"If you Don't Stand  for something , you'll fall for anything"

   

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine: 

" The Grapevine"

How To Calculate Your Net Worth

By Erin Huffstetler, About.com

Do you know what your net worth is? If not, now is the time to find out. Why? Because your net worth can tell you a lot about your current financial health, and help you to plan for your financial future--now, that's frugal and smart.

How is Net Worth Calculated?

Net Worth is calculated by subtracting your liabilities (debts) from your assets. Depending on your finances, the resulting figure can be positive (desirable) or negative (not so desirable). Which will it be for you? Follow the steps below to find out.

 

Difficulty: Average
Time Required: 1 hour

Here's How:

  1. Print out a copy of the Net Worth Worksheet.

     

  2. Use the left-hand column to list all of your assets. This includes:

     

    • cash, money held in bank accounts, money market accounts or Certificates of Deposit (CDs)
    • personal property, including homes, cars, boats and recreational vehicles, furniture, art, antiques, collectibles and jewelry
    • investments, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, annuities, the cash value of any life insurance policies and real estate
    • retirement savings, including employee pension plans, 401(k) or 403(b) accounts and IRAs

     

  3. Then, assign a value to each asset. This should be the estimated resale value of the asset, not what you paid for the item.

     

  4. Total the value of your assets, and write the resulting figure at the bottom of the left-hand column.

     

  5. Use the right-hand column to list all of your liabilities (debts). This includes: mortgages, home equity loans, car loans, credit cards, bank loans, student loans, personal loans from friends and family, cash advances, medical bills, taxes owed, alimony/child support owed and any other debts that you might have.

     

  6. Total your liabilities, and write the resulting figure in the "Total Liabilities" field, near the bottom of the right-hand column.

     

  7. Subtract your total liabilities from your total assets. The resulting figure is your current net worth. If the number is positive, you're on the right track. Keep squeezing those pennies and building wealth. If your number is negative, all is not lost. Check out the following resources, to get your finances back on track:

     

Tips:

  1. Use antique and collectible books to assess the value of your collections. Use Kelley Blue Book to determine the value of your vehicles.
  2. Update your net worth yearly or whenever there is a major change to your finances.

 

"Subject: FW: : Thank you Australia

Written by an Australian Dentist....and too good to delete....

To Kill an American You probably missed this in the rush of news, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper, an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American .So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is . So they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!)
"An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan .An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans .An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan . The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses. An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God. An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence , which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness .An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return .When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country !As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan . Americans welcome the best of everything...the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services. But they also welcome the least .The national symbol of America , The Statue of Liberty , welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America .Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, 2001 earning a better life for their families. It's been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself . Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.
  

Global Warming Skeptics Advance, Says Inhofe


By Katherine Poythress
CNSNews.com Correspondent
August 03, 2007

(Correction: Fixes year Kyoto protocol was implemented in 13th paragraph.)

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member on the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), told approximately 400 conservative students Thursday morning that despite attempts to silence global warming critics, the ground of the climate change debate is starting to shift their way, giving their views more exposure and effect.

In his speech at the 29th National Conservative Student Conference in Washington , D.C. , sponsored by the Young America's Foundation, Inhofe accused liberals of trying to silence the dissenting voices.

He then named a host of scientists from around the world who are critical of global warming, including MIT's professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen who calls the fear of man-made global warming "silly."

Referring to the most recent global warming report released by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, EPW Communications Director Marc Morano told Cybercast News Service, "There are 2,000 scientists affiliated with the U.N., and only 52 wrote the last summary for policymakers. Of those 2,000, they include prominent skeptics [of global warming] like Richard Lindzen and Pat Michaels."

Inhofe also referred to a letter 60 prominent scientists sent to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2006, in which they claimed the Kyoto Protocol of the 1990s was a regulatory measure written out of ignorance and which is now unnecessary based on modern scientific discoveries.

After his speech, Inhofe spoke with reporters about his criticism of the Environmental Protection Agency's membership in the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), which reportedly has engaged in blackmail and threats to advance its agenda and silence global warming critics.

Specifically, Inhofe cited an e-mail sent by ACORE President Martin Eckhart to the prominent global warming critic Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington , D.C.

In the e-mail, Eckhart vowed to Lewis: "It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar. If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members. I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America."

Inhofe said he has written four letters challenging the EPA, Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture, and Department of Commerce to withdraw their memberships from ACORE.

"With anyone who is threatening like that, something has to be done," said Inhofe. "If you don't have the truth, if you don't have logic, if you don't have science, you call names and you threaten."

EPA Director Stephen Johnson reportedly is looking into the matter, but Inhofe said he does not yet know the extent of Johnson's actions.

Inhofe admitted his stance on global warming is unpopular, even with some in his own party. And he himself used to tow the global warming line until a few years ago, he said, when he began researching the Kyoto Protocol and its potential economic effects.

The $300 billion tax needed to implement the treaty in 1997 would have been the largest tax increase in two decades, Inhofe said.

In his research, Inhofe discovered there were many scientists who criticized the entire premise on which the Kyoto Protocol was based.

"We're going through a warming period," Inhofe said, adding that the Earth's atmosphere is dynamic and has undergone many recorded changes in the past.

He said he has seen too many scientists disagree with the claims that man-induced CO2 emissions are primarily responsible for the phenomenon and that the results are going to be catastrophic.

Inhofe attributed what he calls the "myth" of global warming to an ulterior power-driven motive, described by former European Union Environment Minister Margo Wallstrom. She asserted that " Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big business worldwide," said Inhofe.

Daniel Lashof, science director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Climate Center , told Cybercast News Service he suspects that quotation was taken out of context.

"That should be a goal of climate policy," Lashof said. "It needs to harness market forces to drive down pollution that causes global warming."

Lashof said he has no doubt there are many scientists who support some of Inhofe's argument about global warming.

But "there are no credible scientists who would support the overall conclusion that Sen. Inhofe is propounding," said Lashof. "He tends to suggest that [climate change] is not about the environment. I think that is a misinterpretation."

Lashof said he suspects Inhofe's harsh criticism of the apparent global warming problem is driven by an aversion to adopting the policies that would be necessary to solve the problem.
 BBC NEWS

'$100 laptop' production begins

By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

Five years after the concept was first proposed, the so-called $100 laptop is poised to go into mass production.

Hardware suppliers have been given the green light to ramp-up production of all of the components needed to build millions of the low-cost machines.

Previously, the organization behind the scheme said that it required orders for 3m laptops to make production viable.

The first machines should be ready to put into the hands of children in developing countries in October 2007.

"There's still some software to write, but this is a big step for us," Walter Bender, head of software development at One Laptop per Child (OLPC), told the BBC News website.

The organization has not said which countries have bought the first machines.

Silencing critics

Getting the $100 laptop to this stage has been a turbulent journey for the organization and its founder Nicholas Negroponte.

Since the idea was first put forward in 2002, the low-cost laptop has been both lauded and ridiculed.

Intel chairman Craig Barret famously described it as a "$100 gadget" whilst Microsoft founder Bill Gates questioned its design, particularly the lack of hard drive and its "tiny screen".

Other critics asked whether there was a need for a laptop in countries which, they said, had more pressing needs such as sanitation, water and health care.

Professor Negroponte's response has always been the same: "It's an education project, not a laptop project."

 



The view was shared by Kofi Annan, ex-secretary General of the UN. In 2005, he described the laptop as an "expression of global solidarity" that would "open up new fronts" for children's education.

And as time passed, even some of the critics have changed their stance. Earlier this month, Intel, which manufactures what was considered a rival machine, the Classmate PC, joined forces with OLPC.

Functional design

The innovative design of the XO machine has also drawn praise from the technical community.

Using open source software, OLPC have developed a stripped-down operating system which fits comfortably on the machine's 1GB of memory.

"We made a set of trade-offs which may not be an office worker's needs but are more than adequate for what kids need for learning, exploring and having fun," said Professor Bender.

The XO is built to cope with the harsh and remote conditions found in areas where it may be used, such as the deserts of Libya or the mountains of Peru .

 

Professor Negroponte first proposed the laptop in 2002

For example, it has a rugged, waterproof case and is as energy efficient as possible.

"The laptop needs an order of magnitude less power than a typical laptop," said Professor Bender. "That means you can power it by solar or human power."

Governments that sign up for the scheme can purchase solar, foot-pump or pull-string powered chargers for the laptop.

And because it may be used in villages without access to a classroom, it has also been designed to work outside. In particular, the green and white machines feature a sunlight-readable display.

"For a lot of these children it's their only book and we want them to have a first class reading experience," said Professor Bender.

Name drop

The XO will be produced in Taiwan by Quanta, the world's largest laptop manufacturer.

The final design will bring together more than 800 parts from multiple suppliers such as chip-maker AMD, which supplies the low-power processor at the heart of the machine.

"This is the moment we have all been waiting for," Gustavo Arenas of AMD told the BBC News website.

"We certainly believe very strongly in the mission and vision of OLPC so finally starting to see it come to fruition is not only gratifying, it is also rewarding."

Test machines, on which the final design is based, are currently being put through their paces by OLPC.

"We keep laptops in the oven at 50 degrees and they keep on running," said Professor Bender.

Field testing is also being done in countries such as Nigeria and Brazil .

However, the names of the governments that have purchased the first lots of machines have not been released.

The XO currently costs $176 (£90) although the eventual aim is to sell the machines to governments for $100 (£50).

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/6908946.stm

Published: 2007/07/22 23:09:42 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

From the pages of Design News
Hydraulic Powertrains Propel These Hybrid Trucks
Joseph Ogando, Senior Editor -- 7/16/2007

With gas prices reaching record highs recently, consumers have already endured pain at the pumps, but it’s really just a twinge compared to the pain operators of heavy-duty vehicle fleets feel. The trucks that deliver our packages and haul our garbage have a couple of strikes against them from a fuel-economy standpoint. Weight is the big one. Fully loaded heavy-duty vehicles cover a weight range from 14,000 to more than 70,000 lb And on top of the weight, many of these vehicles have a fuel-burning duty cycle that requires continuous starts and stops. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that some of the biggest operators of these truck fleets have jumped on the hybrid vehicle bandwagon. Both Federal Express and UPS have added several dozen hybrid electric vehicles to their fleets over the past two years, both using a hybrid powertrain supplied by Eaton Corp. Waste Management, the nation’s largest waste hauler, is likewise evaluating a variety of hybrid vehicle solutions for its refuse trucks, according to Lynn Brown, a company spokesperson.

What may be surprising, though, is the kind of hybrid systems fleet operators like Fed Ex, UPS and Waste Management are considering for some of their heaviest vehicles. These hybrids don’t use the electric motors, batteries and wires the way the Toyota Prius does. They instead propel the vehicle with a combination of hydraulic pump-motors, high-pressure fluid lines and accumulators.

The most radical – and fuel efficient – versions of these hydraulic hybrids eliminate the traditional mechanical drivetrain altogether. In the vehicles, diesel engines drive a hydraulic pump-motor, which in turn charges a high-pressure accumulator. That accumulator drives a bent-axis pump-motor on the rear wheels to propel the vehicle. A low-pressure reservoir completes the hydraulic circuit, collecting the fluid before sending it back to the first pump-motor.

Like electric hybrids, hydraulic hybrids also provide regenerative braking capabilities. During braking events, of which there are many in a delivery vehicle or refuse truck, the pump-motor charges the high-pressure accumulator. The energy stored in the accumulator can be used to reduce the load on the diesel engine when the truck moves forward again. Or that energy could also allow limited bursts of engine-off propulsion — for example, when operating a truck indoors.

To consumers and even some engineers, hydraulics may seem like outmoded technology in an increasingly electronic world. Yet hydraulic pump-motors and accumulators can provide a low-cost, reliable way to apply torque and store energy — which is exactly what hybrid vehicles require. And hydraulics offer a significant power-density advantage over electrical systems, at least for now. “It looks like hydraulics will make a lot of sense, at least for the heavy end of the heavy-duty truck spectrum,” says John DeCicco, a Ph.D. mechanical engineer who is a senior automotive strategies fellow for Environmental Defense.

Hydraulic Propulsion Styles

Hydraulic hybrid systems currently come in three main variants, all of which can still be considered developmental. Researchers at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ) have developed a hybrid in conjunction with Eaton Corp., the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and other partners. Since June 2006, this system has been under evaluation on a UPS delivery truck in Detroit. The EPA has also worked on aspects of hydraulic hybrid design with Parker Hannifin under a separate cooperative research and development agreement.

Both Eaton Corp. and Parker Hannifin also developed their own proprietary hydraulic hybrid systems. Eaton’s is a parallel system that uses the hydraulics for launch assist but still gets most of its propulsive power from a mechanical drive train. Over the last year and a half, Parker Hannifin has developed a new hydraulic hybrid design with some duty-cycle input from Waste Management. Joe Kovach, a Ph.D. mechanical engineer and Parker Hannifin’s vice president for innovation in the hydraulics division, says his company will build prototype refuse trucks that incorporate this new hydraulic hybrid system later this year. Similar systems for larger delivery trucks are also in the works.

All of the different systems promise significant gains in fuel economy and emissions reductions. The biggest gains, though, will likely come from full-series hybrids — or those that don’t rely on a mechanical drive train. According to John Kargul, OTAQ’s director of technology transfer, the EPA estimates parallel hybrids will produce fuel economy improvements in the 20 to 40 percent range. The agency’s modeling of full-series hybrids predicts they’ll offer a fuel economy boost of 40 to 80 percent.

In the case of the UPS truck, the EPA’s modeling and dyno testing predict 60 to 70 percent more mpg than a similarly sized vehicle with a conventional drive train, Kargul says. The EPA just started to analyze the fuel economy data from the UPS truck’s real-world performance on the streets of Detroit. Kargul says it’s too early to release the results publicly but adds, “UPS has been very happy with the early data.”

Parker’s estimates, meanwhile, place the potential fuel economy improvements associated with hydraulic hybrid drive trains at 30 to 70 percent, depending on the vehicle’s duty cycle, the specifics of the drive train design and the engine management strategies.

The main difference between EPA’s UPS truck and Parker’s in-house hybrid design comes down to the use of a secondary mechanical direct drive system for the real wheels under certain driving conditions. In the EPA’s full-series hybrid, only the hydraulic system connects the diesel engine and rear wheels. So all of the propulsion comes from the hydraulic system at all times. Parker, by contrast, augments the hydraulic drive train with a mechanical direct drive system that connects the engine to the rear wheels during highway driving, meaning steady state speeds about 50 mph or so.

“We’ve built hybrid systems both ways — with and without the driveshaft,” Kovach says. In fact, Parker, over the years, has been involved in the full spectrum of hydraulic hybrids. One of its European divisions has supplied parallel hybrid systems that provide hydraulic launch assist, but get most of their propulsive power from a conventional drive train. “We still have about 20 buses using a system like this,” he says. And in 1991, Parker helped develop a refuse truck that was a pure series hydraulic with no mechanical drive train.

Why put a secondary mechanical drive on this latest hybrid system? Kovach acknowledges the direct drive components add some complexity — in terms of mechanical components and controls — that would be avoided by a pure series hybrid design. But he argues the direct drive system offers far more efficiency during highway driving — more than enough to offset the complexity penalty.

Glenn Wendel, a principal engineer at the SwRI, which helped develop parts of the EPA system, estimates some hydraulic hybrid systems can see their efficiency dip as low as 75 percent during highway driving, far less than the 90-plus percent efficiencies they get during city driving. A traditional geared transmission and drive train would also offer efficiencies upwards of 90 percent on the highway. “That’s why you won’t see hydraulic hybrid passenger cars or 18-wheelers,” Wendel says.

The EPA has opted to offset the efficiency loss during highway driving differently than Parker. “We’ve redesigned the pump-motors to get more efficiency than we could with an off-the-shelf model,” Kargul says. For example, EPA researchers created a pump-motor design with higher displacement angles than most off-the-shelf bent-axis pump-motors — the type used to drive the rear wheels. “Our pumps displacement angles in the 45-50 percent range in the same package size as off-the-shelf pumps with displacement angles in the 20 to 25 percent range,” says Kargul, noting bent-axis pump-motors run most efficiently with higher displacements.

So which of these two series hybrid strategies will win out? “It’s really too early to tell,” says Wendel.

Why Hydraulics Make Sense

Yet, if ever there was a time for hydraulic hybrids, it is now. “The stars have finally aligned,” says Kovach. One reason is high fuel costs. Parker’s cost analysis of hydraulic hybrids systems suggests they offer a two-to-three year return-on-investment standpoint when fuel prices exceed $2/gallon. And because they use a proven, low-cost technology, some observers believe hydraulic hybrids are expected to be relatively inexpensive compared to electric hybrid for heavy-duty trucks. Kargul cites an incremental cost target of $7,000 for its hybrid power train at production volumes.

The capabilities of the hydraulic components have also gotten better in recent years. The bent-axis pump-motors used in these systems have become smaller and more efficient over the years. Kargul says he can hold the pump-motor barrel from the UPS demo in one hand, yet it delivers 300 HP from a fully charged accumulator and about 150 HP with the accumulator empty.

And an even more important change involves the accumulators used in these high-pressure hydraulic systems. Kovach recalls when Parker dipped its toe into hydraulic hybrid design in 1991, the metal accumulators for a refuse truck weighed 3,000 lb. “Now we’re using the space-age composites used on planes and our accumulators weigh only 300-400 lb,” he says.

The SwRI has also been focusing on carbon-fiber-reinforced composite accumulators and its engineers designed the accumulators used for the EPA vehicle. Wendel says, “in general, the weight of a composite accumulator is two-and-a-half times less than a conventional steel bladder-type accumulator and something more like 10-times less than a piston accumulator.”

Aside from the cost and weight of the system itself, though, hydraulics have something else going for them — power density. “Nothing out there beats hydraulics when it comes to power density,” says Kovach, who explains high-pressure accumulators and pump motors have at least 10 times the power density of batteries and electric motors. Ultra capacitors, in theory, can get pretty close from a power density standpoint. “But they’re still way too expensive