HIV patients 'need drug lifeline'

The antibiotic is not available in many places

The opportunity to save tens of thousands of HIV patients with a simple, cheap, drug treatment is being missed, say researchers.

Giving some newly-diagnosed patients an antibiotic would significantly reduce the death toll in the early stages of the disease, they say.

A major study in The Lancet medical journal found it halved mortality.

The World Health Organization already endorses the treatment, but specialists say many people are not given the drug.

Tens of thousands of lives can be saved by more universal use of the drug, costing just a few pence a day Professor Charles Gilks, Imperial College London

Much of the focus of the pharmaceutical battle against HIV has been on antiretroviral drugs, which can greatly extend life.

However, many patients are at greatest risk in the first weeks after diagnosis, with a variety of infections ready to take advantage of their weakened immune systems.

Studies have estimated that as many as a quarter of people who enter antiretroviral drug treatment programmes in sub-Saharan Africa will die in the first year.

But the addition of co-trimoxazole, an inexpensive antibiotic, to the long-term treatment plan of those with the worst affected immune systems appears to prevent many of these deaths.

The Lancet study, carried out among 3,179 Ugandan patients, suggested a fall of 59% over the first 12 weeks, and 44% between 12 and 72 weeks.

Call for action

Its authors, from the Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit and Imperial College in London, and centres in Uganda and Zimbabwe, say the antibiotic is not available in many places.

They say their findings reinforce the need for swifter action by those responsible for drug treatment programmes.

Professor Charles Gilks, who led the study, said any arguments over the effectiveness of the antibiotics were now "well and truly answered".

He said: "Tens of thousands of lives can be saved by more universal use of the drug, costing just a few pence a day."

Co-author Professor Diana Gibb, from the Medical Research Council, said the availability and supply of the drug needed to be "ramped up", and offered to all new patients for the first 18 months.

"There is a significant benefit now - waiting to be grasped," she said.

In addition to preventing bacterial infections in HIV patients, the drug had a another welcome benefit - it cut the incidence of malaria by a quarter.

Dr Sarah Walker, also from the MRC, said: "The benefits of using this drug are huge, and it's so simple and cost-effective to administer."

However, Dr Alvaro Bermejo, the executive director of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, said access to antiretroviral treatment remained an even bigger problem.

"We need to remember that there are still millions of people in Africa who need antiretrovirals and can't access them.

"In Uganda the Alliance is seeing people turned away from clinics because they don't have the treatment available.

"As the study confirms, antiretroviral treatment cuts the risk of death by more than 90% - with co-trimoxazole reducing the risk still further.

"We have the knowledge available to save lives but we need to increase efforts to make sure that everyone who needs treatment can actually access it."

Source

French students shy of real world

Agnes Urhweiller describes France's education system as a "has been"

Between the two rounds of the French local elections, BBC correspondent Emma Jane Kirby is travelling around France, testing the temperature of voters.

In Montpellier, she is told that France's education system is completely out of sync with the world of business.

Montpellier is very much a young person's city. Students make up 30% of its population, and the pavement cafes are swarming with youngsters who are furiously scribbling in note books or dashing off the final lines of essays.

But despite the nationwide passion for education, surprisingly, not a single French university makes it into the world's top 40.

France may be a global leader in high technology, but employers complain that today there are far too few students studying science and technology and there are far too many studying "soft subjects" which leaves them ill-prepared to join the real world of work.

At Montpellier's Social Science faculty, I watched scores of undergraduates soak up a lecture on basic psychology.

I have studied so much, I am almost overqualified. And now I need a job to get money and I can't find one Aurelie Bordeaux resists Sarkozy

There are 65,000 psychology students in France - that is a quarter of the European total for that subject.

I asked a passing student what he wanted to do when he left university. "I want to be an eternal student, " he said. "Just learning for learning's sake."

'Rigid system'

A noble sentiment perhaps, but an impractical one in 21st Century France where unemployment has been doggedly high for the past 20 years.

In France, many young people don't study the right subjects Agnes Urhweiller Montpellier careers office

The national unemployment rate may have recently fallen to just under 8%, but in Montpellier it stands at 11.3%.

At the local careers office, counsellor Agnes Urhweiller told me she worried that the French education system was completely out of sync with the world of business.

Ms Urhweiller regularly sees hundreds of students who are well qualified but who have no real skills to offer employers.

"In France, many young people don't study the right subjects," she said as she marked a skills test for a young job seeker.

"I advise them they need practical qualifications to work. I come from the private sector and I know that private businesses need young people and, of course, that is where the money is, too. But our education system is a 'has been' - it's too rigid," Ms Urhweiller said.

Baffled

A recent survey showed that 75% of graduates want to work in the public sector because civil servants and teachers enjoy a high level of social protection.

But President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to slash thousands of civil servant posts, and a recent economic report commissioned by the government has warned that people must accept the future is not with the state, but with private industry.

Among the youngsters I met searching for jobs at the careers office was 23-year-old Aurelie. She is still baffled as to what she wants to do.

"I have studied so much, I am almost overqualified. And now I need a job to get money and I can't find one," she said.

"Everyone tells you to get a good education but my parents studied much less than I did and yet they didn't have such problems finding work."

'Born into uncertainty'

Marc Willinger, an economist at Montpellier University, believes young people today live in a more precarious world than their parents did.

Not only is finding permanent work more difficult, but - with the state coffers empty - their retirement will not be cushioned by the government hand outs their parents will enjoy.

This generation is having to fend for itself like never before.

"The young generation has been born into uncertainty," Mr Willinger said.

"And they have to live with that every day - not just because of unemployment but also because they have a much higher burden than the previous generation. They will have to care for themselves, for their children and they'll also have to care for their parents' generation."

'Only a waitress'

A few streets away from the university campus I visited a local hostel which provides cheap lodgings for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Kia and Anthony (foreground) say they do not expect any state help

Anthony and Kia were playing table football outside the cafeteria. When I asked them what they wanted the government to do to help them succeed in life, both were surprised at the notion that the state should step in to help them.

Kia, who is training to be a waitress, told me she thought young people's expectations were too high.

She said that while some might scoff that she was "only a waitress", she enjoyed her work and believed it was a good thing to get a job and to get on with life.

Anthony, aged 20, is in the catering business. He was also adamant that young people should stand on their own two feet.

"I don't have any family," he said.

"But you can't say the government has to help me because I don't have parents - I can't blame them. Young people are often lazy and think everything is owed to them but we need to work and to prove ourselves and then we can have dignity."

Although he claimed not to be a fan of Mr Sarkozy's, there is no doubt that the president would be a fan of Anthony's.

Sarkozy's vision

The sentiments expressed by Anthony and Kia could almost be Mr Sarkozy's UMP party slogans.

His election campaign last year was run on the mantra: "Work harder if you want to earn more."

And the president still speaks wistfully of a "La France qui se leve tot" (a France which gets up early) - and is ready to go to work.

As I left the hostel, Anthony was preparing to spend his evening in his tiny bedroom listening to teach-yourself-English CDs and teach-yourself-Japanese.

I told him I was impressed with his drive and enthusiasm, and he replied shyly that his dream was to one day enrol at university to study psychology.

I could almost feel President's Sarkozy's heart sink.

France has educated many of the world's greatest intellectuals and is justifiably proud of its erudite heritage.

But with such poor economic growth and such huge public debt, this country now needs its clever young students to leave the university campus and start ploughing their skills and enthusiasms into the profitable world of work.

Source

Americans get set for disaster day

Ready for anything: Chuck Izzo has enough supplies for two months

By Madeleine Morris BBC News, Greenville

If there was ever a major disaster in northern Virginia, Chuck Izzo's house is Greenville is where you would want to be.

Tucked away in his pantry are enough tinned food and water to last for two months.

In the basement an inverter hums quietly, charging batteries that could easily power most of his three-storey home's lights and appliances for nine hours.

And for when that runs out, he has a wood-burning stove with a two-month supply of fuel pellets so he can cook and heat the whole house.

Mr Izzo is a "prepper", one of a growing number of Americans who are preparing their homes and families to survive a major disaster they believe could arrive at any time.

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Chuck Izzo explains what it means to be a 'prepper'

"We realise the frailty of infrastructure so if it fails, we're prepared to deal with a crisis like that," he explains.

"It could be electricity, it could be a medical emergency. It could be something caused by a man-made disaster or a natural disaster."

I don't think it's paranoia. I think it's just a degree of readiness. Chuck Izzo

While there have always been people who have anticipated and prepared for disaster, "prepping" as a discernable movement has emerged only in the last 18 months, with the growth of online prepper networks and blogs.

Since its inception just 15 months ago, the American Preppers Network and its associated state networks now get more than 5,000 hits a day.

Preppers debate issues like whether to "bug-in" or "bug-out" (to evacuate or stay when disaster strikes) and more mundane matters like gardening tips.

Blogs such as The Survival Mom and Suburban Prepper give tips on preserving and growing food, discuss the pros and cons of having a gun, and offer advice on ham radio.

I think it's something more people my age should think about Matt Jarvis Prepper, 22

"There are a lot of people out there who feel the same way as I do, but don't know that there's others out there like them, so it's the prepper networks that provide that online community for people to come together online and talk with each other," says Matt Jarvis, the man behind The Prepper Podcast.

From his bedroom in rural Kentucky, Mr Jarvis records and posts his weekly conversations with other preppers and survival experts.

Mr Jarvis is 22 and still lives with his parents, yet he has put aside three months' worth of food and water, plus other supplies, in case disaster strikes.

He is most worried about hurricanes after one destroyed many of the houses on his street two years ago, but economic collapse and terrorism are also concerns.

He acknowledges it is unusual for someone of his age to be thinking so much about potential disasters, and putting hard-earned money into preparing for something that may never come.

"But I think it's something more people my age should think about," he says.

Survivalists v preppers

Preppers are keen not to be seen as survivalists - the stereotypically anti-government, wood-dwelling, gun-toting hermits of past decades.

Rather than isolating themselves in preparation for Armageddon, preppers tend to have normal jobs, mingle with their communities and take a more relaxed view about looming disasters.

Tom Martin, who began the American Preppers Network makes the distinction. "A survivalist is more a specific term," he says.

"For me, a survivalist is someone who can go into any type of situation and live off the land. Me, I'm not like that.

"People call themselves survivalists because they've got guns and MREs (military ready-to-eat meals). A prepper is a more generalised term. "

Preppers prepare with tinned goods, not living off the land

While most preppers tend to be politically to the right, or even libertarian in their views, their back-to-basics approach to food cultivation and preparation, as well as use of alternative energy sources, paradoxically means they have much in common with left-of-centre environmentalists.

But according to Professor Michael K Lindell, editor of the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Director of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Centre at Texas A&M University, the recent growth in prepping is a sign of uncertain times.

"There is a general feeling of greater personal responsibility that we've seen in a number of different surveys," says Professor Lindell.

"Plus, people have the money and knowledge to invest in these different types of survival resources, as well as the feeling that they really are at risk.

"It's all these different trends that are coming together that are leading to this kind of behaviour."

Many preppers cite the American government's bungled response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as a key motivator behind their approach to survival. The economic crisis of the past two years is also frequently mentioned.

So are preppers paranoid? Chuck Izzo says not.

"Having a couple of months' worth of food, some first aid training, potentially if you can afford it having a back-up power system to maintain the electrical systems in your house… I don't think that's paranoia," he says.

"I think that's just a degree of readiness. I think it improves our confidence and our quality of life."

Source

Personal Income Drops Across the Country

Source

Go to the source, to see the graphic properly. It didn't seem to load here very well.

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Commentary

A very good graph that looks at actual wealth and ignores the GDP nonsense of continuous growth.

Per capita wealth is the key and as we can see, it has fallen in many places.

I'm just curious what it is that states like Maryland and Connecticut are doing to have such high per capita scores. Maybe their small size skewes the average.

Regardless, every American should see this chart.

Monday, Apr. 05, 2010

In Libya, Muammar Gaddafi's Son Begins to Rise

By Vivienne Walt / Tripoli

Saif Gaddafi, possible heir to Muammar Gaddafi

Sabri Elmhedwi / EPA

By Vivienne Walt / Tripoli

It is a warm February afternoon and the sun is streaming through the open doors of a large, airy farmhouse set at the far end of a guarded estate outside Libya's capital, Tripoli. Trays of dates and almonds are laid out in the living room, where the owner of the house, relaxed in a traditional North African robe and slippers, sips orange juice freshly squeezed from the fruit trees outside. All is a picture of prosperity and calm.

The serenity, though, is illusory. The home's inhabitant is Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of Libya's four-decade-long leader Muammar Gaddafi. At 37, Saif finds himself at the heart of a political battle for his country's future. To hear Saif tell it, the need for reform is urgent. "The whole world is going through more freedom, more democracy," he says, pumping the air in impatience. "We want to see those changes now, instead of 10 years' time, or 15 years." (See pictures of the rise of Colonel Gaddafi.)

Just over six years ago, Saif coaxed his father into abandoning Libya's chemical- and nuclear-weapons program. Muammar Gaddafi's stunning aboutface, which followed longstanding demands from Washington, ended Libya's isolation from the West. Trade embargoes and an air blockade that had sealed most Libyans from the outside world for decades were lifted. In late 2008 the U.S. confirmed its first ambassador to Tripoli since 1972. More than 100 oil companies, including U.S. majors like Chevron and ExxonMobil, and European giants such as BP and Royal Dutch Shell, arrived to tap Libya's vast oil reserves, betting that the country would become an energy powerhouse. Construction crews now bang and clatter across Tripoli, building apartment and office towers, Western hotels (InterContinental, Starwood and Marriott are all working on new hotels) and a new airport.

In the latest sign of change, the first U.S. ambassador to Libya in 37 years hosted 100 Libyan women at his house one February evening for the first American cultural event in decades. American singers shimmied across the stage in tight dresses, belting out Broadway show tunes like "All That Jazz" and "New York." "For years this place was Slumberland," says Sami Zaptia, a Libyan business consultant in Tripoli. "Now everyone wants to get on the Libya gravy train." (Read: "After 37 Years, the U.S. Arrives to Do Business in Libya.")

But for all the new glitz and buzz, Libya's international acceptance has not brought deeper political or social change. Last September, Gaddafi celebrated his 40th anniversary in power with a blowout party featuring an air force flypast, hundreds of performers and a massive fireworks display. Aged just 68, Gaddafi Senior is now the world's longest-serving head of government (a few monarchs beat him when it comes to longest-serving head of state). His face peers from billboards across the country, and his firebrand style has barely tempered with age. His blast against Western leaders in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly last September could have been written years ago. The first sign visitors see at Tripoli airport is not an advertisement for Libya's spectacular beaches or Roman ruins, but a quote from Gaddafi's revolutionary manifesto, the Green Book, proclaiming workers to be "Partners Not Wage Earners." Crucially, it is Gaddafi and his appointed revolutionary committees who still make all of Libya's key decisions.

As Western companies arrive with billions of dollars to spend, though, Gaddafi's exhortations are beginning to sound like the language of a vanishing culture. Who will take his place? What will take his system's place? Those questions are at the core of the political debate, and as yet, there are no clear answers. "We are reckoning within ourselves," says Youssef Sawani, a close associate of Saif and executive director of the influential Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation. "The world has changed around Libya, and Libya has to change. Change is long overdue."

More Than a Man of the West
No one looms larger than Saif in the push for change. Given that he was raised in the bosom of the revolution and holds no official government position, that is unusual. Saif was born a little under three years after his father's bloodless 1969 coup. After graduating in engineering in Libya, he earned an M.B.A. in Vienna, and then a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics.

To many Americans and Britons, Saif is best known for successfully negotiating the release from a Scottish jail of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Convicted of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Scotland — an attack which killed 270 people — al-Megrahi returned to a hero's welcome in Tripoli last August with Saif by his side. The move cemented Saif's standing among millions of ordinary Libyans. "After that, Saif could no longer be accused of being infected with Western values," says Noman Benotman, a former leader in the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, who fought alongside al-Qaeda in Afghanistan until 2000. Benotman is a lot less famous than al-Megrahi, but his collaboration with Saif may actually be the clearest sign that Gaddafi Junior is serious about reform. Saif brought Benotman to Libya in 2007 and then helped him negotiate a truce with hundreds of jailed LIFG militants, effectively severing their links with al-Qaeda. On March 23, Saif secured the release of 214 LIFG members from jail, including its three top leaders. (See pictures: "Lockerbie 20 Years On.")

Tall and lean with gold-rimmed glasses and a shaved head, Saif speaks fluent English and German, and is as comfortable in London as he is in Tripoli. A set of photo books called Hip Hotels sits on a table in his entrance hall. Despite his privileged lifestyle, his name creeps frequently into conversations with businessmen, analysts, consultants and regular citizens. He is, many believe, the one person capable of pushing through serious change. He is also the West's favorite to succeed his father. Says U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Gene Cretz: "Many people consider Saif the de facto future of the country."

If Saif is Libya's future, then he might just trigger a transformation every bit as far-reaching as his father's socialist coup. Already a Saif-created National Economic Development Board, run by U.S.-trained economist Mahmoud Gebril, is at work overhauling Libya's regulatory system. Saif has also proposed a new penal code, which would entail drafting a constitution for Libya, a move regarded for years by Muammar Gaddafi as unrevolutionary. "There must be an independent judiciary, and protection of the rights of people," Gebril says, pointing to postapartheid South Africa as a model. That would be a sharp departure from current-day Libya, where even the intellectuals who gather in Tripoli's cafés in the evenings, over water pipes and espressos, shy away from political talk. When I ask Saif how much personal freedom he wants for Libyans, he says without pause: "Everything, of course." Asked whether that includes the freedom to criticize leaders or organize against them, he cuts me short, saying: "I am talking about the level of freedom like in Holland." (Watch a TIME interview with Muammar Gadaffi.)

That's hard to imagine. His father's authority as Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution remains unimpeachable, and Libyans who challenge it can be jailed. But Saif believes his vision is not only possible, but inevitable. "Ask any Libyan," he says. "They want an efficient and modern country. If you are against that, you are an idiot."

In a country where most people have only ever known his father's rule, Saif says Libyans have grown impatient for change. Last February, when President Gaddafi ended his one-year term as the head of the African Union, the organization passed a resolution giving itself the power to expel or impose sanctions on leaders who seize power through force. The message was not lost on Libyans. "In black Africa, we see real democracy, real elections, real parliaments, real constitutions," Saif says. "Why don't we have the same as them?"

One of the answers is that there are plenty of people who don't want change. Libya's powerful security organizations — often fingered by human-rights groups for conducting arbitrary arrests and torture — are resisting reforms. Also opposed are members of the revolutionary committees, who have garnered wealth and political benefits through their close association with Libya's leader. "There are a lot of people for whom reform is not in their personal interest," says Shukri Ghanem, a former Prime Minister who heads the Libyan National Oil Corporation. "It will not be a walk in the park."

At the same time, critics of Saif say that talk of serious change is merely a ruse. "It is all just a game," says Hassan al-Amin, who runs an exile website from London. "Saif cannot do anything without his dad's blessing. They have a great relationship." Skeptics point to Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad promised change but has brought few reforms since his father Hafez died in 2000. In neighboring Egypt, Hosni Mubarak's son Gamal could face a similar predicament if he runs in next year's presidential elections. (Read: "Why the U.S. is Back on the Road to Damascus.")

Mindful of such pitfalls, Saif rejected his father's proposal last year to assume the country's second-highest post. "I would not accept [a position] because you need to have a constitution," Saif says. "You need transparent political rules of the game." He's also prepared to test the system. Tensions erupted into full view last December after Saif invited the Washington and Middle East directors of Human Rights Watch to launch its report on Libya's human-rights violations at a press conference in the heart of Tripoli. Few groups had ever been allowed to speak out publicly against the government, and security forces attempted to disrupt the event. Some Libyans scheduled to attend were blocked from traveling to the capital. Those who addressed the press conference and recounted heartrending tales of relatives killed in prison were shouted down by security officers in the audience, according to news reports. "There is no possibility for real political organizing, so people are chipping away at the corners," says Heba Morayef, North African researcher for Human Rights Watch. Saif, she says, "is the only person who can stand up to his father."

Sending Mixed Messages
Really standing up to Gaddafi will require confronting one of the strongest themes of his rule: opposition to the West. Despite the lifting of sanctions, Gaddafi's ban on things such as English signage remains. Even the street signs to Tripoli's international airport are in Arabic only. "In our cooperation with the U.S. and Europe, we are not serious enough, we send confusing messages," Saif says. (Read: "Gaddafi vs. Switzerland: The Leader's Son on What's Behind the Feud.")

But the West, and especially Washington, could also play a more active role in encouraging reforms. Washington promised billions of dollars of private investment to help revamp Libya's economy if Tripoli dropped its nukes program. So far, interest has fallen far short of that. Libyans were also outraged when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security added the country to a security watch list after the attempted bombing of a plane over Detroit last December. "We extended a friendly hand and got slapped in the face," Gebril says.

To Saif, nothing illustrates the divide with the West more starkly than Libya's bizarre feud with Switzerland. It began when Gaddafi's son (and Saif's half brother) Hannibal and his wife were arrested in July 2008 in Geneva for allegedly assaulting their servants. Charges were dropped, but in the tit-for-tat battle that has run ever since, a Swiss businessman has been jailed in Tripoli, Libya has pulled billions from Swiss banks, and Switzerland has barred Gaddafi and other top Libyans from entering its country. In January, Libya blocked access to YouTube and several websites run by Libyan exiles, and in February it stopped handing out visas to most European citizens. When I visited Libya's biggest gas-export facility in February, the Italian manager was stuck in Rome, with no visa to return to work. To all this, Saif sighs, clearly exasperated. "There is a big gap between ... our mentality and the Western mentality," he says. "I think we are not ready to deal in the right way with the Western world." Not yet.

Source

Now That We Have European-Style Healthcare, is A European-Style Tax System Next?

Joe Weisenthal | Mar. 28, 2010, 5:13 PM

Image: OECD: Consumption Tax Trends: The Way Of The Future?

Over at the Washington Post, The dean of the neocons Charles Krauthammer warns: Now that we have a big bad, European-style socialized healthcare system, it's inevitable that our tax system will come to look more European as well.

In order to finance our burgeoning deficit -- the growth of which seems pretty indisputable -- Krauthammer expects to see a VAT (value-added tax) which, he says, would raise $1 trillion per decade for every 1% tax imposed. Importantly, he's not talking about a substitute for our existing tax schemes, but an addition.

At first blush, there wouldn't seem to be the political will for tax hikes -- not after a bruising healthcare battle. And if Republicans do well in November, that the issue may be scotched before it can hope to get off the ground.

But Krauthammer is right to sense that something is afoot.

In his recent Letter from Washington piece, Bloomberg's Albert R. Hunt cites the work of Columbia University tax prof (and former Bush I Treasury official) Michael Graetz who argues for a VAT (though one that would replace our existing system of taxation).

Graetz is the author of 100 Million Unnecessary Returns: A Fresh Start for the U.S. Tax System which argues that we could easily do away with tax filing for a huge chunk of the population if we shifted towards a consumption-based scheme (albeit one with various other measures in place to insure progressivity).

For those interested in Graetz's work, his paper is below. We're still skeptical that it can actually happen... though if the bond market really is the canary in America's budgetary coalmine, activity on the tax front may be inevitable.

Also, following the November elections, The President's panel on fiscal sustainability is expected to come back with some suggestions on how to fix our budget problems. Because it will be dominated by Democratic appointees, the most likely outcome will be a call for more taxes. That alone will get the discussion going, if not any actually action.

GraetzWEB

Source

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Commentary

This article is from a new site I'm looking at called:
http://www.businessinsider.com/

I'm liking some of their articles, and so I hope they have more good content such as this in the future.

Why Did Obama Use So Many Pens to Sign the Health Care Bill?

By Claire Suddath Tuesday, Mar. 23, 2010

President Barack Obama signs the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law in the East Room of the White House on Tuesday, March 23, 2010

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

After more than a year of bitter political debate and seemingly inescapable congressional deadlock, President Obama sat down in the White House East Room on March 23 and signed the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law with a stroke of his pen. And then another pen. And another. Obama used 22 pens to sign the landmark $938 billion health care bill. It would seem that either the President has an undiagnosed case of OCD or the White House needs better office supplies. (See pictures of Obama signing the bill.)

Actually, the President was just adhering to an obscure Washington tradition. The practice of using multiple pens to sign important legislation dates at least as far back as Franklin Roosevelt and is now one of our government's frivolous little quirks, much like that oversize gavel Nancy Pelosi carried around the other day. (See TIME's top 10 knockdown congressional battles.)

The rationale is fairly simple. The pen used to sign historic legislation itself becomes a historical artifact. The more pens a President uses, the more thank-you gifts he can offer to those who helped create that piece of history. The White House often engraves the pens, which are then given as keepsakes to key proponents or supporters of the newly signed legislation. When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, he reportedly used more than 75 pens (video footage can be found here, although camera cutaways make it hard to keep track) and gave one of the first ones to Martin Luther King Jr. Senators Hubert Humphrey and Everett McKinley Dirksen also received pens for their aid in shuttling the bill through Congress. And in 1996, President Clinton gave the four pens he used to sign the Line-Item Veto bill — which allowed Presidents to veto individual sections of legislation rather than the entire thing — to those most likely to appreciate the bill's impact: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. (Comment on this story.)

But how does a President even sign his name with so many pens? Does he print it? Does his signature come out looking disconnected and wobbly? What if he runs out of letters? "I've been practicing signing my name slowly," President Obama joked in January 2009 when he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — for which he used seven pens. President Kennedy had the process figured out: when he needed more letters, he wasted ink by spelling out his middle name and adding a flourish under his signature. (See Joe Biden's top 10 gaffes.)

Once they're given away, some pens wind up in museums; others are displayed proudly in recipients' offices or homes. But they sometimes pop up again, like in the 2008 presidential campaign, when John McCain vowed to use the same pen given to him by President Reagan to cut pork from the federal budget.

Not every President goes for the multipen signature, however. President George W. Bush preferred signing bills with only one pen and then offering several unused "gift" pens as souvenirs. Even a piece of legislation as famous as the Homeland Security Act got only one line of ink. When it was over, the President is rumored to have pocketed it.

Source

Student Loans Get a Government Takeover

By Gilbert Cruz Monday, Apr. 05, 2010

ENLARGE PHOTO+

President Obama's plan will remake the federal student-loan system.

David Butow / Redux

Government takeover!" So yelled the many critics of President Barack Obama's health care reform bill. But in their focus on the main event, Republicans seem to have all but ignored another part of the legislation that more precisely fits their rhetoric. In addition to securing the President a victory on health care, the House bill took him one step closer to delivering on a promise to reform the college-student-loan system. If a final piece of legislation before the Senate is approved, millions of students will get their federal loans directly from the Department of Education. In other words, the federal government would sweep aside private competitors in the biggest change to the federal student-loan program since its creation in 1965. It's a legitimate government takeover.

So where's all that outrage now? The thing is, the government already runs much of the student-loan industry. For decades under the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program, the government has handed out subsidies to large banks and companies like Sallie Mae that lend money to student borrowers and collect it from them. In addition, the federal government has been obligated to cover up to 97% of any defaulted loan, effectively eliminating risk for lenders. Figuring that money could be saved by cutting out the middleman, Congress created the Direct Loan program--in which money goes from the Education Department to students--in 1993. The programs have been in competition with each other since then.

Until now. Gone will be the subsidies, and gone will be the FFEL program. As of July 1, all new student loans will go through the Direct Loan program. The savings--an estimated $61 billion over 10 years--will be used to shore up and increase the need-based Pell Grant program by $36 billion and invest in community colleges. While the Administration has reason enough to crow about the proposed measures, it has had to scale back some of its bigger plans. An earlier version of the bill would have invested an additional $20 billion and offered even more substantial financial-aid increases. As it stands, $13.5 billion will be used to stem Pell Grant shortfalls resulting from the increased number of students forced back to college by the ailing economy. And a plan to raise the maximum Pell amount to almost $7,000 per year by 2020 has been replaced with one that maxes out at about $6,000.

With his first major piece of education legislation out of the way, Obama will likely move on to K-12 matters later this year as he attempts to rework the unpopular No Child Left Behind law. But before then, members of Congress (and America's students) are going on spring break.

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Commentary

This is very good for students as a whole because it means people won't be trying to profit off the hard work of the visionaries of our future.

There is profit to be made in many areas, but we should not try to destroy our own future, by burdening our posterity.

To do so is pure evil. We live to make the lives of our children easier, not harder.

Masdar: Abu Dhabi's carbon-neutral city

By Tom Heap Presenter, Radio 4's Costing The Earth

Masdar City aims to be powered solely by renewable energy sources

The world's first zero-carbon city is being built in Abu Dhabi and is designed to be not only free of cars and skyscrapers but also powered by the sun.

The oil-rich United Arab Emirates is the last place you would expect to learn lessons on low-carbon living, but the emerging eco-city of Masdar could teach the world.

FIND OUT MORE Costing The Earth: Eco-City Limits Monday 29 March 2100 BST, BBC Radio 4 Or listen later on the BBC iPlayer

At first glance, the parched landscape of Abu Dhabi looks like the craziest place to build any city, let alone a sustainable one.

The inhospitable terrain suggests that the only way to survive here is with the maximum of technological support, a bit like living on the moon.

The genius of Masdar - if it works - will be combining 21st Century engineering with traditional desert architecture to deliver zero-carbon comfort. And it is being built now.

Masdar will be home to about 50,000 people, at least 1,000 businesses and a university.

It is being designed by British architects Foster and Partners, but it is the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is paying for it. And it will cost between £10bn ($15bn) and £20bn ($30bn).

Renewable energy

The architects are turning the desert's greatest threat - the sun - into their greatest asset.

The quality of air will be better than any other street in the Gulf and in the world, and that alone will bring you safety, health and happiness Kaled Awad, director of the Masdar project

They have built the biggest solar farm in the Middle East to power the city and to offset the inevitable burning of diesel and baking of cement in construction.

They are also experimenting. One project involves a circular field of mirrors on the ground, all reflecting towards a tower in the middle.

That, in turn, bounces the light down in a concentrated beam about a metre (3ft) wide to produce heat and drive generators.

But I was told firmly not to wander over and feel the warmth, as it could fry me in seconds.

The international team of engineers have real pride in their work.

This is more than building to them, it is a lab bench with the freedom to get it wrong, and Masdar's chief architect Gerard Evenden loves the concentration of expertise: "What Abu Dhabi is beginning to generate is the Silicon Valley of renewable energy."

Keeping cool

The Emirates have seen one of the world's most spectacular building booms paid for by oil and made tolerable by air conditioners, which also depend on oil to feed their vast appetite for energy.

Lunar technology has begun to influence our thinking Gerard Evenden, architect

But Masdar will have to be low temperature and low carbon.

Part of the solution is apparent the moment you walk in. And you do "walk in" because this is a city surrounded by a wall, a defined boundary.

Unlike the upward and outward sprawl of Dubai or Abu Dhabi, Masdar is compact like ancient Arab cities.

Streets are narrow so buildings shade each other, and the walls and roofs of buildings will do their bit to shed heat too.

The vertical faces are dressed with screens which look like a terracotta mesh. They keep the sun out but let the breeze in.

And as architect Gerard Evenden says: "Lunar technology has begun to influence our thinking."

One idea being tested is using a thin foil surface covering, a gas or vacuum blanket, to keep the heat out. It is an idea dreamt up for a moon base.

To encourage a breeze, wind towers are being built, drawing draughts through the streets without using energy.

Masdar will still use electricity for gadgets, some air conditioning and, most crucially, to desalinate sea water but, when it comes to power, the city has a simple mantra: "Only use energy when you have exhausted design."

Driverless vehicles

Conventional cars must be checked in at the city gates and then you can choose between the oldest and newest modes of transport.

At street level, it is all pedestrianised and the planners have done their best to keep the city compact and foot-friendly.

But if fatigue overtakes you, then slip down a level and meet the Personal Rapid Transit or podcars.

These driverless vehicles are guided by magnetic sensors, powered by solar electricity, and they stop automatically if an obstacle appears. They are programmed to go where you ask.

Kaled Awad, director of the Masdar project claims: "The quality of air will be better than any other street in the Gulf and in the world, and that alone will bring you safety, health and happiness."

The future success of the project will be clear to see.

On top of the wind tower, there will be a beacon betraying the city's actual energy use: red for too much, blue for just right.

It will be 45m (147ft) up and visible for miles around so, when Masdar is finished in five to 10 years' time, we will all know if it is in the red.

Costing The Earth: Eco-City Limits will be broadcast on Monday 29 March at 2100 BST on BBC Radio 4 and will be available on the BBC iPlayer.

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Commentary

Why aren't we all doing this?

We have the technology, but we lack the willpower. Why can't we all live in a world where Energy is no longer an issue? Where energy is plentiful. In those worlds, nearly anything is possible; from desalination of water, to the running of cars on electricity.

If every country decided that by 2020, half of their electricity would be renewable, we would have taken the first step into that future.

But we're not taking that first step, or that half movement of the leg. We're barely lifting our leg up and forward.

Until we take seriously the problem of energy and the effects that it has on health, poverty, life, liberty, and our security, we will never develop the political will to change our circumstances.

Americans sent a man on the moon, in 9 years, with none of the technology to make it there. We have all the technology now, we just need the will and the money to use it. We have no excuses should we fail.

But to all that listen and hear this, know that regardless of class, race, nationality, or gender, you will benefit by this, because you will be giving your children a better world to live in.

That's the driving force, and that's why we should take the step towards Renewable Energy.

Thank you United Arab Emirates, and Abu Dhabi, for showing us that our future is within grasp, should we only extend our hand and take it.

Masdar is our beacon of hope for all Humanity.

Tiny cube to tackle space debris

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

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The CubeSail mission would expect to operate for about a year

UK researchers have developed a device to drag space debris out of orbit.

They plan to launch a demonstration of their "CubeSail" next year. It is a small satellite cube that deploys a thin, 25-sq-m plastic sheet.

Residual air molecules still present in the spacecraft's low-Earth orbit will catch the sheet and pull the object out of the sky much faster than is normal.

The Surrey Space Centre team says the concept could be fitted to larger satellites and even rocket stages.

The group also envisages that a mature system would even be sent to rendezvous and dock with redundant spacecraft to clean them from orbit.

"Our system is simple and very low cost; but we need to demonstrate that it can be done," said Dr Vaios Lappas, lead researcher on the project and senior lecturer in space vehicle control.

"It would help make space a sustainable business. We want to be able to keep on launching satellites to provide new services; but unless we do something, the amount of junk up there is going to grow exponentially."

Simplicity of approach

It is thought more than 5,500 tonnes of junk now clutters the region of space just a few hundred km above our heads.

Last year, two satellites even collided, showering their orbit with tiny fragments that now pose additional risk to operational spacecraft.

The controlling spacecraft is a box that is 30cm in its longest dimension

International agencies have agreed that retired hardware - old satellites or spent rocket stages - should be removed from space within 25 years of the end of service.

Using large deployable surfaces to increase the drag on these objects so they fall to Earth rapidly is one possible solution to the space litter problem.

CubeSail, unveiled on Friday, is a 3kg (6.6lb), 10cm x 10cm x 30cm (4in x 4in x 12in) nanosatellite.

It incorporates within its tiny frame a polymer sheet that is folded for launch to be unfurled once in space.

The simple deployment mechanism features four metal strips that are wound under tension and will snap into a straight line when let go, pulling the sheet flat in the process.

The team hopes to launch its demonstrator at the end of next year, riding piggy-back on another mission or as part of a cluster of small research satellites that are sometimes lofted en mass atop a single rocket.

Force of sunlight

The nanosat will then circle the Earth, going from pole to pole at an altitude of about 700km (435 miles), testing its systems and assessing the drag principle.

If successful, CubeSail could become a regular add-on system to satellites and rocket stages, opening up a new space business akin to the daily refuse services here on Earth.

"We would be looking to put it on our own satellites and to put it on other people's spacecraft as well," said Sir Martin Sweeting, the chairman of SSTL, the world-leading small-satellite manufacturer, which is supporting the research.

A demo of how the stowed sail would deploy

"We want this to be a standard, essential bolt-on item for a spacecraft; and that's why it's very important to make it small, because if it's too big it will interfere with the rest of the spacecraft," he told BBC News.

The researchers hope to develop the project as a propulsion system as well. The pressure of sunlight falling on such a large structure would also move it. The force is tiny but continuous.

This "solar sailing" technique has long been touted as a means of moving spacecraft around the Solar System, or even just helping conventional satellites to maintain their orbits more efficiently.

Indeed, some of the large geostationary satellites, for example, already use solar-sail flaps to maintain their attitude without firing their thrusters. This saves valuable chemical propellant and extends mission lifetime.

Delicate control

CubeSail will endeavour to demonstrate this "propellantless propulsion" by trying to shift the path it takes across the surface of the Earth by just a few degrees over the course of a year.

To do this though, the nanosatellite will have to carefully control the angle of the sail with respect to the Sun, just as an ocean vessel has to play with its sails to catch the wind.

The sail will be made from an extremely fine polymer

"We're going to control our sail with a very novel geometric technique; we're not going to use any thrusters," explained Dr Lappas.

"We have developed a tilting mechanism that uses very tiny motors. It's able to move in two directions. This enables you to change the centre of mass of the sail. We're also going to be using small magnets to control the sail because they will interact with the Earth's magnetic field."

Once its mission is complete, CubeSail will be instructed to take itself out of orbit.

The project is a private venture within the Surrey Space Centre, which is based at the University of Surrey, Guildford.

It has been funded by Europe's largest space company, EADS Astrium, which is one of the world's biggest manufacturers of satellites. It also produces Europe's heavy-lift rocket, the Ariane 5, which launches about half of the world's commercial satellite platforms.

The entire cost of the project is expected to be no more than £1m ($1.5m).

Other groups around the world are expected to launch solar sail demonstrators soon. The US space agency has been working on a project with The Planetary Society, a long-time proponent of the technology.

The Japanese, too, have work in progress. And even Astrium is sponsoring other space junk mitigation strategies within its own division.

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