Steven Thorpe

A few key sentences from this article -

• Governments and utilities worldwide are likely to spend $200 billion on so-called smart grid initiatives by 2015, a development that promises greater energy efficiency on a global scale, but that is only a small step towards what could be done to use energy more efficiently.
• Right now, only a fifth of the energy we actually burn or otherwise generate for electricity is actually used.
• A smarter grid is the basic building block for such initiatives as electric and hybrid cars, and utility executives like Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, consider increasing efficiency a source of energy in and of itself.
• Bringing a full smart grid online in the United States alone is a $1 to $2 trillion proposition over the next couple of decades, according to research by Jackson Associates, and it will save $48 billion for the 200 largest U.S. utilities.
• Take, for instance, the Bush tax cuts of the early 2000s. That legislation cost $2.48 trillion from 2001-2010—enough to have already modernized our electric grid by now, if we’d chosen to invest it that way.
• Closer to our own time, the government will spend more money bailing out banks, AIG, General Motors and Chrysler than the entire world will spend on smart grid technology that could lay the groundwork for future growth and help mitigate the effects of global warming.

Read the full article here – http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/daily-brief/2009/12/29/smart-grid-spending-on-the-rise-but-not-enough/

This handout photo provided by the South Korean Blue House shows an illustration of nuclear power plants to be built by a South Korea-led consortium in Sila, 330 kilometres (204 miles) west of the United Arab Emirates capital. The consortium won a 20-billion-USD contract to build four nuclear power plants in the Middle East country.

(AFP/Pool/Blue House)

Atlanta – The oft-cited credo that more guns equal more crime is being tested by facts on the ground this year: Even as gun ownership has surged in the US in the past year, violent crime, including murder and robbery, has dropped steeply. Add to that the fact that many experts had predicted higher crime rates as the US grinds through a difficult recession, and the discrepancy has advocates on both sides of the Second Amendment debate rushing to their ramparts. After several years of crime rates holding relatively steady, the FBI is reporting that violent crimes – including gun crimes – dropped dramatically in the first six months of 2009, with murder down 10 percent across the US as a whole. Concurrently, the FBI reports that gun sales – especially of assault-style rifles and handguns, two main targets of gun-control groups – are up at least 12 percent nationally since the election of President Obama, a dramatic run on guns prompted in part by so-far-unwarranted fears that Democrats in Congress and the White House will curtail gun rights and carve apart the Second Amendment. Pro-gun groups jumped at the FBI report, saying it disproves a long-running theory posited by gun-control groups and many in the mainstream media that gun ownership spawns crime and violence. “Anti-gunners have lost another one of their baseless arguments,” Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, told the Examiner’s Dave Workman.

Continue reading – http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20091223/ts_csm/270518

The French ruling party of President Nicolas Sarkozy now affirms it will present a bill to ban full-length Islamic veils in all public places in France. It won’t wait for the results of a parliamentary inquiry into the all-covering niqab and burqa to be published. The move adds fuel to an increasingly hot debate on French identity that has minorities here upset.

A nationwide identity debate, engineered by the ruling UMP party last month, has evolved into an embarrassingly unruly discussion about Muslims and northern Africans in France. And it comes on the heels of a surprise vote in neighboring Switzerland last month to outlaw the construction of new minarets at Muslim worship sites.

The UMP effort to outlaw the full-length veil in public trumps earlier efforts to ban it only in some official buildings, and comes at a time when French Muslims say they are being targeted as outsiders or not fully French.

Yet UMP party leader Jean-François Cope yesterday said veils that cover a woman’s entire face are a “violation of individual liberty” and a “negation” of one’s identity and that of others in a public milieu.

Under the proposed law, women would not be able to move in public with their faces fully covered. The legal rendering is that burqas and all-covering niqabs are a public order issue, and not a religious practice issue – as is the French ban on headscarves in schools, which has been carried out to uphold French secularism, known as laïcité.

Offenders wearing veils would receive a fine – though lawmakers now say there will be a period of mediation following the initial charge.

Continue reading – http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2009/1223/No-burqas-in-France-Ruling-party-moves-to-ban-veils-in-public

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US consumer spending rose as Americans enjoyed their biggest income gain in six months in November, government data showed Wednesday in a sign the economy is gaining steam following recession.

The Commerce Department said personal consumption expenditures climbed 0.5 percent in the penultimate month of 2009 fueled by spending on goods as retailers slashed prices to woo shoppers amid the year-end shopping season.

The spending jump was slightly lower than the revised 0.6 percent rise in October and the 0.7 percent anticipated by most economists.

The government data also showed personal income grew 0.4 percent in November, the fastest growth since May, following upwardly revised growth of 0.3 percent the prior two months.

Wage income of Americans climbed 0.3 percent, the largest growth since April.

Continue reading – http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091223/bs_afp/useconomyconsumerincomespending_20091223161228

Israel will soon become the first country in the world to give people who agree to become organ donors priority treatment if they should require an organ transplant themselves.

Officials hope the incentive will increase the supply of available organs — of which there is a shortage across the world, but especially in Israel, where only one in 10 adults carries a donor card.

This is sure to be a closely watched change, as most countries have tried different measures to increase willingness to donate organs. Here’s a rundown of some of those efforts, which include (1) creating markets for organs; (2) making all citizens organ donors by default, unless they explicitly exempt themselves; and (3) investing in more health care infrastructure.

Some countries have proposed legalizing the sale of some organs for money, as is the case in Iran. But such policies are controversial, and not just because people have moral qualms about putting a price tag on an item as precious as a healthy kidney. Some scholars have written about the fear of “crowding out” altruistic motives for donating organs.

Continue reading – http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/how-can-we-encourage-organ-donation/

Washington (CNN) — Facing year-end holidays and running out of time to discuss health care reform, the Senate voted early Friday to end debate on funding for the Department of Defense.

The motion passed 63 to 33, gaining the necessary 60-vote majority to avoid a GOP filibuster. It also will set up a final vote on the $636 billion package on Saturday.

The House of Representatives passed the spending bill 395 to 34 on Wednesday. The measure includes money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but does not include the additional costs expected for the 30,000 U.S. troops the Obama administration announced it will send to Afghanistan next year. A separate request for those troops is expected to come up for a vote next spring.

The defense bill is the last spending measure of the year for both chambers of Congress.

Continue reading – http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/18/senate.defense/

It would make a perfect Christmas gift!

PARIS (AFP) – France will follow Britain and slap a 50 percent tax on bankers’ bonuses above 27,500 euros (40,000 dollars), Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said Wednesday.

Lagarde told reporters after a cabinet meeting that a bill detailing the new tax would be presented to parliament in January.

“The banks will see their bonuses of more than 27,500 euros taxed in 2010 and it will be a 50 percent tax,” she said.

Britain announced the new tax last Wednesday, arguing that it would help recoup cash spent rescuing the financial sector after the 2008 financial meltdown.

The British move came amid public fury over a decision by 70 percent government-owned Royal Bank of Scotland to award some 1.5 billion pounds in bonuses for senior staff.

Continue reading - http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091216/ts_afp/francebritainfinancebankingregulate_20091216121119

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia said Tuesday it would push ahead with a mandatory China-style plan to filter the Internet, despite widespread criticism that it will strangle free speech and is doomed to fail.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said new laws would be introduced to ban access to “refused classification” (RC) sites featuring criminal content such as child sex abuse, bestiality, rape and detailed drug use.

Blacklisted sites would be determined by an independent classification body via a “public complaint” process, said Conroy, admitting there was “no silver bullet solution to cyber-safety”.

Internet user groups, the pornography industry and others have strongly opposed the plan, saying any such measure would be impractical to enforce, block access to some legitimate websites and slow down Internet speeds.

But Conroy said a seven-month trial had concluded that blocking could be done with 100 percent accuracy and negligible impact to connection speeds.

Internet service providers (ISPs) would be offered grants to offer additional filters of, for example, X-rated content and gambling sites, but Conroy said that would not be compulsory.

“Through a combination of additional resources for education and awareness, mandatory Internet filtering of RC-rated content, and optional ISP-level filtering, we have a package that balances safety for families and the benefits of the digital revolution,” he said.

Continue reading – http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091215/wl_asia_afp/australiainternettechnologycensorship_20091215082128