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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (165139)	4/7/2009 2:48:11 PM
From: SiouxPal	Respond to of 361203

Obama's Iraq Visit Brings War Back to the Forefront President Obama's decision to detour from his planned trip home from Turkey today to make a brief stop in Iraq comes amid a series of polls that suggest the conflict has faded as a priority in the minds of most Americans. In a mid-March CNN poll, just six percent named the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as the nation's most pressing priority -- roughly one tenth the percentage of people who chose the economy (63 percent). With that as a backdrop, Obama's decision to stop off in Iraq seems to be aimed at reminding people of the struggles and sacrifices still happening in the region as he prepares to ramp up America's military presence in Afghanistan. Obama is scheduled to meet with General Ray Odierno, commander of forces in Iraq, at Camp Victory as well as personally award medals of honors to a handful of soldiers. The visuals likely to come out of this side trip will be powerful, and the visit is sure to dominate news coverage on a day when most people expected no news from the White House given the logistics of his travel back to the United States. And, coming just one day after the first public viewing of a soldier killed in Iraq (the first time such an event was open to the public since 1990), the trip reminds Americans of the ongoing war and the sacrifices being made by the soldiers serving there. A new CBS News/ New York Times survey released this morning showed that Obama is on solid ground when it comes to Iraq. Nearly six in ten (59 percent) approved of the way he is handling the situation while 24 percent disapproved. The public has also grown increasingly optimistic about the progress being made in the country. Sixty two percent of the CBS/NYT sample said the American efforts to bring "stability and order to Iraq" were going either "very well" (12 percent) or "somewhat well" (50 percent). Twenty three percent said those efforts were going "somewhat badly" while seven percent said they were going "very badly." New CNN polling also shows a large majority of Americans back Obama's plan to have most American troops out of the country by next August. Sixty-nine percent favored that plan while just 30 percent opposed it, according to CNN data released this morning. The increased confidence in Obama and the general direction of the war in Iraq comes amid an ever-decreasing amount of attention being paid to it by average Americans. For an issue that served as (one of the) impetuses for Obama to enter the primary race against Hillary Rodham Clinton way back in 2007, Iraq has largely fallen off the radar -- eclipsed by the massive financial collapse that has dominated Obama's first eleven weeks in office. This side trip -- coming at the conclusion of Obama's eight day foreign trip -- effectively pushes Iraq back into the front of peoples' minds (at least for a day or two) and reasserts he continued need for sacrifice as the country seeks to deal with its continued economic problems. voices.washingtonpost.com

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (165139)	4/7/2009 4:33:52 PM
From: twmoore	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361203

Silicon Investor A single source for worldwide financial data, news and discussion Search BOARDS Get QUOTE Get CHART SubjectsBoard DescriptionsMembersMember ProfilesPublic MsgsMy Private MsgsQuotesChart Advanced Search Home Forums Watchlist Portfolio Quote Charts Forex Commodities News Toplists Financials Logout MDC Hot Mail (4) SubjectMarks PeopleMarks My Account Message Boards \| Market Trends and Strategies : The Financial Collapse of 2001 and Beyond -- Ignore is Off -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Public Reply \| Prvt Reply \| Mark as Last Read \| File \| Keep Previous 10 \| Next 10 \| Previous \| Next To: elmatador who wrote (48307) 4/7/2009 12:59:02 PM From: Haim R. Branisteanu of 48312 Is peak oil history? - Unique Approach For Splitting Water Into Hydrogen And Oxygen The new approach that the Weizmann team has recently devised is divided into a sequence of reactions, which leads to the liberation of hydrogen and oxygen in consecutive thermal- and light-driven steps, mediated by a unique ingredient - a special metal complex that Milstein's team designed in previous studies. by Staff Writers Rehovot, Israel (SPX) Apr 07, 2009 The design of efficient systems for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, driven by sunlight is among the most important challenges facing science today, underpinning the long term potential of hydrogen as a clean, sustainable fuel. But man-made systems that exist today are very inefficient and often require additional use of sacrificial chemical agents. In this context, it is important to establish new mechanisms by which water splitting can take place. Now, a unique approach developed by Prof. David Milstein and colleagues of the Weizmann Institute's Organic Chemistry Department, provides important steps in overcoming this challenge. During this work, the team demonstrated a new mode of bond generation between oxygen atoms and even defined the mechanism by which it takes place. In fact, it is the generation of oxygen gas by the formation of a bond between two oxygen atoms originating from water molecules that proves to be the bottleneck in the water splitting process. Their results have recently been published in Science. Nature, by taking a different path, has evolved a very efficient process: photosynthesis - carried out by plants - the source of all oxygen on Earth. Although there has been significant progress towards the understanding of photosynthesis, just how this system functions remains unclear; vast worldwide efforts have been devoted to the development of artificial photosynthetic systems based on metal complexes that serve as catalysts, with little success. (A catalyst is a substance that is able to increase the rate of a chemical reaction without getting used up.) The new approach that the Weizmann team has recently devised is divided into a sequence of reactions, which leads to the liberation of hydrogen and oxygen in consecutive thermal- and light-driven steps, mediated by a unique ingredient - a special metal complex that Milstein's team designed in previous studies. Moreover, the one that they designed - a metal complex of the element ruthenium - is a 'smart' complex in which the metal center and the organic part attached to it cooperate in the cleavage of the water molecule. The team found that upon mixing this complex with water the bonds between the hydrogen and oxygen atoms break, with one hydrogen atom ending up binding to its organic part, while the remaining hydrogen and oxygen atoms (OH group) bind to its metal center. This modified version of the complex provides the basis for the next stage of the process: the 'heat stage.' When the water solution is heated to 100 degrees C, hydrogen gas is released from the complex - a potential source of clean fuel - and another OH group is added to the metal center. 'But the most interesting part is the third 'light stage,'' says Milstein. 'When we exposed this third complex to light at room temperature, not only was oxygen gas produced, but the metal complex also reverted back to its original state, which could be recycled for use in further reactions.' These results are even more remarkable considering that the generation of a bond between two oxygen atoms promoted by a man-made metal complex is a very rare event, and it has been unclear how it can take place. Yet Milstein and his team have also succeeded in identifying an unprecedented mechanism for such a process. Additional experiments have indicated that during the third stage, light provides the energy required to cause the two OH groups to get together to form hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), which quickly breaks up into oxygen and water. 'Because hydrogen peroxide is considered a relatively unstable molecule, scientists have always disregarded this step, deeming it implausible; but we have shown otherwise,' says Milstein. Moreover, the team has provided evidence showing that the bond between the two oxygen atoms is generated within a single molecule - not between oxygen atoms residing on separate molecules, as commonly believed - and it comes from a single metal center. Discovery of an efficient artificial catalyst for the sunlight-driven splitting of water into oxygen and hydrogen is a major goal of renewable clean energy research. So far, Milstein's team has demonstrated a mechanism for the formation of hydrogen and oxygen from water, without the need for sacrificial chemical agents, through individual steps, using light. For their next study, they plan to combine these stages to create an efficient catalytic system, bringing those in the field of alternative energy an important step closer to realizing this goal. Participating in the research were former postdoctoral student Stephan Kohl, Ph.D. student Leonid Schwartsburd and technician Yehoshoa Ben-David all of the Organic Chemistry Department, together with staff scientists Lev Weiner, Leonid Konstantinovski, Linda Shimon and Mark Iron of the Chemical Research Support Department. Prof. David Milstein's research is supported by the Mary and Tom Beck-Canadian Center for Alternative Energy Research; and the Helen and Martin Kimmel Center for Molecular Design. Prof. Milstein is the incumbent of the Israel Matz Professorial Chair of Organic Chemistry. Report TOU Violation Email This Page Recommend This Post Public Reply \| Prvt Reply \| Mark as Last Read \| File \| Keep Previous 10 \| Next 10 \| Previous \| Next Terms Of Use Contact Us Copyright/IP Policy Privacy Policy About Us FAQ ADVFN Investorshub You are on WEB1. Copyright © 2008 InvestorsHub.com, Inc.. All rights reserved.