Summit On Entrepreneurship

President Obama, together with the Department of State and the Department of Commerce, will host the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., on April 26 and 27. Participants from over 40 countries on 5 continents have been invited to participate. The Summit will highlight the role entrepreneurship can play in addressing common challenges while building partnerships that will lead to greater opportunity abroad and at home.

At his June 4, 2009, speech in Cairo, President Obama announced that the U.S. Government would host a Summit on Entrepreneurship to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations, and entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. It is great to be here at OPOWER. And just looking around, this looks like a fun place to work. (Laughter.) The work you do here, as we just heard, is making homes more energy efficient, it’s saving people money, it’s generating jobs and it’s putting America on the path to a clean energy future. And I understand last year that you doubled your workforce thanks to Bonnie — (applause) — you’re hoping to hire another hundred workers this year. And so this is a model of what we want to be seeing all across the country. Our goal for the economy is to show similar job growth in the months ahead.

This morning we learned that in February our economy lost an additional 36,000 jobs. Now, this is actually better than expected, considering the severe storms all along the East Coast are estimated to have had a depressing effect on the numbers. And it shows that the measures that we’re taking to turn our economy around are having some impact. But even though it’s better than expected, it’s more than we should tolerate.

Far too many Americans remain out of work. Far too many families are still struggling in these difficult economic times. And that’s why I’m not going to rest, and my administration is not going to rest, in our efforts to help people who are looking to find a job; to help business owners who want to expand feel comfortable hiring again. And we’re not going to rest until our economy is working again for the middle class, and for all Americans.

And that’s why my immediate priority is not only providing relief to people who are out of work, but also to help the private sector create jobs and put America back to work. Earlier this week, after breaking through a political logjam that some of you probably saw if you were watching TV, Congress passed and I signed into law a bill that extends unemployment insurance to help people who’ve been laid off get through these hard times. It also extended COBRA so that folks who’ve lost their jobs don’t lose their health insurance, and it extended financing for small businesses, and makes it possible for 2,000 furloughed transportation workers to go back to work.

So signing this bill and getting relief out the door swiftly is absolutely essential. But it’s only a temporary step. The relief I signed into law will last about a month. And that’s why I’m calling [on] Congress to extend this relief through the end of the year. And because the best form of economic relief is a quality job, I’m also calling on Congress to pass jobs measures that cut taxes, increase lending, incentivize expansion for businesses both large and small.

Now, both the House and the Senate have passed a bill that would give businesses a payroll tax refund for every person hired this year. And for companies that are considering expanding, this credit could help them decide to bring an extra employee or two this year. So for companies like OPOWER that are doing pretty well and already expanding, the tax credit may help them decide to hire even more workers more quickly. So instead of a hundred, maybe we get 110, 115. We’ll see. (Applause.)

This bill would also encourage small companies to expand by permitting them to write off expenses for new equipment. And while it’s by no means enough, this legislation is an important step on the road to recovery, and I look forward to signing it into law.

Now, even as we fight to help the private sector create more jobs, and even as we fight to bring about a full economic recovery, we know that there have been success stories all across America. OPOWER is one of those success stories. This is a company that works with utilities to help folks understand their energy costs and how they can save money on their energy bills. And for the press, if you weren’t able to hear, this board testifies to the number of kilowatt hours that have been saved, the amount of money that’s gone back into consumers’ pockets, and the amount of carbon that has been taken out of the atmosphere as a consequence of the great work that these people at OPOWER are doing.

Now, part of the reason I suspect you’re growing is that you’re doing your jobs well. But I also know that a big part of the reason is that you’re seizing the opportunities of the future. The jobs of tomorrow will be jobs in the clean energy sector, and this company is a great emblem for that. That’s why my administration is taking steps to support a thriving clean energy industry across this country — an industry that’s making solar panels, and building wind turbines, producing cutting-edge batteries for fuel-efficient cars and trucks, and helping consumers get more control over their energy bills.

And that’s also why earlier this week I urged Congress to enact a new initiative we’re calling Homestar that would offer homeowners rebates for making their homes more energy-efficient — rebates worth up to $1,500 for individual home upgrades and up to $3,000 for retrofitting their entire home. So if they’re getting this good information from OPOWER and they see that, boy, that drafty window is costing me a couple of hundred bucks a year, they’re now going to have an incentive to go to Home Depots or go to Lowes to hire a certified contractor and make the changes that will ultimately pay for themselves, improve our environment, and improve our economy.

I want to thank, by the way, your home state senator, Mark Warner, for his great work on Homestar in the Senate.

Think about the way that the rebates we’re talking about could help spur private sector job growth. It could not only help businesses like OPOWER to help consumers make their homes more energy efficient, it’s also going to create business for the local contractors and the companies hired to upgrade homes. These companies then, in turn, have to purchase supplies and that creates business for retailers. These retailers would need to restock their shelves, and that creates business for manufacturers. And almost all the goods that are required to make homes more energy efficient are actually produced right here in the United States of America. It’s very hard to ship an energy-efficient window across an ocean.

So, yes, people who are out of work right now need some immediate relief. Yes, we need to extend unemployment insurance and COBRA to help Americans weather these tough times. And, yes, we’ve got to do everything we can to help the private sector create jobs right now.

But even as we do, we also need to replicate the success of clean energy companies like OPOWER. We need to invest in the jobs of the future and in the industries of the future, because the country that leads in clean energy and energy efficiency today, I’m absolutely convinced, is going to lead the global economy tomorrow. I want that country to be the United States of America. I want companies like OPOWER to be expanding and thriving all across America. It’s good for consumers. It’s good for our economy. It’s good for our environment.

It’s wonderfully exciting to be here. And I think when you look at this group that’s gathered here, you can see the future in this company. So thanks for the great work you guys are doing. Let’s see if we can replicate your success all across the country.

Thank you very much, everybody. (Applause.)

by Stephen Michael Apatow

I would like to extend a special thanks EducationNews.org [1] for facilitating international peer reviewed discussion of subject matter associated with the global economic crisis.

As noted in the paper “Financial Market Legitimacy Critical for Sustainable Global Recovery” [2], containment of the damage caused by regulatory failures facilitated by the Glass-Steagall repeal and deregulation of OTC derivatives, is critical.

Today the article “The Coming Pan-European Sovereign Debt Crisis: What Country Is Next?” [3] has focused international attention on non-performing assets (NPA) [4] and their relation to Denmark, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy and Sweden. We are currently seeking a NPA statistical analysis for all 192 United Nations member countries and would like to focus your attention to the paper “The Global Financial Crisis: Analysis and Policy Implications” [5] published by the Congressional Research Service in the United States.

In the article “NASAA President Tells Crisis Investigators To Take Three Steps,” [6] Denise Voigt Crawford, Texas Securities Commissioner and president of the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), told the federal investigative panel in her testimony that three actions should occur to prevent further potential crisis:

(1) Restore provisions of Glass-Steagall, (2) reinstate state oversight of Rule 506, and (3) boost state regulation of advisors.

Retroactive implementation (to 1999) of commercial banking regulatory standards, for all combined commercial/investment banking and insurance entities (including capitol requirements), are vital for containment of the unregulated OTC derivatives distortions that caused the global economic collapse. In conjunction with these emergency economic response actions, efforts to conduct unmet needs analysis on the grassroots level in the United States [7], would be constructive to duplicate in every UN country. [8]

In the hope of progress,

Stephen Michael Apatow
Founder, Director of Research and Development
Humanitarian Resource Institute
Phone: (203) 668-0282
Url: www.humanitarian.net
Email: s.m.apatow@humanitarian.net

Meeting Tomorrow’s Challenges

U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey — In a fiscally responsible budget that emphasizes cost containment, management efficiencies and program savings, the President’s proposed $1.1 billion budget for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in fiscal year 2011 reflects his commitment to use science as the basis for natural resource management decisions.

“Science is a cornerstone for sound decision making,” said Marcia McNutt, USGS director. “Today’s complex, interrelated natural resource issues—such as climate change, energy conservation and development, and water quality and availability—demand that policy makers and managers start with timely, unbiased science. The President’s budget supports that vital perspective.”

Because of the significant role USGS plays in climate change monitoring and adaptation, energy, ecosystems, and other priorities, the 2011 budget represents an increase of $21.6 million from the FY 2010 enacted level. Major USGS program increases proposed are summarized below. For more detailed information on the President’s proposed USGS FY 2011 budget, visit the FY 2011 Budget and Related Information Web site.

New Energy Frontier
$3.0 million

The USGS will work closely with Department of the Interior bureaus to provide the scientific information needed to make decisions concerning permitting, implementing, and operating wind facilities on public lands by using USGS research, modeling, and monitoring to assess the ecological impacts to fish and wildlife. In 2011, USGS efforts will begin in the Great Plains and offshore Cape Cod region and will work toward developing an assessment methodology that can be applied nationwide.

Climate Change Adaptation
$11.0 million

Management and policy decisions made in response to climate change impacts must be informed by science. The USGS will continue to assist the Department of the Interior in the development of regional climate science centers that provide climate change impact data and analysis geared to the needs of the fish and wildlife management community, in partnership with other Federal, State, university and other non-governmental partners. Additionally, the USGS will continue to assess biological carbon sequestration options and develop decision-support tools through the USGS Global Change program.

WaterSMART
$9.0 million

Water shortages and water-use conflicts have become more commonplace in many areas of the United States. Water is essential to the economic security of individual communities and the economic vitality and environmental health of our nation as a whole. The USGS will begin an assessment of the availability and use of water resources in the United States in FY 2011. The information will provide tools to address a new set of water resource challenges, including aging infrastructure, rapid population growth, depletion of groundwater resources, water quality impairments associated with land uses, and climate variability.

Treasured Landscapes: The Chesapeake Bay
$3.6 million

President Obama issued an Executive Order in May 2009 directing Federal agencies to use their expertise and resources to protect and restore the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. The USGS will support restoration strategies by providing tools and science for assessing climate change impacts and adaptation, for conserving landscapes, and for restoring habitats, fish and wildlife, in partnership with the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service.

Increasing Resilience to Natural Hazards
$4.0 million

The USGS Multi-Hazards Demonstration Project in Southern California will continue to support emergency planning by developing earthquake early warning capabilities and conducting impact analysis of environmental, human-health and ecosystem responses to earthquakes and other hazards. This project will be expanded into the coastal communities of Alaska, and the USGS will invest in earthquake, tsunami and volcano science to support community planning in the Pacific Northwest. Additionally, the USGS proposes to add a volcanic earthquake detection role to the USGS National Earthquake Information Center, which will provide critical early warning to give observatories and affected communities time to plan and prepare for an eruption.

Landsat Data Continuity
$13.4 million

Scientists, educators and the general public around the globe use USGS Landsat data for a wide array of activities ranging from supporting disaster relief efforts to making agricultural crop assessments to identifying sites for cell phone towers. The USGS will accommodate ground-system requirement changes for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission associated with moving the Operational Land Imager to a free-flying satellite and the addition of a Thermal Infrared Sensor on board the spacecraft. These activities are required to meet the mission launch in December 2012.

Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning
$4.0 million

The Department of the Interior has substantial coastal and ocean resource management responsibilities and a critical role in implementing the Administration’s National Ocean Policy. USGS mapping, monitoring and research provide information to assess the status and vulnerability of ocean, coastal and Great Lakes resources. The USGS will engage with other Department of the Interior bureaus and Federal agencies to make available an information framework that provides critical information for coastal and marine planning.

Statement by Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Christina Romer on the Advance Estimate of GDP for the Fourth Quarter of 2009

The latest GDP report is the most positive news to date on the economy. The data show that the total output of the U.S. economy increased strongly in the fourth quarter of 2009. Real GDP (that is, GDP adjusted for inflation) increased at an annual rate of 5.7 percent. The change from the first quarter of 2009, when GDP fell at an annual rate of 6.4 percent, is truly extraordinary; indeed, the three-quarter swing in growth rates was the largest since 1981.

While positive GDP growth is a necessary first step for job growth, our focus must remain on getting Americans back to work. That GDP rose strongly in the fourth quarter of last year while employment fell and the workweek increased only slightly emphasizes the need for policy actions designed to help spur private sector job creation. The President is announcing today the specifics of his plan for a small business jobs and wages tax cut. This policy is designed to encourage businesses to respond to rising demand and output by taking the plunge and hiring new workers again.

Part of the rapid growth in real GDP was due to a substantial rise in inventory investment. This inventory bounce, though likely to be transitory, is a normal part of healthy recoveries. As firms’ confidence in the future increases, their desire to run down inventories wanes. This change in behavior is often a powerful force for growth early in a recovery. Other components of GDP also rose strongly: business investment in equipment and software rose at an annual rate of 13 percent and residential investment rose at a 6 percent rate. And consumer spending rose at a rate of 2 percent. This broad-based rise in GDP was surely fueled in part by the tax cuts and investment spending in the Recovery Act and other rescue actions, but some appears to be the result of private sector demand returning.

As always, it is important not to read too much into a single report, positive or negative. There will surely be bumps in the road ahead, and we will need to continue to take responsible actions to ensure that the recovery is as smooth and robust as possible. Nonetheless, today’s report is a welcome piece of encouraging news.

Department Of Energy, Washington, D.C. — The result from a years-long effort at DOE’s Jefferson Lab (known as the G-Zero experiment) to measure strange matter in the proton has revealed that strange matter doesn’t magnetize the proton or distort its charge distribution all that much. The effect is surprising small, since many of the early theoretical calculations suggested the possibility of larger values.

The proton’s main building blocks are up and down quarks, which are bound together by the strong force. The strong force energy inside protons also gives rise to a “sea” of quark pairs that bubble up out of the strong force energy and almost immediately melt away again. Pairs of up quarks and pairs of down quarks are the most likely to appear briefly in this sea. The next-heaviest quarks, strange quarks, are also thought to be present.

G-Zero scientists set out to measure what effect the temporary strange quarks had on the proton’s structure. The experiment successfully measured the influence that strange quarks exert on the electric and magnetic fields—seen as the distribution of charge and magnetization inside the proton. Experimenters found that the strange quark influence was small—amounting to less than 10% of the proton’s charge distribution and magnetization.

Dave Dearborn’s mission is to keep us safe from incoming asteroids.

Dearborn, a physicist in DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, serves on a research panel, spearheaded by the National Academy of Sciences, tasked with evaluating methods to divert potentially hazardous objects—those that could hit Earth in the next 100 years.

“An object of this size would have approximately 1 billion tons of mass,” says Dearborn, of LLNL’s’s Science and Technology Principal Directorate. “If it traveled at 30 kilometers per second, it would have explosive power equivalent to 100 billion tons of TNT.” In the event a 1-kilometer-size asteroid impacted Earth, the energy released would have global-scale effects.

The panel is considering several diversion technologies, but for Dearborn, nuclear explosives provide the best solution for dealing with catastrophic asteroids.

Dearborn has extensive experience in designing and testing nuclear and conventional explosives and leads the effort to model the impact of a nuclear explosion on an object’s trajectory in space.

NASA is evaluating impactor technology as a possible solution to diverting asteroids. These devices are designed to collide with the asteroid and change its momentum.

“Tests during NASA’s Deep Impact mission showed that impactors can divert smaller bodies, such as asteroids up to approximately 300 meters in size,” says Dearborn.

Another diversion method is the gravity tractor. In this deflection scheme, the gravitational attraction between the asteroid and a spacecraft allows the spacecraft to move the asteroid off course over time, a process that could take years or even decades.

According to Dearborn, this method may be advantageous for only about 5 percent of asteroids and would require major advances in technology before a spacecraft could carry out the mission successfully. Lasers have also been proposed, but even the most powerful lasers in existence would have to function over thousands of years to have any effect.

Methods that rely on elaborate launching stations or that add components to spacecraft could require putting an extra 20 tons of material into deep space. Conversely, nuclear explosives, with their high energy-to-weight ratio, would need comparatively less material to do the same job.

Not everyone shares Dearborn’s enthusiasm and confidence in using nuclear explosives to deflect asteroids. Yet, in the face of skepticism, Dearborn remains resolute. “Part of my job is to respond to criticism and to dispel myths related to the use of nuclear explosives,” he says.

Ultimately, Congress, the National Science Foundation, and NASA will use the information to determine the most effective strategy for deflecting asteroids.

Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities announced the finding of a 2000-year-old temple that is believed to for the Egyptian cat goddess, Bastet.

Egyptian Cat Goddess, Bastet

The photo was released by Egypt’s supreme council of antiquities showing the ancient cat-goddess Bastet found amongst the temple’s ruins in the Kom el-Dekkah area of the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria. Archaeologists have unearthed a Ptolemic temple dating back more than 2,000 years.

The oldest known Hebrew writing has been discovered on a piece of potery. The piece dates from the period of King David’s reign, the 10th century B.C. It reads:
1′ you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2′ Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3′ [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4′ the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5′ Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.

Gershon Galil, a professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa in Israel, deciphered the text. Galil said,
“It indicates that the Kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century BCE and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research. It uses verbs that were characteristic of Hebrew, such as asah (‘did’) and avad (‘worked’), which were rarely used in other regional languages. Particular words that appear in the text, such as almanah (‘widow’) are specific to Hebrew and are written differently in other local languages.”

The text is about four centuries older than any previous writing associated with the Bible.

by UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE

As our nation celebrates the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, it is important to remember the breadth and depth of his message and vision. In the era of the first Black President, it would be easy to say King’s dream has been fulfilled and now it is time to move on to new challenges. But this is a misreading of current events and his words.
In his 1967 Riverside Church speech, Beyond Vietnam: Time to Break Silence, Dr. King talked about three major demons; racism, materialism and militarism.[1] Today these triplets continue to haunt us. In fact they have become more entrenched. In the speech, King spoke of youth challenging his disapproval of their use of violence when the U.S. was “…using massive doses of violence…”[2] in Vietnam. He called our government, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” This continues to be true as our nation is conducting global military operations and occupying two countries with eyes on one or two others. The U.S. is the largest weapons exporter in the world and has the largest military budget, nearly outpacing all other nations combined.

Racism continues to distort the promise of America as people of color have the highest unemployment rates and are blocked from access to resources and opportunity. Speculation and greed caused by rampant materialism has ravaged our economy, devastating the lives of millions, hitting working class and poor people especially hard. The economic and social currents created by the triplets flow together and work hand in hand to divert resources to war for profit’s sake and empire building rather than investing in healthcare, education, jobs, housing and other human needs that would uplift the poor and help change the insidious legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Perhaps Dr. King’s most prophetic words come from this speech when he warned, “The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation.”[3]

We find ourselves today as the clergy and laypersons organizing in our generation. As we remember Dr. King we must applaud how far we have come. We must also reflect on how far we have yet to go, and challenge others to see Dr. King’s full vision of a just and peaceful world. He called for a true revolution of values that will cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies and see that using war to settle our differences is not just. He called on America to lead this revolution of values.

“There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.”[4]

Dr. King wisely saw then what is still true today, that the world’s only hope “…lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.”[5]

This is how we ensure international security. This is how we stop nuclear proliferation and reverse global warming.

This January 18th remember Dr. King by proclaiming his full message. Do not stand by while it is watered down to make us all feel good. Celebrate the journey we have taken, but remind everyone how far we have to go. Will our nation take up the challenge? As Dr. King said, “The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.”[6]

April 4, 1967 Riverside Church speech: Beyond Vietnam  

[1] I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. When machines and computers, profit and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

[2] My third reason grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last three years – especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through non-violent action. But, they asked, what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government.

[3] There is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter that struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy, and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. We will be marching and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

[4] America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from re-ordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

[5] These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wombs of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to ad just to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.

[6] Now let us begin. Now let us re-dedicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

———-

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UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
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