Solar Energy Benefits - Top Reasons to Purchase a Solar Power Generator

Have you considered buying a solar power generator? Maybe you don't really see the need for one of these generators. Sure, perhaps you've heard about all about solar energy but you really don't think it is something that applies to you and your home. You'll actually find that a solar power generator can be a great option for you. It is applicable to any person who cools and heats their home, to those who heat water, and those who use electricity. These generators can even be used to heat a swimming pool and more. Just about any home can really benefit by purchasing a quality solar power generator. If you're still not sure that purchasing one of these generators of solar energy is a good idea, here is a look at a few of the top reasons you should make this purchase.

Reason #1 - Save Money

While there are definitely many reasons that you should consider purchasing a solar power generator, one of the main reasons that attracts buyers is that this option can save you a lot of money over time. There will be an investment made in the generator system that you purchase, but you can definitely end up recuperating what you spend in several years. Then you'll be enjoying power that is free and you won't have to worry about a lot of maintenance either. Since few moving parts are used, you don't have to worry about the solar power generator breaking down. This means that you can have a great power source that costs you very little over time.

Reason #2 - Grants are Available

Another reason that you may want to purchase a solar power generator is because there are grants available for the purchase of these types of systems. Grants are funds that you can get without having to pay them back. The federal government and some state governments offer grants to help homeowners pay for a good solar power generator. Check to see if grants are available to you to help you purchase one of these systems for your home.

Reason #3 - Excellent Tax Credits

You will also find that some excellent tax credits are now available to people that purchase their own solar power generator for their home. Some states offer tax credits and the federal government offers some tax credits of income taxes as well. This is done to make it easier for people to purchase these systems and start reducing their dependence on the power sources that are harder on the environment. The tax savings you can get can definitely be substantial, so do some research to find out what tax credits may be available to you if you decide to go this route.

Reason #4 - Add Value to Your Home

Last, a good solar power generator may add value to your home as well. If you want to sell your home in the future, a home that is equipped with solar power can definitely command a higher price on the market. This makes your home very attractive to prospective buyers and you are sure to enjoy a nice hike in home value.

Teas Occasion Scores New Upset in De Republican Senate Race

Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Teas Party-backed Christine O’Donnell defeated a veteran lawmaker for your Republican U.S. Senate nomination in De, an upset analysts says would raise Democratic probabilities of holding the seat and retaining control with the chamber in November.

O’Donnell, a advertising and marketing consultant, became the newest insurgent to overcome opposition from Republican officials to acquire a Senate nomination. Endorsed previous week by previous Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, O’Donnell beat U.S. Consultant Mike Fortress in yesterday’s key, 53 % to 47 %.

The De race was the most closely watched among contests held in seven states along with the District of Columbia. O’Donnell, 41, now will face Chris Coons, 47, a county executive who was unopposed with the Democratic nomination.

When Fortress, 71, was the frontrunner inside key race, Republican leaders viewed De as offering them a prime chance for picking up considered one of the 10 seats they have to have for the Senate vast majority. De Republican Chairman Tom Ross explained in an interview prior to yesterday’s vote that an O’Donnell earn would be a “complete train wreck” for that celebration. Ross also explained she wouldn’t be “a viable candidate to secure any office inside the state.”

Election handicappers, who had been predicting Fortress would likely have gained the Nov. 2 election, mentioned Democrats had been beneficiaries of O’Donnell’s gain.

‘Game Changer’

“This is an instant game changer,” explained Nathan Gonzales in the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. “This is usually a clear situation where a Teas Celebration victory has hurt Republican odds within the basic election.” He says O’Donnell’s acquire “just took De practically off the map at a time when Republicans require each and every Senate seat doable in play” to acquire a Senate vast majority.

The report final evening changed its ranking with the De race to “lean Democrat” from “lean Republican.”

O’Donnell very last evening thanked Teas Occasion activists for their service, and mentioned “we have an army of volunteers who're committed to a result in higher than themselves.” That result in, she says, “is restoring America.”

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She also says, “We the persons will have our voice heard in Washington, D.C., once once more.”

The Nationwide Republican Senatorial Committee aided Fort. Committee spokesman Brian Walsh explained in an interview survive evening it really is thinking about not funding her marketing campaign towards Coons.

“There is usually a restricted quantity of monetary sources and with Republicans on offense in a minimum of 11 Democrat-held states, we might be generating those decisions inside the weeks moving forward,” Walsh mentioned.

‘So-Called Experts’

O’Donnell advised CNN, “I would adore their assistance but they’re the identical so-called specialists who says that I couldn’t gain.” She says “if they’re too lazy to put within the effort that we require to acquire, then so be it, we’re going to acquire devoid of them.”

O’Donnell opposes abortion rights, and her assistance for gun rights gained her the endorsement from the Nationwide Rifle Association.

Coons explained within a statement that the main final results “make 1 factor perfectly clear - the Republican Social gathering is purging itself of reasonable voices and embracing the radical.” He named on Citadel supporters to “embrace my marketing campaign as a approach to continue Delaware’s tradition of electing reasonable, independent voices to your United States Senate.”

Fortress Comment

Citadel, a previous governor who is the longest serving Home member in De history, advised supporters “the voters within the Republican key have spoken and I respect that selection.”

Palin, the Republican 2008 vice presidential candidate, sent a Twitter message stating: “Primary debate is more than; time 4unity is now bc time 4choosing is near.”

Rhodes Cook, publisher of a nonpartisan political newsletter, explained Republicans unhappy with O’Donnell’s earn must contemplate that “the presence of your Teas Social gathering has helped energize” the party’s base. “That bodes well for that Republicans on this fall’s elections since it truly is a demonstration of your enthusiasm gap that we see” in between the two parties, he stated.

O’Donnell has no steady revenue or savings and owns no property, the Wilmington Information Journal described, citing public records. In 2009, she noted earnings of $5,800, the paper mentioned.

She moved to De in 2003 to work for the printing firm and was fired in 2004, in accordance to your paper. The firm alleged she was making use of its assets to operate a side enterprise, the Information Journal documented. O’Donnell sued for gender discrimination and wrongful termination and later dropped the situation, stating she couldn’t afford the legal fees, the paper documented.

Biden Race

O’Donnell was Biden’s Republican Senate challenger in 2008, the election in which he also gained the vice presidency. Biden gained the Senate race, 65 p.c to 35 p.c, and shortly after resigned the seat. In 2006, O’Donnell finished survive in a very three- way Republican Senate key. Democrat Tom Carper gained a second expression in that year’s standard election.

O’Donnell gained ground on Fortress on this year’s marketing campaign by criticizing his willingness to assist Democratic initiatives in Congress.

Citadel, who very first gained his Home seat in 1992, supported the 2008 federal bailout for Wall Street, supported legislation that extended hate-crime protections to gays and was among only eight Property Republicans who very last year voted for your Democrats’ cap-and-trade strategy created to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. That measure stalled inside Senate.

O’Donnell’s earn follows the victory survive month by Joe Miller, yet another Republican supported by Palin and Teas Social gathering activists who promote restricted government spending, more than incumbent Lisa Murkowski in Alaska’s Senate major.

Earlier, Teas Party-supported challengers upended candidates endorsed by Republican officeholders in primaries in Kentucky and Nevada. And in Utah, social gathering activists denied renomination for any fourth expression to Senator Bob Bennett.

Other Primaries

In other benefits yesterday, Consultant Charles Rangel defeated state Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV and 4 other candidates in New York’s Democratic key. The challengers ended up hoping voters would deny Rangel a operate to get a 21st time period since he faces a Residence committee hearing on charges of improper fundraising and other alleged ethical lapses.

Also in New York, developer and Teas Get together supporter Carl Paladino defeated previous Republican Rick Lazio to the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Paladino will face Lawyer Common Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat in November.

Maryland Matchup

In Maryland, though, Teas Party-backed Brian Murphy was defeated by Bob Ehrlich while in the Republican gubernatorial key. Ehrlich will operate in opposition to Democratic incumbent Martin O’Malley, who unseated him 4 years ago.

In New Hampshire, two Republicans have been within a close race for that nomination to succeed Senator Judd Gregg, also a Republican. Previous state Legal professional Common Kelly Ayotte, who was endorsed by Palin, was slightly ahead of Teas Party-backed Ovide Lamontagne with much more than 80 % in the vote counted, in accordance to your AP.

Rhode Island Democrats nominated David Cicilline, the openly gay mayor of Providence, to succeed retiring Consultant Patrick Kennedy, also a Democrat.

--Editors: Don Frederick, Robin Meszoly

To contact the reporters on this story: Brian Faler in Washington at bfaler@bloomberg.internet; Catherine Dodge in Washington at cdodge1@bloomberg.web

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva@bloomberg.net

GetAFreelancer Hits 1 Million Users, Switches Name To Freelancer.com

GetAFreelancer Hits 1 Million Users, Switches Name To Freelancer.com

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by Robin Wauters on October 7, 2009

If the Internet has made one thing crystal clear, it’s that physical borders and geographical distance are no longer necessarily an absolute barrier for conducting business.

More and more companies are getting accustomed to the idea of being able to do business with companies on the other side of the world using nothing but digital communication means, or to have entire business units or projects led by teams made up of people located all over the globe.

Hence the popularity of services such as oDesk and Elance, websites where you can outsource given projects to registered programmers, designers, writers, legal experts and whatnot. Another player in this market is GetAFreelancer, an Australian company that’s been offering freelance jobs online since it was founded back in 2004.

Today, the company is announcing that it has changed its name to the far better-sounding and undoubtedly more memorable Freelancer.com. They bought the domain name from a private individual who used to run a magazine called Computer Freelancer over 15 years ago, for a ’six figure sum’. All in an effort to increase its visibility and profile.

GetAFreelancer CEO Matt Barrie tells us that the site recently hit a big milestone and now boasts over 1,000,000 registered professionals and businesses from 234 countries and territories worldwide. Over 475,000 jobs have been posted on the website to date, for a sum of over $43 million.

Not too shabby for a bootstrapped venture.

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"GetAFreelancer Hits 1 Million Users, Switches Name To Freelancer.com




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by
Robin Wauters
on
October 7, 2009



If the Internet has made one thing crystal clear, it’s that physical borders and geographical distance are no longer necessarily an absolute barrier for conducting business.
More and more companies are getting accustomed to the idea of being able to do business with companies on the other side of the world using nothing but digital communication means, or to have entire business units or projects led by teams made up of people located all over the globe.
Hence the popularity of services such as oDesk and Elance, websites where you can outsource given projects to registered programmers, designers, writers, legal experts and whatnot. Another player in this market is GetAFreelancer, an Australian company that’s been offering freelance jobs online since it was founded back in 2004.
Today, the company is announcing that it has changed its name to the far better-sounding and undoubtedly more memorable Freelancer.com. They bought the domain name from a private individual who used to run a magazine called Computer Freelancer over 15 years ago, for a ’six figure sum’. All in an effort to increase its visibility and profile.
GetAFreelancer CEO Matt Barrie tells us that the site recently hit a big milestone and now boasts over 1,000,000 registered professionals and businesses from 234 countries and territories worldwide. Over 475,000 jobs have been posted on the website to date, for a sum of over $43 million.
Not too shabby for a bootstrapped venture."
- GetAFreelancer Hits 1 Million Users, Switches Name To Freelancer.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Villagers discover 'extinct' leopard cub eating a monkey

Conservationists in Bangladesh are celebrating after remote tribespeople discovered a rare and threatened leopard that was believed to have been extinct in the country for almost 20 years.

Villagers in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in south-east Bangladesh captured the clouded leopard cub after they disturbed it, its sibling and their mother eating a dead monkey in the jungle. The others escaped, but the villagers captured the three-month-old and put it in a cage. It is understood the tribespeople planned to sell the animal but, after news of the discovery spread, conservationists persuaded them to release the leopard back into the wild. They did so yesterday.

"We are delighted. For many years now, we had thought this animal was gone or was going," said Professor Anwarul Islam, head of the Wildlife Trust of Bangladesh. "It's good to know that they are still there and that they are breeding."

The clouded leopard, which famously has large dark patterns on its coat, is considered vulnerable across all of south-east Asia, with loss of habitat through deforestation and the Chinese trade in rare animal parts being blamed for the decline.

Listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, there are an estimated 100,000 living worldwide. Reports suggest that the last sighting of the shy and nocturnal animal in Bangladesh was in 1992.

Mr Islam said the villagers in an area of south-east Bangladesh bordering Burma and the north-east Indian state of Mizoram, had stumbled on the family of animals three weeks ago. They took the cub to their village, where it was fed on chicken and milk. The villagers were anxious about releasing the animal as they feared it would struggle to survive in the wild without its mother.

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But Mr Islam said the fact that the leopard had a healthy appetite was a good sign. "Most wild animals do not like to eat in captivity but this cub was eating chickens," he said. "The villagers also tried to feed it milk but apparently he preferred the meat."

Environmentalists have long been on the losing side of a battle in Bangladesh, a desperately poor country where conservation has seldom seemed a priority.

In recent years, however, awareness has grown and organisations such as the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela) have campaigned for the enforcement of orders by the country's courts on issues such as forest protection.

Clouded leopards are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity. There is a breeding programme under way involving zoos in Thailand and the US, and three baby leopards were recently born at the Nashville Zoo.

Christine Breitenmoser-Würsten, a Swiss specialist on large cats who works with the World Conservation Union, said the threat to the clouded leopard varied from location to location. In Burma and southern China local people still hunted the cats for food while elsewhere, pelt-hunters and destruction of habitat represented the biggest danger. Of the discovery of the cub in Bangladesh, she said: "It's very exciting – it's fascinating. I was thrilled when I heard about it."

This is Not a Bull Market: Stocks Are Not Up, and They’re Headed Even Lower

How do you measure wealth generation?

1) Average annual gains?

2) Gains relative to an underlying index (the S&P 500)?

3) Gains relative to inflation?

Of these three, the last is the only real means of gauging wealth creation or destruction. Commentators have been going bananas over the fact that stocks are up 20%+ since their bottom of 666. No one mentions that this rally may actually be induced by the Federal Reserve pumping trillions of dollars into the financial system.

Similarly, no one mentions that adjusted for inflation, stocks are still WAY down from their peak during the Tech bubble.

As you can see, stocks entered a bear market in earnest following the Tech Crash. Yes, in number or nominal terms, the Dow has risen. But you have to remember the dollar lost roughly a third of its value from 2001 to today. Measuring stocks or anything in dollars between now and then was like measuring with a ruler that was continually shrinking.

Also, bear in mind that the above chart is using the Government’s phony measure of inflation: the Consumer Price Index [CPI] which DOESN’T include food or energy prices. Using accurate inflationary data, stocks are down even more in real terms.

My main point is this: inflation is an ever-present reality in the post WWII era. Investors need to be protecting themselves from this beast at all costs. You can do this by:

• Buying gold
• Buying commodities or real assets
• Buying companies that can offset inflationary costs by raising the price of their products
  

I suggest having some money in all three. It’s the only certain way to protect your wealth from inflation. The Feds are cooking up an inflationary storm of epic proportions, pumping TRILLIONS of dollars into the financial system. Stocks may rally like a rocket-ship from here. But in real terms they’re still tanking.

After all, if the Dow hits 30,000, but you’re celebrating by drinking a $150.00 coke… are you really any richer?

Diamonds pile up worldwide as consumers finally realize their worthlessness.

Diamonds pile up worldwide as consumers finally realize their worthlessness.

By ANDREW E. KRAMER May 11, 2009

——————————-

Each day, the contents of the bags spill into the stainless steel hoppers of the receiving room. The diamonds are washed and sorted by size, clarity, shape and quality; then, rather than being sent to be sold around the world, they are wrapped in paper and whisked away to a vault — about three million carats worth of gems every month.

“Each one of them is so unusual,” said Irina V. Tkachuk, one of the few hundred people, mostly women, employed to sort the diamonds, who sees thousands of them every day.

“I’m not a robot. I sometimes think to myself ‘wow, what a pretty diamond. I would like that one.’ They are all so beautiful.”

It could be years before another woman admires that stone. Russia quietly passed a milestone this year: surpassing De Beers as the world’s largest diamond producer. But the global market for diamonds is so dismal that the Alrosa diamond company, 90 percent owned by the Russian government, has not sold a rough stone on the open market since December, and has stockpiled them instead.

As a result, Russia has become the arbiter of global diamond prices. Its decisions on production and sales will determine the value of diamonds on rings and in jewelry stores for years to come, in one of the most surprising consequences of this recession.

Largely because of the jewelry bear market, De Beers’s fortunes have sunk. Short of cash, the company had to raise $800 million from stockholders in just the last six months.

The recession also coincided with a settlement with European Union antitrust authorities that ended a longtime De Beers policy of stockpiling diamonds, in cooperation with Alrosa, to keep prices up.

Though it is a major commodity producer, Russia has traditionally not embraced policies that artificially keep prices up. In oil, for example, Russia benefits from the oil cartel’s cuts in production, but does not participate in them.

Diamonds are an exception. “If you don’t support the price,” Andrei V. Polyakov, a spokesman for Alrosa, said, “a diamond becomes a mere piece of carbon.”

In an attempt to carefully calibrate its re-entry on the global market, without forcing prices still lower, Russia is relying on two things: the Soviet-era precious gem depository — created to hold jewelry confiscated from the aristocracy after the 1917 revolution — and capitalist investors, whom Alrosa hopes will buy diamonds as an investment, like gold.

Russia is taking a leadership role in other ways, too.

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Sergei Vybornov, Alrosa’s chief executive, said that he had helped persuade the central bank of Angola — which, like Russia, is still relatively flush with oil money — to buy 30 percent of the production of Angola’s diamond mines, keeping these stones off the market.

And last fall, Alrosa began what it called the St. Petersburg Initiative, along with De Beers and other large producers, to invest collectively in generic diamond advertising, akin to De Beers’s promotion of the slogan “Diamonds are forever.” Russia assumed the task as De Beers has principally shifted to promoting its own branded gems.

Still, it is a precarious time for the Russian diamond company to assume leadership of the industry.

Until last year, De Beers produced about 40 percent of the global rough stone supply, and Alrosa 25 percent. But De Beers, which is prohibited under its European Union antitrust agreement from stockpiling, closed mines in response to the glut in rough stones. Russia is loath to do that, as authorities in Moscow, gravely concerned about potential unrest by disgruntled unemployed workers, try to keep workers on the payroll.

In the first quarter, De Beers reduced output by 91 percent compared with the previous year. The diversified mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton also curbed production.

Meanwhile, the market for wholesale polished diamonds, worth about $21.5 billion, is expected to fall to about $12 billion in 2009, according to Polished Prices, an analytical service for the industry.

Rough diamond prices have fallen even more, as much as 75 percent since their peak last July at some auctions.

The two markets are distinct. Typically, about 60 percent of a rough diamond is lost as dust or shavings in the cutting process.

Mr. Vybornov blames diamond traders who pledged diamond stocks as loan collateral for part of the world glut. When credit dried up last fall, banks and other creditors seized those gems and sold them, he says, flooding the market. By December, his company decided to withdraw entirely from the market rather than further erode prices.

Russia historically remained mostly a behind-the-scenes player, perhaps because Soviet authorities would have had to perform some ideological gymnastics to promote a product consumed principally by the rich of the capitalist world.

Instead, twisting politics, the Soviets concluded a semisecret agreement with apartheid-era De Beers to sell Siberian diamonds in a way that would not undercut the market.

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After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian diamond industry created a formal alliance with De Beers, selling the South African company half of each year’s production at a discount intended to subsidize De Beers’s generic diamond advertising undertaken in the 1990s, mostly in the United States.

Now, the Russians are in the driver’s seat.

Charles Wyndham, a former De Beers evaluator and co-founder of Polished Prices, said Russia had thus far managed the transition well: withholding gems to make more money in the long run rather than further depressing the market.

“Whatever one wants to say about the Russians, they certainly aren’t stupid,” Mr. Wyndham said.

Alrosa is seeking to jump-start demand by selling gems under long-term contracts to wholesale buyers in Belgium, Israel, India and elsewhere. Under these contracts, six of which have been signed, prices are set at a midpoint between the peak last August and this winter, and fixed for a period of several years.

“A diamond ring should not cost $100,” Mr. Vybornov said. “We don’t want that type of client.”

Alrosa is also working with a Moscow investment bank, Leader, a subsidiary of the Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom, to market diamonds to investors. Under the plan, investors would buy diamonds but the gems would not be released to jewelers for several years.

It is a program, essentially, of outsourcing the stockpiling function to investors in exchange for the chance to profit from a possible recovery in the market.

At one of Alrosa’s cutting shops in one of Moscow’s outer districts, Aleksandr A. Malinin, an adviser to the president of Alrosa, showed a typical collection that might become the basis for such an investment vehicle.

The gems fit in a felt box about the size of a laptop computer.

The larger stones, a circular-cut 10 carat flawless white and a princess-cut yellow, were estimated at about $400,000. The smaller ones ranged from $16,000 to $100,000. But the value of the box, while surely several million dollars, is something of a mystery just now given the depressed market.

How the buy-in price for the stones will be set, and how the company will determine when the price goes up and down, is unclear, Mr. Malinin said.

“We have to tell people that diamonds are valuable,” he said. “We are trying to maintain the price, just as De Beers did, as all diamond producing countries do. But what we are doing is selling an illusion,” meaning a product with no utility and a price that depends on the continued sense of scarcity where there is none.

At the Alrosa unit that receives diamonds, called the United Selling Organization, where about 90 percent of the output of the Siberian mines arrives for processing, Elena V. Kapustkina pours about 45,000 carats of diamonds though a stainless steel sieve every day to sort them by size.

“It’s just a job,” she said.

When asked whether diamonds had lost their romance for her, Ms. Kapustkina paused, looked down at the pile of gems on her table and blushed.

In fact, she said, her husband, a truck driver, gave her a half-carat ring 22 years ago. “Of course I love it,” she said. “It’s from my husband.”

What to do after you start your petition?

So this blog will be all about petitions and starting petitions. The most important thing in this post that I want to cover is the promotion of your petitions. If you don't promote your petition correctly then it won't get any signatures and it will never have the impact that you want it to have. If you're going after a large company like WalMart or some other multi-billion dollar company you will need to gain massive signatures if you plan on them noticing you and your petition. With the influx of social news sites like digg and reddit, getting a petition seen by millions is much easier now than it was a few years ago. But digg and reddit will be of no help if your petition isn't in a niche that digg or reddit, typically technology, is interested in. Sometimes it can be a good idea to contact large news sites or blogs, the chances of them adding your petition to their site is slim but if they do, it will instantly be seen by millions of people. Stay tuned for more ideas on starting a petition!