Have you ever wanted to make a panini or some other form of pressed sandwich, but you didn’t want to shell out the money for an unitasker like a sandwich press? Besides, sandwich presses take up space. In this post, we’ll show you how you can make panini-like sandwiches using kitchen equipment that you probably already have!
The above-the-line deduction for tuition and fees, one of the famous “extenders” that Congress has to reinstate every other year, is available for taxpayers whose income is too high to be able to claim a Lifetime Learning Credit.
If your AGI is $65,000 or less — or $130,000 or less on a joint return — you can claim a deduction of up to $4,000. For AGIs of between $65,001 and $80,000, or $131,001 and $160,000, the deduction is $2,000.
There is no phase out of the deduction. If you are filing a joint return and your AGI is $159,995, you can claim the $2,000. But if you have just $6 more you get nothing.
Since this is a deduction, the tax benefit depends on your bracket. Those claiming a $4,000 deduction will save $1,000 if they are in the 25% tax bracket.
But the savings is not limited to the actual deduction. Since it is above the line and reduces your AGI, it may increase the tax benefit from a variety of other deductions, exclusions and credits that are phased-out based on the level of income.
The deduction is available for tuition and fees required for enrollment or attendance at an accredited college, university, vocational school or other post-secondary institution. It is available for all undergraduate and graduate levels of education. There is no degree or workload requirement.
The deduction limits are per return, not per student. And qualified expenses.
— Robert D. Flach
Consumerist has teamed up with MainStreet.com to bring you tax tips every day between now and April 15th. This frees up Tax Cat to do more important things — like trying to claim hairball meds and catnip as business expenses.
Looking for more deductions? You’ll find tons at MainStreet.com.
More from MainStreet.com:
If you’re in the market for an eReader, the Barnes &Noble Nook is the perfect choice for you. This Android powered eReader will be available for sale at Best Buy on April 18th. The Nook will cost $259.99 and will also be on sale at Barnes & Noble’s website and 723 bookstores.
This deal also requires Best Buy to include Barnes & Noble’s BN eReader software on some of the personal computers and Smartphone’s. There has been no word on this device being able to do other things such as web browsing or having access to the Android market.
(more…)
What’s black and white and red all over? The new myTouch Slide, of course! Semi-official (hey, it hasn’t been announced yet) pictures have come out showing the next step in the line of T-Mobile HTC Android phones in Technicolor. By offering color options and adding some form of HTC’s Sense to the phone, it looks like they’re really pushing the customization of the myTouch series of phones. Hopefully they’ll drop those bubbles, though …
So who wants what color? [CellPhone Signal]
YouTube-anima (n): A portmanteau of the words “YouTube” and “Machinima”.
For the lack of a better word, I created my own – and left the “interactive” part all alone. Why did I do this? Because YouTube user xlr105 pretty much made the most epic machinima of Team Fortress 2 – and it is in the “Choose Your Own Adventure” flavor (although the ending is the same).
In other words, if you liked this:-
and this:-
you are going to love this:-
Props to the creator for having a scene of thugs who ask you riddles. That was full of win. Also, kudos on having an innocent and cute (?) Heavy!
According to a new medical study by Canadian researchers, side effects of antidepressants carry a similar risk of causing suicide in youths, regardless on the specific drug used.
The study, published online by the medical journal Pediatrics, looked at the use of Paxil, Zoloft, and Prozac and determined that all of the antidepressants carried roughly the same risk of causing a child to attempt suicide. Researchers say the findings support the FDA’s decision to place a “black box” suicide risk warning on all antidepressants on the market.
Researchers from British Columbia looked at nearly 21,000 youths between the ages of 10 and 18, and found three suicides and 266 attempted suicides among those who had taken antidepressants for a year.
That number represents five times the rate of suicide and suicide attempts among youths not taking antidepressants, but researchers said that the number remained roughly consistent regardless of what kind of antidepressant the child was prescribed. Overall, researchers estimate that the use of antidepressants raises the rate of suicidal acts among children to 27.04 per 1,000 person-years.
Antidepressants, particularly a class of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), have come under fire in recent years over concerns that they may increase the risk suicidal tendencies.
In particular, a number of lawsuits have been filed against GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Paxil (paroxetine), for failing to adequately warn users and the medical community about the risk of suicide. The drug maker has spent an estimated $390 million to settle Paxil suicide or attempted suicide lawsuits. In December, Bloomberg News indicated that about 150 suicide death cases have settled for an average of $2 million each and another 300 attempted suicide cases resolved for about $300,000 each.
My third novel is now written and off to my editor. There is still a lot of work to be done, but also some waiting to be done, so this is where I start thinking about my next book — which will, if all goes well, be my fourth.
These books are like cats. You get the first one on a lark, the second one to be a companion to the first, the third one because they’re so cute when they’re small. The fourth one shows up unbidden on your doorstep.
Well, maybe it happens in a different order than that, but the point is, you set out thinking one or two will suffice, but soon they are milling about, underfoot and in the way, but you can’t imagine life without them… and, worse of all, the moment one emerges from wriggly kittenhood, you immediately go get a new one. The more the meowier, you think. And that’s where I’m at now.
I was going to use petfinder, but then I saw this one streaking across a rainy street. I felt a little sorry for the creature and took it in. Now it has made itself at home, and I have given it a name. It is a different sort of cat, but will probably get along with the others. I guess it is going to stay.
But I’m keeping my eye on it. The last time this happened, the cat turned out to have a tiny, mewling sequel.
Word on the German street (or Straße) is that both the Palm Pre Plus and the Pixi Plus are coming to O2 and Vodafone on April 28.
These are the same phones that Americans have come to know and love, but with GSM radios and a European-friendly QWERTZ keyboard.
You know the drill: the Pre Plus is their flagship device with 16GB storage, while the Pixi Plus is for those just dipping their toes in with only 8GB storage and a little less oomph. Both feature Web OS, which includes multitasking, Palm’s Synergy contact system, system-wide notifications, the ability to act as a WiFi access point, and access to the Palm App Catalog.
Keep your eyes on www.palm.com/de for availability and accessories.
Auf Wiederhören!
Google will soon make its VP8 video codec open source, we’ve learned from multiple sources. The company is scheduled to officially announce the release at its Google I/O developers conference next month, a source with knowledge of the announcement said. And with that release, Mozilla — maker of the Firefox browser — and Google Chrome are expected to also announce support for HTML5 video playback using the new open codec.
Google has controlled the VP8 codec ever since it finalized the acquisition of video codec maker On2 Technologies in February. When reached for comment as to its plans, a Google spokesperson told us the company had “nothing to announce at this time.”
The move comes as online video publishers are gravitating toward standards-based HTML5 video delivery, bolstered in part by the release of the iPad. However, that acceptance has been slowed by the fact that the industry has yet to agree on a single codec for video playback, with some companies throwing support behind Ogg Theora and others hailing H.264 as the future of web video.
Google’s YouTube, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 and Apple — through its iPad, iPhone and Safari browser — have all thrown their weight behind H.264, which many believe provides superior picture quality and playback to the Ogg Theora codec. However, a few organizations — including Mozilla — refuse to support H.264 due to potential licensing issues. Whereas Ogg Theora is completely open source, the H.264 codec is managed by licensing body MPEG LA. Even though MPEG LA announced in February that it was extending its royalty-free licensing for web video using H.264 through 2016, that was little consolation for Mozilla and others that are committed to supporting open standards.
The result is a divide between which video format can be viewed in which browser. H.264-encoded HTML5 video can be viewed in Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome and in the upcoming Internet Explorer 9 browser from Microsoft. Meanwhile, Ogg Theora playback for HTML5 video is supported by Firefox, Chrome and Opera.
Google hopes to stem that divide by making VP8 open source, providing a high-quality and open alternative to existing codecs. On2 first announced VP8 in late 2008, promising more efficient video compression than other available codecs. At launch, On2 went so far as to claim that it could provide “50 percent bandwidth savings compared to leading H.264 implementations.”
Google’s plans to open-source the codec have been widely expected ever since it announced plans to acquire On2 in August 2009, and speculation intensified after the deal closed. The acquisition even led the Free Software Foundation (FSF) to urge Google to kill Flash by open-sourcing the VP8 codec.
While an open-source VP8 could end concerns about H.264’s licensing issues and Theora’s quality, questions still remain about whether Google can provide a video standard on which everyone can agree. Microsoft only recently announced support for H.264 for HTML5 playback, and has never been quick to adopt open standards. And Apple, which has been the driving force behind HTML5 video and H.264 playback on the iPhone and iPad, might not be keen on the idea of switching up its codec support on those devices anytime soon.
Related content on NewTeeVee: Google TV: Another Reason Open Sourcing VP8 Matters
Related content on GigaOM Pro: What Does the Future Hold For Browsers? (subscription required)
Dear Energy Professional, Dear Colleagues,
Local investor company has recently announced that they have signed an agreement to build a new 100 -megawatt (plus 350 tph steam) generating imported coal firing new thermal power plant in Yalova, a beautiful summer resort close to Istanbul.
Financial details were not released yet by the investors. We have further reviewed and evaluated the EIA reports in their web site,
The budget for this project is about 135 million US Dollars. Available details are as follows
Plant will employ pulverized coal firing system. The first unit is purchased from Poland; the second stand-by unit is supplied from South Africa which is designed to BS standards. Both units are certified to TUV Germany standards. They will have sufficient capacity dust collection ESPs, and flue gas desulphurization systems.
Slug discharge system will not use ash dam, but investor prefers to move the bottom ash disposal system via trucks to nearby cement factories. That is to be carefully monitored. Any deep sea discharge should be avoided. Otherwise it becomes an environmental disaster.
It is declared that plant cooling system will use seawater. Seawater cooling cycle should not exceed environmentally safe limitations otherwise we face nearby sea life endangered. Fish population should be carefully monitored and kept unharmed.
Imported coal supply will be handled with large body ocean ships, which will need large seaport at plant’s seaside, which is quite shallow, at Izmit Bay entrance. That will need special and expensive design. Periodical coal ship unloading may create sea traffic congestion, plus more sea traffic in Turkish Channels. These risks should also be taken into consideration by the regulatory board.
Your writer feels happy to get such news on new energy investments in our local energy market, provided that they are environmentally friendly, they have completed all obligations for Environmental Impact Assessment Reports, they receive their updated license from the Local Regulatory Board, design by local engineering companies as much as possible, fabricate in the local fabrication plants as much as possible, install by our local contractors, commissioned and supervised by our local engineering power, operated by our own staff, and regularly checked by our own Labor force in programmed maintenance.
Your writer sincerely feels that energy investors deserve all our support to complete those power plant investments. They deserve since they risk their own property in order to get proper “Corporate Financing” at reasonable interest rates, and payment terms.
Hence your writer also tries to avoid them to make any technical mistakes in their power plant design, furthermore to avoid incorrect selection of the necessary equipment, wishes them to operate the plant for many years, to generate electricity which will push our economic prosperity.
There are not much project details; only already known details are disclosed. We learn that the output capacity is 100 –megawatt, pulverized coal firing steam generators, with sufficient capacity ESP and FGD systems.
Local investor should feel comfortable that we shall be warning them in proper design, sourcing fabrication, site installation, logistics, and all and all public approvals.
We all expect that these energy investments should bring prosperity, employment and peace to the site. Maximized local manpower, maximized local engineering/ fabrication/ site installation capabilities should be employed.
After brief review of the project, we feel that the investor group should need answers to the following questions as a stress test of the investment project;
We need to learn the origins of the basic equipment, steam turbine, steam generator, condenser, cooling system, sea water circulation, ash handling, ESP dust collecting details.
In EIA certification and Local regulatory board for license updating, there should not be any deviation of the information they will be declaring in the local information meeting and the information they will be furnishing to the public administrations.
Their high stacks should not interfere with the airplane landing route of the nearby air force airport which is used for training of the young cadets in summer time. Red lights on the high stacks may not be sufficient for the ongoing air traffic of the air force trainees. Foreseeable Risks are to be clearly defined at this point.
We need to know who will be the site constructor? They should be local companies. Local labors will be needed at the site for smooth and fast execution of the construction.
We need to know the estimated project period, the importance milestones; we expect that 38-40 months could be a reasonable period.
Do they have long term imported coal purchase agreement with respective vendors?
Do they/ investors consider any capacity extension in the long term in 10-20 years time? Do they have enough space/ land for that extension??
We will be too pleased to learn if the local party will be considering to create local in-house engineering department to carry out necessary basic engineering in the long term.
Yalova is a beautiful resort region, close to Istanbul. There are summer houses which were constructed over a long period of time. Highly educated old age retirees spend almost 6-months in those summer houses. They fear that their summer time will be disturbed by the new investment, air and sea pollution. They need confidence. The past environmental sensitivity record of the plant is not so comfortable, at least people feel so.
We only get pleased to read investment, and sincerely feel that energy investors deserve all our support to complete those power plant investments. On the other hand, there is great risk in project finance of such investments due to public response.
Those companies, who are ignorant of local people’s environmental sensitivity, neglecting local engineering contribution, neglecting world class environmental limitations, will surely deserve the highest level of local resistance in legal platforms.
They may have too much of a headache during project execution; therefore, the project finance institutions should make their risk assessments carefully.
We would like to warn them not to make any technical mistakes in their power plant design, avoid incorrect selection of the necessary basic equipment, as well as environmental requirements, and wish them to operate the plant for many years, to generate electricity which will push our economic prosperity.
The investors should feel comfortable that we shall be warning them for proper design, sourcing fabrication, site installation, logistics, and public approvals.
We all expect that these energy investments will bring prosperity, employment and peace to the site. Maximized environmental sensitivity, maximized air and sea pollution control, maximized local engineering/ fabrication/ site installation capabilities should be employed.
May God bless them with wisdom for all those who need. May God save you and forgive you for making any mistakes in your risk assessment.
God bless you all.
—
Haluk Direskeneli, Ankara based Energy Analyst
Gregory T. Huang wrote:
Think it’s possible to shoot down a swarm of buzzing mosquitoes in mid-air? Or maybe you want to power up a remote flying vehicle? Tom Nugent is your man. The Seattle-area entrepreneur just might be the most versatile guy with a laser you’ve ever met.
Yes, a laser. Until recently, Nugent worked in the laboratory of Bellevue, WA-based Intellectual Ventures, the invention company led by Nathan Myhrvold, where one of his projects was the so-called “photonic fence.” This effort has gotten lots of media attention, most recently for an impressive demo at the TED conference in February. That’s where Myhrvold showed a video of a laser burning the wings off a flying mosquito in super slow-motion. The idea is this technology, implemented on a larger scale, could help prevent the spread of malaria or protect crops against flying pests.
But Nugent’s focus now is on something that might be more practical: power beaming. That means using lasers to deliver energy to remote sensors, vehicles, or base stations. It’s a two-way trick: the receiver has to have a solar cell to convert the laser’s energy into electricity. But as long as the solar cell is viable, the technology could be useful in any situation where installing a wire is impractical, where batteries run down, or where it’s too expensive to truck in fuel.
That’s really just the beginning, to Nugent’s mind. One of his ultimate goals is to be able to beam large amounts of solar power to Earth from space, presumably to help solve global-scale energy problems. For now, though, he’ll settle for beaming power to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other remote devices, including very early technology that could help scientists develop something called a space elevator. These ideas, in sum, have turned into a small company called LaserMotive, based in Kent, WA.
Before dismissing these projects as far-fetched, a little background is required. The idea of power beaming has been around for decades. But advances in cheaper and more energy-efficient diode lasers have made it possible to pursue the idea commercially in the past few years. Even the rise of laser hair removal products (which you might see on late night TV) have helped things move forward. So in 2007, Nugent and fellow physicist (and Intellectual Ventures veteran) Jordin Kare, an expert on laser rocket propulsion who worked on the “Star Wars” nuclear-missile defense system in the 1980s—decided to make a business out of power beaming, and co-founded LaserMotive.
“We think we can produce revenue while we get experience,” says Nugent, LaserMotive’s president.
Their first project: tackling the power beaming aspect of NASA’s “Space Elevator Games.” If you don’t know what a space elevator is, that’s OK—it doesn’t exist yet. The über-futuristic idea is to have a cable anchored to the ground, extending thousands of miles into space, that could be used to launch payloads into orbit. The space end would be unattached, and the Earth’s rotation would keep it taut so a robot “elevator” could move up and down the cable, carrying equipment. Sure, this would take billions of dollars and a few decades to get working, but it could ultimately make space operations much cheaper than using rockets. That’s the idea, at least.
If a space elevator is ever going to work, it will need power at multiple steps along the way. So, at “Level 1” of the NASA Power Beaming Challenge, held last November in Mojave, CA, Nugent and Kare’s team used a ground-based infrared laser to beam energy to specially designed solar cells aboard an 11-pound robot (see photo, left) driven by an electric motor. (All power must come from the ground.) The robot climbed a 900-meter length of metal cable suspended from a helicopter. Nugent and Kare’s was the only team to make it to the top with an average climbing speed of more than 2 meters per second—their robot went nearly 4 meters per second (9 mph)—beating out two other teams, who failed to reach the top. The prize was $900,000 (before taxes, Nugent laments—yes, it’s that time of year).
The upcoming “Level 2” competition will be held later this year, …Next Page »
The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday on energy tax incentives and the green job economy. It will be webcast here.
I’m on the 1 pm panel, the one The Hill says “will likely be a media circus because of the attention [T. Boone] Pickens usually draws.” Here’s the full witness list for my panel:
T. Boone Pickens, Chairman, BP Capital, Dallas, Texas
Victor Abate, Vice President of Renewables, General Electric, Schenectady, New York
Jeffrey Sachs, Ph. D., Director, The Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, New York
Joseph Romm, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
The Honorable Karen Harbert, President and Chief Executive Officer, Institute for 21st Century Energy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
You can read about the Institute for 21st 19th Century’s “Catastrophic Energy Future” (and at Energy Smart).
Here’s more on the hearing:
BACKGROUND:
Over the last several years, the nation has benefitted from an unprecedented amount of both public and private investment in renewable electricity production, energy efficiency, and renewable fuels, ushering in the new, green economy as a driver for sustainable job creation. A significant amount of Federal support for investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency is provided through the Internal Revenue Code. Within the span of five months during the Winter of 2008 and 2009, the Congress passed and the President signed into law approximately $39 billion in provisions to stimulate demand for renewable electricity and renewable fuels, provide assistance to communities to make investments in energy efficiency, and assist domestic manufacturers engaged in the production of advanced energy equipment. These investments include approximately $17 billion in incentives provided in the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008 (Division B of P.L. 110-343) and approximately $22 billion in incentives provided in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (P.L. 111-5).
In announcing this hearing, Chairman Levin said, “Investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy has major potential to create new jobs and help our economy recover. In recent years we have made significant investments in policies to encourage and enhance domestic manufacturing and production of renewable energy as well as the use of more efficient fuel sources. This hearing will examine benefits currently in place and discuss potential for new incentives to further drive job creation, economic growth, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”
FOCUS OF THE HEARING:
The hearing will examine the effectiveness of current energy tax policy and identify additional steps that the Committee can take to ensure continued job growth in this area while at the same time advancing national energy policy focus on a discussion of current and proposed energy tax incentives.
Should be fun.
Over the last several years, the nation has benefitted from an unprecedented amount of both public and private investment in renewable electricity production, energy efficiency, and renewable fuels, ushering in the new, green economy as a driver for sustainable job creation. A significant amount of Federal support for investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency is provided through the Internal Revenue Code. Within the span of five months during the Winter of 2008 and 2009, the Congress passed and the President signed into law approximately $39 billion in provisions to stimulate demand for renewable electricity and renewable fuels, provide assistance to communities to make investments in energy efficiency, and assist domestic manufacturers engaged in the production of advanced energy equipment. These investments include approximately $17 billion in incentives provided in the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008 (Division B of P.L. 110-343) and approximately $22 billion in incentives provided in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (P.L. 111-5).
In announcing this hearing, Chairman Levin said, “Investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy has major potential to create new jobs and help our economy recover. In recent years we have made significant investments in policies to encourage and enhance domestic manufacturing and production of renewable energy as well as the use of more efficient fuel sources. This hearing will examine benefits currently in place and discuss potential for new incentives to further drive job creation, economic growth, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”
FOCUS OF THE HEARING:
The hearing will examine the effectiveness of current energy tax policy and identify additional steps that the Committee can take to ensure continued job growth in this area while at the same time advancing national energy policy focus on a discussion of current and proposed energy tax incentives.
Filed under: Aftermarket, Coupe, Performance, Mercedes-Benz, Middle East
The Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG Black Series doesn’t leave much room for improvement. It hardly even leaves you with enough time, in fact, to say its name in full before it’s already up to highway speeds from a standstill. It runs the 0-62 mph sprint in 3.8 seconds, passes 124 in 11 flat and tops out just under 200 miles per hour. Short of the SLR McLaren and the newer SLS AMG, the Black Series is the fastest roadcar Mercedes has ever made. But one customer in Dubai wasn’t satisfied. So neither was Brabus.
The quintessential Benz tuner fitted the client’s matte Black with bigger turbos, a new gearbox, bigger brakes and a new exhaust. The result is a 130-horsepower boost from the stock 670hp twin-turbo V12 for a total of 800. Brabus calls it the Vanish, which is probably just about right. For our part, we’ll give kudos where kudos are due to the owner who went with a decidedly more understated look than the typical Dubai’d out gold-chrome Benzes we’ve come, however lamentably, to expect.
Gallery: Brabus Vanish
[Source: TopSpeed via eMercedes-Benz]
Brabus Vanish: When a Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG Black Series just ain’t enough originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 09:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Donald Marron, who worked in the George W. Bush White House, will become the director of the Tax Policy Center, an eight-year-old joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution think tanks that produces widely used analysis of tax trends, data and policy options.
Marron was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers in the closing years of the Bush administration, and earlier was deputy director (20052007) and acting director (2006) of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office
Marron succeeds Rosanne Altshuler, who will be returning to Rutgers University after nearly two years with the Tax Policy Center. The centers leadership includes two co-directors, William Gale of Brookings and Eric Toder of the Urban Institute. Marron takes up his duties in mid-May.
Understanding and helping address the nations revenue problems require imaginative scholarship, crisp communication skills, and an insiders knowledge about how good public policy can be made. Donald brings that and much more to the Tax Policy Center,” said Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute.
Since leaving his White House post, Marron has been a visiting professor of public policy at Georgetown University and an economic consultant. He was a senior economic adviser and consultant to the Council of Economic Advisers (200708) and its chief economist (200405). He was on the staff of Congresss Joint Economic Committee from 2002 to 2004. He was an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicagos Graduate School of Business from 1994 to 1998. He also blogs at http://dmarron.com/.
Marron holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His father is the former chief executive of Paine Webber.
Felix Salmon pens an interesting couple of paragraphs:
The fact is that a defined-benefit pension scheme is always going to run the risk that it won’t be able to meet its liabilities as they come due. The California pension plans constitute an attempt to save hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for the pensions of the state’s workers; the attempt might succeed, or it might not.
But right now there are clearly more important and urgent things to do with California’s tax revenues than throw them into a pension pot to support the retirees of the 2040s and beyond. CalPERS might not be perfect, but it’s a lot less dysfunctional than most of the rest of the state government. Let’s get our priorities straight here.
This is a sentiment very common among CEOs of struggling companies, which is why we have laws to make them put in their pension contributions anyway. Should we feel differently about states?
Both libertarians and liberals evidently do. Libertarians complain about excessive public pensions, which are indeed excessive, grossly irresponsible gifts from politicians to some very powerful constituencies. But that’s neither here nor there, because people worked, often for decades, under those promises; you can’t just unilaterally abrogate them.
Liberals, meanwhile, want to ignore pension contributions so that there don’t need to be drastic cuts to services. But it seems to me that the same problem applies–you can’t dip into the pension fund no matter how worthy your cause. Delaying the contributions for a few years in an emergency won’t hurt–but if you endorse it, I think you’ll find that it’s always an emergency.
Of course, there’s no actual means of cutting state level pensions, since Chapter 9 doesn’t seem to apply to states, only municipalities. So this is going to be a political problem: are we willing to cut state pensions? And If so, how, since their inviolability is often built into state law?
I’d guess that broad public sentiment runs in favor of cutting the pensions. But the most motivated sentiment belongs to the pensioners.
NO:
I say we embrace their talking point…please add to what we are prepared to say NO to…
Dawn Johnsen, President Obama’s nominee to the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, last Friday withdrew her nomination. The Reform Movement had strongly supported Johnsen’s nomination; yesterday we issued a statement expressing our disappointment that she will not have the opportunity to serve in this position. Our Associate Director, Mark Pelavin, said:
After pushing for Ms. Johnsen’s confirmation for nearly a year, we are deeply disappointed that Ms. Johnsen will not have the opportunity to serve in this critical position. We remain convinced that Ms. Johnsen is supremely qualified to serve and we express deep concern about the extreme obstructionist tactics that delayed, and ultimately blocked, her confirmation.
The opposition to Ms. Johnsen was largely based on her support for
reproductive freedom and her opposition to torture. These positions are
consonant with those of the Reform Movement and should not disqualify
any willing public servant from a position in the Administration. We
applaud those, both in the advocacy community and the Senate, who
worked tirelessly in efforts to secure Ms. Johnsen’s confirmation and
hope the obstructionist tactics that we encountered will not become a
pattern for future nominations.The Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the President and
Administration on legal issues, has been operating without a leader for
over 15 months. We hope that when President Obama nominates a new
individual to fill the position, the Senate will respectfully and
expediently move the nominee through the confirmation process to allow
the Office of Legal Counsel to operate at its full potential.
A "buy American" provision in new climate legislation could backfire.
Will senators crafting a new climate bill attach a “buy American” restriction to projects backed by the U.S. government?
A Bloomberg article contemplates that possibility this morning as the fallout from the $1.5 billion Texas wind farm, which will use Chinese wind turbines and may get stimulus dollars, continues.
The debate over local sourcing provisions, broadly speaking, pits industry and Obama administration officials against lawmakers who can’t be seen sending green stimulus money overseas while the unemployment rate hovers near 10 percent.
The head of General Electric’s power and water unit, Steve Bolze, says that protectionist measures could prompt other countries to retaliate and use fewer U.S. products.
And the Obama Administration is hoping to get U.S.-manufactured content in green energy projects up to 70-75 percent, about where the auto industry is.
Still, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, counters that a failure to address the manufacturing imbalance is tantamount to conceding the cleantech race to China.
Brown says,
We certainly can’t shoot ourselves in the foot by helping to finance Chinese clean-energy production.
The debate started in earnest when the U.S. Renewable Energy Group, a private-equity fund, and Cielo Wind Power, announced plans to build a 600-megawatt wind farm in Texas, using turbines from the Chinese A-Power Energy Generation Systems.
New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer sent a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu urging him to reject any requests for stimulus funds from the wind farm’s developers.
Schumer’s has pressed the point repeatedly in recent months.
Independent investigations have also found that more than 80 percent of stimulus money for wind projects have gone to foreign-based wind companies (a statistic that the American Wind Energy Association disputes).
A “local content” requirement for green energy equipment could solve the problem of Green Energy dollars flying overseas, as the province of Ontario has shown.
But Ontario has several carrots to go with the local content stick.
A generous feed-in tariff and a Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program (RESOP) which give renewable energy projects long term power purchase agreements have encouraged companies to flock to Ontario.
Without similar provisions, a “buy American” clause in the senate bill could well discourage investment in the sector.
Jan Hatzius, Goldman Sachs’s chief U.S. economist, sees the second half of 2010 posing more threats to the recovery than the first, with the withdrawal of stimulus and changes in the inventory cycle set to be a drag on the economy.
He says its going to take a major shock to rock the recovery completely, however.
Join the conversation about this story »
“…The amount of sea ice covering the Arctic dramatically increased last month, reaching levels not seen at this time of year for nearly a decade.
Returning ice – after years of declining cover – has astonished climate scientists who blamed unusually cold weather over the Bering Sea.
Researchers said they recorded the most ice in March since 2001 – and that the cover is approaching long-term average levels for the first time in ten years…” (source)
I’m sure there will be some sort of snappy explanation…like when they mocked us all for thinking Global Warming indicated they thought the world was getting warmer when really they meant climate was changing across the board (silly us!)
