Monthly Archives: August 2005

A Latin American Al Jazeera

This year Telesur, the first multi-state TV channel in the world was launched from Caracas, Venezuela. The station is being launched with help from other Latin American governments including Argentina, Cuba and Uruguay. The channel’s board members include a group of international supporters including the actor Danny Glover, the writer Tariq Ali and Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel.
But even before its launch, Telesur was being attacked in Washington. Last week the House passed an amendment calling for the U.S. to begin broadcasting its own channel into the region to counter Telesur.
We know that not everything Washington dislikes is necessarily good (Saddam Hussein being a good example), but the arrival of Telesur to the world of Latin American news broadcasting, overwhelmingly dominated by FOX news, CNN, ABC and others, is a pretty good thing.

(Based on Democracy Now!)

Lawyers-to-be Help Environmental Causes for Free!

Environmental Law students are beginning a very cool trend all over the United States. They are contributing free legal services to Environmental causes to gain hands on experience in their field!

At Pace University’s environmental law clinic in White Plains N.Y, for example, some second and third year students are acting as lead attorneys and have gone against such high powered lawyers as those at Exxon-Mobil! They often take cases which government agencies aren’t willing to back up and that means taking serious risks to fight for a good cause that needs help. Some students can even wind up with legal victories on their résumés before they take their bar exam!

Rather than focusing on a grade these students actually learn by making a difference! With their energy and conviction they are going head-to-head with corporations that have armies of lawyers and unlimited budgets.

Wow! If only all lawyers were so kind!

Hydristor: Believe the Hype?

Inventor Thomas Kasmer has made a neat little device called the Hydristor, which, according to him, has the potential to change the world.

The Hydristor belongs in your car, it basically replaces the transmission. In all transmissions energy is lost, a automatic car has worse mileage than a manual car because an automatic transmission consumes more power. What makes the Hydristor more efficent is how it transfers the power to the drive train and how it absorbs power from braking forces that can later be used to power the vehicle.

The heavier the vehicle the more power the Hydristor can get from braking. As a result the feul efficency of all vehicals can improve, espically heavier vehicles like SUVs.

“In theory, it should work. The biggest advantage of his system is that it’s very small and compact. I don’t think I’ve seen a variable transmission as small and as simple as this.” This quote is from a good article on the Hydristor at PressConnects.com