Cynthia Shahan, - CleanTechnica
Stephan: Here is more good news, this story comes from France, about electric vehicles. It is becoming increasingly clear that the U.S. is losing the bubble on the transition to electric vehicles, which means tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs are being lost to Europe and Asia through corrupt benighted American governance
Nissan’s new regional office in France will use electric car technology to power the offices — in fact, it will be implementing the world’s largest grid-integrated electric vehicle (EV) system. Taking place thanks to the Japanese EV manufacturer, it will be another step towards a cleaner environment.
Nissan will install 100 vehicle-to-grid (V2G) chargers. Nissan’s partner Enel will provide the chargers.
Paul Willcox, chairman of Nissan Europe, made an announcement about this project at the Geneva Motor Show: “By demonstrating that electric vehicles can play an integral part in the energy management systems of the future, this project is a watershed moment on our journey towards a fully electric future.”
By drawing energy from the grid at off-peak times, and using the Nissan’s electric vehicle batteries to store and transfer energy at opportune times, there’s expected to be a net benefit in selling electricity back to the grid. “It will also feature a 1 MWh energy storage system, from Nissan’s partner EATON, the battery storage experts, powered by 64 Nissan LEAF second-life EV batteries combined with solar energy generation.”
Over the next few years, “The systems […]
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Sarah van Gelder, - Reader Supported News/Yes! Magazine
Stephan: Here is the very definition of speaking truth to power.
John Perkins
Credit: Peter Thompson/NYT
Twelve years ago, John Perkins published his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and it rapidly rose up The New York Times’ best-seller list. In it, Perkins describes his career convincing heads of state to adopt economic policies that impoverished their countries and undermined democratic institutions. These policies helped to enrich tiny, local elite groups while padding the pockets of U.S.-based transnational corporations.
Perkins was recruited, he says, by the National Security Agency (NSA), but he worked for a private consulting company. His job as an undertrained, overpaid economist was to generate reports that justified lucrative contracts for U.S. corporations, while plunging vulnerable nations into debt. Countries that didn’t cooperate saw the screws tightened on their economies. In Chile, for example, President Richard Nixon famously called on the CIA to “make the economy scream” to undermine the prospects of the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende.
If economic pressure and threats didn’t work, Perkins says, the jackals were called to either overthrow or assassinate the noncompliant heads of […]
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Lucy Schouten, Staff Reporter - The Christian Science Monitor
Stephan: Here is some excellent news about GMOs; as well as a confirmation of the power of a citizen's quotidian choice.
General Mills flew the white flag of surrender alongside a GMO label, as the company announced Friday it would place labels on its products containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
This makes General Mills the second major food company this year to acquiesce to GMO labels and comes after the Senate failed on Wednesday to strike a compromise and override individual state laws. In January, Campbell’s Soup announced a decision to break from the food industry line and support labels, saying that although they believe GMOs are safe, the patchy labeling requirements will confuse grocery shoppers.
“Although we believe that consumers have the right to know what’s in their food, we also believe that a state-by-state piecemeal approach is incomplete, impractical and costly to implement for food makers,” Campbell’s Soup wrote at the time. “More importantly, it’s confusing to consumers.”
Statements by both companies reveal frustration with the federal government’s inability to resolve the issue, which has taken on new urgency because Vermont’s law […]
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Saturday, March 19th, 2016
Priti Salian , Independent India–based journalist for the Guardian, CNN, and The Christian Science Monitor - Takepart
Stephan: This is very exciting good news. I will let the doctor who created the institutions described in this report, Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty, founder and chairman, Narayana Hrudayalaya, make the case.
India can become the first country in the world to dissociate health care from affluence. We can prove that the wealth of the nation has nothing to do with the quality of health care.
This is the model, making wellness the first priority. And note that as is always the case, it is more efficient, effective, and cheaper, yet still makes excellent money.
BENGALURU, INDIA — Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty draws a Jamieson sucker-dissector along the pulmonary artery of a patient at Narayana Institute of Cardiac Sciences, a 718-bed hospital that’s part of Narayana Hrudayalaya, a chain of 32 hospitals he founded and chairs. Dissecting the artery so he can open it and remove the blood clots that have formed inside is the most delicate move he will perform during this six- to eight-hour pulmonary thromboendarterectomy: If the plane of his instrument turns even half a millimeter, he could breach the artery wall. The injury would be difficult to detect, as the patient’s circulation is halted for the surgery, and it often results in death.
Shetty doesn’t allow such thoughts to distract him. He appears relaxed as he completes the dissection and then, using his gloved fingers, removes the clots blocking the artery. “Surgery happens in three phases,” he says. First in a surgeon’s mind prior to the operation, then on the operating table, and then again in the mind postsurgery, when the doctor evaluates how performance could be further improved. “For other surgeons, the next opportunity for improvement is after a few months, but in […]
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Saturday, March 19th, 2016
John Sepulvado, Host, Weekend Edition Oregon Public Broadcasting - Oregon Public Broadcasting
Stephan: This in-depth investigative report by Oregon Public Broadcasting is getting virtually no coverage by the national corporate media. It ought to be a major story. The Republican Party in addition to becoming an enclave of White racists, also has a significant and growing segment of fascist government saboteurs, including GOP officials in office. This report lays the case out, and I take it very seriously. It is an alarm bell ringing loudly in the night -- and being mostly ignored.
Robert Corbell
Credit: Facebook
On a cold January morning, a posse led by a former Army company commander named Matt Shea rolled into the Harney County Courthouse and wanted to speak to the sheriff.
But this wasn’t a group of militants, or outlaws. They were state lawmakers from four western states, including Oregon. Most of them were members of a group called the Coalition of Western States, or COWS.
After 41 days, an armed occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge came to a conclusion on Feb. 11 after four remaining militants at the refuge surrendered to federal authorities.
They were hoping to talk directly with Sheriff David Ward and convince him to support the armed militants at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Instead, COWS members would meet that day with a Harney County deputy and a sheriff from another county, an FBI agent and other local officials.
The out-of-town visitors presented themselves as wanting to help understand and, if possible, end the armed occupation at the refuge.
“I’m just looking at peaceful resolve,” said […]
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