10.2% Unemployment Rate. That’s the ‘official’ rate. The real rate is probably more like 17%, counting underemployment and those no longer counted.

The verdict so far on the stimulus bill and construction job creation across the country?

Jobs are being created and saved but nowhere near a rate that will allow the stimulus bill to claim victory over construction unemployment.

Alternative Energy News fills us in on the One Laptop Per Child XO human-powered laptop. 2,500 prototypes are now being used.

Evocative Design won first place at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory 22nd Clean Energy Growth Forum for Best Venture.

Manufacturing the insulations and shipping material requires 10x less energy and it can be custom-molded and also provides thermal insulation.

From WireDuck.com
.

Apparently, I fit the profile of someone who has these answers: I am a Muslim Palestinian American: I must know what one out of the 1.5 billion Muslims around the globe is thinking at any given time.

“Hey, Jamal…sorry to disturb you so early. But you know the Hasan story is big, and I was wondering if you’re willing to come for an interview and talk about how it feels being a Maahzlem (Muslim) and all,” a television producer says to me on my cell.

“How did you feel being a Christian, with Timothy McVeigh and Adolf Hitler being Christians?” I fired back.

Silence… I probably should not have said that, but there it is.

…

Hasan is a coward…not only for committing this heinous act, but for counting on being killed or taking the gun on himself, leaving behind his family and the entire Muslim community to account for his despicable actions.

The Left needs to realize Islamists are its foe too. Respect Islam, but not Islamists. Do not try to justify or excuse Hasan’s actions. Just because wingnuts may use these hideous events as a pretext for political gain does not mean liberals must automatically take the other side or somehow try to explain Hasan.

(The Communist Party of Iran supported the Ayatollah when the revolution started. After the Ayatollah seized power, about the first thing he did was kill the communists.)

And it has wi-fi. Tweet while riding! (Except where prohibited by grumpy lawmakers)

Alan Grayson. Congressman with guts

Doubt raised about theory of peak oil.

Arrested trader Zvi Goffer nicknamed “Octopussy” because he had sources everywhere.

A Right Wing Coup. Tory Euro-skeptics power grab endangers ECR Group and UK Election chances.

Dicking and dithering in Afghanistan

The creeping power grab by the executive branch and Federal Reserve

How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash. While selling the same crap to clients.

Fannie Mae sale-rentback scheme to keep homes off the market.

Mexico cartels corrupting US law enforcement. Which should be no surprise.

Basij beat women senseless in streets. Imagine what they do in the prisons

Was accused Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein running dirty Russian money?

10 year old girl. Dad in Iraq. (So she thinks).

Polizeros has been a super-trooper blog pushing those frost heaves of progressivism for years. I’ll begin my foray here with not a news entry, nor a scathing commentary, nor a blog-esque diary musing all sorts of self-reflection. It’s just a speech – no links. Written after being exposed to a whole new generation of climate activists working and loving to save life on our planet. Happy to be here. ~ Byron DeLear

Gateway to New Economy

There’s a movement going on. It’s a movement made of people who care and people who see and people who concern themselves with the affairs of more than just their own.

What they see – what we see – is that the issue of environmental stewardship is an issue that concerns us all. Everyone. It’s global, local and personal.

The simple fact is the exponential growth of the human enterprise now impacts and dictates to the future of every living being we share this planet with.

How will America, the leader of industrial might, metabolize this responsibility?

We need to make a choice – and do what’s right.

Our nation, has been at the crossroads of choice before, and it hasn’t always been easy: abolishing slavery, getting women the right to vote – but we have yet to establish a sane energy policy as this goal has been thwarted time and again.

All the way back to the 1930s – hybrid fuels and cars built to run on ethanol were blocked by Big Oil.

Those same forces bought up and systematically dismantled more than 100 electric mass transit systems in 45 cities across America – including our city of St. Louis.

After World War II, there was desire to reduce our dependency on foreign sources of energy, so alternative and synthetic fuels were developed right here in Louisiana Missouri. But in the 50s an Oil Glut stopped that and blocked the diversification of our energy portfolio.

In the 70s, following the Middle East oil embargo and energy crisis we knew the way. Jimmy Carter over 30 years ago signed into law comprehensive energy reform including renewable and alternative energy sources. He put solar panels on the White House.

Well, in the 80s, an Oil Glut stopped that – and the next President took those panels down. Reagan tore down that symbol of American energy independence.

Now that we’re facing the irrefutable science of global climate change and global warming, all of a sudden we are struck with an economic crisis not seen since the likes of the Great Depression – and accusations of any economic recovery that we’ve entertained so far as being “jobless”…

A “jobless-recovery” ? What’s that?

The way I see it, it’s an opportunity. And it all centers on how we power our society.

There is an emerging industry before us – an industry that hasn’t existed before.

Green energy – renewable energy – energy efficiency.

The benefits are legion. And many of these new jobs can’t be outsourced because they happen right here at home. Its win, win, win.

Take energy efficiency for example, 95% of all existing homes and construction can be audited and assessed and fixed to a higher standard of efficiency, saving folks on energy costs, creating new jobs, avoiding the construction of polluting power plants.

Residential buildings generate over 20 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from non-renewable fuel consumption in the United States.

One solution is the Missouri Association of Accredited Energy Professionals, or “MAAEP”, representing certified energy assessors – a new profession – greening the American economic landscape one home at a time – bringing our carbon levels back down to what leading scientists say is sustainable: 350! 350 parts per million.

In this climate of economic recession, any project that promises great job creating prospects should be our number one focus. We stand at the Gateway to a New Economy and thousands of Missourians and millions of Americans are leading the way. Organizations, non-profits, businesses are coming together to capitalize on this Copernican shift for not just America, but the world. Join us and cross over this threshold to a cleaner and safer future for all.

Thank you!

(Speech prepared for 350.org International Day of Climate Action Oct. 24th, Action at the Arch, St. Louis)

National unemployment rate hits 10.2%. Economists had forecast an increase to 9.9%.

Since December 2007, employers have shed 8.2 million jobs, sending the unemployment rate up 5.3 percentage points. The ratio of job cuts to losses in gross domestic product, or GDP, in this recession has surpassed the historical norm.

Recovery to pre-recession levels in job market not expected until 2012 to 2013.

Employers keep cutting hours, if not jobs. Average work week is now 33 hours, a record low … and its still declining.

A record 9.2 million people that have jobs are working part-time because their hours have been cut or they can’t find full-time work. That’s more than doubled since the start of a recession.

Structural changes in automobiles, construction, and finance means many of the jobs shed “will not be coming back.”

“There’s a real mismatch between the unemployed people out there compared to what job openings are available,” said John Silvia, chief economist with Wells Fargo Securities.

Ongoing cuts indicate that the U.S. job market could threaten economic recovery, some economists say. “This recovery is shaping up to be a jobless one, just like the last two,” says Paul Ashworth, an economist with Capital Economics in Ontario. “Our concern is that, unlike the last recovery, with credit still tight, households aren’t going to be able to smooth their consumption using credit until the labor market eventually strengthens.”