News; From The Civilized-World!!

[Mr. Shaman]

"Tests show that 90% of existing solar panels last for 30 years, instead of the predicted 20 years.

According to the independent EU Energy Institute, this brings down the lifetime cost.

The institute says the panels are such a good long-term investment that banks should offer mortgages on them like they do on homes.

Panels had been expected to last for 20 years and price calculations were based on this (with a free energy source, purchase and installation represent almost the entire price of solar power).

But Dr Ossenbrink says the institute's laboratory has been subjecting the cells to the sort of accelerated ageing through extremes of heat, cold and humidity that has long been a benchmark for the car industry.

It has shown that more than 90% of the panels on the market 10 years ago are capable of still performing well after 30 years of life, albeit with a slight drop in performance.

Dr Ossenbrink says 40-year panels will be on the market soon."

Pretty amazing where you can redirect your priorities, once you've gotten health-care kicked.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

"The debate on health care in America has developed into an absurd theater, where two groups of actors are performing on the same stage in different plays. The opposition in the Republican Party is not really discussing the health care reform the president has asked for. They claim they are fighting a bill to introduce communism into America, to make death-lists with the names of patients coming for treatment, and about ruining American society for generations. Lies are not unusual in political discourse. But in the American debate on health care reform, the distortion of reality is so great that it would make Baron Von Münchhausen (the German officer who said he had ridden a cannonball) blush with envy.

The problem is that, in American politics today, there is polarization and confrontation that shuts the door to reform that would help society. There is no doubt that many Republicans are focused only on hurting President Obama through their fight against this health care reform. The hate against America's first African-American President makes the far right glow."

That's right, wing-nuts...there IS a World, outside our borders!!​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

"American diplomacy is never without controversy, but who would have imagined that the standard protocol of a bow to the Japanese Emperor from U.S. President Barack Obama would have caused such a fuss?

Apparently, many rightwing critics in America complained that Mr. Obama bowed too low to the Emperor. Those America-centric conservatives took Mr. Obama's bow as a signal of America's weakness. Japan and most of the rest of the world saw that bow for what it was — a sincere gesture of respect and a step toward healthier relations.

Those who know Japanese culture even a little would not interpret this type of bow as subservience, much less as any indication of America's low status on the world stage. In Japan, bowing is as natural as taking off one's shoes when entering a home, though with more profound meanings. The conservative American critics of Mr. Obama would surely have found fault no matter how deep he bowed.

The arrival of a U.S. president who is aware of the importance of symbolic meanings and diplomatic gestures comes as a relief to most countrieshttp://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ed20091129a1.html after the Bush administration's scarcity of interaction on any but its own terms."

 

[Mr. Shaman]

"China, on Saturday, unveiled what it billed as the fastest rail link in the world-- a train connecting the modern cities of Guangzhou and Wuhan at an average speed of 350 kilometres (217 miles) an hour.

The super-high-speed train reduces the 1,069 kilometre journey to a three hour ride and cuts the previous journey time by more than seven and a half hours, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Work on the project began in 2005 as part of plans to expand a high-speed network aimed at eventually linking Guangzhou, a business hub in southern China near Hong Kong, with the capital Beijing, Xinhua added.

"The train can go 394.2 kilometres per hour, it's the fastest train in operation in the world," Zhang Shuguang, head of the transport bureau at the railways ministry, told Xinhua."

WHEW!!!!!!!

Once we (finally) "shake" our present-remnants of the BUSHCO-ekonomy, we might actually start catchin'-UP to everyone-else!! They're certainly making our potential-future look fairly-exciting!!

(We'll let you Repub-luddites know when it's "safe" to come-outta your bunkers. Better pack a lunch;....a really...BIG...lunch.)​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

"It can now be said that Uruguay is more progressive and possesses a greater sense of entrepreneurialism than the United States–at least regarding industrial hemp!

After a decade-long political and legal battle with the federal government, the state of North Dakota and their farmers are still being denied the ability to cultivate–and prosper from- industrial hemp (i.e., cannabis that is under 1% THC in content and therefore is used for industrial purposes), unlike their brethren farmers in France, China, Great Britain, Canada and now…Uruguay."

 

[dogtowner]

Great post, but it won't work here. Just like universal health care, Americans won't be able to make high speed trains work either. But it's okay because we can just take all the oil we need to run our cars from others with our military might.

how many barrels of oil have we seized ?

 

[top gun]

how many barrels of oil have we seized ?

It's not a obvious as that.

That would bring on worldwide condemnation... yes even more than just having Bush as President.

It's the strategy of Nation Building where the oil is. Big problems in Darfur. Mass genocide but no oil. How many American troops we got Nation Building over there in Darfur?

When you overthrow leaders that are friendly to American business interests and support or install leaders or a whole new government that is you have achieved the same goal as if you just militarily seized it.

This is nothing new. We did it in Iran. Are you too young to remember the "Shah of Iran" puppet government we put in place there after we helped overthrow the democratically elected leader? I'm not.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

how many barrels of oil have we seized ?

How far back ya' wanna go????????????

*

 

[top gun]

How far back ya' wanna go????????????

*

Now Shaman don't go bring pictures along with the facts in here.

They either don't want to or aren't old enough to remember anything about that Iran country.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Now Shaman don't go bring pictures along with the facts in here.

C'mon...c'mon...we're referring-to Freepers & Dead-O-Heads, here....not exactly the "conservative"-intellectually-elite (an oxymoron, no doubt).

​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Now Shaman don't go bring pictures along with the facts in here.

"....Not in the old-sense...", huh?



I guess he was talking-about PRE-Nazi-Germany.​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

"Once hobbled with high inflation and perennially susceptible to worldwide crises, Brazil now boasts a vibrant consumer market, investment-grade status for its sovereign debt, vast foreign reserves and an agricultural sector that is vying to supplant that of the United Stateshttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/02/AR2010010200619.html?hpid=topnews as the world's most productive.

Economists and social scientists here say that the booming trade-oriented economy, coupled with innovative government programs, is lifting millions from poverty and shaking what was once a certainty: that a person born poor in Brazil would surely die poor.

Since 2003, more than 32 million people in this country of 198 million have entered the middle class, and about 20 million have risen above poverty, according to the Center for Social Policies at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, a Rio policy group that studies social and economic trends.

"We can generate inclusive growth as probably no other country can, given the scale of the country and the level of inequality," said Marcelo Neri, chief economist at the center. "Brazil is following what you may call a middle path. We are respecting the rules of the market and, at the same time, we are doing very active social policy."

Since 2002, a commodities boom has fueled strong growth and lowered poverty across Latin America. But Brazil's progress is perhaps the most notable because it has far more poor people than any other South American country and has long been one of the world's most unequal societies.

Neri said Brazil has made solid progress by creating 8.5 million jobs since 2003 and instituting programs such as food assistance for poor families and low-interest credit for first-time home buyers and small-business owners.

The foundation of today's success was laid during the administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, an academic-turned-politician best known for taming inflation in the mid-90s. The man who has gotten much of the credit is his successor, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who once railed against globalization as a union activist.

Lula's election to the presidency in 2002 sent shudders through Brazil's economic elite, who worried that the former rabble-rouser would lead the country down the same populist, anti-capitalist path as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. "

Gee.....it doesn't sound like they (even) TRIED tax-cuts!!!!!

How could they have BEEN so wrong??!!!!!

​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

"Norway will spend 137 million crowns ($23 million) to build what it says will be the world's biggest wind turbine with rotors 145 meters in diameter and producing 10 megawatts of electricity, green energy incubator Enova said.

Unlike most offshore wind projects where turbines rest on the seafloor, Sway turbines float. That allows development further offshore where winds are stronger and more consistent.

"The concept will result in higher energy generation for offshore wind power, and thus also lower operating costs."

Well....at least we get to watch The Future...while our 1%ers GORGE themselves on whatever capital we generate.​

 

[MrSheepish]

Mr. Shaman, I also am very excited about many new projects like you've been posting here. I really hope that the US gets its act together and catches up with the Europeans and the Chinese in the energy and transportation sectors. Now that I have been living out in Europe for a while, I have gotten spoiled by how easy it is to go places without a car. I think it will be a real shock when I return to the USA.

One thing I should point out though, is that it is not always the Republicans who stand in the way of progress. As an example, I think the most exciting scientific project of the next generation is ITER, a giant ring that is being designed to create sustained fusion by making super-hot, high pressure conditions similar to the center of the sun. If everything goes as planned, it will be a testbed for future powerplants that create clean and safe energy for all future generations (as long as there is water on the earth). The USA had an international agreement to provide resources to the project, but the Bush administration supported it. As a result, the Democratic Congress killed all funding for it during the budget haggling of 2006, and they also killed or crippled a number of other cutting-edge physics projects. I am not sure if it was ever restored in future years, but regardless the USA has lost a lot of credibility for all of its future international scientific collaborations, and has damaged its access to the results of this exciting project. Kind of reminds me of the super-collider that the Democrats killed, partially because it was supported by the first Bush administration, giving away the dominance of another scientific discipline to the Europeans.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Mr. Shaman, I also am very excited about many new projects like you've been posting here. I really hope that the US gets its act together and catches up with the Europeans and the Chinese in the energy and transportation sectors. Now that I have been living out in Europe for a while, I have gotten spoiled by how easy it is to go places without a car. I think it will be a real shock when I return to the USA.

One thing I should point out though, is that it is not always the Republicans who stand in the way of progress.

That's true....Teddy Roosevelt was: Republican Party (1897–1912)/Progressive Party (1912–1916). So was Dwight Eisenhower....

My problem is with people who CALL themselves Conservatives (i.e. "conservatives"), who're primarily into $hort-term-profit$!!! (...Who could almost GIVE-a-damn about long-term-investments...where someone-else might ALSO profit. )