Month: September 2012

Sarah Silverman Takes Voter ID Laws To Task

One musty couch, one snappy comedian and plenty of foul-mouthed sarcasm later, the latest push for voter education hit the Internet this week, encouraging citizens in states with new strict voter ID laws to get the photo ID they will need to in order to cast a ballot in November.

In classic Sarah Silverman style, the comedian and actress takes Voter ID laws to task in a video ad sponsored by the Jewish Council for Education and Research.

“This year [voting] is not going to be that easy because there are these brand new, super f***ed up laws, which are presented as a way to prevent voter fraud, but are in fact designed to make it hard for specific people to vote: black people, elderly people, poor people and students,” Silverman says in the ad.

“Hmm, wonder what those demographics have in common,” she says, scratching her chin.

“Oh yeah, they are probably going to vote for this guy,” she says as the screen shows images of President Obama.

In Pennsylvania, Indiana, Georgia, Tennessee and Kansas, voters have to present photo ID for their votes to count in the 2012 election. As many as 11 percent of eligible voters do not have the type of ID accepted, according to a study by the New York University Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice.

Sarah Silverman Takes Voter ID Laws To Task

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Mitt Romney releases 2011 tax docs, paid 14.1% federal rate

Mitt Romney releases 2011 tax docs, paid 14.1% federal rate

Romney aides on Friday said the Republican presidential nominee would give the public a look at his finished tax forms. Ahead of their release, expected at 3 p.m., aides said Romney earned almost $13.7 million last year and paid more than $1.9 million in taxes — an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent.

Romney’s campaign earlier estimated that Romney would pay about $3.2 million in taxes.

Romney paid about $3 million in federal income taxes in 2010 — or 13.9 percent.

Critics, including President Barack Obama, have urged Romney to release more than just the two years of returns and follow his father’s model. When George Romney ran for president, he released 12 years of tax returns.

The younger Romney is refusing.

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U.S. Distrust in Media Hits New High

Fewer Americans closely following political news now than in previous election years

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans' distrust in the media hit a new high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. Distrust is up from the past few years, when Americans were already more negative about the media than they had been in years prior to 2004.

Trend since 1997: In general, how much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media -- such as newspapers, TV, and radio -- when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly -- a great deal, a fair amount, not very much, or none at all?

The record distrust in the media, based on a survey conducted Sept. 6-9, 2012, also means that negativity toward the media is at an all-time high for a presidential election year. This reflects the continuation of a pattern in which negativity increases every election year compared with the year prior. The current gap between negative and positive views -- 20 percentage points -- is by far the highest Gallup has recorded since it began regularly asking the question in the 1990s. Trust in the media was much higher, and more positive than negative, in the years prior to 2004 -- as high as 72% when Gallup asked this question three times in the 1970s.

This year's decline in media trust is driven by independents and Republicans. The 31% and 26%, respectively, who express a great deal or fair amount of trust are record lows and are down significantly from last year. Republicans' level of trust this year is similar to what they expressed in the fall of 2008, implying that they are especially critical of election coverage.

Independents are sharply more negative compared with 2008, suggesting the group that is most closely divided between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney is quite dissatisfied with its ability to get fair and accurate news coverage of this election.

U.S. Distrust in Media Hits New High

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HOME BUILDER CONFIDENCE SEES “LARGEST 12-MONTH GAIN IN HISTORY” Read more: http://www.classwarfareexists.com/home-builder-confidence-sees-largest-12-month-gain-in-history/#ixzz274Ncnszp Follow us: classwarfareexists on Facebook

This is really significant news.  I know that it doesn’t feel like it but we are on the verge of a pretty big economic recovery if Congress doesn’t screw it up.  All of the stars are aligning for a recovery in the housing sector and once you add in the recent news by the FED to buy up $80 billion in foreclosure mortgages by the end of the year and then another $40 billion per month until unemployment hits a certain target … you’re talking about being on the cusp of a significant housing recovery.

We got into this recession because of a huge housing crisis and we’re going to roar out of the recession because of the housing industry.  It has taken years and years to move through the huge inventory glut of foreclosed homes but it looks like we’re finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel.  When home builders start building more homes based off of increased projected sales …. you’re going to see values rise for existing home owners, an increase in new home salespeople and realtors … not to mention a large increase in construction jobs.  And that is going to put the economy back in the driver’s seat.

Mark Perry has the builder confidence index #’s HERE:

“Builders across the country are expressing a more positive outlook on current sales conditions, future sales prospects and the amount of consumer traffic they are seeing through model homes than they have in more than five years,” noted NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. “However, against the improving demand for new homes, concerns are now rising about the lack of building lots in certain markets and the rising cost of building materials. Given the fragile nature of the housing and economic recovery, these are significant red flags.”

Just last month the Wall Street Journal wrote that the prices for homes increased the most in 7 years HERE:

Home prices rose by their largest percentage in at least seven years during the second quarter, propelled by low inventories of properties for sale and high demand for bargain-priced foreclosures, according to two reports Tuesday. Prices rose by 2.5% in June from a year ago, and by 6% from the previous quarter, said CoreLogic Inc., a Santa Ana, Calif., data firm. The quarterly jump was the largest since 2005. Separately, Freddie Mac, which uses a different methodology, said home prices during the second quarter jumped by 4.8% from the previous quarter. That was the largest jump since 2004.”

Business Insider has a graph directly from the BLS which highlights the jobs problem specifically in the construction trade HERE.  With government investments in infrastructure having fallen behind and the housing industry having had such a huge surplus of foreclosed homes … there was simply very little work for construction workers relative to the # of people looking.

Now consider all of that … and then throw in the recent action by the Federal Reserve specifically focused on the housing market HERE; an excerpt:

And it is significant action.  The economy’s biggest private sector opportunity is the housing market.  The FED announced they would purchase $80 BILLION in mortgage securities by the end of the year and another $40 billion per month until they get to a point where the situation is significantly resolved.  This will help pump money in the system but it will also help clean up some of these residential foreclosure properties that are on the market dragging down everyone else’s property values.  That is also significant because the #1 source of wealth for the middle class has been equity built in a person’s home.  That IS the only major investment most middle class Americans actually make.

Time Magazine added this about the housing market in May 2012 HERE:

The best reason to shed your hard-won dubiousness is a report issued today by the The Demand Institute, a think tank jointly operated by the well-respected and non-partisan research organizations The Conference Board and Nielsen. The fifty-page study is definitively labeling 2012 the year of the housing bottom. It says:

“The double-digit increases in U.S. housing prices over the first half of the past decade proved unsustainable. But the freefall is over. The point has been reached where housing prices will start to climb, albeit at single-digit rates in most markets over the next five years.”

The report argues that the recovery will come in two stages. The first will be driven by rental demand. Over the past several years plummeting home prices have been coupled with rising rents, and this dynamic has made landlording  very profitable. This is evidenced by the recent rebound of the apartment-building business. According to the report, “The only segment of the home building sector now showing clear signs of recovery is multifamily housing,” noting that housing starts for multi-family units have increased 54 percent in 2011 over the previous year.



Read more: http://www.classwarfareexists.com/home-builder-confidence-sees-largest-12-month-gain-in-history/#ixzz274NiytJc 
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HOME BUILDER CONFIDENCE SEES “LARGEST 12-MONTH GAIN IN HISTORY”

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Bank of America to cut 16,000 jobs

As part of a restructuring effort, Bank of America will slash 16,000 jobs. After the cuts the banking giant will no longer be the largest banking employer in the US. That title will now belong to rival JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The cuts will be made by the end of the year and are part of an effort to make Bank of America into a leaner and more focused enterprise, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

The Journal added that the plan will help Bank of America take less risk while generating more value out of existing customers. It will also further utilize an investment banking operation inherited from Merrill Lynch & Co.

CNBC reported that at the end of quarter three, Bank of America had just over 275,000 employees. The job cuts are part of a plan to eliminate $5 billion in annual expenses and 30,000 jobs by the end of 2013. Many of the cuts will come in consumer and technology areas.

The cuts are all part of a plan by Chief Executive Brian Moynihan called BAC.According to the AFP, that plan also includes the closing of 200 branches, on top of 178 shut down in 2011.

This will not be the end of cuts for the bank. There is a second phase  of the plan which is expected to eliminate $3 billion in annual expenses by mid-2015. 

Bank of America to cut 16,000 jobs

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Baxter Robot Heads to Work


[image]Rethink Robotics

Rethink Robotics' Baxter robot comes preprogrammed to do certain tasks, but needs to be adjusted to meet a company's precise needs.

Rethink Robotics Inc. introduced Tuesday a low-cost—and cute—robot named Baxter that can do such factory chores as picking parts off a conveyor belt, so long as they don't weigh more than five to 10 pounds.

The two-armed robot has a computer-screen face with animated eyes, stands at about 3 feet, and is priced at $22,000. It is designed to do such tasks as loading and unloading, sorting and tending of other machinery, jobs typically done by people.

Most industrial robots are larger, one-armed machines whose tasks include lifting heavy objects, cutting metal or welding. Those machines typically cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Boston-based Rethink, founded in 2008, said Baxter eliminates the need to hire specialist technicians. Rodney Brooks, chairman of Rethink, said most workers would be able to learn to operate Baxter within half an hour. Rethink touts the robot as appealing for small and midsize manufacturers that previously haven't been able to afford robots and lacked the expertise to program them.

Baxter comes preprogrammed to do certain basic tasks, such as sorting objects. Buyers then need to adjust it to meet their precise needs, such as grasping certain shapes and moving objects in certain directions. That can be done without additional programming. If companies want Baxter to go through more complicated motions, they will be able to do additional programming for it.

Baxter Robot Heads to Work

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Can we finally break the speed of light? Nasa breakthrough suggests Star Trek’s ‘warp drives’ may not only be possible – but practical

Can we finally break the speed of light? Nasa breakthrough suggests Star Trek's 'warp drives' may not only be possible - but practical Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2204913/Nasa-breakthrough-suggests-Star-Treks-warp-drives-possible--practical.html#ixzz273c4YQ9g Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

As we take our virgin steps into space, there is one thing that could always put a cap on our ambitions.

Despite our desire to explore the stars, we are limited by travelling at less than light speed - and even if we managed to match that pace, we would still be listing our voyages from star to star in years, centuries or millenia.

But, in what could be a huge breakthrough, theorists from Nasa say there is 'hope' that we can achieve faster-than-light travel, after physicists found a theoretical possibility for warp speed travel.

 
Space time mapped out: Teams at NASA are exploring ways to warp the universe to enable faster than light travel. Pictured is a model of how a ship, enclosed in a space-time 'doughnut', could reach the stars

Space time mapped out: Teams at NASA are exploring ways to warp the universe to enable faster than light travel. Pictured is a model of how a ship, enclosed in a space-time 'doughnut', could reach the stars

While nothing can break the speed of light, scientists have long considered the fantasy of warp speed travel, where spaceships could bend space and time on itself to move through loopholes in space.

Equations based on the laws of relativity have allowed warp speed in theory: but the energy required to make it happen would require the energy-mass of a Jupiter-sized planet.

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Holographic TV dreams in Japan 2022 World Cup bid

http://youtu.be/Weg9NQZfVq8

TOKYO -- Forget 3D TV, Japan is promoting the idea of ultra-realistic holographic broadcasts and the ability to zoom a virtual camera in behind players on the pitch if it secures the 2022 World Cup. Japan proposes expanding the World Cup to all 208 FIFA member nations through fan-fest events that will feature live, holographic coverage of the games. Fans will gather in stadiums thousands of kilometers from the action and watch the games as if they are taking place in front of their eyes.

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Thermoelectric material is world's best at converting heat waste to electricity

The material could signify a paradigm shift. The inefficiency of current thermoelectric materials has limited their commercial use. Now, with a very environmentally stable material that is expected to convert 15 to 20 percent of waste heat to useful electricity, thermoelectrics could see more widespread adoption by industry. Possible areas of application include the automobile industry (much of gasoline's potential energy goes out a vehicle's tailpipe), heavy manufacturing industries (such as glass and brick making, refineries, coal- and gas-fired power plants) and places were large combustion engines operate continuously (such as in large ships and tankers). Waste heat temperatures in these areas can range from 400 to 600 degrees Celsius (750 to 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit), the sweet spot for thermoelectrics use. The new material, based on the common semiconductor lead telluride, is the most efficient thermoelectric material known. It exhibits a thermoelectric figure of merit (so-called "ZT") of 2.2, the highest reported to date. Chemists, physicists, material scientists and mechanical engineers at Northwestern and Michigan State University collaborated to develop the material. The study will be published Sept. 20 by the journal Nature. "Our system is the top-performing thermoelectric system at any temperature," said Mercouri G. Kanatzidis, who led the research and is a senior author of the paper. "The material can convert heat to electricity at the highest possible efficiency. At this level, there are realistic prospects for recovering high-temperature waste heat and turning it into useful energy."

Thermoelectric material is world’s best at converting heat waste to electricity

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