With 34 year old Vivek Kundra in place now as Pres. Obama’s CIO, isn’t life grand? – for him and us!

* UPDATE 3/17/09: White House CIO On Leave Amid Scandal At D.C. Technology Office – Acting CSO, technology consultant for D.C. technology office also are arrested on charges of theft and corruption.

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Under new government CIO, M$’s days are really numbered now

What kind of fiscal responsibility is that? No wonder his business career sucked!

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Typewriters and helicopters

“The release of the memos today appears to be a tacit admission that many of the legal findings made by the Justice Department in weeks and months after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, giving Bush extradordinary executive power, were flawed.”

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We knew it all along Bush

At Power Shift ’09, they are striving to:

1. Push the new administration and Congress to pass bold, comprehensive energy and climate legislation.
2. Prepare our leaders and our movement for the international climate negotiations in December 2009 where we will help build and ratify a strong global climate agreement – one that allows all communities to participate and benefit.
3. Develop a comprehensive strategy for continued political pressure and accountability and a shared vision to facilitate the development and implementation of individual and group action plans for local, state and national campaigns.
4. Strengthen the bonds between diverse youth constituencies while we train and empower each other with the skills needed to create one movement that tackles climate change, environmental injustice, and economic failure.
5. Connect with fellow organizers and build community to build our power and sustain our own involvement for the long-term.
6. Understand the magnitude of both the challenges and opportunities presented by the climate crisis and explore our own capacities to create transformative change.

And you can help. To reach our goal of uniting thousands of young people at Power Shift, we need you to invite everyone you can in your own community to this incredible opportunity. A group of 10 qualifies for a group discount, so register today and download the Recruitment Guide for more ideas and tips for building your team.

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Power Shift ’09 tomorrow

Healthy foods hidden dangers.
(Credit: Daily Express)

• Additives
• Antibiotics
• Preservatives
• Monosodium glutamate
• High fructose corn syrup
• Artificial flavoring / natural flavoring

In fact, according to Uncle Sam, there are more than 3000 substances that are allowed go into our food, often referred to as the “Everything” Added to Food in the United States (EAFUS) database.

As usual, Wikipedia is nice enough to break things down for us. Here are the broad categories they have listed for food additives:

Acids

Food acids are added to make flavors “sharper”, and also act as preservatives and antioxidants. Common food acids include vinegar, citric acid, tartaric acid, malic acid, fumaric acid, lactic acid.

Acidity regulators

Acidity regulators are used to change or otherwise control the acidity and alkalinity of foods.

Anticaking agents

Anticaking agents keep powders such as milk powder from caking or sticking.

Antifoaming agents

Antifoaming agents reduce or prevent foaming in foods.

Antioxidants

Antioxidants such as vitamin C act as preservatives by inhibiting the effects of oxygen on food, and can be beneficial to health.

Bulking agents

Bulking agents such as starch are additives that increase the bulk of a food without affecting its nutritional value.

Food coloring

Colorings are added to food to replace colors lost during preparation, or to make food look more attractive.

Color retention agents

In contrast to colorings, color retention agents are used to preserve a food’s existing color.

Emulsifiers

Emulsifiers allow water and oils to remain mixed together in an emulsion, as in mayonnaise, ice cream, and homogenized milk.

Flavors

Flavors are additives that give food a particular taste or smell, and may be derived from natural ingredients or created artificially.

Flavor enhancers

Flavor enhancers enhance a food’s existing flavors. They may be extracted from natural sources (through distillation, solvent extraction, maceration, among other methods) or created artificially.

Flour treatment agents

Flour treatment agents are added to flour to improve its color or its use in baking.

Humectants

Humectants prevent foods from drying out.

Tracer gas

Tracer gas allow for package integrity testing to prevent foods from being exposed to atmosphere, thus guaranteeing shelf life.

Preservatives

Preservatives prevent or inhibit spoilage of food due to fungi, bacteria and other microorganisms.

Stabilizers

Stabilizers, thickeners and gelling agents, like agar or pectin (used in jam for example) give foods a firmer texture. While they are not true emulsifiers, they help to stabilize emulsions.

Sweeteners

Sweeteners are added to foods for flavoring. Sweeteners other than sugar are added to keep the food energy (calories) low, or because they have beneficial effects for diabetes mellitus and tooth decay and diarrhea.

Thickeners

Thickeners are substances which, when added to the mixture, increase its viscosity without substantially modifying its other properties.

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What’s for dinner?

1. Transporting Americans is and should be one of the most important functions our government must address. And because we are facing a massive economic, energy and environmental crisis, the new president and Congress must do what FDR did when he was faced with a crisis – order the auto industry to stop building cars and instead build tanks and planes: The Big 3 are, from this point forward, to build only cars that are not primarily dependent on oil and, more importantly to build trains, buses, subways and light rail. This will not only save jobs, but create millions of new ones.
2. You could buy ALL the common shares of stock in General Motors for less than $3 billion. Why should we give GM $18 billion or $25 billion or anything? Take the money and buy the company! (You’re going to demand collateral anyway if you give them the “loan,” and because we know they will default on that loan, you’re going to own the company in the end as it is. So why wait? Just buy them out now.)
3. None of us want government officials running a car company, but there are some very smart transportation geniuses who could be hired to do this. We need a Marshall Plan to switch us off oil-dependent vehicles and get us into the 21st century.

This proposal is not radical or rocket science. It just takes one of the smartest people ever to run for the presidency to pull it off. What I’m proposing has worked before. The national rail system was in shambles in the ’70s. The government took it over. A decade later it was turning a profit, so the government returned it to private/public hands, and got a couple billion dollars put back in the treasury. This proposal will save our industrial infrastructure — and millions of jobs. More importantly, it will create millions more. It literally could pull us out of this recession.

In contrast, yesterday General Motors presented its restructuring proposal to Congress. They promised, if Congress gave them $18 billion now, they would, in turn, eliminate around 20,000 jobs. You read that right. We give them billions so they can throw more Americans out of work. That’s been their Big Idea for the last 30 years — layoff thousands in order to protect profits. But no one ever stopped to ask this question: If you throw everyone out of work, who’s going to have the money to go out and buy a car?

These idiots don’t deserve a dime. Fire all of them, and take over the industry for the good of the workers, the country and the planet.

What’s good for General Motors IS good for the country. Once the country is calling the shots.

That’s some commentary Michael Moore will be articulating tonight on Keith Olbermann – something I plan on watching.

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Congress To Big 3: “We’ll Just Buy You Out”

“One of the things that I’m going to have to work through is how to break through the isolation — the bubble that exists around the president. I’m in the process of negotiating with the Secret Service, with lawyers, with White House staff … to figure out how can I get information from outside of the 10 or 12 people who surround my office in the White House,” he said. “One of the worst things I think that could happen to a president is losing touch with what people are going through day to day … ” he said. “I want to make sure that I keep my finger on the pulse of the struggles that people are going through every day.” – Pres. elect Obama. [src]

_{Photo: AP}

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Obama To Keep His “Finger On The Pulse”

OpenCRS lays out the numbers for us:

Congress has approved a total of about $864 billion for military operations, base security, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs, and veterans’ health care for the three operations initiated since the 9/11 attacks:

1. Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) – Afghanistan and other counter terror operations,
2. Operation Noble Eagle (ONE) – providing enhanced security at military bases, and
3. Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).

Of that total, CRS estimates that:

• Iraq will receive about $657 billion (76%),
• OEF about $173 billion (20%), and
• enhanced base security about $28 billion (3%),
• with about $5 billion that CRS cannot allocate (1%).

About 94% of the funds are for DOD, 6% for foreign aid programs and embassy operations, and less than 1% for medical care for veterans. As of July 2008, DOD’s monthly obligations for contracts and pay averaged about $12.3 billion, including $9.9 billion for Iraq, and $2.4 billion for Afghanistan.

In an August 2008 update, the Congressional Budget Office projected that additional war costs could range from:

• $440 billion for the next ten years, if troop levels fell to 30,000 by 2010, or
• $865 billion, if troop levels fell to 75,000 by about 2013.

Under these CBO projections, funding for Iraq, Afghanistan and the GWOT could total about $1.3 trillion or about $1.7 trillion for FY2001-FY2018.

So, you can compare wars and their costs against GDP if you want to, but I don’t see what that even matters! Who cares? The point is, Osama bin Laden is laughing in his cave, grave, or wherever the hell he is, because he’s accomplished his task – bringing our financial system to it’s knees – and that’s exactly where we’re at right now.

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Iraq War Soldiers or Corrupt Corporations – Who Deserves Your Money?

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It’s A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood!