"What you are about to read is the final product of research that was compiled through observation, first-hand interviews and experiences, random conversations, and secondary resources. The subject of this research was the tiny city of Winooski, Vermont. And sure, some of you are thinking, “What the hell is Winooski and why should I care?” However, if I’ve learned anything from this experience it is that Winooski’s history and current situation mirrors many of the struggles Americans overcame and the struggles towns and cities across the country are currently trying to cope with. Even if you never heard of Winooski, let alone been there, this is a story that should resonate on some level...""What you are about to read is the final product of research that was compiled... more
Micro Progress Onlus intende contribuire allo sviluppo di un sistema economico sostenibile, equo e solidale, nel quale ogni persona possa accedere ai servizi finanziari necessari a migliorare la qualità della propria vita.
Missione
Micro Progress Onlus promuove progetti e servizi di microfinanza. Tali attività sono indirizzate a coloro che non hanno i requisiti necessari per accedere alle forme tradizionali di credito.
Micro Progress Onlus intende facilitare il processo di integrazione socio-economica contribuendo alla creazione e all'intensificazione di relazioni interpersonali, basate sulla fiducia e sull'impegno reciproco.http://www.microprogress.org
Visione
Micro Progress Onlus intende contribuire... more
The stimulus bill enacted earlier this year has resulted in as many as 1.6 million jobs saved or created this fall, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said Monday evening.
The nonpartisan CBO said in a legally mandated report that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) had resulted in between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs for the U.S. economy that wouldn't have existed in the absence of the stimulus.
Additionally, the CBO said, gross domestic product (GDP) was as much as 3.2 percent higher than it would have been in the absence of the stimulus.
CBO Director Douglas Elmondorf wrote on his official blog:
Looking at the actual amounts spent so far (where identifiable) and estimates of the other effects of ARRA on spending and revenues, CBO has estimated the law’s impact on employment and economic output using evidence about how previous similar policies have affected the economy and various mathematical models that represent the workings of the economy. On that basis, CBO estimates that in the third quarter of calendar year 2009, an additional 600,000 to 1.6 million people were employed in the United States, and real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) was 1.2 percent to 3.2 percent higher, than would have been the case in the absence of ARRA.
The White House had claimed in its own estimate of the recovery act's impact that the stimulus bill had saved or created roughly 640,000 jobs since going into effect earlier this year.
Republicans had attacked the White House jobs figures as "trying to cover up economic reality by manufacturing job numbers out of thin air" when the Obama administration released those data.
The CBO said that the White House's model for analyzing the stimulus were not comprehensive, and that its own analysis provided the best look at the impact of the stimulus so far.
.It's hard to find a positive word in the lie factories as of late. We hear more about gate crashing and acorns than we do about the many triumphs of #44. But if anything can be said about the Obama era, it is off to a powerful start. New laws protecting consumers and a war that is in sight of being over are some of his accomplishments.
We often don't hear about the good stuff because the news is in the image shredding business and we will probably keep hearing negatives as Obama eyes tougher controls on financial speculation since you can't make money without breaking a few small investors, he he. Now he's off to Copenhagen to fix the planet.
The ball is rolling and if we all do enough to shame the republicans out of their stalling on the climate bill, the Mexico City Climate Accord will be a treaty that we all can live with!
Hundreds, if not thousands, of lobbyists are likely to be ejected from federal advisory panels as part of a little-noticed initiative by the Obama administration to curb K Street's influence in Washington, according to White House officials and lobbying experts.
The new policy -- issued with little fanfare this fall by the White House ethics counsel -- may turn out to be the most far-reaching lobbying rule change so far from President Obama, who also has sought to restrict the ability of lobbyists to get jobs in his administration and to negotiate over stimulus contracts.
The initiative is aimed at a system of advisory committees so vast that federal officials don't have exact numbers for its size; the most recent estimates tally nearly 1,000 panels with total membership exceeding 60,000 people.
Under the policy, which is being phased in over the coming months, none of the more than 13,000 lobbyists in Washington would be able to hold seats on the committees, which advise agencies on trade rules, troop levels, environmental regulations, consumer protections and thousands of other government policies.
"Some folks have developed a comfortable Beltway perch sitting on these boards while at the same time working as lobbyists to influence the government," said White House ethics counsel Norm Eisen, who disclosed the policy in a September blog posting on the White House Web site. "That is just the kind of special interest access that the president objects to."
WASHINGTON — President Obama will travel to Copenhagen at the start of the United Nations conference on climate change on Dec. 9 just before flying to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, White House officials said Wednesday.
Mr. Obama, who had not previously committed to making an appearance at the climate conference, had been under considerable pressure from other world leaders and environmental advocates to make the trip as a statement of American seriousness about the climate change negotiations.
Mr. Obama will tell the delegates to the climate conference that the United States intends to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions “in the range of” 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, officials said. The administration has resisted until now delivering a firm pledge on emissions reductions because Congress has not yet acted on global warming legislation and because several large developing nations, including China and India, have not detailed their own plans.
White House officials said earlier this week that Mr. Obama was now prepared to offer a tentative figure based on the work completed in Congress so far. The United States had never before declared any promise of specific reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Carol Browner, the president’s senior adviser for energy and climate change, said the president hoped that the announcement of the American target would spur other countries to show their cards.
“Obviously we hope other major economies will put forth ambitious action plans of their own,” she said at a White House briefing Wednesday morning.
In June, the House passed a bill calling for greenhouse gas reductions of 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Last month, a Senate committee passed a measure calling for a 20 percent cut, but that is expected to be weakened as the legislation moves through other Senate committees and onto the floor, perhaps next spring.
The United Nations-sponsored climate talks, involving more than 190 nations, are expected to produce a wide-ranging interim political declaration but stop short of proposing a binding international treaty. Delegates are expected to pledge to complete the treaty next year.
Mr. Obama has said recently that he would attend the session if his presence could help lead to a successful outcome. It is significant that he will appear at the beginning rather than at the end of the 12-day meeting. Most major decisions at such environmental forums come at the very end of the process.
In making the announcement, the White House also announced that several cabinet secretaries will speak at the Copenhagen conference to explain actions the United States is taking to address global warming and to urge other nations to step up their efforts.
Among those who will be dispatched to speak in the early days of the meeting are Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; Steven Chu, the secretary of energy; Ken Salazar, secretary of interior; Gary Locke, commerce secretary; and Tom Vilsack, secetary of agriculture. Ms. Browner and Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, will also represent the United States at the talks, the White House said.
"As a University of Mississippi graduate excited about the progress of his alma mater in the past decade, a strong distaste for the likes of Richard Barrett is interwoven into my DNA.
For the many of you who have no idea who I'm talking about, Mr. Barrett—who for the remainder of this article we will refer to simply as "Dicky"—is an old, crotchety Learned, Miss.-based white supremacist...
...Our school is at risk of losing "From Dixie with Love" because a fringe group of students and alumni use the last five notes to scream "The South Will Rise Again," a phrase racist in most contexts and ignorant in all the rest..."
...The Associated Student Body Senate, with good reason, has publicly asked for the chants to stop. Chancellor Dan Jones, just four months into his new job, is backing up the students, and has threatened to cease playing the song if the chants don't stop. The testing ground was Saturday's North Arizona game. I couldn't hear anything when watching the game on television, but friends of mine who attended the game did hear some saying it.
Now, "From Dixie with Love" is only a song, and the sun will still rise over the hills of north Mississippi if it's never played at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium again. But it is a mistake to give this fringe group power by removing it. Instead of expending all this energy devising ways to shame the chanters into submission, we should instead consider why they use the language in the first place, and come up with reasonable ways to discourage the act.
We should launch an education initiative to treat the cause and not the symptoms.
It's true: Some of the chanters are just troublemakers and immune to all reason -- the Richard Barretts; the Elmer Fudds -- but most are rational people who simply don't know any better. My good friend Roun McNeal, former Associated Student Body President, used to join in years ago, and recently related to the Associated Press why he stopped.
"I said the chant one day, and there was a black family sitting in front of me, and they turned around and gave me this look like I hurt them," he said.
(Continued)
SINGAPORE — President Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia expressed dissatisfaction Sunday with Iran’s response to a nuclear offer made by world powers, raising the prospect that sanctions may be the next step in the West’s ongoing efforts to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
The two men, meeting during an Asia-Pacific summit conference in Singapore before Mr. Obama traveled to Shanghai, also made progress in efforts to negotiate a replacement for a key arms control treaty between the United States and Russia that is set to expire in December, American administration officials said.
While White House officials acknowledged on Sunday that a new pact to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, will not be ratified soon, they said they expect to reach a “bridge” agreement that will preserve the status quo until a new treaty is approved.
The Sunday afternoon discussion with Mr. Medvedev was the fifth such meeting for Mr. Obama since he took office vowing to repair America’s relationship with Russia, and American officials expressed satisfaction Sunday with their progress so far. “I have found, as always, President Medvedev frank, constructive and thoughtful,” Mr. Obama said after the meeting. “The reset button has worked,” he added, alluding to the administration’s early promise to “reset” the bilateral relationship after several years of bickering over a variety of issues from missile defense to Kosovo.
With the START treaty set to expire soon, the Obama administration is searching for ways to have weapons inspectors remain in Russia to keep American eyes on the world’s second most formidable nuclear arsenal. In the absence of a treaty or a legally binding “bridge” authority, American inspectors would be forced to leave Russia when the treaty expires. Likewise, Russian inspectors would have to leave the United States.
Under START provisions, both nations are allowed a maximum of 30 inspectors to monitor each other’s compliance with the treaty.
On Iran, administration officials said, Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev discussed a timetable for imposing sanctions if Tehran and the West do not soon agree on a proposal in which Iran would send its enriched uranium out of the country, either for either temporary safekeeping or reprocessing into fuel rods.
“Unfortunately, so far at least, Iran appears to have been unable to say yes to what everyone acknowledges is a creative and constructive approach,” said Mr. Obama, sitting next to Mr. Medvedev. “We are running out of time with respect to that approach.” Mr. Medvedev also alluded to running out of patience. He said that while a dialogue with Iran was continuing, “we are not completely happy about its pace. If something does not work there are other means to move the process further.”
SINGAPORE - A major pact within tantalizing reach, President Barack Obama aims to nudge forward an arms-control deal in talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
The 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum brought Obama to Singapore, but he is focusing on individual meetings Sunday with Medvedev and with Indonesia's Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, president of the world's largest Muslim nation and Obama's home as a boy. The U.S.-Russia meeting takes place as the nations seek a successor to a Cold War-era agreement.
Obama planned another milestone: joining a larger meeting that includes the leader of military-ruled Myanmar. Obama is sure to face criticism at home, particularly from conservatives, for doing so — a significant step up in his administration's new policy of "pragmatic engagement" that is a shift from years of U.S. isolation and sanctions.
The leaders at the APEC forum also planned an informal breakfast meeting, organized by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, to discuss the progress of negotiations on a climate change agreement. The prime minister of Denmark, Lars Loekke Rasmussen, the chairman of next month's U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, was expected to attend.
Obama and Medvedev agreed in April to reach a new nuclear arms reduction treaty to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty I before it expires on Dec. 5. Later, in Moscow in July, they agreed further to cut the number of nuclear warheads each nation possesses to between 1,500 and 1,675 within seven years.
The Obama administration will insist on measures to give legal status to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants as it pushes early next year for legislation to overhaul the immigration system, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Friday.
In her first major speech on the overhaul, Ms. Napolitano dispelled any suggestion that the administration — with health care, energy and other major issues crowding its agenda — would postpone the most contentious piece of immigration legislation until after midterm elections next November.
Laying out the administration’s bottom line, Ms. Napolitano said officials would argue for a “three-legged stool” that includes tougher enforcement laws against illegal immigrants and employers who hire them and a streamlined system for legal immigration, as well as a “tough and fair pathway to earned legal status.”
Speaking at the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group in Washington, Ms. Napolitano unveiled a double-barrel argument for a legalization program, saying it would enhance national security and, as the economy climbs out of recession, protect American workers from unfair competition from lower-paid, easily exploited illegal immigrants.
“Let me emphasize this: we will never have fully effective law enforcement or national security as long as so many millions remain in the shadows,” she said, adding that the recovering economy would be strengthened “as these immigrants become full-paying taxpayers.”
Under the administration’s plan, illegal immigrants who hope to gain legal status would have to register, pay fines and all taxes they owe, pass a criminal background check and learn English.
The ancient Nazca people, who once flourished in the valleys of south coastal Peru, literally fell with the trees they chopped down, new research has concluded. The Nazca caused their own collapse when they cleared their forests in order to make way for agriculture, thus exposing the landscape to wind and flood erosion.The ancient Nazca people, who once flourished in the valleys of south coastal Peru,... more
The Republican party has officially wasted over 1000 hours blocking action, adding useless amendments and generally maintaining there party of "no" by a thread. They use AstroTurf campaigns to make it appear that they actually still matter and exist. They don't. Don't buy their media controlled hype.The Republican party has officially wasted over 1000 hours blocking action, adding... more
Julian Casablancas recently stopped by XFM radio and revealed a few details abbot the Strokes forthcoming album. The frontman told XFM that the band have been working on material for the new album for months, “we have most of the songs written, more than half of them written. But it’s just a question of getting all five dudes in the room."Julian Casablancas recently stopped by XFM radio and revealed a few details abbot the... more
Oceans are warming and become more acidic, while the world economy according to some would be out of the crisis, but it will take time for employment to rise. What connection there is between these two news? a direct one, because our economic system is based on the indiscriminate exploitation of mankind and environment, and will lead to the suicide of the human species.Oceans are warming and become more acidic, while the world economy according to some... more
Recently, Uruguay legalized homosexual adoption, becoming the first South American nation to do so. The bill passed 17-6 in the Uruguayan senate. The first leftwing president in Uruguay, Tabare Vasquez, has been making progress for progressive LGBT rights, such as authorizing civil unions and access to military schools, although facing opposition from the Roman Catholic Church. This progression stands Uruguay out from its South American neighbors, and sets an example on an international level. Senator Margarita Percovich was quoted as saying: “It is a right for the boys and the girls, not a right for the adults. It streamlines the adoption process and does not discriminate.”
In the past decade, gays and lesbians have won the right to adoption in various European and North American states and territories, as well as South Africa, Israel and parts of Australia.Recently, Uruguay legalized homosexual adoption, becoming the first South American... more
Before 2001, America’s military women had rarely seen ground combat. Their jobs kept them mostly away from enemy lines, as military policy dictates.
But the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, often fought in marketplaces and alleyways, have changed that. In both countries, women have repeatedly proved their mettle in combat. The number of high-ranking women and women who command all-male units has climbed considerably along with their status in the military.
“Iraq has advanced the cause of full integration for women in the Army by leaps and bounds,” said Peter R. Mansoor, a retired Army colonel who served as executive officer to Gen. David H. Petraeus while he was the top American commander in Iraq. “They have earned the confidence and respect of male colleagues.”
Their success, widely known in the military, remains largely hidden from public view. In part, this is because their most challenging work is often the result of a quiet circumvention of military policy.
Women are barred from joining combat branches like the infantry, armor, Special Forces and most field artillery units and from doing support jobs while living with those smaller units. Women can lead some male troops into combat as officers, but they cannot serve with them in battle.
Of the two million Americans who have fought in these wars since 2001, more than 220,000 of them, or 11 percent, have been women.
Despite longstanding fears about how the public would react to women coming home in coffins, Americans have responded to their deaths and injuries no differently than to those of male casualties, analysts say. That is a reflection of changing social mores but also a result of the growing number of women — more than 356,000 today — who serve in the armed forces, including the Reserves and the National Guard, 16 percent of the total.
Not all combat jobs are the same. Handling field artillery or working in Bradleys, for example, are jobs more suited to some women than light infantry duties, which can require carrying heavy packs for miles.Most women in the military express little, if any, desire to join the grueling, testosterone-laden light infantry. But some say they are interested in artillery and armor.
Any change to the policy would require Congressional approval, which lawmakers say is unlikely in the middle of two wars. But women in the military and their allies want their performance in combat to count for something.
“We have crossed that line in Iraq,” said Representative John M. McHugh, Republican of New York and the nominee for Army secretary. “Debate it all you want folks, but the military is going to do what the military needs to do. And they are needing to put women in combat.”Before 2001, America’s military women had rarely seen ground combat. Their jobs... more
President Barack Obama's student loan plan has been approved by the House Education Committee chairman, George Miller (D-Cali). For decades private banks have profited off of government student loans. But if Obama's student loan plan is approved, private insures will have no role in the lending process. The plan would save the government approximately $87 billion dollars over the next ten years. Despite the approval of Chairman Miller, the Bill will face heavy opposition from the private lending industry.President Barack Obama's student loan plan has been approved by the House... more
After weeks of talks with drug companies President Barack Obama (D) announced that the pharmaceutical companies have pledged to spend $80 billion over the next decade to help reduce the cost of drugs for seniors and pay for a portion of Obama's health care legislation. The deal is another significant step forward in creating a better health care system.After weeks of talks with drug companies President Barack Obama (D) announced that the... more
A group of U.S. climate scientists is urging Congress to quickly pass a strengthened version of the House global warming bill, saying the legislation would provide a basis for stronger federal policies.
The letter [pdf] signed by 20 scientists says strong U.S. leadership is needed to avert a "rapidly developing global climatic catastrophe." The House climate and energy bill proposed by Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman of California and Ed Markey of Massachusetts offers a "powerful advance and must be enacted this year," it says, as a first step toward strong U.S. action.
"We're very encouraged that Congress is moving on legislation," said Michael MacCracken, chief scientist for climate programs at the nonprofit Climate Institute. "But a lot of what's happening in the discussions is that adjustments are being made, which is understandable, but in order to have an effect on climate we need to have really strong actions, and we don't want to just keep having it nibbled away."
end of excerpt
Source: Scientific American
What are your thoughts on the bill? Do you agree with the experts that this climate legislation is needed?A group of U.S. climate scientists is urging Congress to quickly pass a strengthened... more
