A New Michigan Law Tells Employers To Keep Out Of Your Facebook Profile

  • Beijing cracks down on internet users

    Calcutta News.Net - Friday 28th December, 2012

    BEIJING - China has unveiled tighter internet controls, requiring web users to register their names and legalising the deletion of posts or pages which are considered to contain illegal ...

  • Celebrity sex dolls being sold on FB

    Calcutta News.Net - Saturday 29th December, 2012

    Sex dolls resembling famous celebrities are being sold on a Facebook page. China Press reported that these inflatable dolls that come with a price tag of RM500 were made to look like Chinese ...

  • Most people quitting social media get back within 24 hours due to anxiety

    Calcutta News.Net - Saturday 29th December, 2012

    Digital suicide - the attempt to go off the grid to grab control of your persona, time and sanity - is often announced with confident, dramatic flourish, but experts say that more often than not, ...

  • Facebook debacle stunts IPOs

    Independent.ie - Saturday 29th December, 2012

    China -focused PCH Solutions are not the only ones to delay mooted stock market listings this year.Initial public offerings (IPOs) have slumped globally to the lowest level since 2008 on economic ...

  • Facebook drops user vote on privacy rules

    DW - Saturday 29th December, 2012

    US social media giant Facebook has announced it will abolish a rule that gives users a direct say in the networking site's privacy policy. The move comes after a site governance vote in June ...

  • Animals shopping and political controversy engage Journal?s social media followers

    Edmonton Journal - Saturday 29th December, 2012

    Another year of stories, another 12,000 followers on Twitter. The Edmonton Journal's social media followers had their busiest year yet: liking, following, watching, checking in, retweeting, ...

  • Twitter followers are up for sale

    CBC News - Saturday 29th December, 2012

    In an age when having a strong social media profile is a mark of success, some comedians, musicians and artists are turning to services that sell Twitter followers. It's a new business geared ...

  • In 2012 we turned to Wikipedia to learn about ... Facebook

    MSNBC - Saturday 29th December, 2012

    Facebook, iPhone, Twitter and Wii. Technology evolves at the speed of light. NBCNews.com's tech reporters look at the gadgets, games and innovations changing our ...

  • Facebook bans Gandhi quote as part of revisionist history purge

    Infowars.com - Saturday 29th December, 2012

    Natural News Dec 28, 2012 The reports are absolutely true. Facebook suspended the Natural News account earlier today after we posted an historical quote from Mohandas Gandhi. The quote ...

  • Facebook Purges Pro-Gun Accounts

    Infowars.com - Saturday 29th December, 2012

    Facebook is purging accounts that carry pro-second amendment and pro-liberty information in a censorship purge that has accelerated over the past few hours, with innumerable pages being disappeared ...

  • Hunger strike pressures Canada PM aboriginal protests spread

    Yahoo Health - Saturday 29th December, 2012

    Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence (L) pauses while speaking with journalists about her hunger strike with elder Danny Metatawabin in a teepee on Victoria Island in Ottawa December 27, 2012. ...

  • Facebook Shares Fall Briefly Amid Report of Instagram Quitters

    Wired News - Saturday 29th December, 2012

    Instagram may or may not have lost some users over the last week, depending on whom you ask, which caused Facebook?s stock to fall briefly on ...

  • Source: http://www.calcuttanews.net/index.php/sid/211670855/scat/63e88d54af0cf473

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    Extremists help Syrian rebels seize base in bloody battle

    BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian rebels including Islamic extremists took full control of a sprawling military base Tuesday after a bloody two-day battle that killed 35 soldiers, activists said. It was the latest gain by opposition forces bolstered by an al-Qaida-linked group that has provided skilled fighters but raised concerns in the West.

    The Sheik Suleiman military base was the second major base captured in the north by the rebels, who also are making inroads farther south toward the capital, Damascus.

    In other violence, dozens of people were reported injured or killed in Aqrab, a village in central Hama province, in a series of explosions. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the bloodshed, citing activists in the area, but had no immediate death toll or details on who was to blame.

    Fighters from jihadi groups, including Jabhat al-Nusra, were among those doing battle in the rebel ranks as they took control of Sheik Suleiman base, near the northern city of Aleppo, according to the Observatory and other activists.

    The presence of the jihadi groups has raised concerns in the U.S. and other nations that are supporting the opposition in Syria but do not want to see extremists gain power in the region. The U.S. this week blacklisted al-Nusra as a foreign terrorist organization and said the group was part of al-Qaida in Iraq.

    But al-Nusra fighters appear to be among the most effective fighting forces on the rebel side, spearheading many of the recent gains.

    The U.S. terror designation freezes any assets members of al-Nusra may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bars Americans from providing the group with material support. It's largely symbolic because the group is not thought to have holdings or support in the United States, but officials hope the penalties will encourage others to take similar action and discourage Syrians from joining.

    The administration took further action Tuesday against extremists on both sides, with the Treasury Department setting separate sanctions against two senior al-Nusra leaders and two militant groups operating under the control of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government. Two commanders of the pro-regime shabiha force also were targeted.

    "We will target the pro-Assad militias just as we will the terrorists who falsely cloak themselves in the flag of the legitimate opposition," said David S. Cohen, the department's sanctions chief.

    The battle for Sheik Suleiman military base ended when the rebels took over the site's main compound and warehouses that housed a military research center. They had first breached the base perimeter on Sunday afternoon, after weeks of fighting with soldiers loyal to Assad, according to the Observatory, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria. The Observatory said 35 soldiers were killed but did not give figures on rebel casualties.

    Also Tuesday in Aleppo ? the country's largest city and commercial center ? four mortar rounds hit the predominantly Kurdish neighborhood of Sheik Maksoud, killing 11, including three children and two women, and wounding a dozen other people, the Observatory said.

    The reports of violence could not be confirmed as the government restricts independent reporting in the country.

    The conflict started nearly 21 months ago as an uprising against Assad, whose family has ruled the country for four decades. It quickly morphed into a civil war, with rebels taking up arms to fight back against a bloody crackdown by the government. According to activists, more than 40,000 people have been killed since March 2011.

    Western officials have raised concerns that an increasingly desperate Assad might unleash his chemical weapons stockpiles against rebels in an act of desperation. Last week U.S. officials said there was evidence that Syrian forces had begun preparing sarin, a nerve agent, for possible use in bombs.

    But U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday the Syrian government seems to have slowed preparations for the possible use of chemical weapons against rebel targets.

    Speaking to reporters flying with him from Washington to Kuwait, Panetta suggested the threat was no longer escalating, although he was not specific about any Syrian military preparations.

    "At this point the intelligence has really kind of leveled off," he said. "We haven't seen anything new indicating any aggressive steps to move forward in that way."

    Asked whether he believed Assad was heeding Western warnings against using chemical weapons, Panetta said: "I like to believe he's got the message. We've made it pretty clear. Others have as well."

    He noted that the Assad regime is coming under increasing pressure from rebel forces.

    "Our concern is that if they feel like the regime is threatened with collapse, they might resort to these kinds of weapons," he said.

    Syria is believed to have a formidable arsenal of chemical weapons, including sarin and mustard gas, although its exact dimensions are not known. Syria is not a signatory to the 1997 Convention on Chemical Weapons and thus is not obliged to permit international inspection.

    The government in Damascus has been careful not to confirm it has chemical weapons, while insisting it would never use such weapons against its own people.

    "Syria doesn't own any internationally banned weapons, whether chemical, nuclear or biological," Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi told Al-Manar TV, a station owned by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is a Syrian ally. "Even if Syria possessed such weapons, it will not use them for moral reasons."

    He said Western statements are similar to those that preceded the 2003 invasion of Iraq that accused Saddam Hussein of hiding weapons of mass destruction. After the U.S.-led invasion, no such weapons were found.

    The Obama administration is getting ready to tighten its ties to Syria's main opposition group, the newly formed Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, at an international conference on the crisis in Morocco this week. The move will pave the way for greater U.S. support for those seeking to oust Assad while the administration tries to blunt the influence of extremists.

    Jabhat al-Nusra is a shadowy group with an al-Qaida-style ideology whose fighters come from Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the Balkans and elsewhere. Many are veterans of previous wars who came to Syria for what they consider a new "jihad" or "holy war" against Assad.

    But several hundred fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra ? Arabic for "the Support Front" ? have also been a valued addition to rebel ranks in the grueling battle for control of Aleppo. The group also has claimed responsibility for suicide bombings on Syrian government targets.

    Jabhat al-Nusra is the largest grouping of foreign jihadis in Syria, and the rebels say they number about 300 fighters in Aleppo, as well as branches in neighboring Idlib province, the city of Homs and Damascus. U.S. and Iraqi officials also have said they believe members of al-Qaida's branch in Iraq have crossed the border to join the fight against Assad.

    Also Tuesday, the U.N. refugee agency said the number of Syrian refugees registered by the United Nations in the Middle East and North Africa has surpassed half a million.

    The figure is climbing by more than 3,000 per day, UNHCR said. According to UNHCR's latest figures from Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and North Africa, more than 500,000 Syrians are either already registered or in the process of being registered.

    ___

    Associated Press National Security Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report from Kuwait City. AP writer Barbara Surk contributed to this report from Sidon, Lebanon.

    Source: http://news.yahoo.com/extremists-among-syrian-rebels-seized-185216795.html

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    12-12-12 Concert: McCartney, Reunited Nirvana Electrify Crowd With New 'Cut Me Some Slack'

    Supergroup plays new track on night featuring sets from Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Chris Martin and the Rolling Stones.
    By Gil Kaufman


    Paul McCartney performs at 12-12-12 Concert
    Photo: WireImage

    Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1698835/121212-concert-sandy-paul-mccartney-nirvana.jhtml

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    An interview with PayPal president David Marcus: as offline / retail prominence grows, a renewed focus on customer service

    An interview with PayPal president David Marcus as offline  retail prominence grows, a renewed focus on customer service

    One doesn't have to look far to find my true feelings on just about any company. PayPal, in particular, has been on the wrong end of many examples of customer service gone horribly wrong. After lambasting the payments outfit once more following a gaffe I discovered while interviewing Infinitec co-founder Ahmad Zahran, I did something I rarely do: I reached out to the company's president on Twitter. A few hours later, the 39-year old David Marcus responded. At the time, I was floored to get anything more than a passing sigh, but after visiting his new home - a nondescript office at PayPal's headquarters in San Jose, Calif. - I learned that my experience wasn't a unique one.

    Marcus, a tall, handsome chap who was absorbed into eBay after a $240 million acquisition of mobile-payments provider Zong, was bestowed with the herculean task of running PayPal not long after Scott Thompson departed for Yahoo. Upon walking up to his office, it becomes immediately clear that he's aware of it -- his room is labeled "GSD," which the clever among us would recognize as "Get Sh*t Done." Outside of a few tall windows, there's little more here than a desk, a striking Nixie clock and a personal coffee machine -- seemingly, the bare essentials needed to achieve the three-lettered goal he sees each time he enters. Under Thompson's guidance, PayPal had grown at a rate seen by only a handful of other companies in the world, notching double-digit profit increases like clockwork. As it turns out, Thompson had little choice but to focus almost entirely on risk management and investor relations during his tenure - with millions in transactions pouring in by the hour, and new nations and currencies being added by the month - it simply had to be all about the numbers.

    Now, PayPal finds itself thrust into a new era. It's an era led by a startup junkie, tasked with getting a 13,000-plus-member team to buy into an entirely new culture. It's a culture that realizes how sensitive consumers are to financial taboos, how vital it is to iterate before rivals can even plan and how irreparably damaged PayPal's brand could become if customer service isn't a top priority as it soldiers into the world of offline payments.

    Continue reading An interview with PayPal president David Marcus: as offline / retail prominence grows, a renewed focus on customer service

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    Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/10/paypal-interview-david-marcus-customer-service/

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    Mandela 'responding to treatment' for lung infection

    JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Former South African President Nelson Mandela, who is 94 and has been in hospital since Saturday for tests, has suffered a recurrence of a lung infection but is responding to treatment, the government said on Tuesday.

    The revered anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace laureate is spending his fourth day in hospital in the capital, Pretoria.

    Known affectionately by his clan name "Madiba", Mandela remains a hero to many of South Africa's 52 million people and two brief stretches in hospital in the past two years made front page news.

    "Doctors have concluded the tests and these have revealed a recurrence of a previous lung infection, for which Madiba is receiving appropriate treatment and he is responding to the treatment," the government said in a statement.

    Mandela was admitted to the Pretoria military hospital on Saturday after being flown from his home village of Qunu in a remote part of the Eastern Cape province.

    Until now, authorities had given few details about the reason for his latest visit to hospital.

    In an interview broadcast on South Africa's eNCA television channel, Mandela's Mozambican-born wife Graca said the former president's "sparkle" was fading.

    When he was admitted to hospital on Saturday, officials stressed there was no cause for concern although domestic media reports suggested senior members of the government and people close to him had been caught unawares.

    ROBBEN ISLAND

    On the streets, ordinary South Africans crossed their fingers for his recovery. Leading cartoonist Zapiro depicted Mandela asleep in his hospital bed with hundreds of "Get Well" cards flying through the window like a flock of birds.

    "He's old and I hope he gets better soon. He means a lot to the world," 25-year-old legal researcher Liezel Jacobs said.

    Mandela, South Africa's first black president and a global symbol of resistance to racism and injustice, spent 27 years in apartheid prisons, including 18 years on the windswept Robben Island off the coast of Cape Town.

    He was released in 1990 and went on to be elected president in the historic all-race elections in 1994 that ended decades of white-minority rule in Africa's most important economy.

    He used his unparalleled prestige to push for reconciliation between whites and blacks, setting up a commission to probe crimes committed by both sides in the anti-apartheid struggle.

    Mandela's African National Congress (ANC) has continued to govern since his retirement from politics in 1999, but has been criticised for perceived corruption and slowness in addressing apartheid-era inequalities in housing, education and healthcare.

    On Tuesday, the influential South African Council of Churches launched a blistering attack on the ANC, accusing its leaders of moral decay and of abandoning Mandela's goal of a non-racial democracy built from the ashes of apartheid.

    Mandela spent time in a Johannesburg hospital in 2011 with a respiratory condition, and again in February this year because of abdominal pains. He was released the following day after a keyhole examination showed there was nothing serious.

    He has since spent most of his time in Qunu.

    His fragile health prevents him from making any public appearances, although he has continued to receive high-profile domestic and international visitors, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton in July.

    Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mandela-responding-treatment-lung-infection-090738255.html

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    Mars redux: NASA to launch Curiosity-like rover

    This artist's rendering provided by NASA shows the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars. NASA announced Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012, it plans to send another Curiosity-like rover to Mars in 2020. (AP Photo/NASA)

    This artist's rendering provided by NASA shows the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars. NASA announced Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012, it plans to send another Curiosity-like rover to Mars in 2020. (AP Photo/NASA)

    (AP) ? If you thought NASA's latest Mars landing was a nail-biter, get ready for a sequel.

    The space agency on Tuesday announced plans to launch another mega-rover to the red planet in 2020 that will be modeled after the wildly popular Curiosity.

    To keep costs down, engineers will borrow Curiosity's blueprints, recycle spare parts where possible and use proven technology including the novel landing gear that delivered the car-size rover inside an ancient crater in August.

    The announcement comes as NASA reboots its Mars exploration program during tough fiscal times.

    "The action right now is on the surface, and that's where we want to be," said NASA sciences chief John Grunsfeld.

    Like Curiosity, the mission will be led by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But many other details still need to be worked out, including where the rover will land and the types of tools it will carry to the surface.

    While the science goals remain fuzzy, Grunsfeld said the rover at the very least should kickstart a campaign to return Martian soil and rocks to Earth ? a goal trumpeted by many scientists as key to searching for evidence of past life. Curiosity doesn't have that capability.

    In the coming months, a team of experts will debate whether the new rover should have the ability to drill into rocks and store pieces for a future pickup ? either by another spacecraft or humans.

    NASA is under orders by the White House to send astronauts to circle Mars in the 2030s followed by a landing.

    Despite Curiosity's daring touchdown, its road to the launch pad was bumpy. At $2.5 billion, the project ran over schedule and over budget.

    Jim Green, head of NASA's planetary science division, said the engineering hurdles have been fixed and he expected the new rover to cost less than Curiosity. One independent estimate put the mission at $1.5 billion, though NASA is working on its own figure.

    "It's hard not to feel a little Mars-envy," Mike Brown, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology who focuses on the outer solar system, said in an email.

    Brown added that he understood NASA's decision given the pressure to fly humans to Earth's neighbor.

    A Curiosity redux makes sense, said American University space policy expert Howard McCurdy.

    "Let's hope that it can take advantage of economies of scale, in which case it would cost less than the Curiosity mission," he said. "That sort of approach would extend our exploration capability while freeing funds for other expeditions."

    Mars is bracing for a flurry of activity over the next several years. Next year, NASA plans to launch an orbiter to study the atmosphere.

    After NASA pulled out of a partnership with the Europeans in 2016 and 2018, it announced plans to fly a relatively low-cost robotic lander in 2016 to probe the interior. The space agency has since said it will contribute to the European missions, but in a minor role.

    Rep. Adam Schiff, who has been critical of NASA budget cuts in the past, praised the latest news to land a Curiosity-like rover. Still, the California Democrat said he preferred an earlier launch date.

    Grunsfeld said a 2020 launch is already an "aggressive schedule."

    ___

    Follow Alicia Chang at http://twitter.com/SciWriAlicia

    Associated Press

    Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2012-12-04-Future%20Mars/id-cc410d4eaee74f6eb915ae10a7b75f21

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    Would the lights go out if superstorm Sandy hit the Netherlands? Nope.

    The US can learn from the modern, disaster-resistant electric grid in the Netherlands.

    By Jack Rodolico,?Latitude News / December 4, 2012

    A police officer walks among the debris of homes destroyed by superstorm Sandy Nov. 29, one month after the hurricane made landfall in Mantoloking, N.J. The superstorm knocked out power in many areas along the Northeastern US coast.

    Andrew Burton/Reuters

    Enlarge

    In Wessel Bakker?s hometown of Gouda, the Netherlands (like the cheese), there are wooden utility poles like the ones downed by Hurricane Sandy. But in Gouda, the structures are more nostalgia than infrastructure.

    Skip to next paragraph Latitude News

    Latitude News covers the links between American communities and the rest of the world, asking if there are parallels between what people are talking about here and what?s happening in other countries.

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    ?In my neighborhood ? it?s a small, nice town ? there are the last remaining wooden poles,? said Bakker, Regional Director of Electricity Transmission and Distribution for DNV KEMA, an energy consulting, testing, and certification company. ?[The poles] have been marked as a landscape monument.?

    These are not simply the last remaining utility poles in Gouda. They are just about ?the only poles left in the country,? said Bakker. ?Maybe there are two or three more locations.?

    RELATED: 4 smart ways to rebuild after superstorm Sandy

    Nearly three weeks after Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, thousands of people still don?t have power. Many are living in shelters because their homes lack heat, hot water, and electricity, while thousands more have completely lost their homes. The storm took more than 100 lives.

    But as utility workers repair an aging American grid ? and as climate change promises to bring stronger storms more frequently ? Latitude News wonders what the U.S. can learn from the Netherlands? modern, disaster-resistant power grid.

    I asked Wessel Bakker what would happen to power supplies if a storm like Sandy hit the Dutch coast, a storm that comes ashore with 30-foot waves and 80-mile-per-hour winds.

    He paused for a long moment, then said: ?In the worst case scenario, I think nothing will happen.?

    The electrical grid in the Netherlands has some similarities to its American counterpart. Both are composed of a transmission grid ? big, high-voltage lines, like the ones you might see while driving along a major highway ? and a distribution grid ? small, low-voltage lines which comprise the patchwork of cables running through cities and neighborhoods.

    But here?s one major difference: The Netherlands? distribution grid is largely underground. That?s one less thing cluttering up the country?s picturesque landscape, and one less hazard if the wind hits 80 m.p.h.

    When Hurricane Sandy barreled through New Jersey and New York, strong winds ravaged local distribution grids ? tree limbs became projectiles, power lines snapped, and utility poles were uprooted.

    It is physically impossible for this kind of damage to happen to the Netherlands? distribution grid. The wind may blow, but the power lines are safe underground.

    But flooding was equally damaging to the electrical infrastructure during the superstorm. Bakker points to lower Manhattan, where many substations, transformers, and switchboards ? the machinery that regulates the electricity in cables ? are built at ground level.

    ?What happened in Manhattan is a peculiar situation,? Bakker said. ?The flooding was 14 feet above normal level. That?s extremely high. That is the root cause behind the failure.?

    Even if severe flooding hit the Netherlands, damage to underground cables would be minimal. However, it is possible that a flood could damage ground-level substations and other infrastructure in the Netherlands. But that is assuming the Netherlands actually experienced a major flood, a disaster for which the country has been preparing for more than? half a century.

    Much of the Netherlands would be underwater if not for the nation?s 10,000-plus miles of dikes, dams, and other structures. Major flooding was an accepted part of life in?the Netherlands until 1953, when a deluge of cold seawater destroyed infrastructure and killed 1,800 people. After that tragic event, the Netherlands got serious about natural disasters, embarking on a 50-year, $14.7-billion flood-control project.

    The Netherlands flood-resistant infrastructure is built to withstand a 10,000-year flood, a flood so large and powerful it could only happen once in 10,000 years. By way of contrast, the levees built in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina are designed to withstand a 100-year storm.

    In addition to a grid infrastructure designed to withstand heavy winds and flooding, the layout of the Dutch grid also makes it far more reliable than the American grid.

    Much of the U.S. grid is designed in star patterns, meaning power lines fan out in straight lines toward homes and communities. That means if a power line connecting a community to the bulk grid goes down, the power won?t come back on until that line is repaired.

    But in the Netherlands, the grid is laid out in a circular formation. If you lose power from one direction, you can quickly receive it from the other direction. And, increasingly, the Dutch grid is interconnected with neighboring Germany, Norway, Belgium, and the UK. Inter-connectivity improves reliability.

    All of these factors ? a massive infrastructure designed to resist floods, an extensive network of underground power lines, and a highly interconnected grid ? make the Dutch grid far more reliable than the American grid.

    ?In Holland,? said Bakker, ?we have about average 24 minutes outage annually.?

    Bakker points to a 2008 study of the American grid, which came to very different conclusions.

    ?Some of the most reliable utilities are in the heartland states of Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas,? Bakker said. ?In those states, the power is out an average of 92 minutes per year. On the other end of the spectrum, utilities in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey averaged 214 minutes of total interruptions each year. These figures don?t include power outages blamed on tornadoes or other disasters.?

    I asked Bakker when was the last time the Netherlands experienced a big power outage. Again, he paused for a long moment: ?It depends what you call ?big.? There was a large one in the western region about 15 years ago.?

    More than 1 million people lost power ? for about an hour.

    In some ways, comparing the American and Dutch grids isn?t quite fair. The Netherlands is about the size of a densely populated Maryland, whereas the U.S. is enormous with a widely distributed power grid. The Netherlands? unique topography has effectively required it to build major flood infrastructure, whereas building thousands of miles of dikes might be an expensive overreaction to Hurricane Sandy. Plus the American grid is overseen and maintained by a patchwork of federal, regional, and local bodies. Most power generation companies in the Netherlands are privately owned, just like American utility operators.

    Having said that,?it?s also the case that the country is much smaller than the U.S., making management, oversight, and distribution of power far more streamlined.

    But here are some sobering statistics. A recent report to Congress (entitled ?Weather-Related Power Outages and Electric System Resiliency?) estimated that each year storms cost the U.S. $20 billion to $55 billion in damages and lost economic productivity. However, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo estimated that Hurricane Sandy, one single storm, caused $50 billion in damage, most of it in New York state. That means in 2012, the US hit its annual quota in one day. The report, written two months before Sandy hit the coast, also noted that ?the trend of outages from weather-related events is increasing.?

    Wessel Bakker doesn?t envy the American situation.

    ?You have large challenges ahead of you,? said Bakker. He says the U.S. must ?identify the optimum road map to improve the reliability for [the American] grid.??

    But can the U.S. really do what?the Netherlands has done ? pump billions, if not trillions, into smart-grid technologies and disaster-resistant infrastructure?

    The U.S. might not have a choice, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). In a 2011 report called ?Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Electricity Infrastructure,? ASCE called the American grid a ?patchwork system? that could break down without a $673 billion investment by 2020. At current rates of investment, the ASCE report says, the economy will grow more slowly and be more susceptible to fits and starts induced by nasty weather.

    The report to Congress makes a few seemingly ?Dutch? suggestions: trimming trees, laying distribution and some transmission lines underground, investing in a modern Smart Grid, and focusing utility maintenance practices on power-system reliability. Essentially, doing what?the Netherlands has done, but on a much larger scale.

    But Bakker points to a cultural shift that may be necessary as well. He says the Dutch public and government have simply developed a lower tolerance for power outages.

    After three weeks without power, some Americans are certainly feeling less tolerant too.

    ? This article?originally appeared at Latitude News, an online news site that covers stories showing the links between American communities and the rest of the world.

    ? Sign up to receive a weekly selection of practical and inspiring Change Agent articles by clicking here.

    Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/2L7p_jTQAhY/Would-the-lights-go-out-if-superstorm-Sandy-hit-the-Netherlands-Nope

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    Green Blog: At U.S. Embassies, an Incentive to Conserve Every Drop

    Facing mandates from the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and a 2009 executive order from President Obama, federal government agencies are working to reduce energy and potable water consumption in their buildings.

    Compliance should help these agencies cut their costs and carbon footprints. But for the State Department, which manages some 19,000 buildings at 275 missions worldwide, the work takes on an added dimension.
    As a guest in a host nation, a mission is encouraged to demonstrate a consideration for local energy and water resources through an approach that the department calls ?ecodiplomacy.?

    ?Everything we do can be seen as a political statement,? said Melanie Berkmeyer, an architect with the State Department?s Bureau of Overseas Building Operations. ?So we have to be sensitive to the local environment and local populations.?

    Ms. Berkmeyer spoke during a presentation on ecodiplomacy at the recent International Greenbuild Conference in San Francisco.

    No environmental issue is more local or visible than water usage, Ms. Berkmeyer said, especially in regions with little or no reliable access to clean drinking water. So as part of its green diplomacy goals, the department aims for net-zero water usage for its buildings wherever possible. This means becoming completely independent from the local municipal water supply.

    Moving toward that goal requires a range of water conservation techniques, many of which were discussed during the presentation. For instance, rainwater has become the preferred source of fresh water for many embassy sites.

    In Freetown, Sierra Leone, there is no reliable municipal water source, which has led to conflicts within the local population. So the embassy installed rainwater catchment systems to take advantage of the ample rainfall in the region, which averages 94 inches per year.

    Two large tanks now catch and store 6.8 million liters of water. After the water is treated on-site, it meets all of the needs for an embassy staff of 200 and about half of the water used by off-site residences.

    Some 60 to 70 percent of the planet?s fresh water supply is used to irrigate food crops and landscaped areas around buildings. Lawns, a common feature around most American homes, are particularly water-intensive.

    At embassy compounds, the trend now is to minimize the use of lawn areas that require excessive watering and could be perceived as wasteful, which is ?inconsistent and not aligned with the message we are trying to send,? said Donna McIntire, the bureau?s chief of sustainable design, who also spoke at the conference.

    Instead, at many embassies, the department has replaced long stretches of turf with local drought-resistant plants. Efficient drip irrigation systems, as opposed to conventional sprinklers, further reduce water use, and sensors shut the system off when it rains.

    Constructed wetlands are another common landscape feature at many embassy sites. These man-made swamps or marshes clean and filter wastewater from the buildings. The wastewater is not drinkable, but it is clean enough to be reused on-site for irrigation or discharged into the local sewer system.

    Working toward net-zero water use can also increase security at embassy compounds, Ms. McIntire noted, by decreasing ?reliance on outside systems that are often times unreliable and subject to interference.? At the new embassy in London, on which construction will begin next year, a large pond will front the building and provide a moat-like security barrier, among other functions.

    Secretary of State Hillary Clinton formalized the State Department?s commitment to the ecodiplomacy effort in 2009 with the announcement of a Greening Diplomacy Initiative. The department?s efforts have been recognized by the United States Green Building Council?s LEED certification program, which scores buildings on a number of environmental factors including energy and water efficiency.

    Some 14 embassy buildings have been awarded LEED certification to date. Another 30 have been designed to LEED standards and are awaiting certification.

    Source: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/05/at-u-s-embassies-an-incentive-to-conserve-every-drop/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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    Official: Warren likely headed to Banking Panel

    BOSTON (AP) ? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants Massachusetts Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren to join the Banking Committee.

    A Senate Democratic official confirmed Tuesday that Warren's appointment was likely, but cautioned nothing was final until the Democratic caucus approves the move. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because no announcement has been made.

    A favorite of the party's liberal wing, Warren's likely committee assignment is already winning praise from progressive groups. The Senate Banking Committee oversees the implementation of the so-called Dodd-Frank financial system overhaul and other banking regulations.

    Warren was an outspoken advocate for the Obama administration's newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last year, but Republican opposition helped prevent her from becoming leader of bureau.

    Warren defeated Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican, and takes office in January.

    Associated Press

    Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-12-04-Warren-Banking%20Committee/id-659fcb6018994300b88687ac7bc9499c

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