to know for sure, but Audi could do a lot worse than pattern the R4 on this aggressive-looking concept. Slap the S4's 333-hp supercharged V6 in there and stack it up against the Porsche Cayman (Whoops! VW owns Porsche now) – er, BMW Z4, and they could have a winner on their hands.
2011 BMW 740i/740Li
This isn't the first time BMW has sold a 740i in the States – two generations of 7-series ago, it was the mainstay of the lineup – but it is the first time since 1992 that Americans can order a six-cylinder engine in the car. The last version, the 735i, made do with a mere 208 horsepower; the new 740i packs BMW's sublime turbocharged 3.0 liter inline six making 315 horsepower.
The 740i looks pretty much like any other 7, so feast your eyes on the 500-hp BMW Alpina B7.
Presumably, Bimmer is bringing the six-cylinder 7 our way in order to improve its fuel-economy standings; odds are, if you can afford the $71,025 base price, you're probably not too concerned with saving cash at the pumps, and if you really wanted to be green, you'd buy a loaded Prius and pocket the extra $40,000. Still, for the handful of high-powered executives who don't care about power (Do I see one standing in the back? No? Okay.), the 740 offers pretty much all the luxury features of its pricier brethren for a nice discount.
Buick Regal GS Concept
From the land of seemingly oxymoronical concepts comes this high-performance Buick. Okay, "high-performance" is a bit of an exaggeration – the all-wheel-drive GS runs with a turbocharged 2.0 liter four-cylinder making 260 horsepower, a mere 40 more than the current top-of-the-line Regal. But the GS has a six-speed stick shift! I don't think there's been a manual Buick since Clint Eastwood was a sex symbol.
Buick promises the GS achieves 60 in less than 6 seconds, which probably means 5.9. What they haven't promised is a production version; however, it seems pretty likely, as it would give Buick a strong card to play against Acura and Lexus. Buick has made impressive strides in the last few years in making their cars more attractive and elevating their quality towards the levels of other luxury makes; adding high(er) performance models would be a logical next step. It's probably safe to expect the GS in the showrooms by spring 2011.
2011 Cadillac CTS-V Coupe
It wasn't long ago that the idea of a high-performance Caddy would have seemed just as paradoxical as a fun-to-drive Buick; however, since the first-generation CTS and the introduction of the V-Series line of kickass Caddies, the idea has latched onto the car enthusiast population like an alien face-hugger.
U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
And the new CTS-V Coupe is probably the sweetest Cadillac yet.
Everything you love about the regular CTS-V, just in a sleeker two-door package. Same 556 horsepower supercharged V8, same choice of six-speed stick or auto – just two fewer doors. Sure, there's less room in the back, but come on – how often do you use those rear doors anyway? Besides, chicks dig coupes. Just ask Batman.
Pricing will probably be a few grand more than the CTS-V sedan, so figure a base one will set you back around $67,000 when they land in showrooms this summer – a few grand more than its main competitor, the BMW M3. But the Caddy has 142 more horses. And, like George Thorogood, it's American Made. So give it a little love.
Cadillac XTS Platinum Concept
The last ten years or so have been lean times for folks interested in full-sized American luxury cars. Mafia dons, Fortune 500 executives, and your Grandpa Larry have watched with sadness as their beloved Town Cars, Park Avenues and DeVilles drifted off into the ether, leaving them with a difficult choice – buy European (I ain't buying no Nazi car!), downsize (I don't feel safe in this thing!) or move into a luxury mega-SUV (I can't see my grandson behind me in the driveway!).
Luckily, it looks like CEOs and coots alike will be able to breathe a sigh of relief soon. While technically a concept, the XTS is likely a very strong indicator of Cadillac's upcoming full-sized sedan, slated to replace the STS and the DTS – both of which, remarkably, are still available at your local Caddy dealership.
In concept form, the XTS is powered by Cadillac's 3.6 liter V6 direct injection V6 coupled to a plug-in hybrid system; combined, the car puts out 350 horsepower and 295 lb-ft of torque through a six-speed auto. It's unclear from the press release how the electric and gasoline powertrains interact exactly, but we'd bet both can be used to drive the wheels – unlike the Chevy Volt, where the gas engine is used simply as a generator for the batteries and electric motor.
Hopefully, any production version of the XTS won't differ significantly from the show car's sleek lines, which (in our eyes) meld the CTS with the Mercedes-Benz S-class. Plan on a choice of V6 and V8 powerplants upon launch, with a hybrid option soon afterwards. As for when it lands in dealerships – summer or fall 2011 seems like a safe bet.
And on a side note, GM's vice-chairman and Main Car Bro Bob Lutz announced Cadillac will indeed be producing its own version of the Chevrolet Volt, based on the Converj. It won't be hitting the streets until sometime after 2012 (assuming we're still alive by then! DUM DE DUM!), and will probably be pretty faithful to the concept – two doors and edgy styling over the Volt's four doors and slightly bland looks. And it'll probably cost more than $50,000. But I'd still buy one.
Mmm...eco-friendly.
Chevrolet Aveo RS Concept
Like the looks of this Aveo RS? Then you'll probably like the regular Aveo when it hits the ground next year. Just strip off the spoilers, the ground effects, and throw on some more conventional headlamps. With its sights locked squarely on the Honda Fit, the Aveo will take the bottom rung in Chevy's lineup.
The concept has a turbocharged 1.4 liter inline four-cylinder engine under the hood pumping out 138 horsepower, and routing it to the front wheels through a six-speed manual. If they're smart, Chevy will actually produce a high-performance version of the Aveo; we've been wishing Honda would do a Fit Si for years, and if the Chevy is anywhere near as fun to drive as the Fit, they could sell a boatload. Hell, we'd probably buy one.
Not to be outdone in the small-car department by their arch-foes at GM, Ford unveiled the next-generation Focus in Detroit – and as Peter Griffin would say, it seems freakin' sweet. For the first time, the Focus sold here in the States will be nearly identical to the version sold in Europe, which should mean European-style (i.e. better) handling and materials when it lands here early next year.
Equipped with a 2.0 liter inline four-cylinder making 155 horsepower and 145 lb-ft of torque, the Focus comes with your choice of six-speed transmissions – manual or "dry-clutch automatic," which is just a fancy term for the sort of dual-clutch gearbox found in everything from the Ferrari 458 Italia to the Volkswagen Golf. Ford also announced a electric-powered version, which should be coming our way in later 2011.
Coming in both five-door hatchback and four-door sedan forms, the new Focus boasts a bevy of cool features most people probably wouldn't expect on a compact car, from an assisted parallel-parking system (complete with rearview camera) and an eight-inch dash-mounted touch screen. Pricing hasn't been announced, but expect it to be pretty much in line with its competitors – the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, Nissan Sentra, and upcoming Chevy Cruze.
Hot on the heels of upgrading the V6-powered Mustang to 315 horsepower, Ford is throwing a new 5.0 liter V8 under the hood of the 'Stang GT, bumping power up to 412 horses. While still down a few ponies to the Camaro SS and Challenger SRT8, the revised 'Stang should be lighter than its fellow muscle cars, giving it an edge in the curves (and probably on the straights too).
Pricing is still unknown, but since the installation of the new V6 didn't jack up the base Mustang's price very much, expect to pay around the same amount for the 5.0 as the old 4.6 liter V8. (Anal-retentives, please not the emphasis placed on the word around. There, did it once more just to ensure you understood.)
GMC Granite Concept
As the first American entrant into the "funky box"category of small cars pioneered here by the Scion xB, the Granite raises the style bar a few notches higher. Up 'til now, the small boxes like the xB, Kia Soul and Nissan Cube had convenience in spades, but good looks weren't part of the deal.
But the Granite manages to make boxy look badass. Running the same engine as the Aveo RS Concept in a more utilitarian package, performance isn't really the name of the game here – 138 horses is adequate, nothing more, nothing less.
However, GMC insisted on extolling the Granite as a "flexible, functional social space…equally at home at the cabin or the club." News flash, PR flaks – any place with more than one person is a social space.
2011 Honda CR-Z
Though we've already seen it in leaked brochure photos, it was nice to finally see Honda's new sporty hybrid coupe in the metal for the first time at the show. Looking pretty much like what you'd expect the Insight to be had it remained a coupe, the tiny Honda promises to be a pretty fun drive.
While we're not entirely sure this image isn't a computer graphic, rest assured, the real CR-Z is probably solid.
With a 1.5 liter inline four under the hood connected to Honda's "Integrated Motor Assist" hybrid bits, the CR-Z (the "Crazy?") puts down 122 horsepower and either 128 or 123 lb-ft of torque, depending on whether you choose the six-speed manual or the CVT. (The manual has the higher torque figure, because manuals are awesome that way.) Fuel economy is estimated at 31 mpg city/37 mpg highway for the stick, and 36/38 mpg for the CVT – so if you do a lot of city driving, it might be worth it to go auto. Maybe.
The CRaZy will go on sale here in the latter part of 2010, in two forms – base and EX. The base model will hardly be a stripper, as it will reportedly feature a six-speaker CD/USB stereo, automatic climate control, stability control, power everything, keyless entry and cruise control. Should you feel compelled to move to the EX, you'll add a 360-watt seven-speaker stereo, xenon headlights, and Bluetooth, among other features. The base sounds pretty good to us, honestly. No details on price yet, but our fingers are crossed for the base model to land under $20,000.
2012 (?) Mercedes-Benz CLS
Sadly, the next-generation of Mercedes's four-door "coupe" wasn't really at the show. However, M-B did have a model showing off the basic shape of the new CLS. From the looks of it, it seems Mercedes was trying to replicate the shape of the car under a sheet; however, the guys at egmCarTech thought it looked more like Robert Patrick's liquid-metal T-1000 oozing into the shape of a car, and quite frankly, we have to agree. But if the car is as pretty as the display implies, it won't need to shape-shift to snare people's attention.
Image courtesy Omar Rana - egmCarTech
Mini Beachcomber Concept
Do you miss the Mini Moke? (Hell, do you even know what the Mini Moke is?) Well, for those of you with a fondness for the old pseudo-off-roader still found carving up beaches on St. Barts, Mini has just the car for you.
Well, you can't actually buy the Beachcomber. It's more of a concept version of Mini's upcoming small SUV, which will probably be called the "Countryman." (We're still pulling for the "Countrymouse," but only if they rename the Cooper the "Citymouse.") When the actual Mini-SUV hits the dirt roads, don't expect to see the Beachcomber's removable doors or spare-tire-like "backpack;" do expect the elevated ride-height, knobbier tires and available all-wheel-drive. Hopefully we'll be seeing the production version sometime this year.
Volkswagen New Compact Coupe Hybrid Concept
No, we didn't add the "new" to the name – Volkswagen did. Frankly, we're not sure why, since so far as we remember, there wasn't an Old Compact Coupe Hybrid Concept. But whatever they call it, we're grateful, because the NCCHC promises to be a pretty sweet little ride.
Coming across like a Honda CR-Z Plus, the NCCHC packs a 1.5 liter turbocharged and supercharged inline four connected to enough hybrid pieces to provide a combined 177 horsepower and 45 miles per gallon. I believe the technical term for that is "win/win."
While the car may be called a concept, it looks pretty damn production ready to us. Of course, VW's thrown us curveballs before – remember the Nardo supercar concept? – but there's a world of difference between producing a quarter-million-dollar supercar and an inexpensive hybrid sports car. Hell, just ask Honda – who canned the new NSX most of the way through its production cycle. Luckily, rumor has it the NCCHC will be heading stateside as a coupe version of the new Jetta – hopefully with hybrid powertrain intact.
All in all, it wasn't a huge year for the Detroit show. No show-stopping concepts, no earth-shaking revelations – just a whole bunch of pretty exciting new cars. And to be frank, we're okay with that. Given the last couple years in the automotive world, a little piece and quiet seems rather nice, doesn't it?
Tagged as 2010, 2011, 2012, 740, 740i, 740Li, audi, auto show, aveo, aveo rs, beachcomber, bmw, buick, cadillac, cadillac converj, chevrolet, chevy, cls, compact coupe, concept, concept cars, coupe, cr-z, cts-v, detroit, e-tron, focus, ford, gmc, granite, honda, hybrid, mercedes-benz, mini, mustang, mustang 5.0, mustang gt, new compact coupe hybrid, platinum, regal, regal gs, volkswagen, xts
A Burst Of News – $99 Smart Cars, an Aston Martin Scion, BMW X1 Revealed and Mazda's Micro Miata
This week's burst of news, for the most part, concerns a segment of the automotive industry we'll be seeing quite a bit more of in the near future – small cars. Now that the Obama administration has signed stricter fuel economy standards into effect, automakers will be forced to find ways to bump up the average mileage of their lineup – and the easiest way to do that is to add on dainty, fuel-sipping models at the lower end of the range.
Perhaps the oddest example of this is the Aston Martin Cygnet concept, an Aston-designed version of the Toyota iQ microcar. We know how ridiculous it sounds, so before we go any further, take a look at the picture so you know we're not just yanking your chain.
If whipping you in the balls doesn't work, Le Chiffre shows you this picture.
Aston CEO Dr. Ulrich Bez says this joint project will provide "customers a distinctive, intelligent and exclusive solution for urban travel in style and luxury," and believes it could go into production "in the not too distant future." (Daniel Craig is praying that means "once someone else is playing James Bond.")
The iQ, for the record, is powered by a 1.3 liter four-cylinder making 93 horsepower, and should be coming (in Scion form) to the States in 2011. No word on what engine might motivate the Cygnet, but we doubt they can fit the DBS's V12 under that hood.
But Aston Martin isn't the only one considering smaller vehicles. According to AutoExpress, Mazda, who have managed to carve out a nice niche for themselves in the U.S. as Honda's fun roommate, will be bringing out a smaller version of the MX-5 Miata convertible sometime around 2012.
Photo courtesy AutoExpress. Thanks, guys!
Little is known about the Mini-Miata so far, but it will probably be called the MX-2. According to company insiders, the MX-2 will have styling similar to the current Miata, and feature normally aspirated and turbocharged 1.6 liter four-cylinder engines. No word on whether this means the MX-5 will jump up in size, but it seems likely.
In other downsizing news, after weeks of blurry images and extreme, detail-free closeups posted on the BMW X1's Facebook account, official images of the finished product have snuck onto the web. So far, reaction on the web to the styling has been mixed, but we think it actually looks pretty good.
The only engine available at launch here in the States will be the 3.0 liter inline six, making 231 horses and 199 lb-ft of torque; however, a 300-horsepower turbocharged model will probably be along not long after, given that every other BMW model with the base six also offers the turbo version. A larger replacement for the aging X3 (which is around the same size as the X1) based off this architecture is probably likely in the next two years.
Our last piece of small car news comes from Smart, who announced that qualified buyers with a "Cash For Clunkers" trade-in will be able to lease a ForTwo for a mere $99 a month – meaning you can drive a new car for less than your monthly iPhone bill. ("Cash for Clunkers" is a new federal rebate program offering between $3,500 and $4,500 to buyers who trade in an old, gas-sucking vehicle for a new, fuel-efficient ride.)
"You shut up!" "No, you shut up!"
The good news is, this offer is a pretty good deal if you want to get out of your old, junky ride and into something not likely to shed parts every mile or two; there's no money down, and while that $99/month price applies only for the cheapest Smart, even if you upgrade to a higher trim level, you'll still probably get a good deal.
The bad news is…you're still getting a Smart. Which means only two seats, a herky-jerky transmission, a 0-60 time of around 14 seconds, and only 41 mpg on the highway (and that's if you never use most of the car's meager 70 horsepower) for your $13,355. In comparison, a Honda Fit gives you seating for four (five if you have one friend who's an elf), 117 horsepower, 33 mpg highway and several times as much driving fun for $15,460.
But if all this talk of tiny, fuel-efficient cars is making your enthusiast mojo shrivel up, fear not – the sleek, powerful machines that make us Andy Samberg in our pants aren't going anywhere anytime soon. So, for your trouser-staining pleasure, Shelby is unveiling two Super Snake packages for the Ford Shelby GT500.
Car porn: still legal in 49 states. (Thanks for nothing, Oregon.)
$29,495 will buy you an upgrade to 630 horsepower, while true Tim Allens and Jay Lenos of the world can get the whole-hog 725 horses for $33,495. (Not including the $46,325 for a new GT500, of course.) Improved handling and stopping hardware gets thrown in for good measure, too.
And finally, we reported a couple weeks ago on an M Performance version of BMW's 7-series sedan. Turns out BMW is denying any such car, claiming the photographed tester was just an example of the new Sport Package for the 7-series. But we still wouldn't be surprised to see an M7 sometime soon – after all, if they're making an X5 M, they clearly aren't too picky about M-ing out their vehicles anymore.
Tagged as $99, aston martin, bmw, cash for clunkers, cygnet, ford, gt500, iphone, iq, james bond, m7, mazda, miata, mini miata, mx-2, mx-5, obama, shelby, smart, super snake, toyota, x1, x3, x5 m
Review – 2009 Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart
The Good: Dual-clutch transmission more appliance than gimmick, good mid-range power, the badass looks of an Evolution for a discount.
The Bad: Economy car interior, a backseat only children could love, and it's not that much of a discount.
The Verdict: The Coke Zero Evo.
The trouble with jacks-of-all-trades is, as the aphorism points out, they don't usually master any of them. This is just as true in the automotive world as anywhere else. For example, minivans promise the space of a van and the driving experience of a car, but end up giving you a top-heavy ride and room for only seven people. Same with sports sedans – they promise the comfort and convenience of a sedan with the performance of a sports car, but often end up compromising on one of those goals in favor of the other.
The Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart is a compound compromise. Not only is it a sports sedan, it's the reduced-calorie version of Mitsubishi's gonzo Lancer Evolution. The Evo gets a twin-turbo 291-horsepower 2.0-liter inline-four; the Ralliart makes do with a single-turbo version making 237 horses. The Evo also receives some heftier go-fast parts – bigger brakes, tighter suspension, and so forth. In exchange for all this, the Ralliart shaves a few grand off the sticker price.
However, Mitsu deserves a lot of credit for not shaving off two handy performance bits during the cost-cutting: the Evo's all-wheel-drive system and its dual-clutch automated manual transmission, known at Mitsubishi by the Air Force-grade acronym TC-SST. While the former feature is rather common these days (see our featurette on all-wheel-drive), the dual-clutch transmission has mostly remained the provenance of high-priced sports cars; the Ralliart is the cheapest car in America to offer it as standard equipment. (Seriously, who ever thought of Mitsubishi as leading the charge to bring racing technology to the people?)
It doesn't take much time behind the wheel to see why Mitsu felt confident plopping this tranny into every Ralliart. (Sorry, RuPaul, not you.) While the transmission's automatic mode isn't as consistently smooth as a traditional torque-converter automatic transmission, I never had any problems with it, even in New York City stop-and-go traffic. It's good enough you could leave it in auto all the time without complaint…
…but you'd be doing yourself a disservice. No, this transmission shines brightest when you slide the gearshift over into the manual notch and let your fingers do the driving. Steering-column-mounted paddles behind the wheel let you flick through the gears without taking your hands off the leather-wrapped rim; slap the right paddle to upshift, pull the left to downshift. Suddenly, merging onto the freeway feels like coming out of the pit lane at Indy – floor the gas and flick your right fingers three times, and you're ten over the limit by the time you hit your blinker.
And if you forget to uphift, don't worry; the transmission is smart enough to know you'd rather bounce off the limiter and upshifts all by itself rather than introduce your forehead to the steering wheel. Should you prefer the forearm-strengthening motion of a regular manual transmission, you can also shift with the lever. Whether you use the paddles or the gearshift, it's a logical, intuitive system. Porsche could learn a thing or two from Mitsubishi here.
Wait, did I just say Porsche could learn something…from Mitsubishi?
BOOM! (That's the sound of my brain exploding.)
Swiffering.
As a whole, the Ralliart performs impressively. Performance isn't quite at the balls-to-the-wall level of the Evo, but the lesser Lancer grips turns like a 15-year-old grabbing second base for the first time and hurls itself down the road fast enough to put a devilish smile on your face. The sole turbo pumps the engine without significant turbo lag; unlike some cars, you won't be constantly reminded of the engine's forced induction by a sudden burst of whoa! halfway through the rev range. That said, strong midrange power is the engine's best characteristic – you'll never need to worry about whether you've got enough oomph for a (reasonably sane) passing maneuver.
Unfortunately, you can't spend all your life driving switchbacks and idyllic back roads – and if you could, you'd buy a Lotus, not a sedan. And it's when you start considering day-to-day life in the Ralliart that the luster starts to fade.
Stock photo - my tester wasn't equipped with a navigation system.
For example, those optional Recaro front bucket seats that hold you so well in the turns start to get a little uncomfortable after a few hours in the saddle. It's far from a dealbreaker – the seats are still awesome, and given that they come packaged with the 650-watt Rockford Fosgate stereo and xenon headlights, I wouldn't buy this car without them. But my gangly-assed legs were too long to fit comfortably under the steering wheel, so I had to kink my throttle leg out to the side – causing the bolster to render much of my quadriceps numb. Those seats are nice, but they're not worth getting deep-vein thrombosis over.
But bolsters aside, the Recaros are the best thing about the interior. Sadly, that's not so much praise for the front seats as it is unhappiness with the rest of the inside of the car. The back seats seem better suited for the 12-and-under set; for the rest of us, its tight quarters will likely turn games of shotgun into scrums as people claw for the only decent passenger seat.
Interior quality needs some improving as well. The Ralliart's hard plastics and fake-fur headliner would seem cheap in the $15,000 base Lancer; at twice that price, it just seems inexcusable. I'm glad Mitsubishi decided to spend the money on the performance bits, but it's hard to justify a 30 grand car with this kind of interior.
The other major annoyance inside the Ralliart was the red, Atari-grade digital information cluster between the speedometer and the tach. It was perfectly legible, day or night – but the blocky low-fi graphics are so dated and cheesy, I half expected to find Pong in the trip computer functions.
It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that ALL secondary information (beyond speed and rpm) is displayed on this – including the gas gauge. Due to its pixellated nature, I was never sure how much gas I had left; the "miles to empty" feature on the trip computer would tell me I had used up three-quarters of the distance I'd started with, but the gauge seemed to be informing me I still had half a tank. Note to Mitsubishi: the gas gauge is probably not a good place to experiment with new ideas.
Luckily, the outside of the car does a lot to restore the badass image Mitsubishi wants this car to have. Thankfully, they didn't water down the Evo effect for the Ralliart; the two cars look similar enough to be easily confused (indeed, I overheard a few passersby who mistook it for the tougher model). The enormous grill is done right – it looks menacing and hungry, as opposed to some Audi models that sport the slack-jawed look of Luke Skywalker after Darth Vader dropped a certain paternity bombshell.
But the Ralliart's similarity to the Evo just draws out the identity crisis this little Mitsubishi faces. It's trying to be a cut-rate performance car, and to a large extent, it succeeds – it has all the performance anybody would ever need. Problem is, the people who buy cars like this want all the performance they can get; if they didn't, they'd spend the money on a nice Camry instead. The people who would buy this car are probably gonna be people who aspire to an Evolution – but an Evo starts at $33,685, and my Ralliart cost $30,065. (All prices here and below include destination charges.) It's hard to imagine people not trying to stretch into the Evo.
But intra-brand competition aside, it's still hard to know where the Ralliart is trying to belong. At that price, it's facing some pretty stiff competition on both the "sport" and the "sedan" ends of the spectrum. If someone were looking for a kickass performance car, a Ford Mustang GT with Track Pack runs $30,340, while a base Nissan 370Z goes for for $30,650. Sure, each gives up some back seat room, but they'll both rip off 0-60 times at least half a second quicker than the Ralliart, and look much better doing it.
On the other hand, if someone's looking for a sedan that happens to be fun to drive, an Acura TSX retails for $30,120. It's not as fast as the Ralliart, but it's tossable, fun-to-drive and comes with an interior that looks like it belongs in a car costing $50,000.
But of course, the Ralliart's real foe lies in the Subaru dealerships. The Ralliart exists almost entirely due to the Subaru WRX; to put it in SAT terms, Ralliart:Evolution::WRX:STI. The STI and the Evo have been butting bumpers for half a decade, but until now, Mitsubishi hasn't stacked up a challenger to the lesser WRX.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this first shot at the Rex will be the one to claim the prize. The WRX packs 265 horsepower, roughly 10 percent more than the Ralliart; Car and Driver ran one from 0 to 60 in a slightly ridiculous 4.7 seconds. In addition, assuming the WRX's interior is like the Impreza I just drove (stay tuned for that review next week), it's a far nicer place to spend time than the Ralliart. And the Subaru is cheaper to boot: the Premium model equivalant to my Ralliart goes out the door for $28,190, but a stripper model with all the go-fast bits can be bought for $25,690 – $1,475 less than the Ralliart. (Subaru also offers a choice between sedan and hatchback/miniwagon body styles).
So in the end, the Ralliart, in spite of its twin clutches and ripped shitless exterior, is all about compromise – between utility and performance, between econocar Lancer and bat-outta-hell Evolution. But in trying to compromise, it ends up looking like a perennial runner-up no matter what angle you're looking at it from. To make this car a winner, Mitsubishi either needs to compromise a little less on the quality – or compromise a little more on price.
Base Price/Price as Tested (inc. destination): $27,165/$30,065
EPA Fuel Economy: 17/25 miles per gallon
Tagged as 370z, acura, all wheel drive, dual clutch, evolution, ford, impreza, lancer, mitsubishi, mustang, nissan, porsche, ralliart, recaro, rockford fosgate, sti, subaru, tc-sst, tsx, wrx


A tremendous amount of our news, entertainment, and social interactions come to us through video. Videos are an amazing way to learn, connect, and get inspired. It's no surprise that more and more churches are shifting their communication to a video format.
Through the years I've had the privilege of leading dozens of worship events. I've made plenty of mistakes along the way.
Looking for some worship songs to lead this Easter Sunday? Here are a few ideas to get you started.


Discussion in 'Micro 4/3 News and Rumors' started by Phillip Swanson, Jun 28, 2012.
Beautiful looking lens, but the lens hood picture above isn't included in the camera's $900 price tag.
The first review of the new Olympus 75mm f/1.8 lens is in, and it appears Olympus has a winner on its hands, with the only hangup being the $900 asking price.
All of that optic goodness comes at a $900 premium, but the lens's aperture makes it stands alone at the 75mm focal length. There really are no other native m43 alternatives, with adapted lenses offering the only competition.
Andrew Alexander of SLRgear really had nothing bad to say about the lens, and his technical analysis didn't uncover any areas of poor performance. Auto-focus was fast and silent, going from close-focus to infinity in under a second. Although, this isn't a macro lens, with the minimum focus distance being 29.5cm, and offering only 0.1x magnification.
The only downside appears to be Olympus's decision to not include the LH-61F lens hood with the lens. Customers are already dropping $900, throwing in a lens hood shouldn't even be a question.
I am sure if Olympus sells it for $1000, they would throw in the lens hood for free. Apparently, Olympus feels the purchase price to be important and most would not want to pay for the hood.
Does SLRgear not post a chart for the resolution? Or am I supposed to be looking at the Blur Index?
Blur index. But they also post a chart if you scroll down.
Yes, blur index. Now if you can translate that to MTFs or anything else meaningful, you're a better man than I.
They did photograph and post a test target with the review.
Having looked at a lot of their blur index charts, I can tell you that this one translates into "incredibly sharp". Or you can take their word for it: "The Olympus 75mm ƒ/1.8 is one of the sharpest lenses we've ever tested." Or you can view their Still Life shot and VFA target (scroll down). I canceled my pre-order because I can't afford it, but this lens is on my "buy when I can" list, and this review isn't helping my patience any.
I clearly am not! I have no idea what it means.
The reason I ask is because I like to see what aperture is peak, etc...essentially how lenstip does it. I guess I'll just wait for their review.
I canceled my pre-order because I can't afford it, but this lens is on my "buy when I can" list, and this review isn't helping my patience any.
But isn't that why you have TWO kidneys? Natural selection and economics at work!
I see a purple blob...please enlighten me (not being sarcastic...I actually want to know). Am I looking for uniformity in colour?
Follow the colour legend on the right. The closer to magenta, the sharper the lens. Uniformity of colour indicates nearly equal sharpness across the full frame. Generally the corners will sweep up as resolution degrades toward the extremes of the frame, but the 75mm appears to have just about the flattest graphs I've seen (that's a good thing!).
Edit: if you click on the scale it will give you a new, interactive one, and you can adjust the F stop and see how focus changes. For a zoom lens you can also manipulate the focal disance.
Olympus scores an all-time "low" from me by not including a hood with it's premium lens line-up.
It will be a great lens for indoor sports.
With optical quality that high, it bespeaks potential as a special-purpose landscape lens, esp. for time spent in alpine, high altitude conditions, like the eastern Sierra and especially the White Mountains with their Bristlecones.
For people not sure about this, I recommend going to flickr and browsing the Canon 135mm, or Sony (Zeiss) 135mm picture galleries.
Which is fine, but still not very practical for comparing results, save quire coarsely.
The 'incredibly sharp' part is true enough, and easily seen in all the other reviews (e.g. Pekka Potka's).
But going by the blur charts, it also beats the Olympus 150/2 by a decent margin at all apertures. Which is more than a little surprising.
I knew it would be of a "higher quality" but wow. It will not be a everyday lens, but when used it will knock my socks off.
I think I'll put in the same category as my CV notkon 25mm in regards to buyers remorse: always thinking "why did I buy this" and when in use "oh- that's right, I love it."


text:
/* This Source Code Form is subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public
 * License, v. 2.0. If a copy of the MPL was not distributed with this
 * file, You can obtain one at http://mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/. */

#include "nsIURI.h"
#include "nsString.h"
#include "nsReadableUtils.h"
#include "nsIAboutModule.h"

inline nsresult
NS_GetAboutModuleName(nsIURI *aAboutURI, nsCString& aModule)
{
#ifdef DEBUG
    {
        bool isAbout;
        NS_ASSERTION(NS_SUCCEEDED(aAboutURI->SchemeIs("about", &isAbout)) &&
                     isAbout,
                     "should be used only on about: URIs");
    }
#endif

    nsresult rv = aAboutURI->GetPath(aModule);
    NS_ENSURE_SUCCESS(rv, rv);

    int32_t f = aModule.FindCharInSet(NS_LITERAL_CSTRING("#?"));
    if (f != kNotFound) {
        aModule.Truncate(f);
    }

    // convert to lowercase, as all about: modules are lowercase
    ToLowerCase(aModule);
    return NS_OK;
}

inline nsresult
NS_GetAboutModule(nsIURI *aAboutURI, nsIAboutModule** aModule)
{
  NS_PRECONDITION(aAboutURI, "Must have URI");

  nsAutoCString contractID;
  nsresult rv = NS_GetAboutModuleName(aAboutURI, contractID);
  if (NS_FAILED(rv)) return rv;

  // look up a handler to deal with "what"
  contractID.Insert(NS_LITERAL_CSTRING(NS_ABOUT_MODULE_CONTRACTID_PREFIX), 0);

  return CallGetService(contractID.get(), aModule);
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


When you bite into bread, pizza, cooked meat or anything prepared with a wood fire, it is a special treat. There is something different about the appearance, aroma and taste. However, it's much easier to pop something into the microwave or defrost a frozen meal or pizza. Yet, it's not the same thing as freshly cooked food without using gas or electricity. Let's explore some of the many benefits an outdoor wood fired oven has to offer.
You can get a smoked flavor from charcoal or liquid smoke products. However, artificial smoke can be harsh and charcoal is not the same as using mesquite, hickory, apple or cherry wood. If you like smoked tasting foods, wood is the best option.
Many foods need very high heat to cook and this is not possible with typical cooking appliances in the home. Your outdoor wood fired oven will get much hotter than your indoor oven and this is the best way to crisp, brown and cook foods like pizza.
Wood is the most natural way to cook. Gas or propane can create unpleasant odors and there is always the risk of explosion. Electricity uses a lot of energy and this can put a dent in your electric bill. With wood, you have a time tested energy source which is thousands of years old.
Some believe it takes much longer to cook using a wood. The truth is, modern ovens are very efficient and because they can get extremely hot, cooking time is drastically reduced.
In the past, it required a lot of wood to cook an entire meal. However, this is not true today. Due to the highly efficient design, today's outdoor wood fired oven uses far less than standard wood cooking methods and they are very easy to operate.


text:
Barra Vieja är en ort i Mexiko.   Den ligger i kommunen Acapulco de Juárez och delstaten Guerrero, i den södra delen av landet,  km söder om huvudstaden Mexico City. Barra Vieja ligger  meter över havet och antalet invånare är .

Terrängen runt Barra Vieja är platt. Havet är nära Barra Vieja åt sydväst. Den högsta punkten i närheten är  meter över havet,  km norr om Barra Vieja.  Närmaste större samhälle är Amatillo,  km norr om Barra Vieja.

Savannklimat råder i trakten. Årsmedeltemperaturen i trakten är  °C. Den varmaste månaden är april, då medeltemperaturen är  °C, och den kallaste är juli, med  °C. Genomsnittlig årsnederbörd är  millimeter. Den regnigaste månaden är september, med i genomsnitt  mm nederbörd, och den torraste är mars, med  mm nederbörd.

Kommentarer

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Orter i Guerrero

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Troiano Acquaviva d'Aragona (né le  à  Naples, alors capitale du royaume de Naples, et mort le  à Rome) est un cardinal italien.

Il est un neveu du cardinal Francesco Acquaviva d'Aragona (1706) et l'oncle du cardinal Pasquale Acquaviva d'Aragona (1770). Il est de la famille des cardinaux Giovanni Vincenzo Acquaviva d'Aragona (1542), Giulio Acquaviva d'Aragona (1570), Ottavio Acquaviva d'Aragona, seniore (1591) et Ottavio Acquaviva d'Aragona, iuniore (1654).

Biographie

Troiano Acquaviva d'Aragona exerce diverses fonctions au sein de la Curie romaine notamment au Tribunal suprême de la Signature apostolique, comme vice-légat à Bologne, gouverneur d'Ancône et à la chambre apostolique.

Il est nommé évêque titulaire de Filippopoli et est nommé préfet de palais apostolique. En 1730 il est promu archevêque titulaire de Larissa.

Le pape Clément XII le crée cardinal lors du consistoire du . Le cardinal Acquaviva est nommé ambassadeur d'Espagne au Saint-Siège en 1734, protecteur du royaume de Naples en 1738 et archidiacre de Tolède. Il est transféré à l'archidiocèse de Monreale en 1739.

Il participe au  conclave de 1740, lors duquel Benoît XIV est élu pape et c'est lui qui prononce le véto du roi Philippe V d'Espagne contre l'élection du cardinal Pier Marcellino Corradini. Il est protecteur d'Espagne à partir de 1743 et camerlingue du Sacré Collège en 1744.

Voir aussi

Articles connexes
Liste des cardinaux créés par Clément XII

Sources
 Fiche du cardinal Troiano Acquaviva d'Aragona sur le site fiu.edu

Liens externes

Noblesse italienne
Archevêque de Monreale
Personnalité de la curie romaine
Cardinal italien du XVIIIe siècle
Cardinal créé par Clément XII
Camerlingue du Sacré Collège
Naissance à Naples
Naissance dans le royaume de Naples
Naissance en janvier 1695
Décès à Rome
Décès en mars 1747
Décès à 52 ans


text:
As a club dedicated to getting more girls into the game, we're amazed at the interest we have generated and can't quite believe we've grown from 12 girls to 175 since we started in 2017. While we are excited to keep growing as quickly as possible, training up coaches and finding facilities to support all these teams remains a challenge.
At the same time, Starlets is a club built on strong values, so as well as creating opportunities for girls to play football, we want to do all we can to raise money for causes close to our hearts. Over the years we are proud to have raised thousands of pounds for charities including Breast Cancer Care and the Willow Foundation.
Whilst we do collect annual fees from all of our players, these are kept as low as possible to ensure we are accessible to everyone, only covering basic costs.
In order that we can continue to give even more girls the opportunity to experience the many benefits of playing football, we are always working to find other ways to raise much needed funds for our club, whilst also supporting our current chosen charity Young Minds.
Could you donate a prize for our raffle?
As part of these fundraising efforts, we are holding a Grand Prize Draw, where half of the profits will be used to help Starlets with the ongoing costs of growing our club, and the other half will be donated to Young Minds.
We are therefore looking for help in the form of raffle prizes. Any donation would be gratefully received and will benefit this amazing charity whilst also raising much needed funds to support us in creating new teams.
Our aim is to begin selling tickets in April as we build up to celebrating five seasons as a club, with the draw to be made at our presentation day in July, so if you are able to provide a product or service that we could give away we really would appreciate it.
If this sounds like something you could do, we'd love to hear from you.
For more information and details of how to make your donation please email our Chair Paul Manning via paul@starletsfc.com.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Russula acuminata är en svampart som beskrevs av Buyck 1988. Russula acuminata ingår i släktet kremlor och familjen kremlor och riskor.   Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

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Kremlor
acuminata


text:
Trumbull, kommun (town) i Fairfield County, Connecticut, USA med cirka 34 243 invånare (2000). Den har enligt United States Census Bureau en area på 60,9 km².

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text:
Are we sure that ecosystem services alleviate poverty?
1st Dec 2016 by Dan Brockington, ESPA · Guest Authors
Image: Jake Guild / Flickr
Nature provides us with all kinds of invaluable products and services. But a new book questions whether focusing on rural livelihoods is the best way of fighting poverty
It may seem like a stupid question, but why should we be interested in the role of ecosystem services in poverty alleviation? I am playing devil's advocate here. If you have, like me, spent time with farmers in Tanzania, then the central role of ecosystem health in their agricultural work, house-building, cooking, heating, investment plans and risk management is obvious. Of course ecosystems and ecosystem services must be central to any plan to alleviate poverty or promote prosperity.
But bear with me, and view the issue from a different perspective. One of the more challenging ideas I have read recently is the work by Stefan Dercon, Paul Collier and Douglas Gollin on future trajectories in African agriculture. Their argument is relatively simple. Reducing poverty requires economic growth, this requires raising productivity, and this in turn requires that labour moves out of sectors which are inefficient and unproductive (in terms of value added per capita) to more productive sectors. If the currently poor countries are to become wealthy, then they cannot have such high proportions of their population working in small-scale agriculture or generating minor incomes from natural resource use. Long term strategies to generate wealth require economic transformation.
This reasoning leads the authors to question the focus of development assistance on small-scale farmers and rural livelihoods. They recognize that there is good evidence that poverty is alleviated if these sectors of the economy grow. But they object that development funds may not be most efficiently used on that sector. Investment in rice production, for example, might raise productivity in farmers by 50%, but what if investment in microfinance could support small businesses that raised their productivity by 200%? Given the long term goal of restructuring economies and reallocating labour, should not more attention be given to those sectors which need to grow most?
Image: Asian Development Bank / Flickr
Nature vs. nurture
The challenges of this thinking to the ESPA programme should be obvious. A great deal of the focus of the programme is about understanding how ecosystem services underpin and secure the livelihoods of the poor. Or it seeks to develop research and decision-making capacity about the links and disconnects between ecosystem services and poverty. It is concerned with exploring new ways in which ecosystem services can add to income streams and empowerment, and reduce risks and vulnerabilities of the poor to global change. For all that it is concerned with ecosystem degradation as an impediment to transformative social change, and despite some notable exceptions (such as the extraordinary modeling by the DELTAS team) it is less concerned with large-scale long term restructuring and transformation of economies.
Equally it is not difficult to argue that advocates of economic growth, whether in policy or academic circles, seem to forget that ecosystem services fundamentally underpin all economic activity. Productive urbanites eat, breathe and drink. They live in coastal zones where sea levels matter. Indeed, much of their leisure and recreation or sense of place depends upon ecosystem health.
There seems then, to be a disconnect between these policy worlds. The mainstream has perennially overlooked environmental issues despite decades of rhetoric to the contrary. On the other hand, members of the ESPA community who focus strongly on ecosystem conservation may sometimes overlook the bigger long term picture.
This is the context which made some of the debate at the ESPA science conference in Nairobi so important. In the afternoon of 17th November a panel considered some of the more profound challenges facing the programme, addressing questions such as: How is equity understood in ecosystem services work? What is the ethical basis for advocating that ecosystem services serve to reduce poverty? How might fairness and equity between the more powerful and less powerful best be achieved? What normative beliefs divide (or unite) the research community which is exploring them and that structure their hopes that attention to ecosystem services might improve prosperity for all.
In part the response of the panel to the challenge of long term restructuring is simply that the future we want has to be built on equity and justice in the present. Future generations might live in restructured economies, but, while we get there, the benefits from ecosystem services need to be fairly distributed.
The role of gender
In this respect Katrina Brown's work on gender and ecosystem services is vital. Hers' was a straightforward point but all the more important and challenging for it. Where is the work on how the benefits of ecosystem services are gendered? Men and women will value, use and approach ecosystem services indifferent ways. It was surprising how little work had been done in this area despite its self evident importance. Just futures need to be built on fairer gendered distributions of the benefits from ecosystem services.
Similarly, Kate Schreckenberg asked how might equity and justice in protected area management be effectively advanced in order to implement the ambitious 11th Aichi target to increase equitable protected area management. Her work drew on practical explorations of what this agenda might actually entail on the ground. Again the concern here is that for ecosystem services in protected areas to contribute to human prosperity in the future, these require social relations and governance systems which are built on just and equitable arrangements. This calls for locally-appropriate, negotiated guidelines that may vary from context to context.
The two other contributions presented more philosophical and conceptual perspectives related to the challenge. Janet Fisher was concerned with the ethical basis for ensuring that ecosystem services alleviate poverty. Her work, part of an ESPA blue skies project, examines the philosophical debates as to why ecosystem services impacts on poverty should matter and the ways in which these are operationalized by practitioners. Her work matters because it is in the realm of understanding intergenerational justice that ethically sound policies can be found that will be able to allocate development resources most efficiently.
Finally my own contribution, also from an ESPA blue skies project, explored the epistemic communities who are working on ESPA research. In a sense, if there is a disconnect between concerns for pursuing growth and the ESPA community, then we will be better able to understand how this is produced, by understanding the epistemic groupings which underpin the production of research in this area. This project is mapping social networks producing ESPA work, but is also exploring the normative positions to which people adhere through a think piece and a questionnaire. It is through this project that we might better understand how disconnects are created, and how they might be reconciled.
The transformational challenges posed by Dercon and colleagues are significant. So too are the dangers of forgetting how important ecosystem services will continue to be in radically restructured economies. The challenge facing current ESPA researchers now is how they can communicate better their concerns to the development mainstream – an audience who has not always been good at listening to this sort of interest. The challenge for future iterations of ESPA work is how it might mainstream proper recognition of ecosystem services into transformation and restructuring agendas, while ensuring equity, fairness and justice at all levels – including greater equity between the global North and South.
Dan Brockington, Principal Investigator, Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation
This article has been reposted with permission from the ESPA website. The original piece is available here.
Collier, P & Dercon, S. (2014). 'African Agriculture in 50 Years: Smallholders in a Rapidly Changing World?' World Development 63: 92–101.
Dercon, S. & Gollin, D. (2014). 'Agriculture in African Development: Theories and Strategies.' Annual Review of Resource Economics 6: 471–92.
Ravallion, M., & Chen, S. (2007). 'China's (uneven) progress against poverty.' Journal of Development Economics 82(1): 1–42.
Christiaensen, L., Demery, L., & Kuhl, J. (2011). 'The (evolving) role of agriculture in poverty reduction – An empirical perspective.' Journal of Development Economics 96(2): 239–254.
"Manipur (Portfolio)" (CC BY 2.0) by SimpleSkye
"41062-012: Mainstreaming Environment for" (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by Asian Development Bank


text:
Skip to main content Virginia Politics Local news D.C. politics Md. politics
Virginia Politics
For a special visa, young immigrants need a judge to rule they've been abandoned. Some judges refuse to decide.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent leads undocumented immigrants through the brush after capturing them near the U.S.-Mexico border in 2015. (John Moore/Getty Images)
By Antonio Olivo
Antonio Olivo
Reporter covering government, politics and demographics in Northern Virginia
The Virginia Court of Appeals is considering two cases that could determine whether young undocumented immigrants can seek special visas intended for those who can't return to their homelands because their parents have neglected, abused or abandoned them.
Across the nation, immigration lawyers increasingly have turned to the federal Special Immigrant Juvenile visa program to secure permanent legal residency for young people, mostly from Central America, who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, in many cases joining a parent who is already here.
During fiscal 2016, a total of 15,100 of the visas were approved, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, compared to 1,600 in 2010. There is a two-year backlog for applications to be processed.
In order to apply, immigrants need an order from a family judge in the state court system, affirming that they are in need of protection and cannot be safely reunited with a parent in their native country.
But different judges have interpreted the program differently, with some — including those in the cases under appeal from Loudoun and Arlington counties — saying they lack the authority to make rulings in what will ultimately become a federal immigration case.
The result, advocates say, is confusion and inconsistency over what should be a straightforward government program.
"There is a lot of misunderstanding," said Greg Chen, director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "You may have courts in the same state but in different counties that have different policies in how they want to handle these."
Some states have taken steps to clarify how judges should weigh such cases. For example, in Maryland a 2014 law raised the age of who comes under a family court's jurisdiction to 21 from 18, in order to match the maximum age of eligibility for the federal program.
Virginia, where nearly 12,000 unaccompanied minors have arrived since 2014, is among the states that have left local judges to navigate the program themselves. Though there are no state-by-state statistics on Special Immigrant Juvenile petitions, a group of Virginia lawyers known as the Commission on the Needs of Children estimates that 1,382 were filed in the commonwealth last year, a calculation based on the nationwide number of visa applications and the percentage of unaccompanied minors living in Virginia.
In jurisdictions like Fairfax County, with large numbers of unaccompanied minors, family judges see many visa cases and are comfortable issuing rulings, advocates say. But their counterparts in places where such cases are rare tend to hesitate, according to legal experts in Virginia and across the country.
"A state court judge, especially when they are seeing this for the first time, their first response is: 'Well, I'm not an immigration judge. I can't possibly make this decision,' " said Abigail Trillin, executive director of Legal Services for Children in San Francisco. "So we've had to explain: 'Well, you're not being asked to make an immigration decision.' "
The Loudoun case being appealed deals with a 13-year-old boy from Honduras whose mother claimed his father was emotionally abusive and threatened to kidnap his son for ransom money. The Arlington case was filed by the mother of a 16-year-old boy from Guatemala who she claims was conceived during a rape, and whose father she says has been mostly absent.
In each case, the juvenile court judge ruled the court had no authority to make a finding — decisions that were upheld in Circuit Court.
"As soon as the General Assembly gives us the authority and the jurisdiction to hear these matters, I'd be happy to do so," Loudoun Circuit Court Judge Jeanette A. Irby said, according to court records.
In an amicus brief on behalf of the plaintiffs, the office of Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring (D) argued that the local courts do have jurisdiction. Rulings on whether a child should live with one parent or another, the brief says, "are exactly the determinations that courts routinely make in custody matters."
Tanishka Cruz, an attorney with the nonprofit Legal Aid Justice Center who represented the mothers before the appeals court, said that the federal statute governing the visa program clearly requires a ruling from a local judge.
"The order . . . in no way confers immigration status on the child," Cruz said. "But without that order, the door is closed; They can't even knock."
William Hurd — a former Virginia solicitor general who was appointed to argue against overturning the Circuit Court decisions — raised questions about the facts in both cases, including whether the fathers were aware of the proceedings, and said neither case should be the source of a broad-based ruling.
In the Arlington case, Hurd said, the boy's father was never properly notified of the petition. Cruz said an announcement of the hearing published in a local Virginia newspaper met the state's notification requirements.
In the Loudoun case, Hurd said, Irby ruled that there wasn't enough evidence to prove the boy had been mistreated by his father. Hurd also questioned the motivations of the boy's mother, saying she had technically abandoned her child when she left him with her mother and came to the United States in 2006. The mother arranged for the boy to join her in Sterling in 2013.
"Here you have a father who is in Latin America who does not even know there are proceedings against him," Hurd said.
Critics of the visa program have raised similar concerns, alleging that some immigrant parents are making false claims of mistreatment in hopes of keeping their children from being sent back to their homelands, and that in many cases the journey to the U.S. is arranged by both parents. They also question whether a young immigrant who crosses the border illegally to join a parent who is also here illegally can legitimately be considered "unaccompanied."
A bill introduced in Congress this year by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) seeks to address those concerns by proposing that the term "unaccompanied minor" no longer apply to those with a parent or adult relative in the United States who can assume custody. A separate bill by Rep. John Carter (R-Tex.), would restrict eligibility for the visa program to applicants who don't have parents in the United States.
"If you're a parent in Central America and you can pay a smuggler to get your kid to the United States, that sort of fulfills the requirement for abandonment, even though the parents very often finance the trip to the United States," said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for Immigration Reform, which has pushed for such reforms.
Jennifer Podkul, director of policy for the Washington-based Kids in Need of Defense, said the visa program already includes reviews "at every level" to confirm the applicant has no safe option to return to their country.
The appeals court is expected to rule by late June. The 10-judge panel began considering the two cases last week, after an initial hearing before a three-judge panel in January.
At last week's hearing, several judges questioned whether state law requires juvenile courts to make any ruling beyond which parent gets custody, and noted that in the Loudoun case it appeared that there wasn't enough evidence to prove parental mistreatment.
Advocates say their to goal is to make clear that family court judges do have the power — and the obligation — to rule on abandonment petitions.
"It's still case by case," Podkul said. "Local judges have a lot of autonomy in determining whether the specifics of a case merit the findings the child is seeking."
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Antonio Olivo Antonio Olivo covers government, politics and other issues in Northern Virginia. He has also reported from Afghanistan and Mexico after joining The Washington Post in 2013. Follow


Millennials, a term for young adults between 21 and 36, refresh the labor force, start new families and drive economic growth with purchases of homes, cars and other big-ticket items.
Delta Air Lines is debuting a new credit card with American Express targeted at young travelers and casual travelers.
The new credit card launching Thursday, the Blue Delta SkyMiles card, will have no annual fee and double miles for spending at U.S. restaurants and flights booked with Delta.
The Blue card will not offer a free checked bag or priority boarding like other SkyMiles credit cards do, nor will it offer a companion certificate like the Delta Platinum and Reserve AmEx cards do.
The launch of the card is one of a series of recent steps Delta has taken to target millennials, including partnerships with Lyft and Airbnb.
"The two things we know about the millennials are they love to travel, they love to dine," Dube said, pointing to a survey of U.S. consumers aged 18 to 34 conducted by Delta and AmEx showing 37 percent say they spend more on dining than other discretionary expenses.
Some travelers say they don't travel often enough to want to pay an annual fee for an airline credit card, Dube said.
The card will replace the airline's SkyMiles Options credit card, which also had no annual fee but did not come with the same double miles offers. Options cardholders will be migrated over to the Blue card..
Delta's gold, platinum and reserve credit cards charge annual fees but also include benefits such as a free checked bag and priority boarding on Delta flights, perks valuable to frequent travelers.
The Blue card is designed "for travelers who are just beginning to travel" and want to earn miles for everyday spending, said Lisa Kalhans, vice president of co-brand product management at American Express. Those people might be less interested in benefits they could only use when they fly.
For new Delta SkyMiles American Express card members, the card also offers a bonus of 10,000 miles after $500 in card purchases during the first three months.
Airline credit cards like Delta's face competition from travel rewards cards like the Capital One Venture card, which offers miles with flexibility to book any airline.
For airlines, getting a credit card emblazoned with the company's name into the wallets of customers, particularly when they are young, can have a significant effect on customers' attachment to the airline, especially if they pull the card out every time they make a purchase.
"It drives deeper loyalty," Dube said.


text:
Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters is het tweede soloalbum van Paul Rodgers (van onder andere Free en Bad Company).

Ondanks dat het album alleen uit nummers bestaat waarin wordt samengewerkt met andere artiesten is het album alleen onder Rodgers' naam uitgegeven.

Zoals de titel al aangeeft is het album een ode aan Muddy Waters, een Amerikaanse blueszanger.

Tracklist
 Muddy Water Blues (akoestische versie, met Buddy Guy) - 4:50
 Louisiana Blues (met Trevor Rabin) - 4:02
 I Can't Be Satisfied (met Brian Setzer) - 4:12
 Rollin' Stone (met Jeff Beck) - 5:28
 Good Morning Little School Girl (deel 1, met Jeff Beck) - 4:03
 I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man (met Steve Miller) - 5:07
 She's Alright (met Trevor Rabin) - 3:45
 Standing Around Crying (met David Gilmour) - 6:24
 The Hunter (met Slash) - 3:39
 She Moves Me (met Gary Moore) - 4:49
 I'm Ready (met Brian May) - 2:59
 I Just Want To Make Love To You (met Jeff Beck) - 4:01
 Born Under A Bad Sign (met Neal Schon) - 4:45
 Good Morning Little School Girl (deel 2, met Richie Sambora) - 3:03
 Muddy Water Blues (elektrische versie, met Neal Schon) - 4:47

Hits
Het album stond 7 weken in de Nederlandse Album Top 100, op de 50e plaats.

Muziekalbum van Paul Rodgers
Muziekalbum uit 1993


We hold on to so many things that cause us a great deal of pain, stress and suffering – and instead of letting them all go, instead of allowing ourselves to be stress free and happy – we cling on to them. Not anymore.
Starting today we will give up on all those things that no longer serve us, and we will embrace change.
"Would I rather be right, or would I rather be kind?" ~ Wayne Dyer. What difference will that make? Is your ego really that big?
This is a concept that, for most of us is so hard to grasp and I have to tell you that it was for me too, (it still is) but it's not something impossible. You get better and better at with time and practice. The moment you detach yourself from all things (and that doesn't mean you give up your love for them – because love and attachment have nothing to do with one another, attachment comes from a place of fear, while love… well, real love is pure, kind, and self less, where there is love there can't be fear, and because of that, attachment and love cannot coexist), you become so peaceful, so tolerant, so kind, and so serene. You will get to a place where you will be able to understand all things without even trying. A state beyond words.
Way too many people are living a life that is not theirs to live. They live their lives according to what others think is best for them, they live their lives according to what their parents think is best for them, to what their friends, their enemies and their teachers, their government and the media think is best for them. They ignore their inner voice, that inner calling. They are so busy with pleasing everybody, with living up to other people's expectations, that they lose control over their lives. They forget what makes them happy, what they want, what they need… and eventually they forget about themselves.