Thursday, November 24th, 2011
ROGER J. DOW, - The Wall Street Journal
Stephan: This is another example of the trend of self-inflicted injuries. Our paranoia has made coming into the U.S. from abroad a police state experience. And I am told that getting a visa is a humiliating experience. So, not surprisingly, people stay away. Here's the proof.
Roger Dow is the president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.
Over the past decade, the U.S. economy has missed an unprecedented global travel boom because of visa delays and other bureaucratic policies that discourage visitors to our shores. Our research shows that between 2000 and 2010 America’s share as a destination of the long-haul travel market slipped to 12% from 17%. That adds up to a lost decade for American travel with 467,000 lost jobs, $606 billion in lost spending by visitors, and $37 billion in lost tax revenue.
During a time of high unemployment and rising deficits, the U.S. cannot afford to continue down this path. International travelers represent the most lucrative segment of the fiercely competitive global travel market. For every international traveler who visits the U.S., our hotels, restaurants, retailers and other businesses rack up an average of $4,000 in sales. By recapturing our previous 17% share of the market, America could realize $859 billion in economic stimulus and create 1.3 million new jobs by 2020 at no cost to American taxpayers.
The question is not whether more international travelers are willing to bring their money to the U.S., but whether our government will let them. Important safeguards have been instituted after 9/11, such as in-person interviews with consular […]
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Thursday, November 24th, 2011
, - The Raw Story/Agence France-Presse
Stephan:
WASHINGTON — People who ate canned soup for five days straight saw their urinary levels of the chemical bisphenol A spike 1,200 percent compared to those who ate fresh soup, US researchers said on Tuesday.
The randomized study, described as ‘one of the first to quantify BPA levels in humans after ingestion of canned foods,
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Thursday, November 24th, 2011
Stephan: This the latest on the Rossi technology, it is developing exactly as one would expect a successful project to develop. The company is already targeting a residence-sized unit at '$500 per kilowatt,' which would drop as it scaled up. Once installed, conceptually, it would run as needed. There's always some kind of maintenance. But it could turn out to require very little, like your refrigerator. They will spread through the world like house sized iPods.
Andrea Rossi may have his doubters, detractors and skeptics, but the client for whom he demonstrated his 1MW e-Cat energy system apparently isn’t one of them. Not only did the mysterious client take delivery of Rossi’s first 1MW heat energy production system, but ordered a dozen more for use in cold, remote locations. That’s an order worth $24 million.
While Rossi isn’t at liberty to reveal who the client is — and here speculation has run rampant — he is not barred from talking about the results of the demonstration, witnessed by a select group of media in Bologna, Italy on October 28, 2011.
As far as the client is concerned, he/she/they are satisfied that the technology works, producing low-grade steam via a heretofore little understood physical process often identified as ‘cold fusion’ that somehow generates anomalous amounts of heat by combining nickel powder, hydrogen gas and a proprietary catalytic material that when heated to a critical point, goes into a self-sustaining reaction that isn’t chemical in nature. Exactly what goes on at the atomic level is still a matter of debate, but Signor Rossi is confident that he knows what’s happening and as soon as his patent is granted, he tells […]
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Thursday, November 24th, 2011
Stephan: Today's edition has the very good news that seems to be taking form about the Rossi technology. But for the rest, trends in many areas are not good.
But I want to share the emergence of a new and powerful trend
We are in a perfect storm of change and, given the point from which we are starting, how are individuals, families, and communities to weather this transition while maintaining a decent quality of life for all? What values create social wellness? What constitutes a thriving resilient community?
Throughout the region, Cascadia, where I live, in the Northeastern U.S., and in pockets elsewhere, a first cousin of the Occupy Movement is emerging -- the Thrive Movement. Spontaneously, individuals in small communities, and urban neighborhoods, are banding together in the recognition that a new social model is required. One that puts wellness in its broadest sense -- individual family, and community -- above other considerations.
The thriving and resilience movement can be seen in farmer's markets, foodbanks linked to gardens, linked to nonprofit supermarkets, linked to youth nurturing activities, linked to elder care, linked to healthcare.
It appears from the research I am doing now that there are two keys to a community becoming thriving and resilient: A critical mass of citizens -- a surprisingly small percentage of the community total -- who see social problems and act on relieving them with little or no resort to government monies, and with no subtext of recruitment or conversion. Programs that are designed from a compassionately life-affirming perspective that treats recipients as neighbors going through a hard patch, not as lesser beings or failures. It is different than the traditional model, one grounded in mutual respect. This is the bond that holds the process together.
So as those of us in the U.S. celebrate Thanksgiving, let us give thanks that between the promise of the Rossi technology, and the emerging interlinking social network that acknowledges individualism even as it welcomes the power that arises from helping one another out there is great good on our horizon.
I hope you and your friends and family have the best of Thanksgivings.
-- Stephan
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Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011
ERIC W. DOLAN, - The Raw Story
Stephan: There is an inherent conservatism in the American public today, as this Gallup poll reveals. The American population, as much as American politicians, are complicit in our downward spiral. Until we have millions in the streets nothing is going to change.
The majority of Americans are ambivalent towards the ongoing ‘Occupy Wall Street
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