Affair Reported

http://www.sockandawe.com/flash/shoetinggallery.swf

This is a plan enacted by the EU during the Kyoto Protocal session in 2007 promoting a reduction of 20% on carbon emmision below 1990 plus a 20% gain in energy efficiency and 20% increase in renewable enerygy production.

2009 is not really a special number to be remembered, but it promises to be an important year of our history. This year marks the change of the world order challenging through the financial crisis and the Green race. And it also promises to deliver an alternation in the US foreign policy aiming to fix the damage from Bush; Obama became the first black president of the United States of America, who dreams to create a “melting pot” in this mixed culture.

First of all, America will be saved politically and culturally. Next year, 2009, the White House will be in the hand of the first-time black president. The elect-president is trying hard to ease the tension in the Middle East with oil-controlling nations aiming to reducing cost from the war and threats from the terrorists. The Iraq war has also isolated the US from the world caused from the rising spirit of anti-Americanism. It is a bad position in the hand of a potential leader.

Economically, the Bush Administration has caused so many troubles for our nation. The financial crisis submerges super-powers and many other countries in debt; but Bush actions made it worse for the States. The campaign “Change” has so much similarity with the “New Deal” of Franklin Roosevelt 70 years ago  during the Great Depression. He aimed to fix the economy, education and healthcare system.

The crisis is also a challenge to rising nations and a threat to developed countries as well. The power has been shifting to other crowded places such as China, India, Russia and Brazil. National leaders of these nations will be in the responsibilies for driving their countries on the right directions. The financial storm hits and changes the world order. This can be observed in GDP of nations. Developed nations are suffering a crisis which promotes unemployment and drags the GDP growth (%) down to the negative sign. These include the US (-0.2), the UK (-1), France (-0.1), Italy (-0.3). While developing nations is still sharing the wealth during this downturn economy. India (6.5), China (8.0), and Russia (4.0) are cheering for their growing economy with high percentage on the GDP growth.

Beside the crisis comes a new chance which is also a threat to the current world order. Global Warming has been hitting hard on the climate urging nations, scientists and corporations to join the Green Revolution. We begin to see more electrical cars on the market. Japanese automobiles with high fuel-efficiency is climbing to the top the selling rank, while the US auto corporations are gradually kicked out of the game due to its lack in technological update. The Green Revolution also comes with the paperless campaign. We see more reading device are invented replacing tons of books and newspapers. Amazon with the Kindle, Sony with the PRS-700, Irex with theIliad; and next year will see the plastic reading device from Logic Plastic, a piece of plastic which can show word on a paper-like screen. Nations will compete each other to dominate the world’s future renewable energy sourcing from the Sun, winds and other way as well.

The race for electrical cars

A piece of plastic replacing tons of newspaper.

Whoever escapes the 2008 crsis first or take over the domination on renewable energy will be placed on top of the future rank. The coalition of China and Japan is promising to reach the crown.

The man threw the shoe was Muntadar al-Zaidi, an Iraqi freeland journalist. After the attack attach with agonized word calling Bush a dog, the president was unhurt, but his spokewoman, Dana Perino, received a black eye.

Zaidi is current arrested and and decided for a punishment by the Iraq national court. With this attempt to harm the president, his sentence might range from 7 up to 15 years of prison.

Source: BBC news

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFX-dKpcDz8]

Ironically, the attack was modified into a flash game.

New York Governor Paterson has just proposed the Obesity tax charging non-diet sodas up to 15% in cost. This decision helps a great deal in reducing deficits and boosts the government income for spending on other important affairs.

The pop culture of America adheres to the pop soda of Coke. A great amount of money spent on these beverages injecting nothing but fat and sickness into our bodies. Our daily expenses on these unnecessary diets has donated up to $20 billion a year to only Coke Company, not counted other beverage corporations. Sadly, we are usually not happy in reducing our satisfaction for the sake of the community. This money can be used for other important department such as health care, education or saving the crisis of this economy. 

Furthermore, a 15% tax on these sodas could reduce expenses on health care system. As we know, obesity has caused so much cancer, diabetes and sickness which drain huge budget on many hospitals. Our non-stop-indulgent daily lives have accidentally made an impact on the US economy unnecessarily.

Under this proposition, Mr. Paterson promises to accumulate up to $121 billion for the government. According to his plan, these budgets will be used for 3% cut in education spending, besides health care trimming. The plan also taxed on unnecessary goods such as clothing and footwear.

It revealed that the governor is trying to reduce our spending on extravagant goods and entertainment product to transform these into better usages including social service.

source using: nydailynews.com

Similar to the war in Vietnam, the US is still enmeshing in the complexity of the Middle East, especially Iraq. People have been watching the media for years seeing the government deployed troops and spent a huge amount of money into this area. So what are we there for? Terrorist or oil?

Well, most people usually link the two together, and it is true but a little bit hazy. The controversial event in the mind of the mass of Americans causing the declaration of war on terror was the 9/11 attack. But, terrorists, a fearful group with the spirit of anti-America, had existed a very long time ago; and the root of this spirit went way back to 1991, when the father of G.W Bush was the president of the United States.

Let me remind you, this was the time when the first Persian Gulf war occurred, triggered by the invasion of Iraq toward Kuwait. So, why were we there? Simply, this was where the oil flowed into our nation. Kuwait contained a huge tank of oil catering the high demand of the US consumers. In order to keep the the oil-flow stable, the former Bush administration had to order troops to protect this fragile Kuwait. This was the only plan for the survival of our capitalism system. However, it was not the involvement of us that lead to the war on terror, but the way we misunderstood and dealt with these alienate nations is the roor of all.

After the plan was enacted, Bush sent troops immediately to the area, and set up a base so-called “Desert Shield” in the northern Arab Saudi which was next to Kuwait. The main mission was to halt the further invasion of the Iraq army into Arab and then to deliberate the precious Kuwait.

This was where the clash with terrorist group began. The present Muslim World hero Osama Bin Laden was dwelling in Arab Saudi. During the agreement between the US president and the Arab Saudi king on the plan setting up the defensive base, Bin Laden was demanding the king for the same mission. After pondering the two, the king favored the powerful US army forces.

Gaining the authority, the US not only angered the terrorist leader by sending huge number of troops and tanks into this area, but also mistakenly underestimated Osama and ousted him out of this country. Suffering the shame, Osama exile to Afghanistan and together with the Taliban set up camps training terrorists. There came a countless number of members with the only spirit of anti-America in philosophy, culture and politic.

The US policy was aimed to suppress the group rather than to make peace and to solve the problem with them. The arrogance of the US led to numbers of bigotry battles and bombs toward the camps. Therefore, the 9/11 was inevitable.

After the shameful attack, the US forced to tighten the national security system and continued to play the role as the global police. We tried to disarm mass destructive weapon from the terrorist groups. That reason led to the war in Iraq aiming to halt the development of nuclear weapons in this nation. Ironically, the US used tons of banned weapons while found no evidence of dangerous weapons in this nation.

Covering the shame of the mistaken failure, the US have been making up plenties of reasons for the deployment of troops in this area. And we are still seeing our tax dollar influx wastefully into this war of no end.

This is an reported account on Governor Blagojevich’s arrest for charge of selling the Senate seat.

Web of influence
(source: NyTimes)

Happy Thanksgiving, G.W.Bush doesn’t forget you; and he also doesn’t want you to forget him. That’s why he did this.

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1805501&w=425&h=350&fv=file%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.theonion.com%2Fcontent%2Fxml%2F90595%2Fvideo%26autostart%3Dfalse%26image%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.theonion.com%2Fcontent%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2FTHANKSGIVING_PARDON_article.jpg%26bufferlength%3D3%26embedded%3Dtrue%26title%3DIn%2520Thanksgiving%2520Tradition%252C%2520Bush%2520Pardons%2520Scooter%2520Libby%2520In%2520Giant%2520Turkey%2520Costume]

On Nov 26, 2008, president-elect Obama announced his result on his picks for the economy advisory, who would be by his side for the long-run economic recovery.

Here come the old face of the old issue, depression and inflation, Paul Volcker the former chairman of Federal Reserve during the 1980s. This is the man who used many tactics of sudden raising tax and tighting the cash flow to save the inflation strengthen by mass unemployment during Jimy Carter decade. Many believe this is a right pick of Obama to save this downturn economy.

“Paul has served under both Republicans and Democrats and is held in the highest esteem for his sound and independent judgment,” said president-elect Barrack Obama. “eight years in which middle-class wages have gone down or, in real terms, their family incomes have been reduced,” he later added.

Volcker is no stranger when comes to economic crisis, and let’s see how he helps Obama to deploy the plan and save the middle-class.

Further read:

• NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/us/politics/27transition.html?ref=us
• StarTribune: http://www.startribune.com/politics/35124834.html
• YahooNews: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081126/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_economy
• Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aZAnchkRdQAM

Global Warming has been hitting the media as a political and moral issue rather than a environmental and scientific one. Al Gore now is supporting the new president Barrack Obama to move forward to green energy. However, the progress has been meet tons of challenges.

This conversation of Thomas Friedman, the author of the book The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century and the winner of Pulitzer award, gives us a profound view and solution to lead the way out of this disputed dilemma.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2007/04/10/magazine/1194817107532/the-power-of-green.html?oref=slogin

Yet, growing industrial nations such as China, India and Brazil are the potential threats of this planet. However, it is not fair to abate their economic boom. “Wait a minute! You (the US) got to grow dirty and now you are telling us (developing nations) to grow clean?” Thomas reported. “They not gonna buy in any restriction applying on their growth base on their limiting CO2 emissions.” This has becoming a disputed argument between the growing East and the high-tech West. We can’t just go and tell these nations to stop what they are doing, because it is not fair, and therefore it is not practical. As, Thomas says, the only solution is that we have to move forward to green technology supplying clean energy at the price of Chindia (China and India) so that consumers can afford as a daily expense, not as a environmental donation.

It is the responsibility of the Government to lead and to discover this new vector of the economy. Pointing at the East continuosly, America has forgoten a fact that she is releasing the most CO2 emission level in this earth. We have to raise a higher standard for the CO2 emission and mileage automobile usage. In order to do that, they have to set a carbon tax at the price that push manufactures and consumers to alter their plans forward green power. And if we are lucky, if we are brilliant and high motivated, a surplus of this environmental friendly power can be exported and can be very profitable. It is in the hand of the Government and the Obama administration to lead the way and lead the world forward to this. And it has to be the effort of scientists and the president to discover the green technique at a affordable price but not to urge developing world to stop seeking for their profitable projects. It is a fair game of a Thomas’ “flat world theory”, and we can’t kick players out by using power, war and argument.

This is a huge point of our history where everything must go clean and every machine has to be digital using solar power or water-generated energy. We are on the race, another Olypic Games, another rivalry, and possibly another Cold War.