Speech manipulated for political reasons

Speech manipulated for political reasons

One idea of our nation is that of strong, harmonious communities in which each individual is has the opportunity to grow and flourish. The wellness of the community depends on the wellness of every individual within the community, for the whole is a reflection of its parts. Thus, to insure our safety, we know that we must insure the safety of others.


Another idea of our nation is that of a divided nation, full of fearful citizens threatened by a multitude of dangers. In our fear, we follow who ever has the most might, even when it means our bondage. Nowhere is safe, for the danger lies within us and we carry it wherever we go.


We make the world as we perceive it. History has demonstrated time and again that taking on extremist beliefs comes at a high personal and national price. Are we headed there once again, this time led by conservatives and liberals alike?


The world is our classroom. The fundamental truth we come to learn is that we are not separate. We cannot destroy the truth, but we can deny it.


COMMENT

Obviously, extremists of either persuasion will be followed by those who are not willing to study and form their own informed and educated opinion. I prefer to think that those who do care enough to study and participate in our government through citizen leadership are our best guarantee for the future of this country.

Sensitivity to Others

Sensitivity to Others

1. Write four sentences on what you think sensitivity to others means.

2. What advantages are there to being sensitive to others' feelings and to what others think?
(Write at least four sentences.)

3. What do you think of people who "can't take a hint" and bother you even though you want
them to leave you alone? They are the same kind of people who follow you around even when
you don't want them to. (Again, write at least four sentences on what you think.)

4. What kinds of things happen to people who are not sensitive to other people's feelings?
5. Please write six sentences describing an example of being sensitive to others.

6. Is kicking, poking, hitting, tickling or touching other people being sensitive to them? Why or

why not?

7. If you ate what was left of a good dinner, even though one of the youth in your home had not

eaten, what are you not doing?

Why not?

8. Is letting someone borrow your pen show that you are sensitive to others? Why?

9. What does the saying "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" have to do with

being sensitive to others?

Change Your Attitude

Change Your Attitude

Unfortunately, the power of negative thoughts can be strong in times of uncertainty and strife. However, maintaining a negative attitude does more harm than good. Changing your attitude can truly change your life, and one of the easiest ways to change your attitude is through the power of prayer. Praying a short daily prayer or any of the common prayers on a regular basis will help to improve your attitude. Prayer allows for a new perspective and grants you the power to see what you can and cannot change.

In order to change your attitude, you must turn to scripture for a new perspective. In the bible, you are encouraged to "be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." Negative thoughts seem to be a result of an attachment to the past and remaining in an unproductive frame of mind. This passage calls for a renewal of your mind and thinking. Rather than being caught up with what the world expects from you, you should remember what God wants for you. Evaluate the situations that are causing you stress, as well as your corresponding attitude. Use prayer to gain strength from God and renew your point of view.

Prayer also helps you realize what you can and cannot change. If you truly want to change your attitude, this realization is essential. Many find that the Serenity Prayer helps to do this. Reciting "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference" will help focus your mind on these issues. Most negative thinking stems from our inability to change our situations. By praying for clarity regarding these things, you will soon have a better idea of the power you personally hold. That way, you won't waste precious time with a negative attitude.

In order to change your attitude, you must make a conscious effort to use prayer on a regular basis. Prayer helps renew your point of view and realize what is or isn't in your hands. If you're looking for support with these issues, the house of prayer is a place of great strength.

What Gives Us Happiness?

What Gives Us Happiness?

"Happiness is within us." This statement is very true. We can get up in the morning and thank God for another day that he has given us, or we can look at it and dread what we think that might happen. We have to expect for God to bless us and give us another day to celebrate life. If you expect that everything is going to be negative, then that is just what you probably will have.

Trust in the Lord to take care of problems and needs and do the very best you know how to do, and the positive things will happen. Being positive gives us strength to expand our inner self, and helps us achieve. This brings out our inner happiness, and our lives will be full of contentment.

Life is full of worries and problems, but we can not let them consume us. People will hurt us, and sometimes it is knowingly, and sometimes it is unknowingly, but we have to ask God to help us get past it, and be forgiving and go on. God has a way of taking care of people who do us wrong in His own time. Every day will not be easy, but we have a higher power that we can turn to, and he is greater than any opposition we can face.

We can lose a dear family member or friend, and we feel that life will not go on without them. Given time, we begin to see that we can make it without this person. We have to cling to our faith that someday we will again be reunited in a place where there will be no sadness and loneliness. Thinking positive brings confidence and happiness.

Being Joyful and Peaceful

Being Joyful and Peaceful

Many people today are looking for a peaceful and joyful life. Unfortunately, due to the busy schedules we all have, we sometimes forget to slow down and relax, therefore becoming stressed out and overwhelmed. This can often lead to physical and psychological problems. So how do we learn to find peace and joy in our lives?

People may not always be joyful and peaceful; however, they know the best way to get those feelings is to count on God. They remember to thank the Lord every day for the blessings they have. They are grateful for the little things in life, such as the morning sun, the birds singing, their families, and their own lives. They think of each day as a gift. The act of being grateful can improve your happiness, therefore making life less stressful. Keep track of the things you should be grateful for in a journal, then look back on it and think of how fortunate you have been.

Remember to keep things simple; if we over think or try to make things greater than they should be, it causes a lot of extra effort and time. Look for the good things in all situations. Every cloud has a silver lining, we just need to look for it. Plan ahead and keep organized; if we make a schedule and know what we need to do, it will make us less anxious about our time. All these tips will eventually become a part of your daily routine and over time you will become a happier, healthier, more grateful individual, which will inevitably make you more joyful and peaceful.

Confidence Building Techniques

Confidence Building Techniques

Confidence building techniques are often overlooked, even though they can be vital to helping someone overcome confidence issues. Confidence problems can stem from many different places but a lot of them seem to be self-imposed judgments that lack any real substance.

The first thing a person needs to do to build confidence is recognize faults and insecurities, then accept them. Nobody is perfect and we all have faults. It is important to realize this and not let it affect how you look at yourself overall. Something as simple as calling them "quirks" instead of "faults" can help you to look at them as part of who you are, not what you are. If you have trouble getting past your problems, try to look at your successes instead.

Focusing on your successes in life can help you to move past insecurities. Look back at the past and the things you have accomplished. Don't take your accomplishments lightly, you did it and that is something to be proud of. It is easy to write off your past accomplishments but don't let yourself.

If someone gives you a compliment accept it. Assume that they mean it wholeheartedly or they wouldn't be saying it. Saying things like "Yeah right" will only alienate them and make them withhold compliments in the future. Let the compliments build up your confidence and thank them graciously.

Try new things and work on talents you have already developed. If you can improve your skills then it is likely to help build your confidence. Trying new things will help you to find new hobbies and perhaps something you are extraordinary at; you never know until you try it!

If all else fails you can pretend to be confident. This may sound silly, but if you pretend long enough you may convince yourself that it is the truth. Act as if you are the most confident person you can be, and see what happens; you may be pleasantly surprised. Positive thinking is an extremely effective way of building your self-confidence as well.

American values have been declining and continue to decline

American values have been declining and continue to decline

As entertainers, corporations, and even the government pander to the lowest common denominator, American life becomes increasingly vicarious, prefabricated, and bereft of meaning. Let us examines contemporary American consciousness, considering the factors that have driven society toward gossip and sensationalism at the cost of substance and depth.

Celebrity news, video games, cookie-cutter schools, and shopping, shopping, shopping.
We should be concerned with the growing epidemic of acrimony, superficiality, attention deficit disorder, and complaints of ennui. We should ask for the reasons why American children have expressed their confused rage with deadly weapons, why a president boasts that he earned Cs in college, and why society has drifted into craving entertainment laced with violence and cheap thrills. This is a provocative subject for concerned citizens, as well as for scholars and researchers involved with contemporary American culture and society.

A lot of deep thinkers believe that Americans have come loose from their moral underpinnings, and that our basic institutions - government, neighborhoods, civic associations, schools, and, most important, our families - are coming apart as a result.

Where on earth do these social scientists get the idea that things are going so wrong?

Well, in large part they get it from listening to Americans, 87 percent of whom in one recent poll said they fear there is something fundamentally wrong with America's moral condition.

And this is no short-term blip triggered by President Clinton's extramarital adventures. According to Daniel Yankelovich, an icon of American public opinion polling, huge majorities of Americans have for some time believed that the nation is ``in a long-term moral decline."

A widely held belief has emerged that this decline threatens democracy itself, since freedom without morality quickly deteriorates into a society filled with violence and perversion, which increasingly seems to be what we have.

The Civil Renewal council's Call, called for making divorces harder to get, giving benefits to parents who stay home with their children, making it easier for ``faith-based" organizations to provide social services, allowing tax credits for donations to social service agencies, ending state-sponsored gambling, providing more education about the arts and more choices for parents in selecting schools, not to mention curtailing sex and violence on television.

There's much in what he says. The Call's argument that freedom without morality inevitably becomes merely the liberty to perpetrate evil is complex and subtle.

America was losing ``the habits of the heart" that once protected the nation against the wretched excesses democracy might normally entail, such as the atomization of society into hedonistic individualism, or the tyranny of the majorities.

Our contention that today we may be forgetting those protective habits fits a lot of available evidence of civic and social decline, such as the drop in voter participation, the rise in divorce, and the surge in youth violence.

Overall, we found that Americans were doing less of just about everything together, and were, quite possibly as a result, becoming more distrustful of their government - and one another.

Former Judge Robert Bork takes perhaps the darkest view in Slouching Toward Gomorrah, contending that America's slide into the moral abyss is probably irreversible, and questioning the optimistic premise about the basic goodness of human beings on which the nation was founded.

All the indicators of social health continued to decline. I looked back and saw that they had been declining for thirty years or more, no matter what the economy was doing or who was president.

Livability and Sustainability Framework

Livability and Sustainability Framework

Many people talk about “going green,” but how do you actually make it happen? New solutions are popping up and it is difficult to sort through the many choices available. How do you know where to turn?

The answer is often found in your own community.

The Livability Project knows how to help community stakeholders figure out what they really want to achieve and then rally them around tangible goals on the path toward sustainability. We call our approach The Livability Framework. It’s a comprehensive way of thinking about sustainability issues, formulating a plan and then achieving your community’s goals. As a Livability Project client, we take you through each of the following twelve phases of the Livability Framework.


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Module 1. Assessing the Community

The Livability Framework starts with a Community Assessment process. This involves gathering information and analyzing the unique attributes, players and dynamics of your community. . This discovery process help you to create a plan specific to your community. Beyond identifying and recruiting champions, you will better understand your community around the following five key attributes: Leadership, Relationships, Assets, Gaps and Resources.


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Module 2. Envisioning the Future

From your work in Module 1, Assessing the Community, you will gain a better sense of where to best focus your efforts. This next step in the Livability Framework – Envisioning the Future – will help you to refine this nascent vision. You’ll form a mission with your group, develop a project action plan, create a brand and define expectations for the project.


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Module 3. Establishing a Sustainable Structure

Once you have completed Modules 1 and 2, you are ready to begin the process of establishing a sustainable structure, one that will enable your project goals to come to fruition and bring your community together.

This module will help you determine several operational issues such as: How will your initiative will be organized and structured? Who are the key leaders for the board and what should each contribute? What income streams are needed to sustain the organization and its programs? How can you ensure the mission is inclusive of all your different stakeholders?


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Module 4. Building Organizational Capacity

This module will take the intentions articulated in your planning work and bring much of it to reality through the creation of working groups and the launch of the community’s initiative. You will also learn techniques for managing and facilitating working groups and for developing strategic partners and in-kind service providers. We will also provide an introduction to the importance of a developing a relationship management system.


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Module 5. Developing a Green Action Plan

At this point in the process, you will have several ideas and programs ready to begin. This module will cover the development of a green action plan, which involves identifying existing products, programs and organizations; leveraging resources and partnerships, and getting started with the real work outlined in your livability initiative’s mission and vision statement. We will help you develop a variety of programs such as:

•Recycling programs
•Cooperative procurement or. group buying for local businesses
•Urban District-wide green certification and branding
•Create more walkable spaces
•Create a biodiesel or alternative energy program
•Establish an events and seminar series
•Create demand for home and business energy audits

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Module 6. Engaging the Entire Community

Now that your initiative is up and running, it’s time to reach out beyond your Board and volunteers to engage the entire community. This module will discuss general awareness building including public relations, competitions and events, as well as business and citizens outreach and partner and liaison programs.


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Module 7. Providing Education and Events

Education and Events are a key part of any community initiative’s mission. Events may include presentations by local experts and authors, movies, roundtable and panel discussions, workshops and ad hoc networking for community building. This module will also provide an overview of how to establish a speakers’ bureau and online education program and how to plan and manage events.


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Module 8. Generating Multiple Income Streams

The continued success of your local sustainability initiative will be highly dependent on generating ongoing revenue. In our experience, you will want to grow your organization to be as self-sufficient as possible. Because of our unique model leveraging local business, government, and citizens groups, each of these will have a stake in the outcomes of your initiative and thus will want to share in the success and excitement of the enterprise. Your initiative has the potential to become a hub of activity focused on local economic development. Therefore, we believe some or all of the following income streams will help defray the cost of operations and pay for the program:

•Sponsorship programs;
•Government, Corporate and Foundation grants;
•Affiliate and Partner programs;
•Event fees;
•Advertising; and
•More…

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Module 9. Creating an Online Presence

Your organization’s online presence is critical not only to its image, but to recruit volunteers and supporters and enable opportunities for others to share information and communicate. This module will cover:

•Building and maintaining your website;
•Distributing an e-newsletter;
•Pros and Cons of Blogging;
•Leveraging Social Media (FaceBook, MySpace, Linked-In, Twitter and More); and
•Online Mapping.

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Module 10. Forming a Livability Center

Online activities and community meetings are important, but integrating the vision and programs into the fabric of your community will be accelerated with the development of a Livability Center. Part Community Center, part Sustainability Education Center, part Green Jobs Incubator and local hang-out, a Livabilty Center is a place where people can connect to advance your initiative’s agenda. This module will cover issues such as financing and sponsorship models, build-out, launch, and operation.


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Module 11. Documenting and Measuring Feedback

With all of this activity, considerable progress will be made in achieving your livability project’s goals. This module will discuss how to measure effectiveness, update and monitor plans vs. progress, and share best practices.


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Module 12. Celebrating Successes

Some may be tempted to dismiss this module as just the “fun stuff.” While there is a lot of fun to be had in celebrating your successes, you need to understand how to do it appropriately and how to use these celebrations as a tool for building community spirit, pride, and soliciting more participation from stakeholders.. This module will cover tactics such as Annual Reports, Leadership Awards, Volunteer Rewards Programs, and Community Celebrations.


Compiled by: Draiman

Dye-sensitized solar cell

Dye-sensitized solar cell

Third generation solar cell: dye-sensitized solar cell

　Magic plant photosynthesis, is expected to help mankind to achieve the dream of clean energy. Recent years the researchers are trying to use this feature to make the extremely low-cost and real green solar cell: Third generation solar cell: dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC).
Dye-sensitized solar cell was invented by Michael Grätzel and Brian O'Regan in 1991.

Dye-sensitized solar cells separate the two functions provided by silicon in a traditional cell design. Normally the silicon acts as both the source of photoelectrons, as well as providing the electric field to separate the charges and create a current. In the dye-sensitized solar cell, the bulk of the semiconductor is used solely for charge transport, the photoelectrons are provided from a separate photosensitive dye. Charge separation occurs at the surfaces between the dye, semiconductor and electrolyte.
The dye molecules are quite small (nanometer sized), so in order to capture a reasonable amount of the incoming light the layer of dye molecules needs to be made fairly thick, much thicker than the molecules themselves. To address this problem, a nano-material is used as a scaffold to hold large numbers of the dye molecules in a 3-D matrix, increasing the number of molecules for any given surface area of cell. In existing designs, this scaffolding is provided by the semiconductor material, which serves double-duty.
The most attractive advantages for the dye-sensitized cells are the low-cost raw materials and simple manufacturing process. It is estimated that dye-sensitized cell is equivalent to the cost of silicon solar panels only 1 / 10. At the same time, it has low requirement of the light, even in the room; the photoelectric conversion rate will not be affected significantly.
In order to operate the practical application, we need overcome some drawbacks of the dye-sensitized cells:
- Improve the transformation rate, recently, dye-sensitized cells can reach about 11%, but the normal traditional silicon cell is more than 15%.
- solve the problem: more big size, efficiency will weaken.
- Improve the useful life.

Compiled by: Draiman Yj

We must become independent — not just of imported oil, but of oil itself.

We must become independent

— not just of imported oil, but of oil itself.
A determined pack has begun to race its engines and to try to shoulder us off the road toward energy independence. It’s time for those determined to stay on the track to drive aggressively.
The energy-independence question is really about oil — the rest of U.S. energy use presents important issues, but not the danger of our being subject to the control of nations that “do not particularly like us,” as the president put it. Some of the engine racers have an economic interest in keeping our transportation system 97-percent oil-dependent. Less understandable are the authors of a recent Council on Foreign Relations report accusing those working for such independence of “doing the nation a disservice.”
The authors of that report and their followers define “independence,” contrary to both Webster’s and common sense, as essentially “autarky” — i.e. complete self-sufficiency, or not importing oil even though we remain dependent on it. Such a Pickwickian definition captures none of the thinking of serious advocates of reducing our oil dependence: The point of independence is not to be an economic hermit, but rather to be a free actor.
It is true that some who promote oil independence spice their remarks by implying that we might substitute oil from domestic sources or from our near neighbors for cheap Middle Eastern imports, and somehow manage to insulate ourselves from the world oil market.
But speechwriters’ tropes shouldn’t be taken as serious policy proposals. Geology will not cooperate in any such fantasy. There is no reasonable way that we can leave oil in place as the near-exclusive fuel for the world’s transportation systems and simultaneously wall ourselves off from the world oil market. If we want to end dependence on the whims of OPEC’s despots, the substantial instabilities of the Middle East, and the indignity of paying for both sides in the War on Terror, we must define oil “independence” sensibly — as doing whatever is necessary to avoid oil’s being the instrument of despotic leverage and foreign chaos.
Those who won our independence as a nation didn’t just fling imported tea into Boston harbor — they did whatever was necessary to wrest themselves from British control. We need not call out the Minutemen, but to avoid the consequences of dependence we must become independent — not just of imported oil, but of oil itself.
Does this mean that we cannot use oil or import any? Of course not. Oil is a useful commodity that can readily transport energy long distances. It already has competition from natural gas in industry and from gas and electricity for heating. But in transportation it brooks no competition — it is thus not just a commodity but a strategic commodity. Oil’s monopoly on transportation gives intolerable power to OPEC and the nations that dominate oil ownership and production. This monopoly must be broken. To tell us that in following this path we are doing a “disservice to the nation” and should resign ourselves to oil dependence is like telling us we should not urge an alcoholic to stop drinking, but should rather impress upon him the health advantages of red wine.
Not long ago, technology broke the power of another strategic commodity. Until around the end of the nineteenth century salt had such a position because it was the only means of preserving meat. Odd as it seems today, salt mines conferred national power and wars were even fought over control of them.
Today, no nation sways history because it has salt mines. Salt is still a useful commodity for a range of purposes. We import some salt, so if one defines independence as autarky we are not “salt independent”. But to most of us there is no “salt dependence” problem at all — because electricity and refrigeration decisively ended salt’s monopoly of meat preservation, and thus its strategic importance.
We can and must do the same thing to oil. By moving toward utilizing the batteries that have been developed for modern electronics we can rather soon have “plug-in hybrids” that travel 20-40 miles on an inexpensive charge of night-time off-peak electricity at a small fraction of gasoline’s cost. (After driving that distance plug-ins keep going as ordinary hybrids.) Dozens of ordinary hybrids converted to plug-ins now on the road are getting in the range of 100 mpg of gasoline. And millions of flexible-fuel vehicles are also now in the fleet. Producing them adds costs well under $100 and they can use up to 85-percent ethanol (before long to be made from biomass rather than corn) — methanol, butanol, and other alternative fuels produced from grasses and even waste.
A flex-fuel plug-in hybrid that gets 100 mpg and, when it needs liquid fuel, uses only 15-percent gasoline, is approaching a utility of 500 mpg. Other oil-breaking technologies are coming. When Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, the newly-independent Americans asked their band to play “The World Turned Upside Down.” Get ready for a reprise.

Sustainability & Energy Independence

Sustainability & Energy Independence

For the benefit of mankind, in order to maintain the quality of life and preserve the tranquility of world population. Water resources must be preserved to sustain humanity. We should utilize solar and or other source of renewable energy to operate desalinization projects from the oceans. As world population increases the scarcity of water will become a cause for conflict, unless we take steps now to develop other sources of water for drinking, rainwater harvesting and gray-water utilization.
To preserve the future generations sustainability, we should look into urban farming – vertical farming. The term "urban farming" may conjure up a community garden where locals grow a few heads of lettuce. But some academics envision something quite different for the increasingly hungry world of the 21st century: a vertical farm that will do for agriculture what the skyscraper did for office space. Greenhouse giant: By stacking floors full of produce, a vertical farm could rake in $18 million a year. This concept will save on transportation costs will absorb and reduce some of the pollution. As we all see, today’s natural disasters and conflicts affect the costs of energy and the supply of goods needed to complete production for various industries.
“Energy is vital to every sector of the U.S. economy. As our economy and population grows the demand for energy rises”.
I believe what America needs are cool headed government leaders who understand how markets function and can work with consumers, labor and oil industry leaders to develop a viable energy strategy that will help and not hinder as our nation transitions to our new energy reality.
For German Homeowners Renewable Energy is No Longer a Choice
All new homes built in Germany from January 1st 2009 will be required to install renewable energy heating systems under a new law called the Renewable Energies Heating Law
"To succeed, you have to believe in something with such a passion that it becomes a reality."

YJ Draiman, Energy/Utility Auditor/Consultant

Northridge, CA. 91324
March 31, 2011

P.S. I have a very deep belief in America's capabilities. Within the next 10 years we can accomplish our energy independence, if we as a nation truly set our goals to accomplish this.

I happen to believe that we can do it. In another crisis--the one in 1942--President Franklin D. Roosevelt said this country would build 60,000 [50,000] military aircraft. By 1943, production in that program had reached 125,000 aircraft annually. They did it then. We can do it now.