Archive for April, 2009
Chrysler Files For Bankruptcy
April 30th, 2009 | 
Author: Washington — The White House will force Chrysler LLC to file for bankruptcy protection today, after talks between the Treasury Department and the Auburn Hills automaker’s creditors failed last night to reach an agreement.
“This will be quick, it will be efficient, it is designed to deal with those last few holdouts” who blocked an out-of-court restructuring, President Barack Obama said in a televised announcement from the White House. Obama pledged the bankruptcy filing would not disrupt the company’s operations or the lives of its workers.
The president had harsh words for the group of investment companies and hedge funds that balked at a debt restructuring. “I do not stand with them,” Obama said, calling them “speculators” who sought to endanger Chrysler’s future for their own benefit.
Posted in Big Three, Detroit, Economy, Labor Unions, Unemployment | 
Tags: Big Three, Chrysler Bankruptcy, Chrysler LLC Bankruptcy, detroit automakers | 
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Specter Switches to Democratic Party
Specter Switches Parties; Says GOP Has Changed
Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter announced this morning that he will be switching party affiliations. He will now caucus with Democrats in the Senate, meaning that if and when Al Franken is seated, Democrats will have a filibuster proof majority.
This is huge news for Democrats, removing roadblocks to the President’s agenda in a year where he’s vowed to tackle thorny issues like the environment and healthcare.
But perhaps the more important story here is what Specter’s defection says about the state of the Republican Party.
IBEW Sees Future in Alternative Energy
IBEW Sees Future in Alternative Energy Jobs
MINNEAPOLIS - Darryl Thayer, a member of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 292 in Minneapolis, hardly received a visionary’s welcome when he addressed the Minnesota legislature in 1968 about the need to develop solar energy and wean the state from fossil fuel-based sources. Worse yet, says Thayer, many of his fellow workers “thought I was nuts.” How climates have changed.
Forty-one years later, the legislature has a green energy task force. And Thayer, a 53-year member who teaches solar classes at Local 292’s apprenticeship training center is a hero to folks like Ray Zeran, one of 600 unemployed members who are looking to benefit from billions of dollars of state funds and federal stimulus money focused on renewable energy projects.
While Minnesota may appear to be an improbable generator of sun power, Nimlos says that the 45th parallel is primed for harnessing solar energy. Residing on a latitude similar to Germany’s, where solar power is well-developed, Minnesota’s lower temperatures keep panels operating at maximum efficiency. And the state’s clear skies make it competitive with Jacksonville, Fla., San Francisco and Houston.
IBEW participates in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar America Cities project which targets 25 metropolitan areas for sun power development. Thayer— who earned a B.A. in physics over 13 years working as a journeyman electrician and has nearly completed his master’s in engineering—has written a curriculum for the project. Fully half of all Minnesota solar installers who have achieved National Association of Certified Energy Practitioners qualifications are Local 292 members.
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| Minneapolis Local 292′s JATC has a waiting list for members to train in solar installation. Veteran member Darryl Thayer, kneeling, instructs Bradley Kanis, left, Claude Clavette. Instructor Kelley Benyo stands at right. A large solar panel is mounted outside the training center (below).
Photos courtesy of The Electrical Worker |
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Wind power has been expanding rapidly in the southwest quadrant of Minnesota. Local 343, in the southeast, is aiming to be the labor supply of choice on wind projects. The local is completing a 60-foot climbing tower for practicing high-voltage safety, climbing and rescue procedures on turbines in conjunction with an NJATC wind power curriculum. Toft, who sets a priority on making IBEW-organized contractors more competitive in wind projects, expects to see 1,700 towers erected over the next few years.
The IBEW Minnesota State Council’s efforts to promote new training and encourage grassroots political activism to set high standards for renewable energy workers are returning results that could reach far into the future.
IBEW is supporting state legislation to include more money to cover the labor costs of relocating existing power lines to make way for new highway and rail projects that will be financed by the federal stimulus. The local is gearing up to provide labor from new needs. A state bill supported by environmentalists provides that one-half of all new parking facilities include outlets to charge electric vehicles.
In a state that mandates the licensing of electricians, IBEW is challenging the perception that solar and wind energy require entirely new careers. Local 292 Business Representative Dan McConnell meets with community college educators who are setting up renewable energy training. “I ask them what will happen to students who are only trained in renewable energy installations if the bubble bursts in any specific sector,” says McConnell.
McConnell proposes to educators and legislators that the demand for solar workers be filled by journeymen and apprentice electricians who receive supplementary training in how to properly design and angle panels and calculate their efficiency. “Solar panels are live when they come out of the box,” says McConnell. Safety should not be taken for granted. And better-trained workers, he says, “are far more recession-proof than workers trained exclusively on renewable installations.”
Posted in Go Green, IBEW, IBEW Jobs, Renewable Energy, Solar Power |
Tags: Alternative Energy, alternative energy jobs, IBEW, IBEW Jobs, Solar Power, solar power jobs |
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U.S. Troops Ambush Taliban Fighters
U.S. Troops Ambush Taliban Fighters in Afghanistan Mountain Pass
Members of the platoon on patrol in Afghanistan’s Korangal Valley.
KORANGAL OUTPOST, Afghanistan — Only the lead insurgents were disciplined as they walked along the ridge. They moved carefully, with weapons ready and at least five yards between each man, the soldiers who surprised them said.
Behind them, a knot of Taliban fighters walked in a denser group, some with rifles slung on their shoulders — “pretty much exactly the way we tell soldiers not to do it,” said Specialist Robert Soto, the radio operator for the American patrol.
If these insurgents came close enough, the soldiers knew, the patrol could kill them in a batch.
Fight by fight, the infantryman’s war in Afghanistan is often waged on the Taliban’s terms. Insurgents ambush convoys and patrols from high ridges or long ranges and slip away as the Americans, weighed down by equipment, return fire and call for air and artillery support. Last week a patrol from the First Infantry Division reversed the routine.
An American platoon surprised an armed Taliban column on a forested ridgeline at night, and killed at least 13 insurgents, and perhaps many more, with rifles, machine guns, Claymore mines, hand grenades and a knife.
The one-sided fight, fought on the slopes of the same mountain where a Navy Seal patrol was surrounded in 2005 and a helicopter with reinforcements was shot down, does not change the war. It was one of hundreds of firefights that have occurred in the Korangal Valley, an isolated region where local insurgents and the Americans have been locked in a bitter stalemate for more than three years.
But as accounts of the fight have spread, the ambush, on Good Friday, has become an emotional rallying point for soldiers in Kunar Province, who have seen it as a both a validation of their equipment and training and a welcome bit of score-settling in an area that in recent years has claimed more American lives than any other.
The patrol, 30 soldiers from the First Battalion, 26th Infantry, had left this outpost before noon on April 10, and spent much of the day climbing a ridge on the opposite side of the Korangal River, according to interviews with more than half the participants.
The patrol, Second Platoon of Company B, was in a place where no Americans had spent a night for years, and it seemed that the Afghans did not expect danger.The soldiers waited. The rules of the ambush were long ago drilled into them: no one can move, and no one can fire until the patrol leader gives the order. Then everyone must fire at once.
The lead fighter had almost reached the platoon when Pvt. First Class Troy Pacini-Harvey, 19, his laser trained on the lead man’s forehead, moved his rifle’s selector lever from safe to semi-automatic. It made a barely audible click.
The Taliban fighter froze. He was six feet away.Lieutenant Smith was new to the platoon. This was his fourth patrol. He was in a situation that every infantry lieutenant trains for, but almost no infantry lieutenant ever sees. “Fire,” he said, softly into the radio. “Fire. Fire. Fire.”
The platoon’s frontage exploded with noise and flashes of light as soldiers fired. Bullets struck all of the lead Taliban fighters, the soldiers said. The first Afghans fell where they were hit, not managing to fire a single shot.
Five Taliban fighters bolted to the soldiers’ left, unwittingly running squarely into the path of machine-gun bullets and the Claymore mines. For a moment, the soldiers heard rustling in the brush. They detonated their Claymores and threw hand grenades. The rustling stopped.
Two other Taliban fighters had dashed to the right, toward an almost sheer drop. One ran so wildly in the blackness that his momentum carried him off the cliff, several soldiers said.
Second Platoon, Company B has endured one of the most arduous assignments in Afghanistan. Eight of the platoon’s soldiers have been wounded in nine months of fighting in the valley, part of a bitter contest for control of a small and sparsely populated area.Three others have been killed.
In a matter of minutes, the ambush changed the experience of the surviving soldiers’ tours. The degree of turnabout surprised even some the soldiers who participated.
“It’s the first time most of us have even seen the guys who were shooting at us,” said Sgt. Thomas Horvath, 21.
Recession Hits Hard But Google is Unfazed
Recession Hits Hard But Good is Unfazed
It took awhile, but the recession has definitely sunk its teeth into Google’s financial performance.
“No company is recession-proof. Google is absolutely feeling the impact,” Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in a conference call Thursday after reporting first-quarter financial results.
Google’s revenue growth rate has been slowing, but for the first time since it went public, the company’s quarter-to-quarter revenue declined.
The company, as is customary, reported results that most business only dream of, recession or not. Its net income grew 8 percent to $1.42 billion and its revenue, excluding commissions paid to advertising partners, grew 10 percent to $4.07 billion.
It generated free cash flow of $2 billion for the quarter, the vast majority of it derived from money advertisers pay Google when people click on ads next to search results.
Posted in Cyberspace, Domain Names, Domains |
Tags: goog, google earnings, online advertising, ppc |
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