First Solar is a thin film solar maker that has achieved what few in the alternative energy field have been able to do: produce a profit last year and then triple it in the first quarter.
The product is impressive, but the financial position is even more so. The reason? They can produce a watt of electricity for the same cost as a traditional power plant. Without government subsidies.
They have been focused on mega-projects, but their technology can “scale down” to the business and residential level as well. Thin-film panels will probably still be more costly on the residential level than for a large array … there are some fixed costs for inverters, etc. A residential installation arm of the company is poised to go into operation later in 2009.
As I noted in my post about my new Low Carb Diet, my goal was to lower triglycerides and raise HDL cholesterol.
Test results are in: triglycerides fell from 344 mg/dL to an acceptable 106 mg/dL, under the target of “150 or less”. HDL cholesterol had a slight improvement from 20 mg/dL to 29 (the healthy range starts at 40, so I have a way to go here.)
My concern about total cholesterol rising with all the fat-rich foods such as eggs and meat was validated at least in part, with a rise from 136 mg/dL to 160 … but that’s still well within the 125 – 200 mg/dL range considered healthy.
There are two tests for blood sugar, the direct “spot measurement” of blood sugar at the time of the test (“glucose”) and the longer term, 3-month blood sugar level (HA1c). I was surprised that my glucose level rose a bit from 103 to 105 mg/dL (65 – 99 is the target range). But my doctor noted the HA1c number, which he considers more important, fell from 6.2% to 5.5% (under 6% is the goal here for non-diabetics).
The results are encouraging, and I’ll stick to the more stringent portion of the diet for a few more months. It seems to be working. Some caveats are in order for my readers, though … talk to your doctor first. My understanding is the low carb diets can be dangerous for certain heart patients, especially those with cardiac arrhythmia (atrial fibrillation, etc.) or those with reduced liver or kidney function.
Yesterday, I posted about Blue State Digital, the Democratic National Committee and Obama Campaign web developer being invited to Iraq, postulating that the evidence of graft and corruption in government contracting was proof we had won the war. Following the lead of the original source, I was careful not to say the apparent favoritism was proven.
The Heritage Foundation blog has an update this morning:
Reporting on the ground in Iraq is Wired.com Senior Writer Steven Levy who says:
“[the State Department] hopes that a few of the companies will follow up and work out some technology exchanges or collaborations with Iraqis, beginning a process that will play at least some part in bootstrapping the bottomed-out situation into something approaching a 21st Century economy.”
So, this is indeed about government contracts and business prospecting at the expense of taxpayers for the President’s campaign buddies. Granted, the President had a nice campaign website, but it was nothing that a non-partisan web developer could not have also brought to flourishing Iraq. While we are happy the President has finally realized that Iraq is a burgeouning civil society, we wish he wasn’t resorting to cronyism so soon. Will ACORN be on the next flight to Baghdad to consult on community organizing?
I’m a control freak in this respect, but there really are good reasons to avoid on-line backup services:
XDrive No Longer Available
Recent Carbonite Problems
At most, on-line backup services should be an auxiliary backup, and not your main one. There is some rationale for having a backup off-site in case you have a disaster at home.
My current backup strategy is to do weekly full image backups with daily incremental backups stored on a separate internal drive. The full image backup is copied to an external USB drive as well, just in case my computer bursts into flames. I’ll need to add a third level of redundancy, and I’m leaning toward physical data, such as recordable DVD disks, that I keep completely separate … either at a relative’s house or perhaps in my office.
For a President hell-bent on “communicating” every flaw and foible of the United States, you would think Barack Obama would at least, every now and then, at least if the moon is full, point to one … just one, please … American success.
… yet another implicit admission by the President that another thing he inherited from his predecessor is a budding democracy in the Arab world, one with a civil society to support. Exactly two years to the day after Majority Leader Harry Reid declared the war “lost”, President Obama is sending high-tech executives to Baghdad to talk business amidst vastly improved conditions. The delegation is made up of executives from Google, YouTube, Twitter, WordPress, MeetUp, Howcast and AT&T. All logical since most of those technologies will be used to share this story and are industry titans.
From The Foundry, the Heritage Foundation’s blog.
Ah, but even in the midst of a “implicit admission” there’s a catch. The Foundry goes on to explain that among the industry heavy hitters is a decidedly partisan organization, the ultra-liberal Blue State Digital. BSD has ties so strong to the Democratic Party and liberal causes that the appearance of this is a political payback to one of their own … and possibly an inside track to a fat lucrative government contract to build websites for the nascent middle east democracy on the American taxpayer’s dime.
No-bid contracts were all the outrage among the left when it was Halliburton; is Blue State Digital in the same position? And if so, will the leftist critics speak up? No clear evidence yet, but there are plenty of web design firms that are politically agnostic.
Since the Obama Administration is so quick to point out errors of the past, perhaps they should be more circumspect in avoiding even the appearance of the corruption they claim to despise, yet apparently are eager to embrace.
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