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Skeptical Debunker

Piezo-rubber creates potential for wearable energy system - 0 views

arstechnica.com/...for-wearable-energy-system.ars

piezo-rubber electricity generation

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 05 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Skeptical Debunker on 05 Mar 10
     
    As we continue to carry around items that insist on requiring electricity to work, portable-even wearable-energy-generating systems are looking very attractive. A group of researchers has recently looked into the use of piezoelectric materials, which generate an electric field or potential when placed under mechanical stress. By placing these materials on a rubbery or flexible surface, they created a material that can generate the highest rate of energy conversion reported for similar systems. While these are still far from the market, the metrics of the flexible piezoelectrics so far are very promising.
thinkahol *

What If We Paid Off The Debt? The Secret Government Report : Planet Money : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...t-the-secret-government-report

What If We Paid Off The Debt? Secret Government Report : Planet Money NPR

shared by thinkahol * on 21 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 21 Oct 11
     
    Planet Money has obtained a secret government report outlining what once looked like a potential crisis: The possibility that the U.S. government might pay off its entire debt. It sounds ridiculous today. But not so long ago, the prospect of a debt-free U.S. was seen as a real possibility with the potential to upset the global financial system. We recently obtained the report through a Freedom of Information Act Request. You can read the whole thing here. (It's a PDF.) The report is called "Life After Debt". It was written in the year 2000, when the U.S. was running a budget surplus, taking in more than it was spending every year. Economists were projecting that the entire national debt could be paid off by 2012.
Skeptical Debunker

Delivering Health, Wealth and Water, Drip by Drip - 0 views

featured.matternetwork.com/...lth-wealth-water-drip_6552.cfm

solar power drip irrigation third world benefits efficiency

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 05 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Solar-powered drip irrigation enhances food security in the Sudano–Sahel documents a field research project which found that: "solar-powered drip irrigation significantly augments both household income and nutritional intake, particularly during the dry season, and is cost effective compared to alternative technologies" Over the decades, irrigation has been shown to greatly increase agricultural productivity. Drip irrigation is spreading rapidly in Africa, with significant benefits. "Drip irrigation delivers water (and fertilizer) directly to the roots of plants, thereby improving soil moisture conditions; in some studies, this has resulted in yield gains of up to 100%, water savings of up to 40–80%, and associated fertilizer, pesticide, and labor savings over conventional irrigation systems" The solar-powered systems, however, look to offer the potential for even better results. From the study on impacts of PVDI systems it was reported: "The women’s agricultural group members utilizing the PVDI systems became strong net producers in vegetables with extra income earned from sales, significantly increasing their purchases of staples, pulses, and protein during the dry season, and oil during the rainy season. Finally, survey respondents were asked how frequently they were unable to meet their household food needs. Based on the frequency and most recent incident, households were assigned a food insecurity score ranging from zero (no problems during the previous year) to one (perpetually unable to meet food needs). This score changed significantly for project beneficiaries, as they were 17% less likely to feel chronically food-insecure. In short, the PVDI systems had a remarkable effect on both year-round and seasonal food access."
  • Skeptical Debunker on 05 Mar 10
     
    Several weeks ago, a group of researchers published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences documenting how relatively low-powered solar systems offer the potential to increase food supplies in impoverished arid regions while reducing demands for fertilizers and other costly (in fiscal and other terms) additives.
Joe La Fleur

Fast and Furious: Obama's Potential Watergate Is About Eric Holder's Missing E-Mails - ... - 0 views

www.blacklistednews.com/...M.html

obama potential eric holder

shared by Joe La Fleur on 30 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Joe La Fleur on 30 Jul 12
     
    GUN WALKING COVERUP
thinkahol *

Ocean changes may have dire impact on people - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...100618103558.htm

ocean changes impact

shared by thinkahol * on 21 Jun 10 - Cached
  • thinkahol * on 21 Jun 10
     
    "Scientists reveal the growing atmospheric concentrations of man-made greenhouse gases are driving irreversible and dramatic changes to the way the ocean functions, with potentially dire impacts for hundreds of millions of people across the planet. "
thinkahol *

Is Social Networking Useless for Social Change? A Response to The New Yorker's Malcolm ... - 0 views

www.alternet.org/...e_new_yorkers_malcolm_gladwell

Is Social Networking Useless for Change? A Response to The New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell | AlterNet

shared by thinkahol * on 12 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 12 Oct 10
     
    What if anything is the potential contribution of web-based "social networking" to social movements and social change?
sofarso Shawn

'Critical' period ahead as Iraq gears up for upcoming polls, says UN envoy - 0 views

www.un.org/...story.asp

UN Iraq

shared by sofarso Shawn on 16 Nov 08 - Cached
  • sofarso Shawn on 16 Nov 08
     
    Iraq is entering a critical period as it prepares for upcoming provincial polls, which provide an opportunity to shape a new political landscape in the fledgling democracy, a top United Nations envoy said today, while cautioning that the potential for election-related violence and instability remains.
Skeptical Debunker

Suspend airport body scanner program, privacy groups say - 0 views

www.computerworld.com/...ner_program_privacy_groups_say

privacy body scanners airports review urged healt hazards unknown

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 01 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Based on the discussions at the event, it is evident that body scanners can be easily defeated by concealing explosive materials in body cavities, the letter says. There is also little information on the health risks posed by the use of such scanners, according to the letter. The fact that the systems can be configured at any time to record and store images of travelers also raises privacy questions, the letter says. "The public does not currently understand the inability of these devices to detect the types of explosive materials that could be used or the possible risks to privacy and health," Rotenberg and Nader wrote. "The Department of Homeland Security has made significant mistakes with similar programs in the past," they added, citing as an example the agency's discontinued effort to equip airports with so-called explosive trace portals (ETP), which are designed to detect traces of explosives on travelers' clothing.
  • Skeptical Debunker on 01 Mar 10
     
    "The Electronic Privacy Information Center and consumer advocate Ralph Nader are urging President Obama to review the administration's plans to install whole body scanners at U.S. airports. In a joint letter, Marc Rotenberg, the president of EPIC, and Nader asked the president to suspend deployment of the devices until a "comprehensive evaluation" of the effectiveness of the technology and potential health hazards, is completed."
thinkahol *

By Michel Chossudovsky - Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa and TFF associate... - 0 views

www.fromthewilderness.com/...haarp.html

By Michel Chossudovsky - Professor of Economics University Ottawa and TFF associate author The Globalization Poverty second edition Common Courage Press

shared by thinkahol * on 01 Mar 11 - Cached
  • thinkahol * on 01 Mar 11
     
    The important debate on global warming under UN auspices provides but a partial picture of climate change; in addition to the devastating impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the ozone layer, the World's climate can now be modified as part of a new generation of sophisticated "non-lethal weapons." Both the Americans and the Russians have developed capabilities to manipulate the World's climate. In the US, the technology is being perfected under the High-frequency Active Aural Research Program (HAARP) as part of the ("Star Wars") Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI). Recent scientific evidence suggests that HAARP is fully operational and has the ability of potentially triggering floods, droughts, hurricanes and earthquakes.
thinkahol *

American Democracy Beyond Casino Capitalism and the Torture State | Truthout - 0 views

www.truth-out.org/...1305143581

With all due respect to Charles Dickens it appears be the worst of times for public and higher education in America if not democracy itself; schools are increasingly viewed as a business prized above customer satisfaction efficiency while largely judged t

shared by thinkahol * on 16 May 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 16 May 11
     
    With all due respect to Charles Dickens, it appears to be the worst of times for public and higher education in America, if not democracy itself; public schools are increasingly viewed as a business and are prized above all for customer satisfaction and efficiency, while largely judged through the narrow lens of empirical accountability measures. When not functioning as an adjunct of corporate value or a potentially lucrative for-profit investment, public schools are reduced to containment centers, holding institutions designed to largely punish young people marginalized by race and class.
thinkahol *

The bin Laden dividend - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com - 0 views

www.salon.com/...index.html

The bin Laden dividend - Glenn Greenwald Salon.com

shared by thinkahol * on 13 May 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 13 May 11
     
    Numerous people have argued that one potential benefit from the death of Osama bin Laden is that it will enable the U.S. Government to diminish its war commitments in that part of the world and finally arrest the steady erosion of civil liberties perpetrated in the name of the War on Terror (as though any of that is the government's goal).  By contrast, I've argued from the start that the bin Laden killing is likely to change nothing of any significance, except that -- if anything -- the resulting nationalistic pride, the vicarious sensations of power and strength, the substantial political benefits for the President, and the renewed faith in military force would be more likely to intensify rather than arrest these trends.  But that was definitely a minority opinion.
thinkahol *

Natural Resonance Revolution: Irrationality is ruling the day: Robert Weissman - 0 views

naturalresonancerevolution.blogspot.com/...lity-is-ruling-day-robert.html

Natural Resonance Revolution: Irrationality is ruling the day: Robert Weissman

shared by thinkahol * on 30 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 30 Jul 11
     
    Washington is in the grip of a fever. It's hard to find a word other than lunacy to describe what's going on. We are veering toward potential economic catastrophe. And Congress is hung up on a debate that shouldn't be occurring. It is debating an imaginary problem that conjures scary future scenarios but ignores dire existing circumstances. The consensus proffered solution to the imaginary problem would damage our country and further weaken our economy. Democrats and Republicans are at loggerheads, but they are disagreeing primarily about how much harm they want to impose. That's a very consequential disagreement, but it ignores the fact that we don't need to impose any harm at all.
thinkahol *

The Hijacked Crisis - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...the-hijacked-crisis.html

The Hijacked Crisis - NYTimes.com

shared by thinkahol * on 14 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 14 Aug 11
     
    For the fact is that right now the economy desperately needs a short-run fix. When you're bleeding profusely from an open wound, you want a doctor who binds that wound up, not a doctor who lectures you on the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle as you get older. When millions of willing and able workers are unemployed, and economic potential is going to waste to the tune of almost $1 trillion a year, you want policy makers who work on a fast recovery, not people who lecture you on the need for long-run fiscal sustainability.
thinkahol *

Has our bloated security budget made us safer? - National security - Salon.com - 0 views

www.salon.com/...index.html

Has our bloated security budget made us safer? - National Salon.com

shared by thinkahol * on 19 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 19 Aug 11
     
    The killing of Osama Bin Laden did not put cuts in national security spending on the table, but the debt-ceiling debate finally did. And mild as those projected cuts might have been, last week newly minted Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was already digging in his heels and decrying the modest potential cost-cutting plans as a "doomsday mechanism" for the military. Pentagon allies on Capitol Hill were similarly raising the alarm as they moved forward with this year's even larger military budget. None of this should surprise you. As with all addictions, once you're hooked on massive military spending, it's hard to think realistically or ask the obvious questions. So, at a moment when discussion about cutting military spending is actually on the rise for the first time in years, let me offer some little known basics about the spending spree this country has been on since September 11, 2001, and raise just a few simple questions about what all that money has actually bought Americans. Consider this my contribution to a future 12-step program for national security sobriety. Let's start with the three basic post-9/11 numbers that Washington's addicts need to know:
thinkahol *

The Zero Economy - 0 views

readersupportednews.org/...7288-the-zero-economy

The Zero Economy

shared by thinkahol * on 07 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 07 Sep 11
     
    The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports today no jobs were created in August. Zero. Nada. Well, not quite. The strike at Verizon reduced the labor force by 45,000. Minnesota government employees returned to work, adding 22,000. So in reality, America added 23,000 jobs. Almost zero. In reality, worse than zero. We need 125,000 a month merely to keep up with population growth. So the hole continues to deepen. Since this Depression began at the end of 2007, America's potential labor force - working-age people who want jobs - has grown by over 7 million. But since then the number of Americans with jobs has shrunk by more than 300,000.
Michael Hughes

Palestinian-American employs comedy and gravity to analyze crisis in the Middle East - 0 views

www.examiner.com/lyze-crisis-in-the-Middle-East

palestine israel obama

shared by Michael Hughes on 18 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Michael Hughes on 18 Jun 09
     
    As a Palestinian-American, award-winning journalist Ray Hanania has had a unique and rare life experience growing up on the Southwest Side of Chicago, which is dominated by Irish, Polish, and Italian working class, where many people think that every Arab is a potential terrorist. But what is even more interesting about Mr. Hanania is the fact that he is married to a Jew.
thinkahol *

Was he bluffing the whole time? - Budget Showdown - Salon.com - 0 views

www.salon.com/...index.html

Was he bluffing the whole time? - Budget Showdown Salon.com

shared by thinkahol * on 09 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 09 Apr 11
     
    Let's be clear: It was never in the political interests of House Republicans to force a government shutdown over this -- and John Boehner, who was a member of his party's leadership when the GOP suffered a P.R. disaster during the shutdowns of late 1995 and early 1996, knew it. But the House Speaker also knew that the best way to keep his fellow Republicans from insisting on one -- and, potentially, from throwing him overboard in the process -- was to extend the negotiations as long as possible, making it look like he was as hell-bent on confrontation with President Obama as they were, and to hope that influential conservatives would eventually give him cover to cut a deal. That seems to be what finally happened late on Friday night, just over an hour before funding for the government was set to expire and mass furloughs were set to begin.
thinkahol *

Mark Ruffalo: Stop Fracking Gas-Holes - 0 views

www.readersupportednews.org/...uffalo-stop-fracking-gas-holes

Mark Ruffalo: Stop Fracking Gas-Holes

shared by thinkahol * on 17 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 17 Jul 11
     
    Opponents of hydraulic "fracking" say it pollutes water and causes illness. Actor, activist (and newly-minted Countdown contributor) Mark Ruffalo joins Keith to discuss the lucrative practice that potentially threatens supplies of drinking water, and why so many have their heads in the sand. "This is an industry that is the dirtiest, slimiest, most arrogant, and negligent that you can imagine," Ruffalo says. Ruffalo also talks about rumors of blacklisting actors who speak out on political matters, and ponders why he was singled out by CNN to comment on it.  "You can do what's right or you can put your head in the sand," Ruffalo tells Keith, shortly before Keith bestows the ultimate Countdown honor -- welcoming Ruffalo into the ranks of official on-air contributors.
Arabica Robusta

Populism and the enchanted world of 'moderate politics' | openDemocracy - 1 views

www.opendemocracy.net/...0%98moderate-politics%E2%80%99

politics theory populism

shared by Arabica Robusta on 27 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • I essentially question the epistemological flaws surrounding the uses of the notion: when is it safe to call a politician, a political party or movement ‘populist’?
  • The stakes are high because to label someone as ‘populist’ is to imply that s/he is somehow a potential or real enemy of representative democracy. My critic refers to the ‘pernicious effects’ of populism which underlines the notion’s very negative connotation. Let me here reply to Catherine Fieschi’s major criticisms.
  • Cas Mudde, one of the major specialists on the subject, concedes that populism is a ‘thin-centred ideology’.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • According to Michael Freeden’s ‘morphological analysis’, an ideology has its own ‘ineliminable’ core of values exercising control, with logically and culturally adjacent concepts that are further connected to peripheral concepts.
  • To point out that populism does not have the depth and sophistication of a political ideology is in no way an attempt to suggest that this is a ‘wishy-washy’ notion, even less to ‘to discourage analysts’, let alone ‘to bamboozle democrats’ as Catherine Fieschi alleges. No, it simply means testing the epistemological merits of the notion in order to reveal its heuristic limits.
  • In the 1930s, millions marched behind the banners of Fascism and Communism. Today, no one would die for a populist cause. Populism is no ideology simply because it offers no positive worldview. It is just a means to an end, a device to appeal to the masses.
  • Think for a moment: aren’t those amorphous policies of ‘mainstream’ parties responsible for their rising unpopularity and their decreasing credibility? Why should political scientists uncritically use the media clichés about ‘reasonable moderates’ opposing ‘undemocratic radicals/populists’?
  • It is a fact that populists thrive on ‘wounded’ democracies. But ‘wounded’ democracies are imperfectly run polities, where economic inequalities are dire, and where the elites have often broken their promises. Thus let’s not forget who provoked the ‘democratic fracture’ in the first place. Why do some political scientists seem oblivious to the fact that the ‘moderates’ who let down their electorates are mainly responsible for their own demise?
  • Again, the task of the political scientist should not be to condone or condemn this state of affairs, but to try to understand why people feel so disenfranchised. Consequently, the researcher should tackle and discuss the policies which make those populations suffer. Unfortunately, this is not something which most political scientists seem in the least concerned about. ‘Not to laugh, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand’ said Spinoza. Before looking down on the disoriented and angry voters who fall for the demagogues or dismissing all ‘radicals’ as undisputed ‘populists’, it would indeed be worth pausing for a moment to understand how those agents feel and to ask what they want. Political scientists should also wonder why more and more ‘moderate’ voters no longer believe in the enchanted world of ‘moderate politics’.
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