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vineri, 5 aprilie 2013

Building a Cleaner and More Secure Energy Future

Friday, April 5, 2013

Building a Cleaner and More Secure Energy Future

President Obama delivers remarks on clean energy at the Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Ill., March 15, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

On March 15, President Obama traveled to the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois to discuss the Energy Security Trust that he announced in the 2013 State of The Union Address. The Trust, which builds on a proposal supported by a broad bipartisan coalition including retired military leaders, would provide a reliable stream of funding for critical, breakthrough research focused on developing cost-effective transportation alternatives to get our cars and trucks off oil.

The President’s proposal sets aside $2 billion over 10 years and would support research into a wide range of cost-effective technologies – like advanced vehicles that run on electricity, homegrown biofuels, fuel cells, and domestically produced natural gas. Paired with other Administration policies, including our historic new fuel economy standards that are already saving families and businesses money at the pump, the Trust would help solidify America’s position as a world leader in advanced transportation technology.

This represents just a snapshot of the Administration’s Energy Security Trust proposal. For more information, read the White House blog on the Energy Security Trust. Also be sure to check out the President’s recent weekly address on this proposal.

News & Events

New EPA Report: Initial Data Shows Significant Gains in Fuel Economy for 2012
The EPA released its annual report that tracks the fuel economy of vehicles sold in the United States, underscoring the major increases made in the efficiency of the vehicles Americans drive, reducing oil consumption and cutting carbon emissions. According to the report, EPA estimates that between 2007 and 2012 fuel economy values increased by 16 percent while carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have decreased by 13 percent, and in 2012 alone the report indicates a significant one year increase of 1.4 miles per gallon (mpg) for cars and trucks. In addition, compared to five years ago, consumers have twice as many hybrid and diesel vehicle choices, a growing set of plug-in electric vehicle options, and a six-fold increase in the number of car models with combined city/highway fuel economy of 30 mpg or higher.

President Obama Nominates New Energy Department and EPA Heads
President Obama on March 4 nominated Ernest Moniz to replace Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy, and Gina McCarthy to take over U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) leadership from Lisa Jackson. Of his new Energy Secretary nominee, Obama said "Ernie knows that we can produce more energy and grow our economy while still taking care of our air, our water and our climate." In announcing McCarthy's nomination, President Obama called her a top environmental official in Massachusetts and Connecticut, where she helped design programs to expand energy efficiency and promote renewable energy. She previously served as the assistant administrator of the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation.

Interior Department Approves Three Renewable Energy Projects in California and Nevada
As part of President Obama’s all-of-the-above energy strategy to continue to expand domestic energy production, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced on March 13 the approval of three major renewable energy projects that, when built, are expected to deliver 1,100 megawatts to the grid – enough to power more than 340,000 homes – and help support more than 1,000 jobs through construction and operations. Since 2009, Interior has approved 37 renewable energy projects, including 20 utility-scale solar facilities, 8 wind farms and 9 geothermal plants, with associated transmission corridors and infrastructure to connect to established power grids. When built, these projects will provide more than 11,500 megawatts of power, or enough electricity to power more than 3.8 million homes, and support an estimated 13,500 construction and operations jobs.

Obama Administration Holds 39-Million-Acre Oil and Gas Lease Sale in Central Gulf of Mexico
Taking the latest step in President Obama’s efforts to continue to expand safe and responsible domestic energy production, the Department of the Interior recently held a nearly 39 million-acre oil and gas lease sale for the Central Gulf of Mexico. As part of the Obama Administration’s all-of-the-above energy strategy, domestic oil and gas production has grown each year the President has been in office, with domestic oil production currently higher than any time in two decades and natural gas production at its highest level ever.

Energy Department Partnerships Speed Advanced Vehicle Technologies
As part of the Obama Administration’s commitment to speeding the transition to more sustainable energy sources that will help drive economic growth, the Energy Department on March 5 announced 16 major U.S. employers and two stakeholder groups have joined the Workplace Charging Challenge to give more American workers access to new transportation options, while another three U.S. corporations have joined the National Clean Fleets Partnership. These steps support President Obama’s goal to drive new technology that offers more vehicle fueling options to American consumers, as highlighted in his State of the Union address. The Workplace Charging Challenge is a collaborative effort to increase the number of U.S. employers offering workplace charging by tenfold in the next five years. The National Clean Fleets Partnership aims to speed the deployment of clean, energy-efficient vehicles and the infrastructure to support their widespread use.

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Photo of the Day: Planting In the Garden

Your Daily Snapshot for
Friday, April 5, 2013

Photo of the Day: Planting in the Garden

First Lady Michelle Obama plants seeds with students during the spring White House Kitchen Garden event on the South Lawn of the White House, April 4, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

Evolution of the Local Algorithm - Whiteboard Friday

Posted: 04 Apr 2013 06:26 PM PDT

Posted by David Mihm

Remember the days when doing SEO for a local business was no different than doing SEO for any other business? We've come a long way since the early 2000's, and local SEO has evolved tremendously since the beginning of online search. There are still many questions to be answered when it comes to the ever-changing landscape of local SEO: what are the factors Google is using to rank local businesses? Where should owners focus their energy? What's the new hot thing for local rankings?

Our local expert, David Mihm, is here to shed some light on all of your burning local SEO questions. In today's Whiteboard Friday, David discusses what factors affect ranking of local businesses, and how local algorithms within Google have evolved throughout the years.

Video Transcription

"Hey everybody. David Mihm, the Director of Local Search Strategy for SEOmoz, here doing my very first Whiteboard Friday since joining the company, and for the very first one I thought I would start with one of the most common questions that I get asked about local search, which is: What are the factors Google is using to rank local businesses? Where should I be focusing my energy? And also kind of how has that changed over time? What's the new hot thing for local rankings?

So I thought I'd take you guys through kind of a brief history, from my perspective, of how the local algorithm has evolved at Google. So with the help of my handy dandy graph that I've sort of started to kick things off. Back in the late 1990's, 2000-ish, when Google first came out, many of you who have been practicing SEO for that long kind of remember, hey back in those days doing SEO for a local business was no different than doing SEO for any other kind of business. Right?

You needed title tags telling what you did, where you did it, where you were located, and you needed links pointing at your site with those keywords embedded in those links, preferably from locally relevant websites. But really at that time any link that had good anchor text with location or product and service information, that's how you ranked in those 10 blue link type search results.

Fast forward a little bit to January of 2008, many of you guys remember at that point Google introduced these 10 packs of local businesses right there in the main search results. So if you did a search for something like Portland injury lawyer, you'd see a map with 10 injuries lawyers' business listings rather than website information.

So that was really the first point at which we saw this concept of citation start to play a role in local rankings. So Google said, "Okay, well we know that there are 22 million businesses out there in the U.S. Less than half of them even have a website at this stage, so we have no way to gauge what the title tags are on a non-existent website, and it's not possible to send a link to a business without a website." Right?

So Google introduced this concept of citations where they sort of tracked mentions of a business across the web. So just someone mentioning the business name with its address, with its phone number, somewhere out there on the web would count essentially as a vote for that business, just like the way links count for votes on websites. So we started to see that play a pretty big role in these rankings for 10 packs soon after they were introduced.

Again, fast forward a little bit to March 2009. We started to see these 10 packs being introduced for generic queries, queries without geo-modifiers. So instead of typing in "Portland injury lawyer," if you typed in something like "injury lawyer," Google associated that as being a phrase with local intent. You were looking to hire somebody in your particular market, and they showed this for a ton of different phrases, things like restaurants, pizza, bakeries, things where they knew you were looking for a business in your area.

It was really about at this time that we started to see reviews play a little bit larger role. So what people were saying about you on some of these primary websites that businesses were getting cited on, places like Yelp, City Search, Urban Spoon, these types of sites the reviews that users were leaving really seemed to start to play more of a role in rankings.

And keep in mind that it's not like all of a sudden the importance of title tags and links went away. It's not like the importance of citations went away. But Google sort of layered on this additional ranking factor of user reviews, and not only user reviews at third party websites, like Yelp, City Search, the ones I mentioned, but also reviews left directly at Google Places. I'll switch sides here for just a second.

That really started to come in to importance in April 2011, when Google rolled its Hot Pot product right into Google Places. So Google launched this Hot Pot product, essentially a precursor of Google+, where Google would surface businesses that your friends had rated higher in the search results. They launched that in about November of 2010. Just about six months after that, they integrated it right into Google Places, and again this was when we started to see especially reviews left directly at Google Places really start to play a more important role.

And then everybody remembers June 2012 or actually late May 2012, when Marissa Mayer announced Google+ Local prior to leaving to take the job at Yahoo. So right there in the search results we started to see Google+ information getting surface. So the number of circles that an author of a website was in and the number of circles that a local business had in its following, those types of things started to play a role. They still don't seem to be quite as important as some of these other more traditional factors – title tags and links, user reviews, and citation information. But we do think going forward here I've got this sort of . . . to represent current time and some time in the future. We do think, most of us in the local search community, that Google will start to incorporate a few more of these Google+ signals into the local rankings.

And just to speculate a little bit, because I love to speculate, going forward I also think we're going to see Google potentially integrating some offline information into the local rankings. So what do I mean by that? As we get more and more comfortable, we as a society get more and more comfortable with things like Foursquare check-ins or Facebook check-ins, using our phones to make mobile payments, using Google Wallet, or companies like Square or LevelUp, these types of things, loyalty programs, Google has acquired a company several years ago that focused on digital loyalty cards, these types of offline signals about how we're actually engaging with businesses in the real world, I think there's no reason that they wouldn't try to incorporate those into their local rankings going forward.

So keep in mind through all of this Google's goal has been to identify what the most popular businesses are in a given category, in a given community, and what better way to gauge popularity than the number of people actually buying something at a business or actually visiting a business and checking in.

So that's why I kind of speculate that we will start to see offline signals maybe playing a role in the future, but for right now I kind of see title tags and links, reviews, citation information, all being about equal in importance, and going forward again I think we'll start to see Google+ play a little bit more of a role as well as potentially these offline signals.

So that's it for me from this week, and I hope you enjoyed this brief tour of the evolution of the local algorithm at Google."

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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Seth's Blog : Neophilia as a form of hiding

Neophilia as a form of hiding

Every once in a while someone will say to me, "yeah, sure, I've heard that before... what do you have that's new?"

In contemporary art or movies, it makes perfect sense to be focused on the bleeding edge, on the new idea that's never been previously contemplated.

But when we're discussing our goals, our passion and the way we interact with the culture, it seems to me that what works is significantly more important than what's new. Racing to build your organization around the latest social network tool or graphics-rendering technology permits you to spend a lot of time learning the new system and skiing in the fresh powder of the unproven, but it might just distract you from the difficult work of telling the truth, looking people in the eye and making a difference.

"I can't describe the value we deliver, I'm too busy integrating this new technology into my workflow!"

All too often, the ones who are aggressively seeking the theory of the day don't have a lot to show for what they did yesterday.

• Email to a friend •

joi, 4 aprilie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

97% of Spain's Social Security Pensions are Invested in Spanish Government Debt
Competitive Easing Madness; Japan to Double Monetary Base; Draghi Signals More Easing; Yen Plunges
Daily Show "Monsanto Bill": In Budget Bill Congress Inserts Provisions on Genetically Modified Foods and Gun Control
CalPERS Pension System in the Crosshairs of Stockton Bankruptcy Dispute

97% of Spain's Social Security Pensions are Invested in Spanish Government Debt

Posted: 04 Apr 2013 10:44 PM PDT

Looking for a disaster waiting to blow sky high? I have one right at hand. El Economista reports 97% of pensions are invested in Spanish government debt in 2012.

The Reserve Fund of Social Security in 2012 increased their holdings of Spanish debt to 97% of total assets, up from 90% who had in late 2011.

Over 70% of purchases are recorded in the second half of 2012, according to Bloomberg points, after the critical moment when ECB President Mario Draghi, undertook to do "whatever it takes" to defend the euro. A message that helped ease the constraints and helped drive Spanish debt.

In 2007, the money invested in financial assets were divided fairly (50%) between Spanish debt and foreign debt, but this proportion began to change in 2008.

In September 2012, for the first time in history the government had to dip into the reserve fund to pay the payroll to pensioners. A total of 3,063 million euros were drawn from this instrument, to which were added to the 3,530 million in November Moncloa needed to fund the pension increases.

Comparison to GM

This exactly reminds me of the stupidity of GM investing its assets in GM bonds. Expect similar results in Spain.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Competitive Easing Madness; Japan to Double Monetary Base; Draghi Signals More Easing; Yen Plunges

Posted: 04 Apr 2013 11:09 AM PDT

Escape Velocity

Central bankers have gone totally mad. The stunning news of today is a new pledge by Japan to double its monetary base in two years as the Bank of Japan Unveils Aggressive Easing.

The Bank of Japan will aim to double the monetary base over two years through the aggressive purchase of long-term bonds, in a dramatic shift aimed at ridding Japan of the deflation that has dogged the country for almost two decades.

Haruhiko Kuroda on Thursday announced his arrival as central bank governor with a "new phase of monetary easing", a move that comes after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the bank to target a 2 per cent rate of inflation.

"We can't escape deflation with the incremental approach that's been taken until now," Mr Kuroda said after the announcement. "We need to use every means available."

"I am confident that all the policies we need to achieve 2 per cent inflation in around two years are now in place," he said.

Yen Plunges

As one might expect on such a surprise announcement, the Yen had a spectacular plunge.

Draghi Signals More Easing

Bloomberg reports German Yields Fall to 8-Month Low as Draghi Signals More Easing

German government bonds rose, pushing 10-year yields to the lowest since August, after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi signaled further stimulus is possible should economic conditions deteriorate.

French and Austrian 10-year yields fell to records as Draghi said monetary policy will "remain accommodative for as long as needed" to boost growth. Spanish and Italian bonds pared gains as the ECB president said the central bank won't immediately implement measures to ease funding strains for smaller companies.

Fed Uncertainty Principle

This is all in accordance with the Fed Uncertainty Principle corollary three.

Corollary Number Three:

Don't expect the Fed [central banks in general] to learn from past mistakes. Instead, expect the Fed to repeat them with bigger and bigger doses of exactly what created the initial problem.

Japan is eventually going to achieve "escape velocity" on deflation, and I assure you Japanese citizens will not like the results when it happens.

When the Japanese bond market finally reacts to this inane policy, there is going to be a global currency crisis.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Daily Show "Monsanto Bill": In Budget Bill Congress Inserts Provisions on Genetically Modified Foods and Gun Control

Posted: 04 Apr 2013 09:52 AM PDT

Please watch the first part of last night's Daily Show.

In a bill that funds the government for another six months, and already signed by president Obama, a couple of interesting provisions were inserted into the bill.

One provision prohibits the government from restricting genetically modified foods. A second provision negates the government's ability to enforce gun legislation.

These provisions clearly do not belong in a bill to allow the government to stay in operation. Worse yet, members of Congress did not know they voted for them as no one ever bothers to read legislation. The provisions were put in anonymously in committee. The person or persons amending the bill can do so without leaving fingerprints.

One might think that a member of the president's staff would look at this stuff, but obviously there is no review any step of the way by anyone.

As Nancy Pelosi says, "We have to pass the bill to see what's in it".

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

CalPERS Pension System in the Crosshairs of Stockton Bankruptcy Dispute

Posted: 04 Apr 2013 09:20 AM PDT

A few days ago a federal judge sided with the city of Stockton, validating its bankruptcy. See Judge Rules Stockton CA Bankruptcy is Valid, City Acted in Good Faith.

Bondholders screamed, but the ruling made sense. What did not make sense (except from the point of view of politicians protecting their own undeserved pensions), was that while Stockton defaulted on other payments, it kept funding its CalPERS pension obligations.

Shouldn't government employees who were responsible for this mess share some of the fallout? I think so, and I would suggest before other bondholders or at least equal to other bondholders.

The issue now is whether federal bankruptcy takes precedence over California law.

CalPERS in the Crosshairs

The Huffington Post describes the setup in Stockton Pensions Present Problem In Bankruptcy

At the conclusion of a three-day trial, a judge on Monday formally granted the city Chapter 9 protection, over the objections of creditors who questioned whether it was fair for the city to fully meet its obligations to the state pension system while other debt holders go partly paid.

The issue – whether federal bankruptcy law trumps the California law that requires pension fund debts to be honored – could have huge implications across the state and the rest of the nation, experts say.

"The fear is that there is going to be a run on the bank," said bankruptcy attorney Michael Sweet, who has been monitoring the Stockton trial. "Everyone is going to be cutting CalPERS" payments if Stockton is allowed to do it.

Last year, the Congressional Joint Economic Committee reported that unfunded pension obligations across the nation amount to more than $2.8 trillion and may be as high as $4.4 trillion. Illinois lacks funds for nearly 72 percent of the pensions it guarantees, while California and Texas are short by more than half. North Carolina's debt is lowest but is still more than a third short of what its system has promised to pay out.

Either the judge will decide that CalPERS obligations must be cut and the state will appeal, or he will say state law forbids CalPERS from negotiating and the creditors likely will appeal.

Throw CalPERS in the Pot

In spite of this huge runup in stocks and bonds, pension funds are still underfunded by a minimum of $2.8 trillion. If these undeserved pensions have priority, taxpayers will be on the hook for them.

For the sake of the average taxpayer, let's hope CalPERS is thrown in the mix and benefits are not just cut, but massively slashed, and those who have the highest benefits cut the most.

Stockton argues it needs high benefits to maintain its workforce. That is like saying you need cancer to save your breasts.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Damn Cool Pics

Incredible Lava Kayaking [Video]
WonderCon 2013 In Pictures
Car Models Back Then and Today
Amazing Mass Effect Female Shepard Cosplay
The Evolution of Yoga [Infographic]

Incredible Lava Kayaking [Video]

Posted: 04 Apr 2013 04:10 PM PDT

Just because kayakers don't leap from high places doesn't mean their sport can't be pushed to extremes, as Brazilian TV stars of the show "Kaiak" aptly proved in Hawaii.

Pedro Oliva, Chris Korbulic and Ben Stookesberry couldn't resist the temptation of cruising by some of the world's newest dry land and plenty that was still in the oven.

"The goal of our expedition was to find rivers and waterfalls in Hawaii and the possibility of finding a river of lava was so enticing," Oliva, who is from Brazil, said in the video. "The feeling of arriving [at Kilauea] in the very first light of the day and seeing the lava flowing into the ocean was really unforgettable."

WonderCon 2013 In Pictures

Posted: 04 Apr 2013 11:27 AM PDT

Cosplayers have gathered in Convention Center Anaheim, California for WonderCon 2013. WonderCon is a great alternative to the intense insanity that is Comic-Con San Diego. It is big enough to attract a variety of celebs and artists. See images of your favorite comic book, anime, and video game heroines.

Via Mooshuu, Pat Loika

Car Models Back Then and Today

Posted: 04 Apr 2013 09:29 AM PDT

See how some cars have changed from their first generation of production to the most recent versions now.

Amazing Mass Effect Female Shepard Cosplay

Posted: 04 Apr 2013 06:42 AM PDT

Beautiful Mass Effect N7 'Fem Shepard' cosplay by Angela Bermudez.

Via angelabermudez.deviantart

The Evolution of Yoga [Infographic]

Posted: 04 Apr 2013 06:22 AM PDT

Curious about how the practice we now refer to as "hata yoga" came about? In fact, the history of yoga as a spiritual practice stems back more than 15,000 years!

Click on Image to Enlarge.

Via: Ishausa

vineri, 5 aprilie 2013

Building a Cleaner and More Secure Energy Future

Photo of the Day: Planting In the Garden

Evolution of the Local Algorithm - Whiteboard Friday

Evolution of the Local Algorithm - Whiteboard Friday

Video Transcription

Seth's Blog : Neophilia as a form of hiding

Neophilia as a form of hiding

More Recent Articles

joi, 4 aprilie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

vineri, 5 aprilie 2013

Video Transcription

More Recent Articles

joi, 4 aprilie 2013

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

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