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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (605251)	3/26/2011 12:09:11 PM
From: bentway	1 Recommendation Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1583391

Obama Clears Out The Bushes And Restores America’s Global Popularity March 25, 2011 politicususa.com By Jason Easley Barack Obama ran for president in 2008 based in part on the promise that he would restore America’s standing in the world, and a new Gallup poll released today shows that he has done just that. Respondents in 100 countries were surveying and the United States was the most popular world power at 47%. This is a roughly 14% increase in America’s global standing since the Bush administration. Gallup found that Obama has managed to turn the US from the power that trailed Japan, Germany, France, Russia, and even China from 2007-2008 into the most popular of the world’s global powers. US leadership is now approved of by 47% of the world and only 25% disapprove. Germany is second with a 40%/17% approval to disapproval ratio. France was third with a 39% approval rating followed by Japan (37%), the UK (35%), China (31%), and Russia (27%). The poll also found that by nearly a 4 to 1 margin, the US is the most popular migration destination. Canada and the UK were tied for second at 7%. I can already hear conservatives snickering and saying, “Of course Obama made us popular around the world, he is always apologizing,” and then throwing in some variant of their belief that real leaders like tyrants must be despised. However as Gallup pointed out a recent study has shown a potential real world impact that global popularity can have on terrorism, “Princeton economist Alan Krueger’s recent analysis in Science magazine of 19 countries in the Middle East and North Africa suggests there is a statistical link between global leadership approval ratings and terrorist attacks. The findings should not be misconstrued to mean that lower approval ratings equal more terrorist attacks. The main takeaway is that the “…results are inconsistent with one hypothesis: that public opinion is irrelevant for terrorism because terrorists are extremists who act independently of their countrymen’s attitudes toward the leadership of the countries that they attack.” The hypothesis presented above is one most frequently relied on conservatives. America should go it alone because the terrorists hate our freedoms and are going to attack us no matter what we do. What conservatives ignore when they discount the value of global popularity is the role that it plays in winning the hearts of potential extremists. If the US can create an environment where people grow up and live with a favorable impression of America, then this can be used to negate the message of extremists before it has a chance to take root. It is also much easier to build an international coalition when your leader doesn’t spend his free time pissing off the rest of the world. Even though Republicans like Sarah Palin love to paint Obama as a globally reviled international failure, the opposite looks to be true. Obama and his administration’s policies have rebuilt America’s image aboard. The rest of the world is beginning to trust America to lead again. In the eyes of the world the image of America as a cowboy nation with no respect for the concept of freedom and the very values that is was founded on is slipping by the wayside. Obama has rebuilt our nation’s global standing, and helped to potentially increase our future security. To borrow a phrase from George W. Bush, “Mission Accomplished.” Heck of job, President Obama.

To: i-node who wrote (605251)	3/27/2011 3:43:37 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1583391

This the way the US needs to be thinking before we experience a catastrophe on the scale of Japan's. Powering Down for the Long Term By CHESTER DAWSON TOKYO—As Japan slowly comes to grips with the devastation created by its earthquake and tsunami and ensuing nuclear crisis, a debate is emerging in business and political circles about how to do more with less electricity—or just do less. After years of debate, Japanese policy makers have finally begun seriously to consider for the first time in six decades instituting daylight-saving time this summer, which would reduce energy demand in the early mornings and evenings. Japanese companies also are weighing reducing hours worked—and wages paid—at offices and factories. As a result, Tokyo households could face higher utility bills and blackouts during the hottest summer months, when air conditioners usually are cranked up to maximum power. The sudden push to save electricity comes as several power plants that served the Tokyo area were temporarily or permanently knocked out of service by the March 11 quake, including the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant that has been leaking radiation. Prime Minister Naoto Kan's government has set up a special task force of cabinet-level officials charged with coming up with a set of policy prescriptions and recommendations. As part of that initiative, government ministries are reaching out to industry groups to coordinate their efforts. "Everything is being examined from a zero basis, without any favor or prejudice," said Noriyuki Shikata, a spokesman for the cabinet. "As one of the world's most energy-efficient countries, our margin for additional conservation is rather limited, but we don't have any choice." In response to calls for conserving electricity, many businesses in Tokyo already are operating with dimmed lights, prompting some to post "open for business" signs on front entrances. The Tokyo metropolitan government turned off about half the city's street lights and many elevators in public facilities in the aftermath of the quake. Train service has been suspended on several routes because of the power shortage. Even the wattage of ubiquitous vending machines on nearly every street corner has been turned down. But those efforts may not be nearly enough as the heat and humidity of summer approache, threatening to paralyze Japan's capitol city. Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, hopes to end its rolling blackouts by late April as it races to bring mothballed or underutilized generators—mostly powered by fossil fuels—back on line. Even so, it estimates that the gap between supply and demand during the peak summer months will balloon to one million kilowatts, or about 20% of total usage. Despite relatively high prices for electricity by global standards, Japan has grown accustomed to ample supplies over the past two decades. Even as the population remained virtually unchanged between 1990 and 2009, electricity usage surged almost 35% over the period, according to data from the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan. The sudden shortage of electricity in and around Tokyo could trigger a supply-side shock to Japan's economy the likes of which it hasn't experienced since oil prices spiked in the 1970s. BNP Paribas cites the electricity "bottleneck" and supply-chain disruptions in its forecast for negative growth for the next two quarters, which it expects to act as a drag on overall growth and to induce a 0.9% contraction in gross domestic product in fiscal 2011. Businesses in areas covered by the two hardest-hit utilities, Tepco and Tohoku Electric Power Co., account for half Japan's total economic output and 45% of its manufacturing. Nomura Securities says the shortfall in electricity mid-summer and mid-winter could wipe out about 1.4 trillion yen ($17.19 billion) in pretax profits, or an average of about 5% at Japan's 400 biggest companies. In an editorial Sunday, the Nihon Keizai, Japan's largest business daily, called on Japan's two main industry associations to take the lead in organizing "rotating holidays" to reduce demand everywhere from gritty factory floors to fancy department stores. Due to a 100-year-old historical quirk, the power shortages Tokyo faces can't be remedied by sending more voltage from western Japan, which was largely unaffected by the quake. While Tokyo uses 50-hertz electricity, its western rival Osaka uses 60-hertz power—a discrepancy stemming from Japan's crash industrialization program in the 1890s when Tokyo chose German-made generators and Osaka adopted U.S. generators. The shortfall in eastern Japan is 10 times what substations are capable of converting from east to west, according to BNP Paribas. That has spurred Japanese leaders to consider taking drastic measures. Few executives have broached the topic of shorter working hours openly, but a top official at a major Japanese manufacturer who declined to be named said reduced work shifts are likely in order to cope with the lack of electricity. "Industry will have to change working patterns, and people will just have to get used to the heat," the official said. Neither step would be completely without precedent: before World War II, government officials in Japan worked only until noon during the peak summer months, and under the U.S. occupation period after the World War II, Japan instituted daylight-savings time until 1952. But the issue of daylight savings has been surprisingly contentious in Japan, where some have viewed it as a way to extend the work day or rehash postwar memories. Copyright 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. online.wsj.com