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About Earth Observation
Europe's eyes on the World
Never before has man been able to examine our planet so closely. Landslides, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods and droughts have been the things of fear and superstition throughout history. But now, with the power of satellite technology, we are starting to understand the complexities of our planet and the reasons for the changes, both subtle and dramatic, that we are all experiencing.
Over the last 20 years, Earth observation from space has uncovered startling evidence of man's detrimental effect on the natural environment and satellites are now being recognised as a key to helping us manage and monitor resources.
International initiatives within the world's scientific and political communities are tackling critical environmental issues such as climate change, CO2 emissions and ozone depletion. Europe is playing a leading role in this research through the work of the European Space Agency's (ESA) ongoing Earth Observation Programme.
A leading Force
From the invention of its Ariane launcher back in the early sixties, ESA has been an instrumental force in science, telecommunication, Earth observation and manned space missions.
The first significant contributions from ESA's Earth Observation Programme came in 1977, when the first of seven Meteosat meteorological satellites was launched to monitor the weather of Europe and Africa from a vantage point over the equator.
The success of this and subsequent missions led to the formation of the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (Eumetsat), which has since worked alongside ESA on an ongoing programme of weather monitoring and climate change studies.
Our changing world
Climate monitoring has become a key element of the Earth Observation Programme. Almost every change in our natural environment is reflected in our weather patterns. Meteorological satellites have played their part in identifying long-term trends and it is estimated that improved weather forecasting has saved industries and the public millions of Euros every year.
Meteosat images of weather patterns are an everyday feature on European television and are used by national meteorological services to provide increasingly more accurate weather forecasting. To continue this crucial work, ESA and Eumestat are now working on the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG).
The first of three MSG spacecraft was launched in the summer of 2002 and - having entered operational service as Meteosat-8 - is providing meteorologists with much improved imagery and data. A further development will come in the shape of Metop-1 which will be launched in 2005 as part of a joint European-United States polar satellite system.
The first of a series of three similar satellites developed by ESA and Eumetsat, Metop-1 will operate in unison with a similar United States spacecraft, producing high-resolution images, detailed temperature and humidity profiles of the atmosphere and temperatures of the land and ocean surfaces. Instruments on board will also monitor ozone levels in the atmosphere and wind flow over the seas.
As a polar-orbiting satellite, Metop-1 will fly at a lower altitude than its geo-stationary Meteosat and MSG counterparts and will, therefore, be able to provide different and complementary kinds of meteorological information.
Into new realms
Since the beginning of the 1990s, ESA has taken Earth observation into new realms through the work of its ERS satellites. ESA's ERS-1 spacecraft was launched into space by an Ariane 4 in 1991. ERS-2 followed in 1995.
At the time these two satellites – both of which carried highly advanced radar instruments - were the most sophisticated Earth observation spacecraft ever developed in Europe. For the first time they were able to create accurate radar images of the Earth's surface, giving us new eyes on our world.
They have since collected a wealth of information on the Earth's land surfaces, oceans, sea ice and polar caps, and their contribution towards our understanding of world environmental issues has been invaluable.
On a global scale, the ERS programme has expanded our understanding of the interaction between the oceans and atmosphere, ocean currents and changes in Arctic and Antarctic ice, giving climatologists more confidence in predicting changes in our climate and helping us to monitor environmental pollution.
Europe's guardian
This work has led to the development of the World's most ambitious ever Earth observation satellite – Envisat. Envisat, which was launched on 1 March 2002 (CET), involved nearly 10 years work by some of Europe's most respected scientists and engineers. On board the spacecraft are 10 highly sophisticated instruments, all of which will collect crucial environmental data over a planned five-year mission period.
Envisat represents one of the Earth's most important sources of environmental information and has further enhanced ESA's position as a major authority on world environmental issues.
The new generation
The use of satellites for observing the Earth is seen as the way forward to preserve our planet. Studies on climate change or ozone depletion, for example, take years to complete, requiring massive amounts of information.
Continuity of ESA's Earth observation activities is therefore critical and already work is well underway on ESA's Living Planet Programme, the next generation of satellite missions.
This programme, which will be phased in over the coming few years, will involve the use of smaller satellites on shorter, cheaper and more focused missions. As a new approach for ESA it will encourage industry partnerships and increased dialogue with the scientific research and political communities within Europe.


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Energy Matters: Our Energy Independence
You are here
JOHN SCHUELER: Welcome to the latest edition of Energy Matters. I'm a new media specialist here with the Department of Energy named John Schueler. Today I am joined by Dr. Arun Majumdar, director of the Advanced Research Project Agency for Energy, also known as ARPA-E. We are here to discuss what we as a department are doing to diversify our energy portfolio, foster new technologies and break our reliance on foreign oil.
Thanks for being with us today, Dr. Majumdar.
ARUN MAJUMDAR: Thank you. Let me offer all of you my welcome to Energy Matters on LiveChat. We will open it up for questions and answers. Before we do that, though, I'd like to give you a short presentation on clean energy innovation, where I hope I'll convince you that this is a really important issue for our nation.
So if you look at the future of the United States, and this future really belongs to our children and our grandchildren, that future depends on three securities: our national security, our economic security or economic prosperity, and environmental security. And at the foundation of all that a common theme between all these three securities are innovations in energy technologies.
Let us go a little deeper in each one of them: Number one, national security. If you look at what we are doing today, we import more than 50 percent of the oil that we use in our nation from other nations. And we are paying about $300 billion a year – about a billion dollars a day right now – for that. And this is not only an issue for national security, but this is an economic prosperity issue as well.
Imagine if you could spend that $1 billion a day in the United States. That would create a lot more jobs and lead to American prosperity. And in the transportation sector, we've only oil as one option. And that, as I just mentioned, makes us vulnerable from both a national security and economic security point of view.
The technologies that are required to make us secure in all the three securities – all of them do not quite exist today. And this is an issue not just for the United States but for many parts of the world. We are not the only oil importers – there are many other nations that import oil as well. And these securities are for them as well.
So how do we win the future? The president has said we need to win the future. How do we win the future? Well, we have to invent affordable clean energy technologies, make them locally and sell them globally. And these are the route to American jobs and economic security. That map has to go the other way, just like we have done in information technology as well as in biotechnology and many other technologies in the past.
But we are in a global competitive race, and there's a race going on for this. And we need to understand the pace and scale of innovation that we need for clean energy technologies. And the best way to explain that is to understand what happened in the last hundred years. And if you look at the pace and scale of innovation you find in the last hundred years there were some amazing innovations that changed the course of history for mankind.
And what were those? Artificial fertilizers and Green Revolution: Most of us would not be here if it was not for food – airplanes, polio vaccination, electrification, nuclear energy, space, transistor-integrated circuits, fiber optic and wireless communication and the Internet. These are game changers because we cannot imagine our life without these.
And almost all of them happened in the United States. They were invented and scaled in the United States of America. Imagine all of that happening for clean energy in the next 10 to 20 years because that's the window of opportunity that we really have. That is what we need to secure America's future. And that future has not quite been invented.
So let me – allow me to give you a glimpse of that future. So let's talk about biofuels. So what does biofuel – how is it created? Well, you have sunlight, you have carbon dioxide and you have water. And we use plants in various forms – sugarcane, corn, algae and cellulose – to combine carbon dioxide and water and eventually to make fuels. And this is very important because that's an alternative to petroleum-based fuels.
But this is expensive today. And we have – you know, this is less than 1-percent efficient going from sunlight to fuel, which means if you are to scale this we will need a lot of land and quite a bit of water or other ways of making it cost effective. So here is an example of an attempt to do so. We have a project where if you look at the cost reduction opportunity, there's a lot of it is in the feedstock. So how does traditional cellulosic biofuel production happen? You've got sunlight, you've got feedstock, and you need cellulose – you need to breakdown cellulose by enzymes, turn into sugar molecules, which are fed into microbes to produce oil.
The expensive part out here is the feedstock breakdown, the breakdown of cellulose, and collection of feedstock. Well, there's a small company called AGRI-VITA which is trying to do that in a very different way. It is trying to put the genes that produce enzymes called cellulase inside the plant itself, but keep it in – but keep these enzymes inactive. But if you triggered them from the outside, they become active and they eat the plant from the inside.
These enzymes, by the way, are available in cows. That's why they can eat grass and other plant matter and digest them. This is equivalent to putting the cow inside the plant – an amazing technology that we have to try. And if this thing works it could drastically reduce the cost of biofuel production.
We have another program called ElectroFuels, which is an entirely different way of making fuels. We created this in the last couple of years. How does this work? It takes electricity production from domestic sources – like wind, nuclear, solar – or the waste product of oil and natural gas – which is hydrogen sulfide; it takes carbon dioxide and uses non-photosynthetic microbes – fundamentally different from the photosynthetic approach – by using non-photosynthetic microbes to produce oil.
And this turns out to be at least 10 times more efficient than the photosynthetic one. And people thought this was really difficult, really hard and maybe impossible. Well, in less than a year and a half, people are producing oil using this new approach. This is a project in NC State and OPX Biotechnology that they produced the first ElectroFuels. There's a group at MIT that is producing ElectroFuels. And there are 13 other groups competing with each other in trying to produce fuels using this non-photosynthetic approach – still using biology. And if these things work, then this may scale and maybe allow us to reduce our oil imports.
Let me give you another approach for giving us another option for transportation, and that is electrification. If you look at what we need, the major barrier for electrification of transportation are batteries. So we in ARPA-E started thinking a little differently. We said, why don't we go for those batteries that will make electric cars have a longer range and have a lower life-cycle cost than gasoline-based cars so that electric cars can be sold without subsidies? And that is sustainable business.
Well, what do I mean by that? Well, if you were to travel from Chicago to St. Louis, which is 300 miles, on a single charge and have that car be cheaper overall than gasoline-based cars – that battery really does not exist today – not just in the United States, anywhere in the world. And there's a global race going on right now to get that battery. That battery is at least double the energy density – how much energy you can pack in a given volume and given mass – double the energy density of today's lithium batteries and one-third the cost.
It's a really hard problem to make batteries better – two times better at three times lower cost than today's batteries. So we set that as a target for the scientific and engineering community. And out of that is a competition that is ongoing to create a wide variety of batteries: an all-electron battery at Stanford University, a lithium-ion flow battery at MIT, lithium-oxygen battery, lithium-sulfur batteries, whole class of metal-air batteries, and magnesium-ion batteries.
We don't know which one will win. But one of them – a couple of them might and make today's lithium-ion batteries potentially obsolete. But that battery will allow us to make U.S. more globally competitive, and lead to manufacturing out here.
So these are just a few examples; I can give you many more. But the message is the following: Folks, this is real. This is not imaginary. This is happening in the United States of America. We can win the future. And what I just showed is a glimpse of the future.
Thank you very much. And let's open it up for question and answers.
MR. SCHUELER: Great. Our first question comes from @sacagawea on Twitter who asks: What is the Department of Energy doing to promote propane-fueled vehicles? That's the third-most used transport fuel globally.
MR. MAJUMDAR: Well, there's a lot of, actually, natural gas. Natural gas has a lot of methane, some propane, et cetera. And we have just found a lot of natural gas in the United States and the use for transportation is being considered, first of all, for short-haul trucking and also for various transportation. There are many users of natural gas around the world for light-duty vehicles as well. And to do that in the United States is a little expensive right now. And so we have in ARPA-E, we are going to look at how to use natural gas for transportation in various different ways.
MR. SCHUELER: Great. Staying on the transportation note, Dave (sp) asks via email: What percentage of U.S. transportation do you expect to be serviced by future electric-drive vehicles within the next decade?
MR. MAJUMDAR: Well, that's very hard to predict. It really depends on the cost of the batteries, how fast they can come down and how much they can come down. Ideally you want to have a batteries which is about $100 to $200 a kilowatt hour. Today, it's about anywhere from $300 to $600 a kilowatt hour. And so the cost has to come down; the energy density has to go up.
And – but if this can happen within this decade I think we'll see a lot of increase in electrification, whether it's hybrid-electric or plug-in hybrid-electric or fully electric; in the next couple of decades I think we'll see a big uptake. But it really depends on the technology and the cost coming down.
MR. SCHUELER: Great. Next question comes from Twitter, from ALibertarianUS: Why not cut red tape for domestic energy production – oil, nuclear – won't cheaper energy and more jobs lead to alternative energy?
MR. MAJUMDAR: Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And in fact, in the last few years, we have increased our domestic oil production significantly. And that has led to a lot of jobs. But in the long term we have to realize that we have to reduce our – the imports of oil because that is, as I mentioned, is a source of – in our national security as well as economic prosperity. And to have only one fuel in the transportation sector, which is oil, as I said, it makes us vulnerable.
So we need options. In the stationary electricity generation we have multiple options: We have coal; we have natural gas; we have nuclear; we have solar and wind, et cetera. Those are all – hydroelectric. And that makes us, you know, much better off – if you have multiple options – because if something happens in one, at least we have other approaches to generate the electricity. In the transportation sector we have only one option right now. And I think a diversification of that portfolio of options is really important for our security.
MR. SCHUELER: All right. In light of your presentation, atrinbath (ph) on Twitter wants to know: "How is ARPA-E maintaining its role as a driver of innovation as its budget remains on the chopping block?"
MR. MAJUMDAR: (Chuckles.) Well, I think – first of all, let me use this opportunity to thank Congress for appropriating our first budget this year, 2011. A lot of people have worked very, very hard in Congress to get our budget approved and appropriated. And I just want to take this option to thank all of them for doing so.
I think we are in some tough budget times, as I don't have to tell you. This is the – in the newspapers right now. But I think – you know, and historically United States has always invested in their future even in very difficult times; going back to Abraham Lincoln's time, we have invested in land-grant universities and our railroads, et cetera.
So I think I'm confident that the value of ARPA-E is being seen by partisan groups – everyone has seen that value. And I'm sure Congress will do the right thing.
MR. SCHUELER: Great. Well, VI Incibus (ph) from Twitter wants to know: Why with all the risk is nuclear power still supported by our federal government? Aren't there better options?
MR. MAJUMDAR: Well, I think we need to keep our options – you know, there is no silver bullet in the energy business. We need to keep our options open. We have been the leaders of nuclear energy. Yes, there are risks. Every technology has risks. And the question is, can we manage the risks? And given what we – what happened in Japan, we need to learn from that, and we need to utilize that knowledge of what happened to make our reactors safer; not just our current reactors but the future ones as well. So I think we need to keep our options open and need to invest in R&D to bring – to reduce the cost of energy produced by these multiple sources.
MR. SCHEULER: El Captain (ph) 36 on Twitter asks: What is the Department of Energy's view on the technology and infrastructure needed to replace the combustible engine?
MR. MAJUMDAR: Well, the engine is not combustible; it's actually the fuel that is combustible. But I think the question is really about, can we replace the internal combustion engine. Well, I think eventually that might happen, but at this point, at least in the near next few decades, we are seeing that the internal combustion engine will still be in play. And I don't think we'll be able to get rid of internal combustion engine, at least in the next few decades. What we are likely to see is a lot of hybridization as a transition. And that hybridization will happen with both internal combustion engine as well as electrification. And that combination increases the efficiency of the fuel use, and that will reduce our imports of oil.
So I think that's the direction that we're heading. Eventually, you know, will we be able to get rid of the internal combustion engine completely? Well, for small vehicles like cars and automobiles, maybe – I don't know for sure – it depends on the cost and the availability of electricity, et cetera. Certainly for air transport it is unlikely that we will get rid of, you know, combustion – in this case, gas-turbine jet engines. It's (unlikely ?) we'll still be using liquid fuels for that. And for the trucking industry, that's up in the air right now.
MR. SCHUELER: Jenny (sp) via email asks: Is it worth it to put solar panels on my home today? Is that something that I should wait for innovation to catch up with?
MR. MAJUMDAR: Well, I think the cost of solar cells is coming down very quickly. We have a program in the Department of Energy called SunShot. And that is to reduce the cost of electricity from solar to about 5 (cents) to 6 cents a kilowatt hour, which is cost-competitive with the cheapest form of electricity that is produced from fossil fuel – that is, natural gas combined cycle – and that – to do that within this decade.
So the cost of solar cells is coming down. It's your decision to make whether you want to wait or not. But today, it is kind of expensive compared to the electricity that you may get from the grid. And that cost of electricity depends on the different parts of the country as different cost structures, but if you feel that this is an economic way of doing it, that's up to you. But the only thing I can say is that the cost is coming down.
MR. SCHUELER: Great. In a related note, Colleen from Facebook asks: How will the Department of Energy educate consumers to understand how important it is to invest in renewables and energy efficiency projects now to save us from exponential costs down the road? I struggle with this question when working with homeowners who don't see why they should spend their own money to upgrade their home to run more efficient forms of energy.
MR. MAJUMDAR: Well, that's a great question. I think energy efficiency is something that we should be – we should be doing, we should be investing in. It saves money. It takes a little bit of first cost to reduce our energy consumption, but overall, in the long term, it has been shown that it can reduce our cost significantly. If you just take the example of refrigerators, the amount of energy consumption per unit in refrigerators has come down by a factor of four to five since the 1970s. And the cost has come down in equivalent dollars. So energy efficiency measures are absolutely critical. In fact, you know, this is not just the first thing to do and the right thing to do. It actually saves you money.
So I think we should all be looking at energy efficiency as an important part of our – you know, how we live our lives. That's, I think, the smart way of doing it.
MR. SCHUELER: That's fantastic. Raj Makap (ph) on Twitter wants to know: How do DARPA's lessons at the Department of Defense play into ARPA-E's organization?
MR. MAJUMDAR: Oh, that's a great question. And I didn't plan that question, by the way. (Chuckles.) But this is something that we've spent a lot of time on, because DARPA is a model of excellence in many ways. It has been around for more than 50 years, and we have studied DARPA in many different ways. I used to be funded by DARPA when I was in a – in a – in a university. And one of the lessons learned – well, the number-one lesson to learn is to really recruit top-notch talent – and that is extremely important – and have the talent be there in an organization for a finite amount of time and then they have to leave. And that brings in freshness of new ideas that comes into an organization like ARPA-E, and we are doing that. And that also gives you a clock. And these program managers or program directors that come in to ARPA-E have a finite time to excel. And their future depends on what they do in ARPA-E. So there is really outcome focus, and they want to get things done, which is absolutely critical.
There are also other lessons from DARPA in how to create programs, new – envision new programs. And we are following that very closely. And in terms of bringing in the stakeholder, the scientific communities, different communities that may not have interacted with each other in the past, you bring them together and some magic happens and new programs get created. And how to actively manage those programs where the programs directors are personally invested in these projects that they are investing in to help them – and these people that we are recruiting in ARPA-E are really, really technically savvy, sometimes better than the people that we fund.
And so they are an active program management trying to see these projects and help them, help the PIs, the scientists and the engineers and their teams, succeed. But if something is not working, we have to stop those programs instead of going down a blind alley and reallocate the money. So that is the kind of lessons that we are using from DARPA.
But there is a difference between DARPA and ARPA-E. And that is the fact that the defense sector is quite different from the energy sector. And in the case of DARPA, DOD is the buyer, is the customer for all the technology that they're creating. In the case of ARPA-E, it's the whole – the economy, which (is ?) energy. So we have to work a little differently. And connecting what ARPA-E does to the commercial side, to the market, is very, very critical. And that is different between ARPA-E and DARPA.
MR. SCHUELER: Great. Catherine Tweed (ph) on Twitter has a follow-up to your presentation. And she wants to know: What sort of timeline do you see for ElectroFuels coming to the market, given the progress we've had thus far: five, 10, 20 years?
MR. MAJUMDAR: Well, it's in a very – it's a very early stage right now. And I would say it will take at least 10 years to see some – you know, some scale in the volume of production, should it go through the first – you know, the next few years that it's actually scalable – the first case.
So the first thing to see is that, is this fuel being created? Yes, the answer is we saw that fuel can be created. The next stage is that, can we scale it with some engineering? And this is chemical engineering, biochemical engineering at work. And we have to see that in the next few years. After that, we have to ask the question is that if it is scalable, can the cost come down and be competitive with petroleum, with fossil fuel? And if that happens, we need to create – we need to create some pilot plans to be able to do that. And if that happens, then it's in large-scale production. So it's at least 10, more likely 20 years, before it actually hits the market and others can use it. And everyone can use it then.
So that's the timeline, and it's uncertain. We have to – we have to see how we – you know, how we make progress.
MR. SCHUELER: OK. Anita via email wants to know: What is the GRIDS project up to? What are some things they have achieved since ARPA-E began? Maybe you should give us some background on exactly what GRIDS is.
MR. MAJUMDAR: Right. GRIDS project is up to a lot of good things. That's the first statement. Well, let me explain what GRIDS is. This is grid-level storage of electricity. And before I go into details – before I go into – about GRIDS, let me explain what do I mean – what is required at the grid level. Number one is that if you look at the storage at the grid level, there are various kinds of storage. One is to do a very short-term storage, less than a second, to be able to do frequency control, et cetera, for the grid.
The second is the hour-level storage; for example, when you have wind that comes in and you have wind ramp of energy, there's mismatch between the supply and demand, which is on the order of several hundred megawatts to about a gigawatt or so. And you need to be able to match that for about an hour. So gigawatt-hour level energy storage is important.
And then is the seasonal storage that you may have for various kinds of things that – there's very long-term storage.
So in the – in the grid-level storage today, there are technologies to be able to do the really short-time scale; you know, sub-second or second-level storage for frequency control. That is already there today. That's being deployed. What is really difficult to do is the gigawatt power level for an hour. This is like almost storing the electricity that a nuclear plant generates for an hour. And the only way to cost-effectively do that today is what is called pumped hydro. You water – you know, you pump water up a dam to a higher level or you compress air in a cavern. These are the ways to do that, but you can only – you're limited geographically to be able to do that in certain locations. And the cost of doing that is about a hundred (dollars) to $200 a kilowatt hour of installed cost.
And so the GRIDS program is to challenge the scientific community, technical community, to come up with solutions to be able to do that anywhere and in any location for a hundred (dollars) to $200 – hundred dollars a kilowatt hour. So these are options like flow batteries. These are options like compressed air anywhere, OK, and different kinds of flywheels; even superconducting magnetic storage, which is a really longshot, but we need to try to see whether that can be done or not.
So that's what the GRIDS program is all about: to develop those technologies that are scalable to gigawatt-hour level energy storage at a hundred dollars a kilowatt hour installed cost. And so that is what is going on. It's going really well. In fact, a lot of new technology is being developed. We have, in fact, our first graduate from ARPA-E's – from the GRIDS program, and it's a compressed air storage, isothermal compressed air. And that has now led to – we only invested, you know, a small amount of money. And after they were successful using our money to do the R&D and reduce the risk, they have got 12 times more from the private sector. And that is – you know, is a sign of success. And they're now trying to work with the utilities, et cetera, to see whether they can actually work in the real – (inaudible).
MR. SCHUELER: That's great.
MR. MAJUMDAR: So this is a great story.
MR. SCHUELER: Yeah. And that's actually a great segue to our next question, which comes from Mae Stevens (sp) on Twitter, who asks: How do you respond to skeptics saying that government investment crowds out private sector investment?
MR. MAJUMDAR: Well, it depends on where the government investment is. If you're – if the government is investing in things that are really late-stage, that are – you know, that are going – that are business-ready things, yes, it might crowd out the private sector. But ARPA-E is investing in those technologies that is too risky for the private sector. This is – the venture capital community thinks this is too risky – this is pre-venture – new approaches that are fundamentally new approaches like the ElectroFuels that, you know, are unlikely to get any private sector investment because people don't know whether it's going to work or not work. There's not even a prototype of something.
And that's the area that is – ARPA-E is focusing on, trying to invest in that area and to then see what is – whether we can build a prototype, whether we can build the first battery or so, and then take it to the private sector and say, you know, look, this is a potentially viable solution; there's still some risks, but at least the first risk of whether something works or does not work – that at least is taken care of by ARPA-E funding.
MR. SCHUELER: Great. Thank you. Next question comes from Raj (ph) via email. And it actually has to do with inter-government collaboration. He asks: ARPA-E has emerged from the Department of Energy's portfolio of programs around the same time as the Energy Frontier Research Centers and the Energy Innovation Hubs. How do you envision ARPA-E interfacing with these programs to ensure that discoveries and developments in fundamental science see the light of day as innovative technologies?
MR. MAJUMDAR: Great question. First of all, I should say that all of these programs – the Energy Frontier Research Center (sic), the Energy Innovation Hubs and ARPA-E – are all within the same department, the Department of Energy. The Energy Frontier Research Centers are looking at science, looking at understanding how nature works, what is the interaction of energy and matter. These are basic questions, scientific questions and trying to push the frontiers of science.
ARPA-E is looking at translating the science into breakthrough technologies. And so we partner very closely with Office of Science not only for the EFRC, the Energy Frontier Research Center (sic), but even the other programs that are there in the Office of Science.
The Energy Innovation Hubs are – you know, the best way to explain that is to go back in history and give you some success stories. The Manhattan Project is an example where, you know, the scientists and engineers had to be brought together because there was a goal, there was a common goal. And people had to develop something very quickly, and they needed the focus of scientists and engineers all under one roof and to get to a solution. And that is the Energy Innovation Hubs. And that transcends Office of Science and the Applied Energy Offices; whereas, ARPA-E, which is modeled after DARPA, which is another huge success story, which is distributed across the nation in small teams of scientists and engineers, and there's a lot of interaction within the Department of Energy to coordinate and so we can leverage the strengths of each other.
MR. SCHUELER: Great. Moving back to transportation for a moment, Brian (sp) from Facebook wants to know: What is the Department of Energy doing to promote rail travel in the U.S.? We know it's a – it's greener than flying or driving, so why is the U.S. years behind China, Europe and Japan in high-speed rail?
MR. MAJUMDAR: Well, I don't think that's a Department of Energy issue really. I mean, our role in the – in the whole United States is to provide the technological options and then for businesses to really create the businesses and take it commercial. And in the rail sector, you know, they will – if it's electric rail, then we – they will hopefully use the clean energy that is developed from the Department of Energy to enable transportation of electric – for trains. And so that's – I think that's the role of the Department of Energy, to look at the energy supply, the energy demand and the infrastructure behind it. But it's for businesses to create the high-speed rail, et cetera.
MR. SCHUELER: Great. Jay via email asks: A natural tension seems to exist between innovation and austerity. That is, clean energy innovation requires capital investment. But with the sluggish economic recovery, cutting spending is a frequent call. What can be done to address these concerns, both for the people of the United States and for Congress?
MR. MAJUMDAR: Well, I think – yes, I mean, that's a great question. We are in some difficult financial times right now, but as I said before, the United States has always invested in the future. And as we know, I firmly believe clean energy is part of our future. Otherwise, our national security, our economic security and our environmental security is at risk. And we have done this all throughout the history of the United States. And this is, as the president said – and if you're trying to lightweight an aircraft, the last thing you want to do is cut off its engine. And innovation is the engine for the United States, because that plane will be great in a museum, but it'll never fly. And we want the United States to fly in the 21st century. So we need that engine of innovation to create a future which is much brighter than our current.
MR. SCHUELER: Great. Benji (ph) via email wants to know: Are there hang-ups in the current legal system and the way laws are structured that are inhibiting the acceleration of renewable energy deployment in the U.S., and what can be done to change that?
MR. MAJUMDAR: Well, I'm not a lawyer or a legal expert, but I think what we need to do in the United States is to align the innovations in technology – in science and technology. These innovations have to align in financing and markets with – as well as policy, remove some of the – align and streamline some of the regulatory issues that are there so that we can – we can accelerate the innovations going from the lab to the market. That is absolutely critical because we are in a global – globally competitive world.
And so that is absolutely necessary to do. And I think we could – you know, if there's room for improvement – I think there is – and we should be doing that.
MR. SCHUELER: Great. Tim via email wants to know: What is ARPA-E doing, if anything, to help accelerate and develop carbon-capture/sequestration technologies.
MR. MAJUMDAR: Oh, many things. We have, in fact, a program focused on carbon-capture technology. It's called IMPACT, and it's an acronym. It's Innovative Materials and Processes for Advanced Carbon-Capture Technology. And you could go to our website and check out all the different projects that are there. And the idea is to focus on those innovations, innovative technologies that can reduce the cost of carbon capture from a variety of sources, from (pulverized ?) coal-fired power plants, from other sources of carbon dioxide.
And so that's the goal. Today's technology uses something called amines, monoethanolamine solutions to be able to absorb carbon dioxide. That's kind of expensive today. And our – what we are looking at is a variety of great innovations in trying to reduce the cost way below one-third the cost, let's say, of today's technology. And that, as I said, needs innovation. There are different approaches to do that. We don't know which one is going to eventually bring down the cost, but we have to try. And that's exactly what we're doing I this IMPACT program.
MR. SCHUELER: Great. Michael via Facebook asks: Not all gasoline has the same greenhouse gas impacts. How can we get carbon labeling at the pump?
MR. MAJUMDAR: That's a great question. Yes, if you – gasoline, if you produce from biomass has very – much lower greenhouse gas impact from – you know, from gasoline from a petroleum base. So that's a great question. I don't know the answer to that, frankly, because in the world oil market, it is a fungible quantity. As soon as you make oil, you're subject to the price, the supply, the demand of the global market. And the prices are fixed in what – based on the supply and demand in a global market. So it's very difficult to then label things today. But if someone can find that and actually get it, you know, accepted in the market, that may be a very innovative thing. So whoever's thinking along those lines, I applaud them for their efforts in thinking along those lines, but how to do it is not easy. And if they can find some innovation, I'm all ears for that.
MR. SCHUELER: Great. Anna (sp) via email wants to know: Are there opportunities for students and other young, scientific-minded people to get involved with ARPA-E?
MR. MAJUMDAR: Absolutely. This is one of the things that I'm very passionate about. You know, when I travel around the country, you know, and different universities, I see that the younger generation is – you know, there's really passion and enthusiasm and a lot of energy in creating a sustainable future. And that sustainable future involves clean energy. And so – and so – and we are trying all – you know, our best to get the students organized in a way and empower them. So let me tell you a few things that we have done.
We have started an ARPA-E fellows program. And these are some of the best minds in science, engineering, entrepreneurship, who are recent graduates who we can – we can recruit in ARPA-E and have them spend about two years. And during the two years, they're empowered to think differently about our future, about different approaches to energy – towards clean energy, and come up with different ways and help us in that regard. So this is – they're empowered to shape their future. That's what we're – that's the ARPA-E fellows program.
The other thing I would say is that in many of these universities, there are energy clubs or sustainability clubs, et cetera. In our summit – we have an ARPA-E energy innovation summit, you know, every March – in our last summit that we had this year, we had about 60 students from across the nation participating at the summit. We have about 2,000 people out there. Sixty students showed up. And we wanted them to be there, because it is their future that we're working for. And these students are now on their own, organizing themselves and helping us understand what they think about their future.
So this is a very important issue. I'm very passionate about it. We need more people to get into science and engineering and really shape that future – you know, our future, clean energy future. And if there are better ideas, I'll be really happy to interact with the youth, because I think this is an extremely important issue. I have not seen this kind of interest in clean energy in other parts of the world.
So this is a core competence of the United States, and we should empower them as much as possible.
MR. SCHUELER: Great. Dave via email wants to know: All of these technologies sound great, but I want to know why we are not doing more to tap into the resources we already have here, such as drilling domestically.
MR. MAJUMDAR: We are actually doing that. We are producing more oil from within the United States in the last few years than we had ever done in the past. So this is something that we are obviously taking very seriously. The president has said that we will reduce our – we'll give more permits, et cetera, to produce oil domestically. And that – we can do that in the short term. And that is, in fact, what is going on right now. But we have to think not just of the short term but of the long term. And one of the things that the United States has done in the past is that when the oil prices go up, we hit the panic button; and when the oil prices go down, we hit the snooze button. And that is no way of planning for our future.
So when I look at this domestic oil production, yes, that's absolutely important for our short term. And we need to make our vehicles more efficient so that they use less imported oil. That's also – you know, we could do that in the short term and the near term. But in long term, we have to have options. And as I said, today, for transportation, we have only one option: that is oil. And we need to have multiple options to hedge our bets on the future.
MR. SCHUELER: All right. And that plays in nicely to Lorraine's (sp) from email, which is: What is the Department of Energy doing right now to bring down prices at the pump?
MR. MAJUMDAR: Let me be very clear about this. The Department of Energy does not fix the price of oil. That price is fixed by the global market. And so the only thing we can do is to – you know, is to develop R&D to reduce – or to reduce our dependence on foreign oil in the future.
Now, as you heard, the president made the decision that because of the disruptions of supply that happened due to events that are happening in Libya and other parts of the Middle East, to provide the supply for the United States, he has released – has decided – made the decision to release some oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to compensate for the shortage in supply. And this is not just the United States. Many other players in the world are doing that right now.
MR. SCHUELER: Great. And I think we have one last question we have time for. And that is: With vast swaths of desert and open land in the U.S., why isn't America investing in solar and wind power more instead of focusing on oil?
MR. MAJUMDAR: Oh, we are. So these are two different sectors of our – of our energy economy. One is the transportation sector, which is fueled by oil, and the other is the stationary power of the electricity sector, which is stationary. Now, the only way to connect them is if you get electrification of transportation. So we are doing a lot of work in reducing the cost of electricity that is produced by solar or wind. In fact, today, onshore wind is cost-competitive with other, you know, electricity generated by fossil fuel, like natural gas combined cycle.
Now, solar is – utility-scale solar is about three to four times higher cost than that from natural gas combined cycle electricity. So we are – that's why we created the SunShot program, to reduce the cost of electricity from sunlight to be cost-competitive, which is 5 (cents) to 6 cents a kilowatt hour within this decade. And that's the SunShot program. And so that's what we are focusing on. And in the transportation sector, we're trying to figure out how to get the electricity into transportation by reducing the cost of batteries and electrification of the vehicle.
So that's what's going on right now. So we are right on that ball right now.
MR. SCHUELER: Fantastic. Well, unfortunately, we're out of time, but be sure to check out the energy blog at blog.energy.gov next week, as we'll be answering many of the questions we didn't have time to get to today. We'll also be posting Arun's PowerPoint presentation on energy.gov later today so you can pore over it in more detail.
Before we go, Arun, do you have any final thoughts?
MR. MAJUMDAR: Well, I want to thank all of you for participating in this live chat for Energy Matters. It is a really, really important issue, as I've said, for our children and our grandchildren. And all American generations in the past have left a world that is better for their children and grandchildren than what they lived in. And this is our opportunity to do so for our children and grandchildren.

subset: commoncrawl


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As evidenced by our oft-updated Pinterest boards, Instagram feeds, and Tumblrs, we're always on the lookout for sparks of inspiration. Since we're used to pick-me-ups of the image and word variety, we were happily surprised to discover them in fragrance form. SAGE + fasten founder Vivian Lee has created a line of four scents, each meant to embody the quality for which it's named. Common Sense, inspired by Lee's levelheaded mom, is a refreshing and bright reminder to use our heads and keep our cool. Now that's inspiring.
My friend received this in her birchbox a few months back, when she came in the room I instantly smelled the sweet fruity aroma. I asked her what she was wearing and she told me. I added it immediately to my cart and before I could place the order it was ordered and delivered to me as a gift.
Pro's : it is a younger sweet smell/aroma (some perfumes I have received in my box were more for ummm how do you say this...umm more seasoned women) I am still in my 20's so I do not care to smell out of that age bracket right now.
Con's: Similar fragrances are less expensive. I typically wear Ed Hardy "Love kills slowly" and that is only about $35.


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Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2012
NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. - Jesse Ligo, Jr., professor of accounting and a 1982 Westminster College graduate, earned Westminster College's 2012 Audio Visual (AV) Service and Support Award. The award celebrates outstanding service and/or support by a Westminster alumnus.
In addition to being a licensed certified public accountant since 1985, Ligo has been the owner and operator of Drove Pasture Farm, a crop and beef farm in Mercer, since 1991. His love of working the land and running his own business has allowed him a unique opportunity to bring real world experience into his classroom and to share with a wide range of students what it takes to be successful in any type of business.
However, his farm and home are more than just an example of a successful business to his students. Many current and former students can recount fond memories of home-cooked meals and life-changing discussions at the farm, his genuine interest in their lives beyond the classroom, and offers of a place to stay for Thanksgiving if a student couldn't make it home for the holiday.
"Professor Ligo has proven to be an invaluable member to the Westminster College community. His constant care, admiration and appreciation for students, fellow faculty members and Westminster College overall, sets him apart," said Ryan Bruckner '12. "Professor Ligo has always shown an inclination to advance Westminster's reputation through his full-hearted influence on students. Ultimately, the impact from his enduring commitment to the student body and Westminster community will be felt for a long time."
"I am invariably amazed by the passion he brings to his classes and the compassion he shows for his students," said Dr. Dan Fischmar, Westminster professor of economics and business. "His program of guest lectures opens a view of the accounting world that no textbook can offer. Jesse's down-to-earth, modest personality masks a razor-sharp intellect. He is that rare individual whose every encounter leaves the world, or at least the Westminster world, a far better place."
"Jesse Ligo embodies service and support excellence in every facet of his life," noted Director of AV Services, Gary Swanson ('88). "While our department continually strives to achieve that level of excellence, the winners of this award inspire us to perform service above self through their commitment to the college's mission long after their graduation."
Ligo, who joined the Westminster faculty in 2008, earned an undergraduate degree in business administration from Westminster and a master's from Bowling Green State University. In addition to teaching, Ligo serves as an accounting internship advisor, Student Life and Athletic Council committee member, and is involved with the college's Ever Higher Campaign. He is also active in the community, serving as a church volunteer, and as a board member and secretary/treasurer for the Penn State Mercer County Cooperative Extension.
Ligo and his wife, Amy Klipa Ligo '84, live in Mercer and are the parents of two sons. Rich graduated from Westminster in 2012 with a degree in mathematics and is currently attending the University of Iowa in the masters/doctoral program. Joe is a junior at Westminster majoring in broadcast communications.
The Service and Support award is open to all qualifying Westminster alumni and is one of the highlight events of the college's annual AV WEEK celebration. Previous honorees include 2009 winner Betsy Nolan Sieg '07, purchasing manager for Metro Bank; 2010 winner Todd Hervey '94, award-winning special projects director/editor at Fuel Creative, Inc.; 2011 winner Dr. Dar Huey '74, professor of education, former director of the college's graduate program, and a former defensive coach for Titan football teams.
Contact AV at (724) 946-7188 or email for additional information.
Contact Ligo at (724) 946-7167 or email for additional information.


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Nothing beats having the Force protect your little newborn. Of course, you can't have Luke and the whole gang come and babysit, but you can bring a little part of their world into your home and into the life of your baby by doing what Ireland-based photographer Carissa XY did: build a Star Wars-themed nursery.
From the framed photo of Harrison Ford on the wall to the Death Star and Starship mobile, I'm sure her kid will thank her one day for letting him grow up with the Force on his side.
VIA [ Laughing Squid ]


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This is likely Alice Munro's last book of short stories. It includes a Finale of autobiographical memories. I haven't read much Munro, not being much of a short story fan, but I'm sure I've read at least one other of her collections. I'm trying to read more short story because I want to appreciate it more, and the endeavour has been instructive. I love using short story as a "palette cleanser" between novels. I always read each story twice in a row and then search online for others' comments about it, that way I learn more and realize things I've missed. (Goodreads is a good source to see what others have said–sort of like the "blind men and the elephant tale"–everyone describes something different so all together a range of truth and ideas is provided).
Compared to a novel, a short story is a nugget, a bullet, with all of the parts of a longer work condensed into a complete unit that packs a powerful punch. Though not my favourite, I can see the beauty and skill displayed by a short story writer like Munro. What I liked most about Dear Life was the 'Finale' where she talks more about her own life. The writing is looser reflections, less complete, and not quite so self-contained–a rare glimpse into Munro's own childhood, but is it so rare? I think her personal life has already been hinted at through the themes in her short stories.
Munro is known worldwide for her brilliance as a writer of short stories. She has won, among many other awards, a Nobel Prize in Literature. And yet she tells everyday stories of people living everyday lives. I do like that about her writing, it is very approachable. Her characters are flawed and human and she loves to explore how one event can be the fulcrum around which someone's life can turn on a dime. From her stories we discover that she is highly critical of men, often characterizing them as thoughtless, selfish, and unpredictable. The women are capable of great love, but are often powerless and weak. I suppose these may have been things she grew up with, or perhaps typical of her parents' generation in small town Ontario. There really doesn't need to be an answer. Like the blind men, we can all take away from the stories whatever we like, and enjoy our own observations and interpretations.
Are you a short story fan? Do you have any advice for short story reluctant readers like me? Do you have a favourite Alice Munro collection?


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It's about time DC dusted off some of its second-tier superheroes for big-budget movies. The Flash, Wonder Woman and Aquaman might finally get their movie debuts. It's about time.
WB's chairman and CEO Barry Meyer spoke to Time Warner's investors today. According to THR, he spilled the beans on a few upcoming projects. It's no real surprise that Sherlock Holmes is getting a sequel, but we were shocked to hear Meyer say that The Flash is close to being greenlit. We never thought that film would get off the ground (and technically it still isn't), but this is definitely a good sign.
But that's not all — Meyer also commented that Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Mad Magazine movies were presently in development.
We really want to DC make more comic-book movies, but before they start readying a hastily-made Justice League movie arc, everyone needs to hear Tony Stark's song about continuity. Please do take a listen.
No doubt we will be hearing much, much more about these projects this July at Comic-Con — but until then, sing it again, Tony.


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Video: Small Batch Sriracha from Love of Jojo in Brooklyn
At this point, sriracha is the Rocky Horror Picture Show of condiments: a cult classic that keeps poking its way into the mainstream, and the kind of food product that's spawned a kind of obsession.
While we love the stuff as much as anyone, we're also willing to admit that it's not the most complicated or nuanced chili sauce on the market. Sriracha's great, but everything you put it on winds up tasting inescapably of it. Which is where Jolene Collins' Love of Jojo chili sauce comes in. Our buddy Liza de Guia from Food Curated got the full story, and put together a film about how Jojo's chili sauce gets made.
"When I first started, I tried to create the sriracha that I knew and love, but I quickly figured out that when you add lots of different varieties of chili peppers you get all these crazy flavor profiles, so right away I knew there was so much more there."
Collins gets her chili peppers from local farmers at the Greenmarket, chops them up in a food processor, and combines them with minced garlic, salt, and palm sugar. The pre-racha ferments for about a week, then gets puréed and cooked down with vinegar before bottling. Though the individual peppers that go into the sauce change from batch to batch (each with their own flavor profile), Collins keeps her general proportions the same to ensure some consistency.
When we did our blind ketchup tasting, the clear winner was Heinz...because it tasted the most like Heinz, and everything else tasted "off" in one way or the other. Is sriracha the same way to American tastes? Maybe, but maybe not. You'll find plenty of differently flavored srirachas in Thailand and Vietnam; there's no reason we can't have the same here.
Watch the Video
JoJo's Sriracha: Bringing More Hot Pepper Flavor To The Party from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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Garrett Reid, the troubled 29-year-old son of Eagles coach Andy Reid, was found dead Sunday in a dorm room at the club's Lehigh University training camp, where he spent many summers hanging out with his father's team.
Police said the death was not suspicious, and the cause was under investigation. The coach's oldest son had a long history of drug problems, once admitting "I liked being a drug dealer" and went to prison for a heroin-fueled car crash.
Reid's death, of course, stunned the Eagles, who took the field only because their coach wanted them to continue with their scheduled practices.
Michael Vick, Nnamdi Asomugha and Jason Avant spoke briefly following the afternoon practice, each offering prayers and condolences to the Reid family. Owner Jeffrey Lurie fought back tears when talking to reporters and general manager Howie Roseman broke down after delivering the news in the morning.
Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday in Broomall, Pa. Tuesday is a scheduled day off from camp, so the team will be in attendance.
A few players went out to dinner later in the evening and took a solemn, solitary moment to toast Garrett Reid, calling him "a part of the family."
"This is a very difficult situation for us all to deal with," Vick said. "Coach has always been a great supporter of us, as a team, as an organization. He's been a rock for us and a big teddy bear for us, so we're going to lean on him and we're going to be there for him and we're going to stay strong for him until he comes back and can lead us on."
Lurie met with the team on the field and told reporters afterward he expected Reid back this week, ending any speculation the coach may not return.
Reid, a father of five, took a leave of absence during the 2007 offseason to spend more time with his family after Garrett and his second-oldest son, Britt, were sentenced to prison on the same day for separate incidents.
The Eagles play host to Pittsburgh in the preseason opener on Thursday night.
"I've watched Andy try so hard with his family over the years," Lurie said. "You see a man that really cares. He loves his players, he loves his coaches. He feels so bad that he's even interfering with their success today, tomorrow. He knows they're in good hands with our coaches, but actually in this moment of terrible pain, he's reaching out to all of us."
The police chief at Lehigh, Edward Shupp, said a 911 call was made at 7:20 a.m. about Reid, and that he was dead when a policeman arrived at the campus dormitory. The police and the Northampton County coroner were investigating.
Shupp said "there were no suspicious activities." Police didn't return later telephone calls for comment, and didn't say who found Garrett Reid or whether any clues to his death were found in his room.
Reid had been staying at the camp where he assisted the Eagles' strength coaches in an unofficial capacity, a not-uncommon sort of role for NFL coaches' sons. He was frequently seen on the sideline at practices and in the locker room after games. Many of the coaches and staff stay in the Lehigh dorms.
He seemed to have rebounded from a yearslong struggle with drug abuse that landed him in prison.
"Garrett was always smiling and laughing no matter what," Eagles receiver Chad Hall wrote on Twitter. "He was very caring and selfless. An overall great person. You will NOT be forgotten!"
Garrett Reid was sentenced to nearly two years for a 2007 high-speed car crash while he was high on heroin that injured another driver. Police found heroin and more than 200 pills in his car. When he surrendered to begin his sentence, prison guards found Reid had tried to smuggle prescription pills into jail.
In the midst of his legal troubles, Reid said he "got a thrill" out of being a drug dealer in a lower-income neighborhood just a few miles from his parents' suburban Villanova mansion.
"I liked being the rich kid in that area and having my own high-status life," Reid told a probation officer, according to court testimony in November 2007. "I could go anywhere in the 'hood. They all knew who I was. I enjoyed it. I liked being a drug dealer."
At his sentencing hearing, Reid told the judge: "I don't want to die doing drugs. I don't want to be that kid who was the son of the head coach of the Eagles, who was spoiled and on drugs and OD'd and just faded into oblivion."
His younger brother, Britt, also had problems with drug use and was arrested on the same day as Garrett in 2007 for a road-rage encounter. Police discovered weapons and drugs in Britt Reid's vehicle.
"I knew Garrett when he was 14, 15 years old, all of his kids," Lurie said. "The thing with Andy is he's strong and rock solid, but deep down, he's a teddy bear and the players who know him know that really well. All of us that know him know that really, really well. It's why he's so effective. Is he perfect? No. No one is. But that combination of, again, strength and tenderness is very, very special."
The Eagles practiced without their coach for the first time since 2007. Offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg and defensive coordinator Juan Castillo will oversee the team until Reid returns.
"Andy is a rock and he's given all of us, this football team, all the coaches, administration, equipment men, trainers, great support for many, many years and it's just very simple," Mornhinweg said. "We're here to support him now."
Expressions of sympathy came from everywhere around the league and across the sports world.
"We are deeply saddened by the news about Garrett Reid," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with Andy, Tammy and their family. We will support them and the Eagles in any way we can through this difficult time."
Miami Dolphins coach Joe Philbin experienced similar tragedy last season when he was offensive coordinator with Green Bay. Philbin's 21-year-old son was drunk and had marijuana in his system when he fell into a Wisconsin river and drowned, police said.
Philbin returned to coaching a couple days later and the Packers lost to the New York Giants in a divisional playoff game.
"The loss of a child and a sibling is absolutely devastating to a family," Philbin said. "Our hearts go out to Andy and Tammy Reid as they mourn the loss of their precious son, Garrett."
The Philadelphia Phillies held a moment of silence for Garrett Reid before their game against Arizona.
"I really feel for him," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. "I'm going to send him a message that I'm sorry. I've always had a lot of respect for Andy."
Andy Reid is in his 14th season in Philadelphia. He's led the Eagles to nine playoff appearances, six NFC East titles, five conference championship games and one Super Bowl loss.
A private service for Garrett Reid will be held tomorrow morning at the Church of Latter Day Saints in Broomall.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to: Laurel House, PO Box 764, Norristown, PA 19404.
Laurel House is an organization devoted to helping victims of domestic violence.
PHOTOS: Reaction to the death of Garrett Reid


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Smart Decision 2014: Analyzing Amendment One - The Right to Farm
COLUMBIA - Amendment One, also known as the "Right to Farm" amendment, is one of five possible amendments to the Missouri constitution facing voters during the Aug. 5 primary election.
See opposing arguments. See supporting arguments.
Although the bill was first introduced in the Missouri House of Representatives in January 2013, the origins of the bill can be traced back to 2010. In the November general election that year, Missouri voters passed the Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act, better known as "Proposition B." It placed restrictions on Missouri dog breeders, limiting how many dogs they could have, and enforcing standards for their care.
However, in April 2011, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon signed an act which altered Proposition B. It changed the official name to the Canine Cruelty Prevention Act and removed the prohibition preventing breeders from having more than 50 dogs. It also removed the criminal penalty provision from the original bill.
According to Rep. Bill Reiboldt [R-Neosho], Proposition B was passed largely due to heavy influence from the out-of-state group, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). He became Amendment One's primary sponsor and said it came about as a result of a desire to prevent outside influence of "radical activist groups" on Missouri farming practices.
"The idea that comes from urban areas is that we have the right to regulate what happens in the country and I kind of question that," Reiboldt said.
Former Missouri Lt. Gov. Joe Maxwell, a leading opponent of the amendment, said while he supported Proposition B, it is separate from the farming issue at hand on this amendment.
"I don't consider puppy mills to be animal agriculture," Maxwell said. "Puppy mills are not animal agriculture, it's raising dogs the wrong way."
Reiboldt said many of the votes for Proposition B came from the urban centers in St. Louis and Kansas City, while the "no" votes were mainly from rural Missourians.
"Kansas City and St. Louis, I think people in those areas don't realize how many good-paying jobs are directly and indirectly related to our state's agriculture economy," Reiboldt said. "The rural people understand agriculture in much different way than do urban people and urban people are so far removed from the farm, probably one or two generations from the farm."
Between January 2013 and May 2013, several versions of the bill passed back and forth between House and Senate committees, including two joint conferences to iron out differences between the two legislative houses. Both chambers eventually passed the bill as House Joint Resolution [HJR] 11 and 7. This resolution was the combination of Reiboldt's original bill, known as Resolution 11, and a similar bill, known as Resolution 7, from the bill's co-sponsor Rep. Jason Smith.
In May 2014, Nixon placed HJR 11 and 7, renamed as Constitutional Amendment One, on the August primary ballot, which gave amendment supporters and the opposition a little more than 10 weeks to influence voters' decision on the "Right to Farm." Television ads for and against the amendment began airing Monday.
If voters approve the amendment, it would add Section 35 to Article I of the Missouri Constitution. The language of the amendment reads as follows:
"Section 35. That agriculture which provides food, energy, health benefits, and security is the foundation and stabilizing force of Missouri's economy. To protect this vital sector of Missouri's economy, the right of farmers and ranchers to engage in farming and ranching practices shall be forever guaranteed in this state, subject to duly authorized powers, if any, conferred by article VI of the Constitution of Missouri."
OPPOSITION TO "RIGHT TO FARM" (See supporting arguments.)
Amendment One has sparked a heated debate in the agricultural community, the largest industry in the state. Opponents of the amendment strongly disagree this amendment will serve to protect the local farmer, which supporters of the bill argue.
Former Lt. Gov. Maxwell is now the vice president of outreach and engagement at HSUS. He said the amendment will actually do the opposite of protecting local farmers. He said the amendment will give foreign countries and corporations the opportunity to take control of agriculture in the state.
"It's a change to our constitution, the people's law and, for the first time, corporations are seeking rights in the constitution no different than I have as a family farmer and I think that is unfair," Maxwell said. "The constitution is not a place corporations should gain rights in."
However, Reiboldt said the idea that foreign entities will take over Missouri farms is completely unfounded.
"Nothing earth-shattering is going to happen like some would lead you to believe, like allowing foreigners to come in and to buy our land and pollute it and trash it. This is just a blatant lie. It will not happen," Reiboldt said. "I'm opposed to foreign ownership of land."
Maxwell now lives in his hometown of Mexico, Missouri, where he has an attorney practice and helps his twin brother, Steve, work on their family farm, which has been in their family for four generations.
Maxwell said one of the main issues opponents have with the amendment is the wording is too vague. In particular, Maxwell said the amendment isn't specific enough as to who qualifies as a farmer or rancher, or what exactly "farming and ranching practices" entail.
"The ballot language says citizen. If you read what you're going to vote on in the ballot booth, you say, 'Oh yeah, citizens should have that right,'" Maxwell said. "If you read the actual language, if it passes, what will go into effect in our constitution, it doesn't say 'citizen,' it says 'farming and ranching' and as we know in this country, you can't discriminate between corporations and individuals."
Reiboldt agrees the language is vague, but said the purpose of the vague language is to cover the broad agricultural spectrum in Missouri.
"One reason the language has to be vague is because of the diversity of agriculture in Missouri," Reiboldt said. "This is a legislation in scope like the right to bear arms. That's all that's in there. But you can build on that legislatively and statutorily. It gives the protection to begin with. There's nothing in Amendment One that's going to hurt agriculture."
Another primary opponent concern is the power the amendment would have as part of the state constitution.
Wes Shoemyer, the former Democratic senator of Missouri's 18th district, said, because the word of the state constitution is the highest authority in Missouri state legislature, local ordinances and state statutes already in place regulating farming could be overruled by the new amendment. Shoemyer created the Missouri's Food for America PAC specifically to fight Amendment One. Missouri's Food for America is the largest PAC in opposition to the amendment.
"As the old saying goes, the constitution trumps all, which means any statute, any local ordinance we're going to be giving those rights away and taking the legislatures, the city councils, and county governments out of the picture for agriculture regulation," Shoemyer said.
Shoemyer said the amendment would mostly benefit corporations.
"What Amendment One does would certainly transfer those rights that family farmers already enjoy to these corporations. I think it's a very dangerous precedent," Shoemyer said. "This is enshrining rights in the constitution to those people who should not enjoy these rights."
Maxwell said Amendment One "would take away safeguards for our drinking water. In rural areas around Mark Twain Lake where 15 counties get their drinking water, there's a green zone around that lake that says 'you can't come in here corporations and build factory farms that could possibly contaminate our drinking water.' Those ordinances could go away if this passes, affecting our clean drinking water."
Reiboldt said Amendment One would not allow anyone to bypass local ordinances or statutes. According to Reiboldt, the language in the amendment retains the local control Missouri has now in regulating farms under Article VI of the Missouri Constitution.
"That was the decisive factor that got it through the Senate was when we made [local control] clear in both the ballot language and the section change," Reiboldt said. "This passed overwhelmingly in both houses."
Although Shoemyer makes his living as a farmer on his family farm in Monroe County, he also serves on the HSUS Missouri Agricultural Council as a means of opposing this amendment. The former senator said he works with HSUS on a volunteer basis without pay because he wants to represent himself as a farmer and not as an employee of HSUS.
Shoemyer said the recent acquisition of 50,000 acres of farmland by a Chinese corporation is a prime example of what's to come if the amendment passes. Last year, the Hong Kong-based group Shuanghui International Holdings Limited, now known as W.H. Group Limited, purchased Smithfied, a pork producer formerly based in Virginia. The company was granted an exception from the Missouri legislature to allow them to purchase the land and according to Reiboldt, it was President Barack Obama's administration that approved the final sale to the Chinese company.
Shoemyer said Smithfield's parent company controls 27 percent of the pork produced in the United States and the company plans to build concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, on the land it purchased in Missouri.
Sen. Brian Munzlinger [R-St. Charles County] took over Shoemyer's senate seat following the 2010 election. He also served in the Missouri House from 2002 to 2008. He said the Smithfield acquisition happened long before the vote on HJR 11 and 7 and is being used as a scare tactic by opposition.
The opposition "tries to bring things out of the woodwork to make it look as bad as it can," he said, but he doesn't see anything like a corporate takeover happening.
"We do have in statute currently that no more than one percent of Missouri farmland can be owned by foreign corporations," Munzlinger said.
Reiboldt said the amendment's wording is vague as a means of allowing local governments to create their own ordinances more closely tailored to their needs.
"With constitutional privileges and rights comes reasonable regulations and responsibilities. Farmers have probably the number one regulated industry in the country," Reiboldt said.
Opponents of Amendment One have also cited possible litigation costs that could hamper the state judiciary as a reason Missourians should vote "no" on the "Right to Farm." Maxwell said, as a result of the vague wording in the amendment, the state would see challenges to the bill's constitutionality as well as people using the amendment as a legal tool to circumvent current regulations.
Maxwell said this would effectively let the courts decide who is a farmer and what constitutes farming and ranching practices.
Shoemyer agreed this amendment would result in court litigation.
"This is a constitutional amendment. If it's not perfect, if it's not right, the courts are going to decide it and both sides understand how vague this is written," Shoemyer said. "I think people need to remember that to rely on the courts, it'll cost the state millions to defend the law. We need to remember these corporations have more attorneys on retainer than we have in most of our home towns. It's not the family farmers that are going to be able to go to court to defend themselves."
Shoemyer rejected the idea that the courts would protect Missouri farmers under this amendment, citing a decision from the court which prevents Missouri farmers from storing their own seed.
According to Munzlinger, who supports the bill, the idea that challenges to Amendment One would overrun Missouri courts is mostly rhetoric from the opposition.
Reiboldt said the legislation on the ballot is modeled after a similar bill passed in North Dakota in 2012. He said North Dakota has not seen a dramatic increase in legal battles concerning their "Right to Farm" legislation and he doesn't anticipate any increase in Missouri if the amendment passes.
"This was one of the issues brought up by the opposition in North Dakota and it just hasn't happened there," Reiboldt said. "Here in Missouri, I've had several legal opinions given to me by agricultural attorneys and basically they're saying it's just not going to happen. It's not going to immediately cause all the problems they say it's going to. This is a worst case scenario and not something we need to be concerned about."
Munzlinger agreed Missouri will not see nearly the increase in court costs claimed by the opposition.
"There will be some [litigation] undoubtedly, but really its to keep these activists group out of Missouri," said Munzlinger, the chairman of the House committee on Agriculture, Food Production and Outdoor Resources, "I think that is all hype and scare tactics that the opposition is using. I don't see any more court battles than we see now."
Political Action Committees (PACs) have raised more than $430,000 to oppose the amendment, the majority of which comes from the Missouri's Food for America PAC. The opposition also received a $375,000 donation from HSUS.
SUPPORT FOR "RIGHT TO FARM" (See opposing arguments.)
A large majority of legislators voted in favor of the final HJR 11 and 7. In the final vote for approval in the House, 132 representatives voted "yes," with 25 casting a "no" vote. In the Senate, 28 senators voted "yes" on the bill, with six dissenting votes.
"We feel farmers in Missouri need some sort of protection heading into the future so that our state's number one industry is not interrupted by out-of-state activists or animal rights groups," Reiboldt said. "Missouri is the number one target of these outside groups."
Missouri already has some legislation on the books regarding the "Right to Farm." Chief among these is a 1975 statute, included in chapter 350 of the Missouri Revised Statutes, which gives farmers protection from any nuisance charges against their farm. These complaints can stem from byproducts of farming such as noise or smell. The same statute had a section preventing corporations from obtaining agricultural land in the state after Sept. 28, 1975. Legislators further augmented legislation governing corporate farming in 2012, putting a cap on farmland that can be owned by a foreign corporation at 1 percent.
Supporters point to these statutes as providing the necessary protection against corporations and the said opposition's fear of corporate influence is unfounded. But Maxwell said foreign corporations should be kept at a minimum in Missouri to stem the influence of foreign currency in the Missouri economy.
"Foreign corporations and foreign companies have the ability to influence the monetary system and come in here with cheaper dollars, driving up the price of farmland, increasing taxes on farmers," Maxwell said.
Proponents of the constitutional amendment have consistently pressed one goal above all others for the amendment's passing - protecting Missouri farmers and their ability to operate their own family farms.
Munzlinger said Missourians need to pass this amendment to protect both the farmers and the people who buy their products.
"We need this to pass to keep the freedoms that our consumers and our farmers both have," he said. "Farmers, we need the freedom so we don't have outside activist interest groups telling us how we need to run our operations. For the consumer, it's because if those outside activist groups come into Missouri, their choices will dwindle and the prices will go up."
Munzlinger said it is about more than protecting just local farmers. According to him, while most of the debate has centered on farming's raw food production, the bill will have significant impact in the economy. Munzlinger said Amendment One will have trickle down effects on all aspects of the food industry in Missouri.
"It goes much further than just producing the crop or the livestock. It carries on over to the actual processors we have, the Kraft Foods, the milk processors, our other industries that handle meat," Munzlinger said. "It takes a lot of people to get it from the farm all the way to the grocery store. If we lose the right to farm in Missouri, it's going to affect all of those jobs as well."
Shoemyer said when he has met with some of Missouri's farmers, they are concerned "genetically modified organism" [GMO] crops could push them out of the market.
"I was just down with rice-growers in the boothill and they're very concerned with GMO rice coming in and ruining their export market. Monsanto could very well claim to be a farmer and say we have the rights to do this," Shoemyer said. "I don't believe that's what the vast majority of people want."
"I don't believe consumers want to give up the rights to know what might be in their food in the future and if this passes, any GMO labeling effort that got started would be null and void," Shoemyer said.
The President of the Missouri Farm Bureau (MFB) Blake Hurst said the amendment would prevent outside forces from influencing Missouri farm operations, in particular technological advances such as GMOs.
"We've seen nothing, no health effects at all, not single tummy ache happened from GMOs. It's a proven technology. It's a safe technology that's beneficial to both farmers, the environment more importantly and consumers as well," Hurst said.
MFB is a leading member of Missouri Farmer's Care, a group comprising 43 farming and agricultural organizations, such as the Missouri Pork Association, Missouri Soybeans and Missouri Corn. These organizations represent thousands of the farmers across the state, Hurst said. He has seen massive support from the bill from the MFB members, most of whom are local farmers, he said.
"We sent a letter to our members. We said, 'We need help' and they sent in contributions. $20 at a time, $30 at a time, $50 at a time," Hurst said. "Thousands of farmers from across the state have sent us checks in that manner and we've been able to raise $125,000. We were thrilled with that number. But the opposition gets one check from HSUS, an out-of-state corporation, because that's what they are, and it triples what we were able to raise. That's what we're up against."
Hurst said this is the most active he has seen the agriculture community over an issue in his time in the business.
"I've been involved with our organization for 35 years and I've never seen our members volunteering more time, working harder than they are to pass Amendment One," he said. "These are family farms all across the state. 97 percent of the farms across the state are family farms, just like ours. We're a family farm. We think this is the most important thing we can do to protect not only our farms, but more importantly, our family's way of life."
Campaign committees and PACs have raised more than $740,000 in support of the "Right to Farm" amendment, including a more than $100,000 contribution from the Missouri Soybean Association, among other donations.


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Thomas Jefferson Smith (1864-1946)
Thomas Jefferson Smith and his second wife, Elizabeth Mahaley "Lizzie" Smith lived in this house in Ray City, GA in the 1940s. Before its demolition in 2010, this house was sometimes called the "Murder House" by local residents. It was the home of an elderly woman who was murdered in a home invasion. She was killed with a cast iron skillet. No one was ever convicted of the crime.
Thomas Jefferson Smith grew up in the 1157 Georgia Militia District of Berrien County, GA. He was a son of George and Amanda Smith. He married Jennette P. Shaw on August 17, 1884 in a ceremony performed by Lott W. Sirmans, Notary Public. She was born in 1869, a daughter of Elizabeth Parker and Richard James Shaw, and sister of Rachel J. Shaw. The Smiths lived for a while in the Connell's Mill District west of Ray City, on the Cecil & Milltown Road where they were neighbors of Botie Peters, Caulie Augustus DeVane, Arren Fountain, and Remer Albritton.
- Caulie Columbus Smith, 1885–1968, married Marietta Bass, daughter of Joe Bass
- James Mansfield Smith, born September 19, 1887; attended Kings Chapel School; married Zonie L. Wooten, December 1, 1911; died October 18, 1957; burial Pleasant Cemetery near Ray City, GA
- Verdie Belle Smith, born October 13, 1889; married Alvin Lee Ray, January 25, 1908; died October 29, 1981; buried New Ramah Cemetery, Ray City, GA
- Viola Anne Smith, born 1892; married William U. Davis, January 10, 1915.
- Lonnie William Smith, born 1895; WWI Service in SC; married Sudie Green about 1920; relocated to South Carolina; died September 25, 1949; buried Pleasant Cemetery near Ray City, GA
- Leila Smith, born about 1897; married Charlie Lamar Ray; died 1924; buried Pleasant Cemetery near Ray City, GA
- Georgia Edna Smith, born December 28, 1898; first wife of Rossie Futch, married December 22, 1918; died December 17, 1942; buried Pleasant Cemetery near Ray City, GA
- Charlie Thomas Smith, born January 7, 1901; married Thelma ?; died October 21, 1945; buried Pleasant Cemetery near Ray City, GA
- Owen Newton Smith, born October 16, 1904; died July 29, 1975
- Pauline Smith, born about 1908
- Margaret Myrtle Smith, born about 1911
The Smith children attended King's Chapel School. Some time before 1920 the family moved to the Cat Creek District, to a farm on the "Ray City & Valdosta Road by Cat Creek."
Jeanette P. Shaw died July 8, 1922 at the age of 53. She was buried at Pleasant Cemetery, west of Ray City, GA.
On May 3, 1924 Tom Smith married Elizabeth Mahaley "Lizzie" Sirmans in a ceremony performed by Lyman Franklin Giddens. She was the 32 year-old daughter of Shabatha Fender and Frank John Sirmans,
In 1930, Lizzie and Tom Smith lived in a house on Pauline Street across from Beaver Dam cemetery. This house was the residence of William Creech and family in the 1940s. By the time of the 1940 census the Smiths had moved up the block to a small house on the corner of Swindle and Main Street.
Thomas J. Smith died in 1946. He was buried at Pleasant Cemetery next to his first wife.
Elizabeth S. "Lizzie" Smith died December 30, 1967. She was buried at Fender Cemetery, near Lakeland, GA.
Related Posts:
Mayhaw Lake Resort at Ray City, GA
Mayor Lyman F. Giddens Brings Electric Plant to Ray City ~ 1922


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Blue Origin
Blue Origin's pusher escape system rockets the company's prototype crew capsule away from the launch pad, demonstrating a key safety system for both suborbital and orbital flights. Click on the picture to go to the Blue Origin website for a video of the test flight.
Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket venture notched a blazing success last week when it tested a NASA-backed launch pad escape system for its crew capsule.
The Oct. 19 demonstration flight at Blue Origin's West Texas spaceport marked the final milestone for NASA's $22 million agreement with Blue Origin, which was aimed at promoting the development of next-generation spaceships capable of resupplying the International Space Station. Blue Origin, which is based in Kent, Wash., decided not to compete for the next phase of NASA's orbital program — but in a news release issued today, Bezos said his company would make use of the "pusher" pad escape system in its suborbital spaceship.
"The first test of our suborbital Crew Capsule is a big step on the way to safe, affordable space travel," he said. "This wouldn't have been possible without NASA's help, and the Blue Origin team worked hard and smart to design this system, build it, and pull off this test. Lots of smiles around here today. Gradatim Ferociter!"
That last phrase is Blue Origin's motto, which is Latin for "Step by Step, Courageously."
The latest step
The pad-escape test was the latest step in Bezos' decade-long effort to create a launch system suitable for space tourists as well as researchers and, eventually, orbit-bound astronauts. The 48-year-old Amazon.com founder, whose net worth is estimated at more than $23 billion, created Blue Origin in 2000 to follow through on his childhood dream of space travel.
"Blue Origin's goal is to work steadily toward developing human spaceflight capabilities," Brett Alexander, the company's director of business development and strategy, told me today. "Our goal is to lower the cost and increase the safety of human spaceflight to enable more people to fly."
Blue Origin
Blue Origin's New Shepard crew capsule rose to a height of 2,307 feet before deploying its parachutes for a safe descent.
Blue Origin
The gumdrop-shaped crew capsule set down 1,630 feet from the launch pad. This closeup view focuses on Blue Origin's logo and motto: "Gradatim Ferociter."
Blue Origin video shows a test of the pad-escape system for the crew capsule module.
Alexander said last week's pad-escape test in Texas and this month's successful test firing of Blue Origin's BE-3 liquid-hydrogen rocket engine at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi ranked among the biggest steps taken to date toward the company's goal. "This is a very big deal. ... Propulsion and crew escape are two of the fundamental building blocks of our system," Alexander said. "Those are the cornerstones, if you will."
Blue Origin is working toward the development of a New Shepard suborbital launch system with a propulsion module that can launch the crew capsule to an altitude beyond the 100-kilometer (62-mile) boundary of outer space. From that height, passengers can get a few minutes of weightlessness amid a view of the black sky above a curving Earth, while researchers can conduct useful experiments on the effects of the space environment.
Blue Origin hasn't laid out a specific schedule for commercial operations — nor has the company said anything about its pricing plan for spaceflights. But in order to be financially viable, the venture would probably have to be competitive with other suborbital spaceship companies, such as Space Adventures, Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace. Those companies are offering flights in the range of $95,000 to $200,000 per seat.
Alexander said "the key to both safety and affordability is reusability of the launch vehicle and a lot of practice — a high flight rate."
End-to-end tryout
The pad-escape test served as an end-to-end tryout for Blue Origin's crew capsule: A center-mounted solid-rocket engine from Aerojet lofted the capsule to a height of 2,307 feet (703 meters) under active thrust vector control. Then the capsule descended by parachute to a soft landing 1,630 feet (496 meters) downrange, at the company's test facility on ranchland owned by Bezos, near Van Horn, Texas.
Blue Origin showed the blastoff and landing in a video lasting a minute and 45 seconds.
Ed Mango, the manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said in a space agency statement that "it was awesome to see a spacecraft NASA played a role in developing take flight."
"The progress Blue Origin has made on its suborbital and orbital capabilities really is encouraging for the overall future of human spaceflight," Mango said.
In an actual flight scenario, the escape system would be lit up only if Blue Origin's propulsion module experienced a problem serious enough to abort the flight. The passengers inside the crew capsule would be rocketed away to safety. If the flight proceeded normally, the crew capsule would separate from the propulsion module, coast to the edge of space, re-enter the atmosphere and descend to a parachute landing. The propulsion module, meanwhile, would autonomously perform its own rocket-powered vertical landing.
In August 2011, a prototype propulsion module went supersonic and rose to an altitude of 45,000 feet during a test flight — but when the vehicle became unstable, the flight had to be aborted and the rocket ship crashed to its doom. That's the kind of scenario that would bring the pad-escape system into play.
Alexander said Blue Origin was still working on the next version of the propulsion module. The old version used five kerosene-fueled engines, but the next-generation propulsion module will use a single hydrogen-fueled engine, he said. "It'll look a little different, but it's essentially the same size," he said.
In the past, Blue Origin has been somewhat reticent to talk about its activities but in light of the past month's successes, Alexander seemed to emphasize the sentiment behind the company's motto: step by step, courageously.
"Our overall development path certainly doesn't stop with suborbital," he said.
More about commercial spaceflight:
- Blue Origin's blue-sky ambitions
- NASA, FAA work out rules for spaceships
- Next steps in the new space race
- Cosmic Log archive on the commercial space race
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.


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In boys baseball: Rangers trip to Florida apparently paid off
copyright the Chronicle May 13, 2015
by Joseph Gresser
Major Leaguers begin each season with spring training, a time to polish skills that may have gotten rusty over the winter. For almost all clubs that means heading south to warm weather.
What works for the bigs ought to work for high school, thought Lake Region Union High School Baseball Coach Eric Degre. His staff and players agreed.
Deciding to head to warmer places was easy; making it happen was harder. Each player had to raise more than $1,000 to pay for the trip, but with help from the community they managed the feat. Their destination was Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida…. To read the rest of this article, and all the Chronicle's stories, subscribe:
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This book provides a fundamental understanding of crystal systems alongside the latest applications of crystallography. Emphasizing the importance of computers in modern crystallography, the book contains case studies and models to illustrate concepts such as lattices and space groups in two dimensions, as well as stunning phortgraphrsJulian, Maureen M. is the author of 'Foundations of Crystallography With Computer Applications ', published 2008 under ISBN 9781420060751 and ISBN 1420060759.[read more]
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Kevin McKidd, who currently stars on "Grey's Anatomy," told IGN that he's still a contender for the lead role in Marvel Studios' Thor.
The actor, most known for "Journeyman" and "Rome," says there's been "a lot of back and forth" but that nothing has been determined. He acknowledged that Kenneth Branagh is directing it, a choice that makes him even more excited about the film.
Marvel Studios is targeting a July 16, 2010 release for Thor.


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|No such thing as a small change
Re^5: XML::Parser Tutorialby Jenda (Abbot)
|on Aug 24, 2008 at 12:41 UTC ( #706555=note: print w/replies, xml )
|Need Help??
<tag attr="something"/> IS XML the way it was originaly designed. XML tags are not required to have content, they can very well have only attributes or just appear in the file with no additional info. Do show us the code!
As far as programmer intervention goes ... you have to intervene somewhere. Of course you can use a module that takes only the XML and gives you a maze of objects and you really do not have to set up anything FOR THIS STEP of the XML processing. But then you have to navigate the maze to get your hands on the data. The first step is easy, but it doesn't take you far.
Or you can do some work upfront to specify some rules and obtain a data structure that's already tweaked to whatever you need to do with the data later.
Or you can use a parser that just splits the XML apart and hands you the individual pieces (which is what most styles of XML::Parser do) and you have to handle all the pieces of data immediately as they are found in the file.
Which style (or a combination of styles) works best for you and the task at hand is something you have to find out. And for XML::Rules ... you can ask it to infer the base set of rules from the DTD or example XMLs. If you do that and leave the ruleset alone, you basicaly end up with the first style. Except that you end up with a HashOfHashesAndArraysOfHashes... instead of objects. But you can tweak the ruleset to skip the stuff you are not interested in, reformat the structure to simplify the searches later, change some static rules to subroutines and handle the data as soon as that particular tag with all its contents is parsed, etc.
In either case DO show us the failing code using XML::Parser! We do want to see the problem. Or at least I do. Most likely it's something you do, but if there really is a bug in the module I need to know. 'Cause XML::Rules is based on XML::Parser.
In Section Tutorials


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