Seven More Sins, Thanks to Vatican

clipped from thelede.blogs.nytimes.com Lust, gluttony, greed and the rest of the seven deadly sins gathered in the 6th century will have to get used to a modern companion. A Vatican official has articulated seven new categories of sin “due to the phenomenon of globalization.” “While sin used to concern mostly the individual, today it has mainly a social resonance,” Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti told L’Osservatore Romano, Vatican City’s local paper. Bloomberg News parsed his remarks into a clip-n-savable list: 1. “Bioethical” violations such as birth control 2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research 3. Drug abuse 4. Polluting the environment 5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor 6. Excessive wealth 7. Creating poverty The seven deadly sins served another purpose, too: inspiring artists from Bosch to Balanchine. Can anyone picture a similar renaissance fueled by this new list. Or has it already happened?

Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring

clipped from www.nytimes.com Eliot Spitzer has informed his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, an administration official said this morning. Mr. Spitzer, a first-term Democrat who pledged to bring ethics reform and end the often seamy ways of Albany, is married with three children. Just last week, federal prosecutors arrested four people in connection with an expensive prostitution operation. Administration officials would not say that this was the ring with which the governor had become involved. “”This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure,” Mr. Spitzer said at the time. ”It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring.”

More Money Flowing into Iraq

U.S. economy could fall casualty to wars.

clipped from www.cnn.com The flow of blood may be ebbing, but the flood of money into the Iraq war is steadily rising, new analyses show. In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the "burn" rate of its earliest years Beyond 2008, working with "best-case" and "realistic-moderate" scenarios, they project the Iraq and Afghan wars, including long-term U.S. military occupations of those countries, will cost the U.S. budget between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion -- or more -- by 2017. Interest on money borrowed to pay those costs could alone add $816 billion to that bottom line, they say. A boy rests at an Iraqi refugee camp in June. Economists say it's hard to calculate the social costs of war. That total far surpasses the $670 billion in 2007 dollars the Congressional Research Service says was the U.S. price tag for the 12-year Vietnam War.

Lawyers

clipped from brainden.com

Influential Democrats Waiting to Choose Sides

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's trio of victories over Sen. Barack Obama last week appears to have convinced a sizable number of uncommitted Democratic superdelegates to wait until the end of the primaries and caucuses before picking a candidate, according to a survey by The Washington Post. Many of the 80 uncommitted superdelegates who were contacted over the past several days said they are reluctant to override the clear will of voters At the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August, there will be 796 superdelegates "You're going to see a lot of delegates remaining uncommitted," said Rep. Mike Doyle (Pa.), who has not endorsed either candidate. "There's a sense that this is going to Denver not resolved." clipped from www.washingtonpost.com So far Clinton, with 242 superdelegates, has had more success soliciting their support than Obama, who has the backing of 210. clipped from www.washingtonpost.com "If superdelegates were just intended to automatically vote for the preference someone else expressed, there wouldn't be any purpose,"

Where is Iraq's oil money going?

clipped from www.cnn.com Two senators are asking congressional investigators to look at Iraq's oil revenues and see if the war-ravaged nation can pay for its own reconstruction, an effort that has been bankrolled to this point mostly by U.S. taxpayers. Government Accountability Office that Iraq has "tremendous resources" in banks worldwide but is doing little to improve security and reconstruction efforts. We believe that it has been overwhelmingly U.S. taxpayer money that has funded Iraq reconstruction over the last five years, despite Iraq earning billions of dollars in oil revenue Using numbers from the U.S. State Department and Iraqi Oil Ministry, the senators said Iraq hopes to produce 2.2 million barrels of oil a day this year. Weekly averages suggest that the number has climbed as high as 2.51 million barrels a day. That kind of oil production could earn Iraq a projected $56.4 billion this year we believe that Iraq will accrue at least $100.0 billion in oil revenues in 2007 and 2008

Photovoltaics

clipped from www1.eere.energy.gov The U.S. Department of Energy works to provide clean, reliable, affordable solar electricity for the nation through its research programs in photovoltaic (PV) energy systems. The following pages explain the "how's" and "why's" of PV. Whether you are a student, builder, consumer, engineer, or researcher, there is something here for you. Our goal is to ensure that photovoltaic energy systems make an important contribution to the energy needs of our nation and the world. In these pages, you will learn about DOE's R&D in photovoltaic energy systems, and much more. You will also find out— How PV works Why PV is important How and why PV is used How DOE is supporting research of solar energy How you, the consumer, can use PV and other solar energy technologies How builders can incorporate solar into their building plans How students, educators, and trainers can learn more about PV