Fri, 15 Jun 2007 19:47:15 GMT

US Budget Deficit Widened to Hit $67.7 Billion

The US government has reported a $67.70 billion budget deficit in May; marking a 58 percent increase from the deficit of $42.91 billion posted a year before in May 2006. The US Treasury Department has informed on Tuesday that so far during the first eight months of fiscal 2007 that ends on September 30, the cumulative deficit has decreased by 35 percent to $148.45 billion from $227.0 billion in the comparable eight-month period in fiscal 2006. The increase in the deficit was mainly due to faster processing of tax returns in April, as well as timing differentiation on expenditures. May is characteristically a budget deficit month, coming after the April filing deadline for individual income-tax returns that every time fetches a flood of last-minute revenue to Treasury.

Since the beginning of the fiscal year, the budget deficit totaled at about $148.5 billion, down 35 percent from a shortfall of $227 billion a year back. The US Congressional Budget Office has stated in May this year that for all of this year the shortfall could narrow to $150 billion. If the projection stands true then it would be the smallest deficit in this decade. In fiscal 1998-2001, the Treasury had posted yearly budget surpluses. The Treasury has been flooded in cash because of increased tax revenue from increasing wages and stock market gains. In April, the government had reported a surplus of $177.7 billion, marking the highest in six years and 50 percent higher than the April 2006 surplus.
The increase in revenues has been supported by continued strength in corporate profits and low unemployment, which has helped to push individual income taxes higher. So far this fiscal year, federal revenues have shot up by 8 percent from a year back to a record high of 1.6688 trillion dollars, at the same time outlays have increased at a slower rate of 2.5 percent to 1.8172 trillion dollars, also marking a record.

However, Democratic critics argue that Bush’s spending blueprint, projected that the government can return to a surplus by 2012 even if his first-term tax cuts are made permanent, was based on impractical assumptions and overlooked most important spending avenues such as the full costs of the Iraq war. They also dispute that the present development in the deficit will be only short-lived as the 78 million baby boomers retire, thrusting spending on Social Security and Medicare up in coming years.

Military spending has been so far in current totaled $349.1 billion compared with $328.3 billion last fiscal year of 2006. Expenditure on Medicare has been hovering around $249.2 billion against $214.4 billion a year back. In addition, expenses on Social Security have been to the tune of $407.3 billion against $385.7 recorded in last fiscal. Image

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Posted by: Balendu      Read more     Source

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 19:45:14 GMT

What is Anticipointment?

It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Here's something from the first Using Information Technology, a thick "practical introduction to computers & communication" written way back in 1995: Anticipointment, as Berkley, California, editor Hank Roberts explained in an online computer conference, is a word coined "to describe always finding that, just as the techie-toy I've been dreaming about getting for six months has become affordable, there's something so much better on the horizon that I guess I have to wait just a bit longer." Maybe the only difference today is that six months is nowadays as short as weeks or even days? Posted by: Rico Mossesgeld      Read more     Source

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 19:40:47 GMT

Ericsson Signs $1 Billion GSM Expansion Agreement with China Mobile

Sweden’s Ericsson Telephone Co., the world’s largest wireless network firm has signed a $1 billion GSM expansion framework agreement with China Mobile Communication Corp. According to the new framework agreement, Ericsson will supply core and radio network equipment, together with related technical support and services, to expand China Mobile’s GSM coverage in 19 regions of China. The latest expansion project will allow China Mobile to enhance network capacity and functioning, at the same time generating new revenue avenues from it’s hundreds of millions of its subscribers.
Additionally, Sony Ericsson, a joint venture forged in 2001 by Japan’s Sony and Ericsson, said it had also inked a deal valued at 600 million dollars to provide mobile phones to China Postel Mobile Communications Equipment, a holding of China National Postal and Telecommunications Appliances Corporation. On the other hand, Sony Ericsson had recently revealed that it signed a memorandum of understanding with the Shenzhen Telling Communications Corporation for mobile phone purchasing valued at more than 500 million dollars. Shenzhen has grown into one of the biggest and most influential telecom distributors in China. It is a national distributor of Sony Ericsson and other mobile phone manufacturers.

The agreement was signed at a function in Stockholm attended by Chinese President Hu Jintao and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. Hu Jintao was on a three-day state visit to the Scandinavian country. Speaking over the agreement, Ericsson Chief Executive Carl-Henric Svanberg said, ‘Ericsson is proud of its cooperation with China, which dates back over a century. We are dedicated to supporting the development and growth of China’s telecom industry with our global expertise and proven competence. The agreement we are announcing today is further proof of this’.

However, the firm has already captured a third of the telecom market in China, therefore the agreement was another significant move in the strengthening and expansion of the company. The expansion project will strengthen Ericsson’s position as the leading mobile communications supplier in the Chinese market. Ericsson’s participation with the Chinese telecom industry started in 1892 when Ericsson received its first order from China. In 1894, around 2000 Ericsson telephone sets were given across the oceans to Shanghai, signaling the start of Ericsson’s role as China’s telecom provider. Image

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June 15, 2007, 12:37 AM CT

Recycling is not enough - we need to consume less

Recycling rates have risen, and the UK is on schedule to meet EU targets, but the key to dealing with our escalating waste problem lies in changing our buying habits and our attitudes to consumption, as per the authors of a new Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) publication.

Consumption: reducing, reusing and recycling, which accompanied a seminar in Belfast organised jointly with the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, Northern Ireland, says that the benefits of recycling risk being undermined by the sheer quantity of waste being generated. If household waste output continues to rise by three per cent a year, the cost to the economy will be 3.2 billion and the amount of harmful methane emissions will double by 2020.

The report highlights the a number of ways that social science can contribute to waste policy development, either by devising initiatives, by providing tools to evaluate their relative effectiveness or by helping understand why they did or did not work.

Professor Ken Peattie, Director of the ESRC Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS), Cardiff University, describes three projects which are associated with different aspects of waste reduction at the production stage and in consumption. He says the key tool in the development and implementation of consumption reduction policies is social marketing, which involves using commercial marketing techniques to influence their behaviour for the benefit of society as a whole......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

June 6, 2007, 9:08 PM CT

Better to Give than to Receive

Most grew up with the familiar saying, "It is better to give than to receive," and a number of corporations live by this adage when they donate money to charitable causes. University of Missouri-Columbia researchers, however, have observed that corporate giving may not be the cure-all that some companies would expect.

As per a research findings reported in the journal Public Relations Review, two scientists - Glen Cameron, professor of strategic communication and Maxine Wilson Gregory Chair in Journalism Research at the Missouri School of Journalism, and Jiyang Bae, who was then an MU doctoral student - observed that participants in their study demonstrated negative attitudes toward companies that appeared to give out of self-interest. When companies with good reputations gave money to charitable causes, attitudes toward those companies were positive. However, when companies with bad reputations gave to charitable causes, negative attitudes toward the companies were heightened.

"People trigger a sophisticated and active attribution process when they become suspicious of something, causing them to judge the corporation's real motivation," Cameron said. "Public suspicion cued by previous corporate reputation influences people's attitudes toward corporate giving and makes them suspicious of the reason for corporate giving."........ Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

Fri, 25 May 2007 02:06:40 GMT

Peregrine travels again

Long-time readers may remember this log, which goes by tPeregrine (as suggested by the Queen of Rurality). Peregrine has been sitting on dry land for many months as the lake water had receded far from it. But the recent full pool allowed Peregrine to continue its peregrinations about the lake.

When this log first washed ashore, it came to rest on the grassless scar of clay on the south side of the lake. In the months of completely unenthusiastic rain, much of this clay washed down the scar and collected itself beneath the log.

And so it was that although Peregrine was in water deep enuf to float it free, it was held in place by the clay mud that had collected under it. So, of course, I had to try to free it with the long-handled shovel that is my regular companion on my hikes about Roundrock. (There are so many uses a shovel can be put to in the woods.) I managed to free it, but it needed nudging to get it away from shore. The length of the shovel could get it some of the way, but even this didn’t really get it adrift. I couldn’t walk any closer to it because the mud was thick and threatened to take me down. I despaired of succeeding in liberating Peregrine and hoped that another big rainstorm would come and wash it free.

But I was hiking with a competitive person. Adam saw that I hadn’t succeeded and decided he would succeed just to best me. (Fathers provide all kinds of functions for their sons.) Unfortunately for him, he was wearing sneakers, which the mud would suck from his feet with great delight. But he had a plan.

Adam threw a smaller log onto the muddy area and then stepped onto it, thus giving himself the range to push Peregrine into the deeper water and set it adrift.

And so Peregrine travels again. Someday I suppose it will grow waterlogged enuf to sink to the bottom, but until then I’ll always be eager to walk around the lake with an eye out for Peregrine.

Missouri calendar:

• Listen for the gray treefrog chorus.

Posted by: Roundrockjournal      Read more     Source

Thu, 24 May 2007 21:39:52 GMT

Melody

This wechallenge at Poetry Thursday was to write a dialogue poem. For some reason I’ve been thinking about an incident from 11 years ago, the rape and brutal murder of an 11-year-old girl by a 15-year-old boy she’d been going on hikes with, including up our hollow. (See my motherPoetry Thursday for the whole story.) Unpleasant to think about, let alone to try and write about, but I think violence against girls and women is real and pervasive, and we shouldn’t let it pass in silence simply because of its connection with so much that remains unspeakable.

*

Gram was starting a batch of cookies
when I went out
I’m just going up the street I told her
I didn’t say anything about our secret places

    you told you told
    your innocent act didn’t fool me
    we could’ve gone exploring forever
    if you hadn’t told

I wish I’d waited
we had all summer
& I love to lick the batter off the spoon
though she always says raw eggs aren’t safe

    the loathing on your face when I showed you
    what you did to me
    put it aWAY you said
    AWAY AWAY

I hear them calling & the name
reminds me of something
maybe that fish that died of loneliness when I was five
I used to press my ear against the tank

    sugar & spice for my frogs & snails
    we had a deal
    I showed you old farm dumps a hole in the fence
    one rusty shovel to turn an acre of need

how strange this sudden softness
into which I’ve slipped
fog so thick I can’t make out the trees
Gram’s cookies must be getting cold

    I might’ve stopped short of the shovel
    if you hadn’t gone crying to Jesus
    ignoring me who had given you
    all I had

Melody I hear them call
Melody   Melody
as if the birds weren’t already singing
as if it weren’t enouPoetry Thursday Posted by: Vianegativa      Read more     Source

Thu, 24 May 2007 16:06:24 GMT

Under surveillance

Another cool, dry morning. Ee-oh-lay, the wood thrushes intone. Ee-oh-lay. Witchedy witchedy witchedy! answers the always upbeat common yellowthroat. Somewhere out of sight over the valley (well, with the trees leafed out, almost everything is out of sight now) a helicopter begins circling. That deep whup whup whup, growing nearer then farther, drowning out the more distant birds, provokes a kind of nervous reaction, and the next thing I know I’m over in the herb garden pulling weeds.

Who or what are they searching for, I wonder? One night two months ago, at around 10:00 p.m., a helicopter circled the farm with a searchlight for close to fiteen minutes. My brother was just starting down the hollow toward his car, which was parked at the bottom. He said he had to duck behind a tree to avoid the helicopter’s searchlight. When he got home, he called up the local police station to ask who was missing. Nobody, they said. Did they have any idea why a helicopter would be searching Plummer’s Hollow? No, they didn’t.

I say “weeds,” but most of what I pull is grass. It’s kind of an anti-lawn. If you let the grass go, it can crowd out the dandelions and gill-over-the-ground if you’re not careful. Just as I was finishing, about twenty minutes later, I noticed the helicopter sound fading into the distance. Or maybe it was the other way around: my compulsion to pull weeds faded with the ‘copter sound. At any rate, moments after I went inside, a male ruby-throated hummingbird zoomed in to the coral bells next to the walk.

I wouldn’t have thought anything further about it, except that the same thing happened this afternoon, too: I pulled a few weeds, went inside, and a few seconds later a hummingbird zoomed in to check out my work. I think I’m being watched. Posted by: Vianegativa      Read more     Source

Thu, 24 May 2007 12:16:37 GMT

Recycled Fly-ash Bricks Can Absorb Toxic Metals

Along with the coal-fired power plants at the environmentalists target points, the fly ash emitted form them as waste has always been a concern for both health and the environment.

So, to find a remedy to the fly ash hazards, researchers have coa better solution that can doubly benefit. They have developed recycled bricks made from fly ash, the coal-fired power plant waste.

The recycled and eco-friendly fly ash-bricks, which you can easily mistake as normal bricks, may prove even safer than predicted!

Contrary to some researchers prediction, claiming that it leaches minute amounts of mercury, it is found that the new fly ash bricks apparently actually do the reverse. They eventually are found to pull minute amounts of the toxic metal out of ambient air.

Henry Liu, a longtime National Science Foundation (NSF) awardee and the president of Freight Pipeline Company (FPC), which developed the bricks said,

Manufacturing clay brick requires kilns fired to high temperatures. That wastes energy, pollutes air and generates greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

In contrast, fly ash bricks are manufactured at room temperature. They conserve energy, cost less to manufacture, and don’t contribute to air pollution or global warming.

Though, about 25 million tons of fly ash emitted from coal-fired power plants is recycled each year — generally as building material additives like concrete — 45 million tons still go to waste.

Thus, these fly ash bricks would be an effective and beneficial solution to the waste, serving environment, health as well as building economy by standard brick manufacturesImage Posted by: Irani      Read more     Source

Thu, 24 May 2007 08:29:00 GMT

Solar-powered Plane May Be an Answer

With emissions from aviation been increased by 87 per cent since 1990 and air travel forecaincrease dramatically in the next 20 years, the situation will surely get worse if no immediate actions are taken.

So, with the concerns over the flying-triggered environmental damages increasing, this innovation seems to be a welcome development, besides retracing exploits in aviation history.

The Swiss round-the-world balloon pioneer Bertrand Piccard has comesolution to air pollution caused by flying — the Solar Impulse. His prototype is a dainty plane powered by the sun!

The solar-powered plane has wings of the width of a giant Airbus.

If you are curious to view the virtual flights of the alternative energy-powered plane, you can soon follow it on the Internet. It is designed to replicate long-distance journeys through the existing, real weather conditions with the help of its high-tech but lightweight aircraft, which is slow-moving.

To get the Solar Impulse charged, it need to be exposure to the sun to its maximum during the daytime.

Piccard said,

We have no idea if the virtual flight will be a success or not. We’re dealing with real conditions, so it may be a failure. (But,) It’s a real opportunity to learn.

The keynote will be launched in May 2011 to circumnavigate the globe. Before that, the team of researchers developing it will for the first time try to cross the United States in a non-stop flight using its solar powered aircraft, including its first transatlantic flight.

Hope this prototype will one day be an alternative and effective solution to high-altitude air pollution.


Image Posted by: Irani      Read more     Source