Two young people who caught my eye in the endless stream of people in Tel Aviv last night were proudly wearing t-shirts with the slogan "Revolution!" stamped on the front. No busses, no organized political mobilizations, just endless streams of people, marching in the heart of Tel Aviv – near the heart of the Israeli military-industrial complex – the Kirya (Israeli Pentagon), the huge office and apartment towers, with the three Azrieli Towers looming in the distance. 100,000 people in Tel Aviv alone, 150,000 throughout the country.
They were mainly young, secular and Ashkenazi, but also groups with signs representing South Tel Aviv, the Hatikva Quarter, Jaffa, all predominantly Sephardi neighborhoods. And Russians proudly carrying signs in Russian proclaiming that we are here too. And some young Ethiopian girls, whooping it up. And Arabs from Jaffa, even a smattering of ultra-Orthodox Haredim. Someone was carrying a placard which looked like the ghost of Che Guevera. And someone else wore a t-shirt with a picture of Gandhi on the back.
The predominant slogan was "The people demand social justice!" And periodically, a loud rumbling cry emerged from sections of the crowd, like a wave – people simply feeling their strength and empowerment.
"Look at this," said Rany Trainin from Kibbutz Beit Nir, whose son lives in Tel Aviv and has been involved since the beginning. "This will be a formative experience for this whole generation of young people".
I passed by writer/critic Dr. Nissim Kalderon, mumbling to someone near him the phrase, "critical mass". And Haaretz commentator Ari Shavit, exchanging observations with Peace Now's Yariv Oppenheimer. And there was Helen Danan, one of the original '70s "Black Panthers" from Morocco, looking for Charley (Charley Biton, another one of the original Panthers.) The kiss we shared was not romantic, but a reflection of the energy generated by this unexpected phenomenon.
I didn't go to the first rally/march last Saturday night, July 23rd, because of my exhaustion after an intense week, and my thought that this was a generational matter – more for my son Adi's generation than for mine. Well, my Palestine-Israel Journal colleague Prof. Dan Jacobson did go – with the excuse that he was accompanying his daughter and giving her support – and he was overwhelmed. Tens of thousands of young people marching in the streets, calling for change – calling for social justice and a welfare state; he hadn't seen anything like this since the great protest against the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982.
We both agree that this protest – which began barely two weeks ago when a young woman named Daphne Leef put up a tent at the edge of Rothschild Blvd., near the Habima Theater, and sent out a Facebook message calling on friends to join her – has grown into a very powerful, nation-wide phenomenon, and the most serious challenge to Netanyahu's regime and political philosophy.
When young people are saying they are worried about their future, can't afford apartments, can't afford to raise a family, when students are saying that we are concerned about the future of Israeli society, about the collapsing social safety net; when there are big signs calling for social justice, a welfare state, social solidarity – Netanyahu's privatization, reduce taxes and the bureaucracy, and let the free market do its thing, just doesn't cut it.
On Friday morning, I spent an hour and a half at the tent city on the recently renamed "If I were a Rothschild Blvd." (a play on the Hebrew version of "If I were a rich man" from "Fiddler on the Roof") – and to paraphrase Bob Dylan – something is really happening here, and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Bibi (Netanyahu)?
I have never seen anything like what I saw on Rothschild Blvd. Tent after tent, stretching on both sides of the blvd from Habima Square, almost reaching Allenby Street: endless graffiti signs, beginning with "A whole generation demands affordable housing" to humor like "Even Adam Smith is turning over in his grave", a free first aid center provided by Rabbis for Human Rights, free clothing for the taking, art courses, yoga, free food and water, signs against Bibi and the tycoons, young individuals, couples, and families, camping out, tents where writers tell stories to children, music everywhere, lectures – aspects of the '60s counter-culture, what Abbie Hoffman called "The Woodstock Nation", combined with grassroots militant activism, a "Revolutionary Theater" which shows Michael Moore's "Capitalism - A Love Story" every night; the National Student Union is behind it, The Kibbutz Seminary Student Union, the Sapir College down in Sderot, quite a few Israeli flags, one on the corner building with tears dropping down, a smattering of red flags – I can go on and on.
At the corner of Ben-Zion Blvd and Rothschild Blvd there's a "Struggle Headquarters" (Mateh Hama'avak). One of the people staffing it asked me if I defined myself as middle class. Well, I said, "deteriorating middle class", and I added that I would have once called myself working class, but these days almost everyone wants to define themselves as middle class – since less than 5% (1%?) are really upper class, and no-one wants to admit to being lower class.
This really is a revolt of the young, highly educated middle class – which if it sounds familiar, is the same profile as the core of the protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo. I'm sure that whether it's conscious or unconscious, there is a clear connection between what is happening around us, the "Arab Spring", and what is happening in the sweltering summer heat of Tel Aviv.
It is the younger, highly educated Israeli generation, expressing great concern about the future of Israeli society, and taking their fate into their own hands. Right now they are focusing on the economy, and on the call for the preservation and expansion of the social safety net – good education, public health, social welfare services, affordable housing, jobs, and the growing gaps between the wealthy and the declining middle class, etc.
Soon the connection will be made between these demands and the exorbitant sums being spent on settlement activity and defense spending. When a small group of settlers came to the tent city and suggested that they solve their affordable housing problems by moving to subsidized housing in West Bank, the reaction of the young protesters was a combination of laughter and derision.
It's hard to predict the outcome, the long-range implications, but this protest movement is the most encouraging phenomenon I have seen in a long time.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
NFL 2011 Free Agency Explosion
NFL 2011 Free Agent Explosion.
http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2011/07/nfl-2011-free-agency-explosion/
eric aka the Tygrrrr Express
http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2011/07/nfl-2011-free-agency-explosion/
eric aka the Tygrrrr Express
ACLU's Laura Murphy Says Debt Crisis Manufactured
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| Laura Murphy |
By Laura Murphy, Director, Washington Legislative Office
Excerpts:
Even if the debt ceiling is raised, hard decisions will be made about which federal programs will continue and which ones won’t. The civil liberties consequences of those choices are not entirely predictable, but some are. We can already see that higher unemployment rates and the foreclosure crisis are creating a widening racial wealth gap. Stocks and bonds are not yielding the same return for pensions and 401Ks that working people earned and depend on for their survival in retirement. The middle class is shrinking and poverty is deepening.
The ACLU believes that "natural" economic differences alone cannot explain widespread poverty. Out of proportion to their numbers, the poor are denied adequate legal representation, due process, the right to be free from unlawful searches, seizures and arrests, and other constitutional guarantees.
The controversy over the debt ceiling is a totally manufactured debate that came about because many Republican House members signed a pledge not to vote to raise it. But the widening economic crisis is real. It will have very real implications for the ACLU’s work for decades to come.
NOTE: AAEA believes the ACLU concerns line up with our concerns over a lack of Black ownership in the energy sector.
Blacks Do Not Own Any Energy Resources or Infrastructure
And The Energy Sector Does Not Care
Blacks do not own the oil, natural gas, coal, electricity, pipelines, electricity transmission lines, refineries, tankers, oil fields, outer continental shelf drilling platforms, power plants, or oil, gas, coal mines and utility companies that distribute energy in the United States. Blacks, who make up 13% of the American population, also do not exert influence from the demand side of energy use. We do not own, distribute nor use energy to our advantage. Blacks must utilize energy policy to become owners and suppliers of energy.
One response to this dilemma is "buy stock." Well not even the oft cited Oprah has enough money to buy enough stock to own an ExxonMobil or a BP. But what about the smaller energy companies? Well the energy business is very capital intensive and involves significant federal government subsidies. An 'Oprah' would have to commit all of her considerable wealth to get a foot in the door of even a small energy operation. Moreover, Blacks have been designated, and appear to be restricting themselves, to the green energy sector. Yet the renewables sector of the energy economy (less hydro) represents less than 1% of the energy marketplace. Some seem to want to keep Blacks in the conservation and renewables section of the energy sector.
The energy sector is not about to voluntarily incorporate Blacks into ownership positions when it comes to resources and infrastructure. The federal government is not going to facilitate such ownership out of the goodness of its heart. AAEA has spent decades trying to work with the energy industry in order to gain equity. Even when the projects would have significantly helped in getting approval, prospective partners appeared to prefer to let the project fail instead of partnering to possibly give the project a prospect to be approved. And low-rating AAEA is not the answer because no Blacks own energy infrastructure and resources in the United States.
Blacks are hired as vice president for government relations, outreach or human resources in corporate energy America. They represent much of the membership of the American Association of Blacks in Energy. Just as the handful of Black professionals working at environmental groups are restricted to the environmental justice area within the group. Energy corporations utilize these vice presidents to attend Black conferences, sponsor certain events and in some cases, serve as the gatekeeper to proposals for various forms of Black participation. Energy companies enthusiastically see this as their significant contribution to 'minority outreach.' Some of these vice presidents reach out to the extent that they can, but they cannot green light an ownership stake in the company. They can, and probably should, be reluctant to promote an proposal that could threaten their high-paying job. Part of our frustration comes from seeing some energy corporate executives getting multimillion dollar cash and stock bonuses for running the companies into bankruptcy.
So we know the problem. What is the solution? One solution is the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). The other solution is international energy trading. The federal government owns a great deal of land that is a storehouse of energy. Some of this land needs to be privatized and targeted to Black ownership or control. The CBC must insist that if energy companies want access to energy public lands, they must partner with Black-owned energy firms. The CBC should also insist that current energy leases include Black ownership stakes. These resources belong to the American people but Blacks have been completely excluded from participating in this area. It takes a huge investment to develop energy reserves and the only practical way to accomplishment energy market penetration is to partner with companies that have the capital to develop the resource.
Nigeria has the best crude oil in the world. African Americans and Nigerians should own, control and trade this precious resource. The current corporations can still be minority partners, but ownership is its own reward. This same ethic goes for other natural resources throughout Africa, particularly rare earth elements. Again, the CBC is the nucleus of formulating this international trade. Ownership stakes in international trade (owning tankers, cargo ships, ports, resources, etc) combined with ownership of infrastructure and resources in the United States will put Blacks squarely in the energy sector. Hopefully, such equity and wealth generation can go far in reducing the staggering unemployment in the Black community. (What A Good Energy Policy Means For Blacks, AAEA)
One response to this dilemma is "buy stock." Well not even the oft cited Oprah has enough money to buy enough stock to own an ExxonMobil or a BP. But what about the smaller energy companies? Well the energy business is very capital intensive and involves significant federal government subsidies. An 'Oprah' would have to commit all of her considerable wealth to get a foot in the door of even a small energy operation. Moreover, Blacks have been designated, and appear to be restricting themselves, to the green energy sector. Yet the renewables sector of the energy economy (less hydro) represents less than 1% of the energy marketplace. Some seem to want to keep Blacks in the conservation and renewables section of the energy sector.
The energy sector is not about to voluntarily incorporate Blacks into ownership positions when it comes to resources and infrastructure. The federal government is not going to facilitate such ownership out of the goodness of its heart. AAEA has spent decades trying to work with the energy industry in order to gain equity. Even when the projects would have significantly helped in getting approval, prospective partners appeared to prefer to let the project fail instead of partnering to possibly give the project a prospect to be approved. And low-rating AAEA is not the answer because no Blacks own energy infrastructure and resources in the United States.
Blacks are hired as vice president for government relations, outreach or human resources in corporate energy America. They represent much of the membership of the American Association of Blacks in Energy. Just as the handful of Black professionals working at environmental groups are restricted to the environmental justice area within the group. Energy corporations utilize these vice presidents to attend Black conferences, sponsor certain events and in some cases, serve as the gatekeeper to proposals for various forms of Black participation. Energy companies enthusiastically see this as their significant contribution to 'minority outreach.' Some of these vice presidents reach out to the extent that they can, but they cannot green light an ownership stake in the company. They can, and probably should, be reluctant to promote an proposal that could threaten their high-paying job. Part of our frustration comes from seeing some energy corporate executives getting multimillion dollar cash and stock bonuses for running the companies into bankruptcy.
So we know the problem. What is the solution? One solution is the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). The other solution is international energy trading. The federal government owns a great deal of land that is a storehouse of energy. Some of this land needs to be privatized and targeted to Black ownership or control. The CBC must insist that if energy companies want access to energy public lands, they must partner with Black-owned energy firms. The CBC should also insist that current energy leases include Black ownership stakes. These resources belong to the American people but Blacks have been completely excluded from participating in this area. It takes a huge investment to develop energy reserves and the only practical way to accomplishment energy market penetration is to partner with companies that have the capital to develop the resource.
Nigeria has the best crude oil in the world. African Americans and Nigerians should own, control and trade this precious resource. The current corporations can still be minority partners, but ownership is its own reward. This same ethic goes for other natural resources throughout Africa, particularly rare earth elements. Again, the CBC is the nucleus of formulating this international trade. Ownership stakes in international trade (owning tankers, cargo ships, ports, resources, etc) combined with ownership of infrastructure and resources in the United States will put Blacks squarely in the energy sector. Hopefully, such equity and wealth generation can go far in reducing the staggering unemployment in the Black community. (What A Good Energy Policy Means For Blacks, AAEA)
Tookie's Is Reopening!
Tookie's Hamburgers & More, the home of the Squealer, is reopening after years of being shuttered following 2008's Hurricane Ike. The iconic burger joint and Texas roadhouse south of Houston sustained substantial flood damage and owner Jim Spears struggled to reopen. Recently however, a guy named Barry Terrell bought Tookie's (which was pretty much gutted following the storm and damage from looters) and has brought back the original menu. Spears had woes beyond the damaged structure, like the future widening of the road where Tookies sits, being subject to new building codes and piles of insurance paperwork from the storm. Not sure how Terrell pulled it off but he did apparently.
Tookie's was in the first version of Hamburger America but I pulled them out of the completely revised edition since there was no word of its reopening at press time last December. Looks like any day now you'll be able to enjoy the one-and-only Squealer, the burger Tookie's made famous by grinding bacon into their patties. The process is so secretive that competing restaurants have sent busboys to apply for jobs at Tookie's in an attempt to steal the recipe. I've tried myself and failed. The only way to truly enjoy a Squealer is to get one at Tookie's.
I applaud Terrell for being crazy enough to reopen this iconic burger joint. Chalk up another win for nostalgia!
Tookie's Is Reopening!
Tookie's Hamburgers & More, the home of the Squealer, is reopening after years of being shuttered following 2008's Hurricane Ike. The iconic burger joint and Texas roadhouse south of Houston sustained substantial flood damage and owner Jim Spears struggled to reopen. Recently however, a guy named Barry Terrell bought Tookie's (which was pretty much gutted following the storm and damage from looters) and has brought back the original menu. Spears had woes beyond the damaged structure, like the future widening of the road where Tookies sits, being subject to new building codes and piles of insurance paperwork from the storm. Not sure how Terrell pulled it off but he did apparently.
Tookie's was in the first version of Hamburger America but I pulled them out of the completely revised edition since there was no word of its reopening at press time last December. Looks like any day now you'll be able to enjoy the one-and-only Squealer, the burger Tookie's made famous by grinding bacon into their patties. The process is so secretive that competing restaurants have sent busboys to apply for jobs at Tookie's in an attempt to steal the recipe. I've tried myself and failed. The only way to truly enjoy a Squealer is to get one at Tookie's.
I applaud Terrell for being crazy enough to reopen this iconic burger joint. Chalk up another win for nostalgia!
Friday, July 29, 2011
President Obama Announces Energy Nominee
Dot Harris, Nominee for Director, Office of Minority Economic Impact, Dept of Energy
Today the President of the United States announced his intent to nominate Dot Harris of Atlanta, Georgia to be his Director of the Office of Minority Impact and Diversity for the United States Department of Energy. Since 2006, Ms. Harris has served as the National Secretary of the American Association of Blacks in Energy, and the chair of the Association’s Energy Entrepreneur Committee. Dot Harris is currently President and CEO of Jabo Industries, LLC, a minority-woman owned management consulting firm concentrating primarily in the energy, information technology, and healthcare industries.
Before joining GE, Ms. Harris was an officer and Vice President of Operations & Production for ABB Service, Inc. She also spent twelve years as Field Services Engineer and Services Manager with Westinghouse Electric Company. Ms. Harris currently serves as the National Secretary for the American Association of Blacks in Energy.
She holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC and a M.S. in Technology Management from Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta, GA. (DOE, AABE, Photo courtesy AABE)
 |
| Dot Harris |
Before joining GE, Ms. Harris was an officer and Vice President of Operations & Production for ABB Service, Inc. She also spent twelve years as Field Services Engineer and Services Manager with Westinghouse Electric Company. Ms. Harris currently serves as the National Secretary for the American Association of Blacks in Energy.
She holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC and a M.S. in Technology Management from Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta, GA. (DOE, AABE, Photo courtesy AABE)
Putting big data on the map: helping customers see location-based information
Today, all types of businesses rely on geographic information to make better decisions about their customers, products and processes. As part of our ongoing effort to make geographic information accessible and useful, we offer the Google Maps API Premier to businesses that want to integrate Google Maps directly into their own applications and websites. Interactive maps have become critical to many basic business functions from asset tracking in the logistics industry to inventory planning in retail.
Earlier this week, we announced a new collaboration with SAP aimed at helping enterprise customers use Google’s mapping services with SAP’s business analytics software. As this demo from SAP shows, the Google Maps API lets companies visualize geographic data more easily, leading to better business decisions. Access to SAP and Google tools on tablets and other mobile devices means that employees can review their business data whenever and wherever the need arises.
Google is committed to helping businesses and software vendors build, run and support innovative applications that involve huge data sets. These “big data” sets require massive storage and processing power, a task Google’s cloud infrastructure is uniquely well suited to handle. Today, in addition to the Google Maps API, Google also provides the Google Prediction API and Google Storage for Developers to support businesses working with their important big data. Like the Google Maps API, businesses and developers can use these services to process data or build applications.
Venturepax Inspires Outdoor Adventures, Rewards You For Going Outside
A new website, entitled Venturepax, is looking to inspire us to head outside for a little adventure, and is willing to reward us for sharing those experiences with others. The site is already building a community of outdoor enthusiasts and is encouraging them to post photos and impressions of their adventures for others. When they do, they'll receive points that can be redeemed for discounts in local gear shops, t-shirts, water bottles, and more.
The Venturepax experience has three options: Find Venture, Share Experience, and Earn Rewards. The Find Venture option is a location aware library that suggest popular outdoor options that are in your area, and is a great place to discover new things to see and do outside. The Share Experience section allows you to pot your own suggestions, while also uploading images, while the Earn Rewards option gives you points based on the things you share that will eventually earn you some swag.
Earning points is easy. When you "check in" from a location, you'll receive 2 points. Uploading an image will earn you 20 points, while a video gets you 60. You'll also be rewarded by adding a new Venture to the library and sharing your experiences at that place or one of the others already added to the database. After you earn enough points, you can redeem them for Venturepax gear and discount cards.
The Venturepax website also reports that they are creating apps for Android, iPhone, and Blackberry that will let you check-in, share images, and post thoughts while on the go. That will make it extremely easy to rack up reward points while you're actually outside.
To get started at Venturepax, simply go to the site and create a profile, or login using your Facebook account. Once you're in, you can start sharing your outdoor adventures and finding new ones that you didn't even know existed.
The concept for this site is a simple, but good one. I've already found a few new things to do in my area, and that alone makes it worthwhile.
CBO Analysis: Boehner Plan Better Than Reid Plan
The Hill reports:
The Boehner plan, with changes made overnight, is expected to pass the House and Harry Reid has already stated he would kill it in the Senate.
Also, Boehner visited the Senate Republicans and received a standing ovation for the hard work and steady battle he has fought to get a bill that would reduce spending and not raise taxes on Americans.
On a side note, via Gallup, Obama's constant barrage of public speeches attacking Republicans has backfired with voters and he has hot a new low of 40%.
Related:
We Didn't Spend Our Way To Our Debt In A Day And We Can't Cut Our Way Out In A Day
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The debt-ceiling plan authored by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) cuts the deficit by more than the plan by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) if an assumption about war funding is removed from the Reid bill.
Without assuming a drawdown in military activities in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Reid bill only cuts the deficit by $909 billion. That's $8 billion less than the $917 billion Boehner plan. With the war funding factored in, the Reid plan cuts $2.176 trillion over 10 years.
The newly revised Boehner plan has the potential for even greater savings because it would require a balanced budget be enacted. Depending on how it is structured, a balanced budget could require many trillions of dollars in deficit cuts to achieve.
A Republican Study Committee budget would balance the budget in a decade by imposing $9.4 trillion in spending cuts without tax increases.
The Boehner plan, with changes made overnight, is expected to pass the House and Harry Reid has already stated he would kill it in the Senate.
Also, Boehner visited the Senate Republicans and received a standing ovation for the hard work and steady battle he has fought to get a bill that would reduce spending and not raise taxes on Americans.
On a side note, via Gallup, Obama's constant barrage of public speeches attacking Republicans has backfired with voters and he has hot a new low of 40%.
Related:
We Didn't Spend Our Way To Our Debt In A Day And We Can't Cut Our Way Out In A Day
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Adventurers Are "Artists of Life"
My friend DSD has a very thoughtful piece on her Summit Stones & Adventure Musings blog today entitled "Artists of Being Alive..."in which she philosophizes about those people who are "adventuring for another reason." She only has to point to her own blogroll to give examples of what she means, as it is filled with people who are pursuing the passions of their lives, such as climbing, paddling, or cycling, usually with some other goal or bigger cause in mind. Those people are striving to change the world through their own personal adventures, and that makes them "Artists of Life," a term I came to love the moment I read it.
The inspiration for DSD's post today is a quote from J. Stone which simply reads:
"The most invisible creators I know of are those artists whose medium is life itself. The ones who express the inexpressible... Their medium is their being. Whatever their presence touches has increased life. They are artists of being alive..."That's very thought provoking and inspirational quote if you ask me. How many of us know people that fit that description? If you're lucky, you know more than a few. I'm fortunate in that I've had the unique opportunity to interact with a number of people who could be described that way, and I can say that my life has been made better for knowing them.
While you go about your day today and move on into your weekend, think about the "Artists of Life" that you know, and consider how you can paint your own canvass.
Christian Maurer wins Red Bull X-Alps 2011
While I've been mostly occupied with the Raid the North Extreme this week, another event was taking place in Europe that is definitely worth a mention as well. That's where the Red Bull X-Alps 2011 was taking place, which is a very unique race that is a demanding test of endurance, skill, and nerve as well.
For those who haven't heard of it before, and I'm one of them, the X-Alps is an event that pits endurance athletes on a non-stop race through the Alps, starting in Salzburg, Austria and ending in Monaco. Participants in the competition, and there were 31 of them, must travel either on foot or by paraglider. Yep, you read that right, foot or paraglider. So, as a result, you have athletes running through the mountains, carrying their paragliding gear with them, while also scrambling to higher heights, so that they can launch themselves into the air and use their gliders to make progress.
The race got underway on Sunday, July 17th, and yesterday the first competitor crossed the finish line. That was Swiss athlete Christian Maurer who managed to glide the final 60km (37. miles) to the finish and land on a floating platform especially created for the event.
The rest of the competitors are expected to filter in between now and tomorrow, bringing a close to the race for 2011.
To find out more about the event, and see Maurer's winning ride, check out the video below.
Barack Obama, meet Jayson Blair
Barack Obama is now the Jayson Blair President.
http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2011/07/barack-obama-the-jayson-blair-presidency/
eric aka the Tygrrrr Express
http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2011/07/barack-obama-the-jayson-blair-presidency/
eric aka the Tygrrrr Express
Happy SysAdmin Day from Google - here’s to many happy returns (on investment)
Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day - a humble holiday for all the men and women who keep our IT systems churning and burning. At Google, we’ve had the opportunity over the years to work with many talented teams of SysAdmins, and across the board two things are true: these folks care deeply about technology and giving people the best tools to work together.
We’ve heard stories of teams who spent thousands of hours managing email systems, dealing with laptops going haywire, sorting through disaster recovery scenarios, patching servers and software, working with employees frustrated over lost data, resetting passwords, archiving mail, and managing other tasks fearlessly.
The most enjoyable part of my job has been helping these hard-working teams recover extra time in their days, and making their budgets go further (while helping them look good to executives!) by moving to the cloud. We’ve heard great stories about teams who had so much leftover time that they went out for haircuts and some of them even had time to choreograph a dance to our Gmail Motion April Fool’s joke.
Motorola’s Sr. Director of IT Strategy and Services, Jason Ruger, getting his hair cut after moving to Google Apps. Here are some of our favorite stories over the past year:
- Andrew Murrey, VP of IT Infrastructure, Cinram: “Since moving to Google Apps, my IT team is much happier. We previously had 16 full-time people managing our messaging systems, spending about 8,000 hours per year backing up email, fixing file storage problems, or managing server issues. We now need only two folks to look after messaging and the other 14 are now more focused on business-critical projects. They’re so happy they wear Google t-shirts about once a week!”
- Dan Moore, CIO, Quality Distribution: “The lower hardware requirements of web enabled applications allow our IT department to spend more time delivering improvements to the user experience. One of our first examples of this was our implementation of video and voice chat via Google Talk into our driver recruiting process.”
- Luke Leonhard, Web Services Manager, Brady Corp: “Our jobs went from constraining and limiting people’s usage to making sure everyone uses these tools as effectively as possible to be as productive as possible.” Check out the photo of the Brady SysAdmin team below.
Google and the Brady Corporation team during Google Apps Go LiveTo all of the SysAdmins out there supporting the more than 30 million users of Google Apps, our hats are off to you. So serve up the ice cream and cake, and celebrate the hard work of your SysAdmin today.
Vote On Boehner Debt-Ceiling Bill, Take Two
Last night the was supposed to vote on House Speaker John Boehner's debt-ceiling bill, but the vote was postponed because of a lack of support for the bill by House conservatives, as written.
Today we see there has been an addition to the bill, language guaranteeing a vote on a balanced budget, which has turned the tide in favor of Boehner's bill and now have many of those that were opposed stating they will vote yes.
National Journal provides an embedded version of the latest bill's language.
Harry Reid is already threatening to kill the bill in a hostile Senate but with just days to go, that would publicly lay any default squarely on Senate Democrat's shoulders, since they have already killed the Cut, Cap and Balance Act which passed the House earlier this month and included a debt limit increase.
[Update]House passed it as expected and the Senate Democrats killed it.
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Today we see there has been an addition to the bill, language guaranteeing a vote on a balanced budget, which has turned the tide in favor of Boehner's bill and now have many of those that were opposed stating they will vote yes.
House Republicans will link passage of a balanced-budget amendment to Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) last-ditch debt-ceiling plan, which GOP lawmakers said would move the measure to passage in a high-stakes vote later on Friday.
Republican lawmakers voiced confidence the enhanced bill would pass muster with conservatives, as Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) predicted the balanced-budget amendment change would bring 10 to 20 more GOP members on board.
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), a key holdout, and a Senate candidate, quickly took to Twitter after the meeting to say that he was a yes vote. The conservative Club for Growth also offered a tentative endorsement.
Republican lawmakers say the Boehner framework would still pave the way for the debt limit to be raised through the 2012 election in two chunks. But it would also mandate that the second hike of the ceiling could only occur after a balanced-budget amendment passed both chambers of Congress and went to the states for ratification.
National Journal provides an embedded version of the latest bill's language.
Harry Reid is already threatening to kill the bill in a hostile Senate but with just days to go, that would publicly lay any default squarely on Senate Democrat's shoulders, since they have already killed the Cut, Cap and Balance Act which passed the House earlier this month and included a debt limit increase.
[Update]House passed it as expected and the Senate Democrats killed it.
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Currents TV Heads To The Hood River
The Hood River in Oregon is a world class destination for paddlers looking for all kinds of unique challenges. That's exactly what the folks at Currents TV discovered when they visited the area recently. They also found some good news in the form of a dam removal. The Condit Dam is scheduled to be demolished starting in October, which should help to ensure the health of the river in the future as well.
Enjoy the latest episode from the good folks at Canoe & Kayak and Five2Nine Productions.
Currents v2_2: Hood River, Oregon from Five2Nine Productions on Vimeo.
Enjoy the latest episode from the good folks at Canoe & Kayak and Five2Nine Productions.
RTNX Update: WildernessTraverse.com Wins!
While most of the teams are still out on the course, the winners of this year's Raid the North Extreme have been crowned, as Team WilernessTraverse.com came across the finish line early this morning, to claim the victory. Congratulations to the team, which consists of Captain Bob Miller, Jakob Van Dorp, Gordon Blythen, and Sarah Fairmaid, on the impressive win.
The rest of the podium has yet to be decided, although it does appear that Team Wild Rose has a firm grip on second place at the moment. They're on the final mountain bike stages, and will transition back on foot later in the day, as they make their way to the finish. Behind them, there seems to be a battle brewing between DART-nuun, Atmosphere MOMAR and Tecnu Extreme/StaphAseptic for third place, while the Team GearJunkie/YogaSlackers, the only other team on the full course, seem to be MIA from the leaderboard at the moment.
This year's RTNX is being run in the West Kootenay region of Canada's British Columbia. The 500+km (310 mile) race promised "real wilderness" to anyone who signed up, and it seems that most teams have gotten all of that and more. With only six teams still competing on the full course, and 15 others going unranked, it appears that the race has lived up to its billing. It also seems that the teams are having a great time and are enjoying the course, despite having poor weather conditions early in the week.
Good luck to the rest of the teams. Get home safe!
Environmental Professionals of Color- National
The Environmental Professionals of Color- National (EPOC National) is a network of leaders, many of whom are the only person or one of the few people of color working at their environmental institutions. The purpose of this network is to provide a safe space for connecting people of color across the U.S. to share information, provide support, and discuss in depth the issues we care about.
EPOC National members work on a diverse array of environmental issues, including conservation, global warming, sustainability, environmental health, an environmental justice. They fill a unique and valuable role as bridges between the environmental community and communities of color.
EPOC National members work on a diverse array of environmental issues, including conservation, global warming, sustainability, environmental health, an environmental justice. They fill a unique and valuable role as bridges between the environmental community and communities of color.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Karakoram 2011: Accident On Broad Peak
Earlier in the week we had reports of several successful summits on Broad Peak, despite the weather there not being the most advantageous for climbing. A few days later we also get word of tragedy on that mountain, as one of the climbers fell to his death while descending.
Climber Rob Springer, who is part of the Field Touring Alpine squad, posted news of the accident on his blog today. Rob is on BP to acclimatize before jumping over to K2, which is his ultimate goal this summer in the Karakoram. He reports that five members of their team were on a summit bid a few days back when Chinese climber Jeff Wai Hung Chung slipped and fell more than 500 feet before landing in a crevice. All attempts to reach the fallen climber failed, and in the end he succumbed to his injuries.
My condolences to Jeff's friends, family and teammates.
Rob also tells us that three of the climbers on the FTA team did actually summit during their bid to take advantage of the small weather window. They were Sophie Denis, Wim Smets, Andre Bredenkamp. On the way down however, they had issues of their own when one of them tore a muscle in their leg, greatly slowing their descent. As a result, it took them 27 hours to complete the round trip from High Camp to summit and back. Thanks to the combined effort of the team, they are all down safe and sound now however.
Rob believes that the weather window on Broad Peak is now closed for the season, saying that if teams didn't go up during the two-day break they had, they most likely aren't going to be able to do so now. He's getting ready to head to K2 himself, and after a bout of food poisoning, he is happy that he didn't burn too much energy on the BP climb.
As usual in the Karakoram this year, the weather will dictate who gets the opportunity to climb on any of the peaks. It's going to be dicey for the foreseeable future, and you don't want to take any chances on K2.
Sensational Cases
In my role as columnist at Corporate Counsel magazine, I've been focusing on some of the recent, sensational legal news stories that have occupied public attention this summer, including those surrounding Dominique Strauss Kahn (here) and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation phone hacking scandal (here). Why? Well, for one reason, they're more interesting than writing about patent disputes and employee benefit cases...and it is, after all, summer.
Beyond this, though, it has always been my belief that even the most sensational legal cases out there hold Litigation PR lessons for everyone. For one thing, most rules of effective message delivery are the same, whether you're facing a single wire service reporter in the back of a courtroom or a bank of cameras outside the courthouse door. In addition, the ebb-and-flow of media attention in even the most high-profile of cases tends to follow courtroom action in the same way it does in lower-profile legal dramas.
And while your patent or employee benefits case may not be of interest to The New York Times, if your customers primarily read Electrical Engineering Times, it doesn't matter. Similarly, if you're based in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Tampa Bay Business Journal may be just as important to you as The Wall Street Journal.
A look back as we move ahead: Google Docs and Google Sites
We’ve all been frustrated by technology that gets slower, less reliable and less useful over time. Google Apps is different – it actually gets better automatically week after week without patches or updates to manage. People can absorb this stream of innovation without being distracted from their workflow, so this month we’re taking a look back to highlight the most interesting ways that Google Apps has grown up over time. Last week, we started with Gmail and Google Calendar.
Today we’ll break down how Google Docs and Sites support better teamwork, mobile productivity, ease of use and trustworthiness – four areas where Google Apps excels. We’re holding a webinar next Thursday to explore these developments (details below), so join us if you’re interested in learning more. We hope you’ll find a few capabilities here that you didn’t know about before, or haven’t tried in some time.
Designed for Teams
Google Docs and Sites were built from the ground up to make teamwork seamless. Being able to simultaneously edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations without the hassles of attachments is just the start.
- Great documents come from great discussions, so in addition to collaborative editing, Google Docs also enables conversations right alongside your content. Comments can be directed to specific co-editors, who can then respond in the document’s discussion panel or over email.
- Sometimes you want to collaborate freely with others in a spreadsheet, but other situations call for a bit more control. Data validation lets you enforce cell input restrictions. You can also protect sheets – making them view-only – or hide sheets entirely within a collaborative workbook.
- Forms in Google Docs also offer a structured way of collecting information in a spreadsheet from others. Questions can be multiple choice or open-ended, and your surveys can include branching logic to display different questions to a respondent depending on how they respond to earlier questions.
- When a document, spreadsheet or presentation isn’t able to truly capture an idea, try a collaborative drawing. The same real-time co-editing found in those other formats is part of the drawing editor, too.
- Across documents, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings, revision history lets you see any edit made by any collaborator since the file was created, which comes in handy when you need to revert changes or view a previous version.
- Google Sites can really bring a collection of information together neatly – including embedded documents, spreadsheets and presentations – into a collaborative team, project or public website. Anyone with edit access can contribute and share, no programming skills required.
- In today’s world of distributed contributors, working across language barriers can be critical. With automatic document translation, site translation, and even a translation spreadsheet function all powered by Google Translate, being productive in multiple languages has never been easier.
- If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it, so we added built-in analytics within Google Docs and Google Sites, which provides content owners with aggregate stats and metrics about who’s accessing their files and sites.
- Beyond collaborative documents, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings, you can upload and share any type of file with Google Docs, including pictures, videos, and special file formats like CAD drawings. Simply upload to Google Docs and decide who should have access. You can even set permissions to a mailing list, which automatically adjusts access as individuals are added to and removed from the group.
- Shared collections is a great way to efficiently manage sharing access across a group of files. Instead of sharing file-by-file, you can share a whole folder of information all at once.
- And if you’re looking to bring more efficient collaboration to Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint without upgrading to Office 2010, give Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office a try.
Productive Anywhere
Mobile access to email, contacts and calendar information is pretty common now, but access to documents, spreadsheets, presentations and team sites across all major smartphone platforms is unique to Google Apps.
- Unlike software and files that live on one specific computer, you can access and work with information in Google Docs and Google Sites from any computer without hassles like software licenses and VPN connections.
- Beyond simple mobile document viewing, you can edit documents and spreadsheets from Android and iOS devices. This can be a faster way to make a simple change than firing up your laptop.
- The Google Docs mobile app for Android allows you to browse, search, open and share your Google Docs files from your phone or tablet. This app even lets you convert mobile phone pictures into editable documents.
- Google Sites are also optimized for smaller screens through automatic mobile rendering. When you’re viewing a site on a small screen, we can automatically display a version of the site that’s easier to use on your phone or tablet.
Simple & Affordable
Google Docs and Sites bring together the best of two worlds: the power of the web and the richness of traditional software applications, all at a dramatically lower cost than buying, installing and managing client software.
- Google documents and spreadsheets have quietly rolled out many basic word processing and spreadsheet capabilities that people use on a daily basis. If it’s been a while since your last encounter with Google Docs, try out headers and footers, pagination, customizable charts, range sorting, data filtering, conditional formatting, in-cell dropdown and validation, a solver tool and pivot tables, just to name a few.
- Magic autofill completes spreadsheet lists based on a theme, not just a simple autofill pattern. For example, if you start with Brazil, France, and Tanzania, magic autofill will suggests names of other countries. Hold the Control key while autofilling (Option key on a Mac) to trigger magic autofill.
- Spreadsheets can also help you automatically pull statistics, facts and figures from the internet with the GoogleLookup function. For example, =GoogleLookup("Paraguay"; "internet users") returns the latest statistic, along with a source citation.
- In documents, you can tap the web for dictionary definitions. Definitions for new words are available in real-time, unlike static dictionaries in traditional software.
- Google Docs also supports browser drag and drop actions that you may have learned in traditional desktop software. You can drag pictures from your desktop to embed images in documents, and drag files from your computer to upload files into Google Docs. Many types of files can be converted in high fidelity so you can continue editing as a team, and optical character recognition (OCR) turns images of text and PDFs into editable files as well.
- Templates are also a fast way to get started on a new project. Google Docs offers thousands of document, spreadsheet and presentation templates, and Google Sites also includes many starter site templates to help team projects get going.
- Getting familiar with our keyboard shortcuts can really speed up simple tasks. Next time, try out our keyboard shortcuts for documents, spreadsheets, presentations and sites.
Pure & Proven Cloud
As with Gmail, the collaboration tools in Google Apps for Business are backed by a service uptime guarantee and transparent system performance information. And compared to sharing information using old tools like thumb drives, Google Apps can help businesses keep their data a whole lot safer, too.
- Our 99.9% uptime SLA guarantees reliable access to Google Apps, and our commitment doesn’t have any exceptions for planned maintenance. This is because our systems are designed to handle updates without interrupting service for customers.
- Our publicly available status dashboard offers transparency about the health of our systems, and 24x7 phone and online support is there when you need it.
- Google goes to extensive lengths to protect the customer information in our data centers, including extensive personnel background checks, security-focused processes, advanced technology, and around-the-clock physical protection.
- Google Docs and Sites have completed a SAS 70 Type II audit, and have achieved the U.S. Federal goverment’s FISMA certification.
- With default https connections, your information is encrypted as it travels from your web browser to our servers. This helps protect your data by making it unreadable to others sharing your network.
- Google Apps accounts can be further secured with 2-step verification, which requires users to sign in with something they know (their password) and something they have (their mobile phone). With verification codes available via SMS, even basic mobile phones can serve as powerful authentication devices.
As with Gmail and Google Calendar, Google Docs and Sites have been on a fast innovation path (85 improvements last year alone!) that you just can’t get from typical software upgrades every three to five years. So if you missed any of these new features over the years, give them a go – you’re bound to find a few that’ll help you work more efficiently. And if you’d like to hear more about many of these updates, join us for a free webinar next Thursday.
A look back as we move ahead: Google Docs and Google Sites
Thursday, August 4th, 2011
9:00 a.m. PDT / 12:00 p.m. EDT
Register here
2-step verification: stay safe around the world in 40 languages
(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog and the Online Security Blog)
Earlier this year, we introduced a security feature called 2-step verification that helps protect your Google Account from threats like password compromise and identity theft. By entering a one-time verification code from your phone after you type your password, you can make it much tougher for an unauthorized person to gain access to your account.
People have told us how much they like the feature, which is why we're thrilled to offer 2-step verification in 40 languages and in more than 150 countries. There’s never been a better time to set it up: Examples in the news of password theft and data breaches constantly remind us to stay on our toes and take advantage of tools to properly secure our valuable online information. Email, social networking and other online accounts still get compromised today, but 2-step verification cuts those risks significantly.
We recommend investing some time in keeping your information safe by watching our 2-step verification video to learn how to quickly increase your Google Account’s resistance to common problems like reused passwords and malware and phishing scams. Wherever you are in the world, sign up for 2-step verification and help keep yourself one step ahead of the bad guys.
To learn more about online safety tips and resources, visit our ongoing security blog series, and review a couple of simple tips and tricks for online security. Also, watch our video about five easy ways to help you stay safe and secure as you browse.
Anti-Semites In San Francisco Thwarted For Now
By Findalis of Monkey in the Middle
Thus is the Law of Moses and it seems the Law in San Francisco. So says Judge Loretta Giorgi.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Loretta Giorgi on Wednesday issued a tentative ruling saying the proposed ballot measure to ban circumcision in the city must be withdrawn, calling it "expressly preempted" by state law.So far the courts have stopped this travesty of the legal system from being pushed forward. But the anti-Semites have stated that they will appeal. And there is the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. A court notorious for their extreme liberal views. Until then, this obscene law will not be on the ballot, will be dead on arrival.
Lloyd Schofield, 59 year old anti-circumcision activist, was determined to have male circumcision banned by legislation in San Francisco. For starters, he gathered 12,000 signatures, while ony 7,168 are required for the city of 750,000 by the city’s Department of Elections, for his proposal to be placed on the ballet in the November 8th San Francisco elections .
The measure, which would only apply in San Francisco, was intended make it a crime to circumcise a minor, regardless of the parents' religious beliefs. The maximum penalty would be a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
The ban’s campaign material included anti-Semitic comic books depicting a Jewish mohel, or circumcision practitioner, as the sinister villain "Foreskin Man", in the inimitable style of the Protocol of the Elders of Zion and the Nazi Der Sturmer.
According to the Associated Press the plaintiffs of record in the lawsuit filed against the measure included five Jews, three Muslims, two doctors who regularly perform the procedure, the local chapter of the Jewish Community Relations Council and the national Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Volunteers have been working at debunking the misconceptions about circumcision, citing medical and freedom of religion issues.
Judge Giorgi put the controversy on hold by stating on Wednesday that the California Business and Professions Code prohibits local regulation of medical procedures.
She added that it "serves no legitimate purpose" for an illegal measure to remain on the ballot and ordered elections Chief John Arntz to remove it. According to Arntz, after Sept. 1 it will be difficult to remove the proposal from the ballots because they go to the printers. Ideally, the judge will have issued a ruling by that date, stopping the proposal in its tracks.
If the law is on the ballot and passes, it will run up against an overriding state and/or federal law, so there is no chance of the circumcision restrictions ever taking effect.
Abby Porth, associate director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said she's delighted the "extreme and hurtful" measure might not even appear before voters.
"The idea we would put doctors in jail for performing a procedure with known health benefits that parents request for their children is outrageous," she said.
“Even if it made the ballot, we don’t believe it would have passed,” Porth said.
Source
July Guest Hosting the Rick Amato Show
Guest hosting Rick Amato show tonight at 7pm PST in San Diego.
http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2011/07/july-guest-hosting-the-rick-amato-show/
eric aka the Tygrrrr Express
http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2011/07/july-guest-hosting-the-rick-amato-show/
eric aka the Tygrrrr Express
This Speed-Riding Video Will Have You Holding Your Breath!
Speed-Riding is an interesting activity that combines both skiing and paragliding into one exhilarating experience. Usually, speed-riders start off by skiing down the side of a mountain and as they pick-up speed, they also start to catch big air. Eventually they'll leave the mountain behind altogether and go soaring through the air, before eventually returning to Earth, hopefully on their skis once again.
The video below, which comes our way via the Adventure Journal, does a good job of showing off the sport. Caught on helmet cam, the video starts out with a typical skier out for a downhill run. But eventually that skier runs out of snow, which is when things start to get a bit interesting. I couldn't help but hold my breath as I waited for him to gain some altitude, and I can't be the only one to watch this video and fear for the safety of those skis.
Speed Riding Chamonix 3 juillet 2011 GoPro HD 960
The video below, which comes our way via the Adventure Journal, does a good job of showing off the sport. Caught on helmet cam, the video starts out with a typical skier out for a downhill run. But eventually that skier runs out of snow, which is when things start to get a bit interesting. I couldn't help but hold my breath as I waited for him to gain some altitude, and I can't be the only one to watch this video and fear for the safety of those skis.
RTNX Update: WildernessTraverse.com In Command!
We're now several days into the Raid the North Extreme adventure race, which is taking place as we speak in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia. With more than four days of racing under their belts, the teams have already had to endure some tough challenges. In fact, the course is so tough that only six of the 30 teams racing have a chance at completing the full course.
As of this writing, Team WildernessTraverse.com seems to have a commanding lead, and are currently on foot and steaming towards the next Transition Area, where they'll climb on their mountain bikes for the last leg of the race. In second place, and chasing hard is Team Wild Rose, followed by DART-nuun in third. At this point, the only other three teams who have a hope of completing the full course are GearJunkie/Yogaslackers, Team Atmosphere MOMAR, and Tecnu Extreme/StaphAseptic. There are also 10 teams that are continuing unranked at the moment, most likely due to a team mate dropping out of the race.
The full course teams will cover more than 500km (310 miles) by the time the reach the finish line on Saturday. The race has been a tough combination of trekking, mountain biking, and paddling, with plenty of navigation mixed in as well. There is still a lot of miles to cover, and with serious navigation involved, anyone can get lost, but at the moment, the trailing teams will be hard pressed to catch WildernessTraverse. They seem to be running a good, solid race with few mistakes, and as a result, they've built a comfortable lead. For now.
Stay tuned for results tomorrow or Saturday.
We Didn't Spend Our Way To Our Debt In A Day And We Can't Cut Our Way Out In A Day
"The only bottom line that I have is that we have to extend this debt ceiling through the next election, into 2013"--- Barack ObamaI understand the resistance by certain factions of the Republican party, Conservative Independents and Tea Party supporters to the new debt ceiling increase proposal the House of Representatives are scheduled to vote on tonight, with less spending cuts than many can genuinely be happy with.
Each battle our Republicans in Congress are fighting against Democrats, to keep their promise to the American people and slash our spending habits to get a handle on our massive debt, is being fought to the very end.
We did not get to over $14 trillion in debt in a day, or with one bill or even in a decade of bad decisions, so one proposal, one battle against the decades long bad spending habits in Washington is not going to dig us out of the hole we are in.
The Republican controlled House passed the Cut, Cap and Balance Act, sent it to the Democratically controlled Senate where Senate Democrats killed it by vote along party lines to table it after Obama threatened to veto it.
It would have provided for the debt increase.
Obama, Boehner and other political leaders negotiated but those negotiations imploded as Obama kept moving the goal posts and insisted on tax increases instead of slashing spending by a great amount, which is what Republicans were insisting on.
Throughout this whole battle we have seen play out publicly, we have seen the GOP fight for what the American people have so overwhelmingly said they wanted. For Washington to quit spending more money than our country has.
First Read provides a look into how much the GOP has gotten in this one small battle in the larger war being waged.
But when you take a step back from the hour-by-hour movements in this debate, it’s obvious how much ground the White House and Democrats have conceded. First, they retreated on their push for a clean debt-ceiling raise. Then they retreated on the size of the spending cuts (now both sides say the cuts must equal or exceed the eventual debt-limit hike). Then they backed away from insisting that tax revenues be included in the final package (both the Boehner and Reid plans exclude them). And now it seems that their final line in the sand is insisting that the debt ceiling must -- in one step -- be raised beyond 2012, versus Boehner’s two-step approach, which would guarantee another debt showdown early next year.
Initially the GOP had a clean concept, if Obama wanted a $2 trillion increase in the debt ceiling, then there had to be $2 trillion or more in spending cuts to justify it.
Republicans are not in control of the Senate or the White House though, so that clean concept became impossible to bring to fruition and this one battle does have an end date, the deadline, so the GOP must force as many spending cuts as possible, take their win and prepare for the next battle to fight for more spending cuts.
We did not spend our way to into this debt overnight and one battle is not going to cut our way of this mess.
Fred Thompson, whom I respect greatly, wrote an open letter to the House GOP, published July 26, 2011, which I think everyone should read.
As someone who understands the pressures and difficulties you have been going through, I want to say, “Congratulations.” You won, and so did the country.
Absent some major miscalculations, within the next few days there will be official acknowledgment of what has already happened.
At the beginning of the debt-ceiling debate, a realistic, optimistic outcome essentially would have been this: The Republicans would take the initiative and put their plan before the American people. The debt-ceiling increase would be accompanied by corresponding spending cuts. There would be no new taxes. You would drive a hard bargain in the face of unrelenting presidential and Democratic demagoguery — some of it on national television — drawing the attention and focus of the American people to the truth about our country’s fiscal and economic situation. Sure, people would initially ask, “Why are the Republicans now willing to take this thing to the wire when a debt-limit increase has usually been pro forma?” But at the end of the day, more Americans than ever before would understand what is going to happen to us as a country if we continue our current path.
In this optimistic scenario, President Obama’s duplicity would become apparent, and he’d be politically diminished as a result. With his eyes firmly fixed on his own reelection, his political journey would take him from first, calling for a budget with billions in new spending, to second, demanding a “clean” debt-limit bill with no cuts, to third, a proposal for a “big deal,” including vague promises of trillions in spending cuts, to fourth — in order to ensure that such a deal was never accepted — making a demand for billions in additional “revenues” over and above what he previously agreed to accept.
Still, you would stand firm. The president would have miscalculated, a strategic blunder that, along with his petulance, left him marginalized. Obama would make a transparent scramble to get back to the head of the parade. There would be last-minute plans and rejections, but, at the end of the day, the president and the Senate Democrats would reveal that they are willing to do almost anything to push the debt-ceiling limit past the next election, thereby avoiding having to face the electorate again on this issue.
My friends, within the next few days, all of this will have happened. I respectfully suggest that you rake in your chips, stuff them in your pockets, and tell the dealer to deal the next hand.
There is more if you care to read it, it is worth the click over.
John Boehner will have a vote on another plan tonight, far less cuts that any true conservative would like, but the increase would be shorter so that the country does not default now and breathing room would be provided to try to find some grand bargain before the next debt limit fight.Senate Democrats are already vowing to kill the Boehner plan, yet the accuse Republicans of wanting to default on our loans? After they have killed every measure the House has passed to address spending cuts and raise the debt ceiling?
Details on Boehner's debt deal plan from Americans for Tax Reform.
- Extends $900 billion in borrowing authority (roughly enough for the next six months) in exchange for savings of $917 billion over the next ten years. This is a cut of about 8 percent of total expected discretionary spending for half of a year of borrowing authority.
- Removes outlay caps from the first version of the bill, reducing the amount of money actually going out the door in next year's budget. This limits budgeted spending to two percent annual growth while tightening the amount of actual spending allowed to occur in 2012. This results in savings of $25 billion next year alone.
- Proves that the House-negotiated FY2011 Continuing Resolution was a good deal for taxpayers - CBO's updated projections to include the deal show it will save taxpayers $122 billion over the next decade. Under the Obama budget, spending would have increased by over $400 billion in the same time.
- Requires additional real savings of at least $1.8 trillion before the President can request additional borrowing authority.
Barack Obama has stated publicly he would rather this fight not have to be fought again until after the 2012 elections. That is telling. He is more worried about the presidential election than he is acting responsibly and getting our spending under control.
Obama wants a blank check to get him through the elections. He will not get it.
Here is some raw data showing comparisons of Obama's debt increases in his 2 1/2 years as president and past ones.
The Bottom Line
The GOP has fought long and hard, every single bill that comes up that deals with spending and even adding cuts into bills that do not. They are battling against Obama and Democrats for every dollar they can cut. They are doing the job America insisted they do when voters gave them the largest turnover in House seats in over 70 years in the House of Representatives during the midterm elections.
Is Boehner's deal everything we wanted? No. What we want in spending cuts will not get past the Democratically controlled Senate and if it did the Democratic President has said he will veto it.
That is the reality of Washington at this moment.
We can want a different reality but we can only force a different reality in 2012 when 23 Democratic seats in the Senate will be voted on and when the public will have a chance to either remove Obama or continue to let him spend our money like a drunken sailor.
Cartoon top left by Nate Beeler, via Townhall. Cartoon middle right by Lisa Benson, via Townhall.
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Outside Has The Cure For The Post TdF Blues!
With the 2011 Tour de France in the books, it is easy to let a post-race malaise set in as we wait patiently for 2012 to get here so we can cheer on our favorite riders once again. This is the time that we console ourselves with our own long rides while day dreaming about our own days in the Yellow Jersey. Fortunately, the post-Tour cycling coverage over at Outside Online can help ease the pain of not getting our daily fix of Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett.
First up, Outside says that we can fight our annual "Tour withdrawal" by drooling over all the new bikes that made their debut there and will be arriving in our stores soon. In this article, they preview some of those hot new bikes, which includes offerings from Cannondale, Cervelo, Pinarello, and more. These are state of the art bikes, and as you would expect, they come with hefty price tags. Some of them are approaching $10,000, which is out of the price range for most cyclists, but it is still fun to dream. Plus, by the time the 2012 Tour is over, features from these bikes will start to trickle down to something a bit more within our budgets.
Late July also happens to mark the start of RAGBRAI, one of the biggest cycling events in the world .The name stands for the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa, and each year more than 20,000 riders take part in the annual event. The ride kicked off this past weekend, and even Lance Armstrong dropped by for a spin. Outside takes a look at some of the statistics from this event, which is hugely popular back in my home state. For instance, more than 700 cases of beer are sold nightly at the camps for the event, making RAGBRAI as much of a party as it is a challenge. There are also an estimated 1500 support vehicles following the Peloton as well. It is a fun, not-too-serious event that I'd recommend to any cyclist.
Finally, have you ever wondered what kind of food the riders eat to keep them powering on the road for 3+ weeks? Outside also has one of the favorite recipes of Team HTC-Highroad. The simple, yet tasty-sounding, Potato Gnocchi Tourmalet includes two pounds of potatoes, eggs, zucchini, garlic, and more, and is guaranteed to power you through a mountain stage. Sounds good to me!
So how do you combat the Post-Tour Blues?
Tea Party Nation Founder: What Washington Has Forgotten
Judson Phillips, founder and chief executive of Tea Party Nation, has taken to the Washington Post opinion pages to remind readers exactly what the Tea Party Nation stands for and the quote of the day definitely has to go to him.
Phillips, in one short op-ed, has brought the whole crisis back to the basics. When you spend more money than you have, you borrow and create debt with interest and end up further and further in the hole.
We hear Obama and Democrats continue to talk about increasing taxes to lower our debt, yet Marco Rubio said it best when he said we don't need new taxes we need more taxpayers.
Cut spending, quit creating an atmosphere of fear for our business owners, (Fear being the word OF the business owners in relation to the Obama administration) so they will spend more, expand and hire more people and Washington would then have a good start on getting a handle on the spending problem we have.
The message to Washington is very simple.
Put down your shovels ladies and gentlemen.
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As the founder of Tea Party Nation, I feel confident in saying that the Tea Party understands what so many in Washington seem to have forgotten: We do not have a debt crisis. We have a spending crisis. There is only one way you get to a debt crisis — you spend too much money.
Phillips, in one short op-ed, has brought the whole crisis back to the basics. When you spend more money than you have, you borrow and create debt with interest and end up further and further in the hole.
We hear Obama and Democrats continue to talk about increasing taxes to lower our debt, yet Marco Rubio said it best when he said we don't need new taxes we need more taxpayers.
Cut spending, quit creating an atmosphere of fear for our business owners, (Fear being the word OF the business owners in relation to the Obama administration) so they will spend more, expand and hire more people and Washington would then have a good start on getting a handle on the spending problem we have.
We in the Tea Party understand a basic concept that Washington has forgotten: When you are in a hole, quit digging. Every time we have approached the debt ceiling, we have been told the same thing: If we do not raise the debt limit, it will be the end of the world as we know it. A couple of years later, when we find ourselves facing the same crisis, we’re told the same thing.
The message to Washington is very simple.
Put down your shovels ladies and gentlemen.
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Jeremy Ben-Ami's J St. book
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| Jeremy Ben-Ami |
What I want to address here is the review by Ami Eden, the editor in chief of the JTA news service. Eden is critical but not truly hostile in his view of J Street. The problem is that he's not always accurate.
His most problematic point is on the contentious matter of George Soros.
Eden writes: "J Street had spent years essentially denying Soros was a donor when in fact he was one of the organization’s biggest funders."
Soros withdrew from the group that was planning J Street's creation. As I wrote in a news article in In These Times magazine, May 2008:
On April 12, 2007, Soros indicated in an article in the New York Review of Books that attacks on his character prompted him to withdraw his involvement from the group so as not to damage its efforts. As a result, Soros is not among the 100 people named on J Street’s advisory council.What became a public relations nightmare for J Street was the revelation that Soros has contributed several hundred thousand dollars (significant for J Street but chump change for Soros) leaving the unfortunate but false impression that J Street had lied about Soros. The real problem is that Soros is unjustly demonized in much of the Jewish community as anti-Israel.
But Eden goes on to write that J Street's positions are not extreme and not hostile to Israel. He concludes:
You don’t like J Street’s policies? Jewish Voice for Peace supports some boycotts and divestment measures targeting Israel and takes no position on whether it backs a two-state solution.
You don’t like J Street’s tactics? JVP activists heckled Israel’s prime minister at another Jewish organization’s conference.
By comparison, Ben-Ami’s talk about Zionism, support for U.S. aid to Israel and opposition to the BDS movement sound downright establishment. And if JVP's influence and popularity grow, it might not be long before establishment folks start telling themselves that maybe J Street wasn’t so bad after all.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Maryland Board Approves Solar Farm Lease at Prison Site
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| An aerial view of the property near the Maryland Correctional Institution where a 20MW PV plant will be built. (Photo courtesy of Google Images) |
Maryland Solar was created by Beowulf Energy, whose managing director, Michael Enright, served as Gov. Martin O’Malley’s chief of staff and senior adviser before he left the administration last year. O’Malley, who sits on the board with Franchot and Treasurer Nancy Kopp, noted his former adviser’s position at the company before voting to approve the deal.
Maryland Solar will get $24 million in federal subsidies for the project.
Maryland’s renewable energy goals calls for using solar energy for 2 percent of the state’s overall power needs by 2022. That would require the state to have between 1,000 and 1,200 megawatts of solar power. The state currently only has about 20 megawatts of solar energy. (The Daily Record, 7/27/2011)
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