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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Historic Speed


Attosecond

Live Science: Electron Filmed for First Time
Scientists have filmed an electron in motion for the first time, using a new technique that will allow researchers to study the tiny particle's movements directly.

"It takes about 150 attoseconds for an electron to circle the nucleus of an atom. An attosecond is 10^-18 seconds long, or, expressed in another way: an attosecond is related to a second as a second is related to the age of the universe..."
I love that relationship between the attosecond and the universe. Your dinner will be served in 2,000,345 attos.

Energy Package

Congress is about to vote on a new energy package that would favor green-energy minded citizens and then take away some tax breaks for big oil.

Oil companies would stand to lose 13.6 billion in tax breaks which resulted from 2004 legislation, the good old times of a Republican majority in both the house and senate and also with big oil practically slathered all over the White House.

With a narrow Democratic majority in the Senate, unfortunately, it aint gonna happen. When the country needs decisive and important change on energy issues, we are still stuck. Anybody willing to bet that the population centers of the Republican base, the states where our regressive senator politicos reside, is a fraction of that of liberal centers. Its two senators for every state, that's the rules.

CNNMoney: US House Set To Vote Next Week On Energy Tax Package
Congressional Democrats will try again next week to take away tax breaks for oil companies in order to finance renewable-energy and building efficiency projects, but success remains elusive amid a shortage of votes in the Senate.

The U.S. House of Representatives is tentatively set to vote on Wednesday on the bill, which would repeal more than $17.6 billion in tax breaks for oil and gas producers over 10 years. Consumers would gain new tax breaks for buying plug-in hybrid cars. Companies would be able to continue taking tax credits for wind, solar and other renewable-energy projects, extending breaks that expire at the end of 2008.
Debt Trend

We are starting to see articles that attempt to mollify our concerns about the economic conditions that are common. Credit card debt is the topic in the CNN article.

I maintain that credit cards rained down on people in a deliberate effort to move Americans into third world citizen economic status. They liked what they could do with debt in third world countries and thought, let's get her done here, its the American way.

Think about it. In the recent past you could get yourself a portfolio of credit cards based on the flimsiest of credit responsibility. I would get several mailing offers a day. Fortunately I threw them out, shredding them first.

CNN: When credit cards put you in jeopardy
Consumers have racked up more than $2.2 trillion in purchases and cash advances on major credit cards in just the last year...The overall credit card debt grew by 315 percent from 1989 to 2006...
Kosovo and Rambouillet

Jeremy Scahill has put together a nice article on Kosovo with plenty of historical information on the Clinton administration's bombing of Yugoslavia.

ZNET: The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence
On March 24, 1999, President Bill Clinton began an 11-week bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. Like Bush with Iraq, Clinton had no UN mandate (he used NATO) and his so-called "diplomacy" to avert the possibility of bombing leading up to the attacks was insincere and a set-up from the jump. Just like Bush with Iraq.


A month before the bombing began, the Clinton administration issued an ultimatum to President Slobodan Milosevic, which he had to either accept unconditionally or face bombing. Known as the Rambouillet accord, it was a document that no sovereign country would have accepted. It contained a provision that would have guaranteed US and NATO forces "free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout" all of Yugoslavia, not just Kosovo. It also sought to immunize those occupation forces "from any form of arrest, investigation, or detention by the authorities in [Yugoslavia]," as well as grant the occupiers "the use of airports, roads, rails and ports without payment." Additionally, Milosevic was told he would have to "grant all telecommunications services, including broadcast services, needed for the Operation, as determined by NATO." Similar to Bush's Iraq plan years later, Rambouillet mandated that the economy of Kosovo "shall function in accordance with free market principles."

3 comments:

Glynn Kalara said...

This is why we don't need Billary. She's just BV$H lite. We need to radically move away from these kinds of policies. America is buried in Debt out the ass and large sections of the population are struggling just to make ends meet. Its time to start taking care of "our" needs and stop playing world policemen. Its making us more enemies then friends. Bombs and bullets do not solve every problem.

Jim Sande said...

Every day its seems to be looking more and more like its going to be Obama.

I read on Kos that he's beating McCain 50 to 38 percent. Hillary is on her last legs. They say don't count her out yet but...

I couldn't agree with you more about stopping all the warring and bringing the focus back on the US. People are in trouble, the society is in trouble.

We will see.

Glynn Kalara said...

We know this as does millions of Americans who having taken a royal screwing for the last 40 yrs. from one admin. after another. The America I remember from the 60's has slid a long way done the shit shoot. But try and tell that to the 10% who are making it bigger then ever and your wasting ur time. During the depression it was the same way. I think were heading into the deepest depression since the 30's. I see the jobs drying up and the rich getting really pissy as things go south. the blow back from the rest of the planet due to the neo-fascist polices of the last 3 decades is start starting.