Audio Fertilizers and Mobile Phones

Rough Economy Good to USA's Super Rich

America's super-rich are feeling few ill effects from the country's slow economic recovery. Forbes magazine has released its list of the 400 wealthiest Americans.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates tops the list with a net worth of $54 billion, followed by famed financier and investor Warren Buffett, worth $45 billion.

Other notable people on the list include the heirs to the Wal-Mart retail fortune and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, all in the top 10.

Meanwhile, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg jumped to number 35 on the list, more than doubling his net worth to almost $7 billion.

Forbes says members of the finance, investment and real estate industries dominate the list, taking up a total of 140 spots..

The U.S. state of California has the most members on the list of wealthiest Americans, followed by New York, Texas and Florida.

While many of those on the Forbes list increased their personal fortunes, the two wealthiest Americans have been encouraging billionaires to give their wealth away.

Buffett and Gates say they have already persuaded 40 of the richest families and individuals in the United States to give at least half of their fortunes to charity as part of the "Giving Pledge" campaign.




Earlier this year, Forbes named Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim the world's richest person. At the time, the telecommunications mogul boasted a fortune worth $53.5 billion, placing him slightly ahead of Gates (whose fortune was an estimated $53 billion when the list was released).


adapted from VOA News

USA's Super Rich:Two Biographies

Eat Pray Love - Book

The movie is based on the book "Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia", a 2006 memoir by American author Elizabeth Gilbert.
At 32 years old, Elizabeth Gilbert had a loving husband, a great apartment, a weekend home, and a successful career as a writer. However, she was unhappy in her marriage and separated from her husband. After finalizing a difficult divorce, she spent the next year traveling.
She stayed four months in Italy, eating and enjoying life (Eat) and four months in India, where she found her spirituality (Pray). She ended the year in Bali, Indonesia where she met a Brazilian factory owner (Love)
Columbia Pictures bought the movie rights. The film version, which stars American actress Julia Roberts, was released in US theaters on Friday, August 13, 2010

Eat Pray Love - Trailer

Eat Pray Love - A scene

The Robin Hood Tax - What is it?

How it works

The Robin Hood Tax is a small tax on banks, funds and other finance institutions that, if approved, will raise hundreds of billions to fight poverty and climate change all over the world
It can start as low as 0.005 per cent and average 0.05 per cent.

Why now?
Because of the financial crisis, services are under fire.
At the same time, poor communities and the environment are being hit hard – as aid and green budgets are slashed by rich countries.
So it’s time for the people who caused this mess to pay to clean it up.

Who’s in?
Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel (the German Chan

cellor) and Nicolas Sarkozy (the French President) support a tax on financial transactions.
Plenty of business bigwigs are on-board too. Lord Turner (from the UK Financial Services Authority), George Soros (the philanthropist) and Warren Buffet (US businessman extraordinaire) as well as hundreds of economists back transaction taxes.This isn’t some crazy pipedream. It’s a simple and brilliant idea which transcends party politics and which – with your support – can become a reality.

Is the Robin Hood Tax a good idea?

The Robin Hood Tax - video Leaders

The Robin Hood Tax - video The Banker

A song by Norah Jones

Interesting word: Text Walking

Text Walking or Text-walking or Textwalking noun [uncountable] walking along while texting from a mobile phone, especially when this makes you unaware of the people or things around you

Text-walker noun [countable]

Text-walk verb [intransitive]


Text-walking is now a recognised concept in US English, The word hit the spotlight in the summer of 2008, when it emerged that the state of Illinois had proposed a bill banning the use of mobile phones while crossing the street. Under the new law, text-walking is considered a criminal offence, carrying a $25 fine for perpetrators.

In July 2008, the American College of Emergency Physicians issued a warning about accidents caused by 'oblivious texters', reporting a rise in the number of serious injuries involving text-messaging pedestrians and cyclists.


Background – from DWT to text-walking

Text-walking is a classic example of a new compound filling the gap in the lexicon for a concept emerging from the impact of new technology on daily life.

On the same theme, there's also some evidence for use of the expression read-walking, referring to the practice of reading (the paper, a novel) while walking along – people who do this are correspondingly described as read-walkers.

Both expressions seem to take inspiration from the established compound sleepwalking, which refers to the practice of walking around (and sometimes doing other things) while asleep.

Another expression now used in US English is DWT, an abbreviation for driving while texting.

adapted from Macmillan Dictionary

Competition Shows Off Super Fuel-Efficient Automobiles

Would you like to drive
the X-Tracer?
Photo: VOA Photo - E. Lee

Alcatraz

Space Tourism

The aerospace giant Boeing announced a partnership Wednesday with a company called Space Adventures. Both companies will work together to launch wealthy space tourists and other non-NASA fliers aboard a 7-passenger capsule.

The Boeing CST-100 capsule will carry NASA and European Space Agency astronauts to and from the International Space Station under a NASA initiative to encourage development of private-sector spacecraft.

Seats not needed by NASA or its space station partners will be marketed to individuals, private companies, non-NASA federal agencies and other governments that might need access to space.

Boeing and Space Adventures are among several companies developing technology to help send astronauts, cargo and people into space in the coming years.

Space Adventures has already organized eight trips to the International Space Station aboard Russia's Soyuz space capsule. The company's most recent client, Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laiberte, paid $35 million for a ride in October 2009.

Boeing and Space Adventures did not say how much a trip will cost and added that the price will be competitive.

The CST-100 spacecraft will seat up to seven crew members and stay at the space station for up to six months before returning to parachute-and-airbag-cushioned landing in the western United States. The capsules will be able to fly up to 10 times each with new heat shields and service modules added between flights.

NASA astronauts will pilot agency missions to the space station.

Assuming steady funding and no major technical problems, Boeing will be ready for operational flights in 2015.

NASA will have to buy seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft until new U.S. rockets, either government or commercial, become available in the 2015 timeframe.

Former shuttle commander Brewster Shaw, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space Exploration said: "With the coming end of the space shuttle program, NASA has a significant and immediate need for transportation to the International Space Station of their crew. Additionally, very few people have made it to orbit, probably a little over 500 out of some 6 or 7 billion people. That's not enough. We want to see many more have that opportunity."

John Elbon, vice president and program manager of Boeing commercial crew transportation systems, said "This is an uncertain market. It's a new thing. But the fact that NASA will be an investor in this process, means that we have less cost to recover during operations. That reduces the dependence on the pure commercial part of this market".

source: CBS and VOAnews

How about booking a flight?

Book your place in space now and join around 340 Virgin Galactic astronauts who will venture into space. Tickets cost $200,000 and deposits start from $20,000.
If you are interested in discussing your reservation with Virgin Galactic directly please click HERE
One of their Accredited Space Agents around the world will get in touch as soon as possible to answer any questions you may have.

National Portrait Gallery

More Museums

Cigarettes, electricity on the way to trapped miners

By Patrick Oppmann


Copiapo, Chile (CNN) -- The miners trapped since August 5 in Chile are "getting a light" in more ways than one.

The 33 men will receive a power line that will allow them to install electric lights in their shelter 2,300 feet underground, mining officials said Saturday.

Rescuers will send down two packs of cigarettes a day to be split among the miners who want to smoke, Chilean Health Minister Jaime Manalich said.

Cigarettes were among the first requests made by some of the miners, but officials have been supplying them with nicotine patches and gum instead. A new compressor is improving air circulation in the mine. This upgrade made to ventilation in the mine led officials to allow them to smoke.

The addition of electricity will allow the men to have more lighting in the area where they are trapped, helping restore their sleep patterns.

The lights might help the men adjust to daylight. However, doctors will still take special precautions to protect the miners' eyes once they reach the surface.

Officials estimate it could take until at least November to free the miners.

Rescuers are using three drilling methods -- dubbed Plan A, Plan B and Plan C -- in their efforts to reach them.
Photo - Crews are working on the assembly of the oil drill, which will work on "Plan C"

The men underground have expressed concern over hearing the rescue drills' stopping and starting, Manalich said.

"We explained to them that the drills stop and start, there isn't any big change," Manalich said. "The drills stop for maintenance, they have programmed stoppages and they have stoppages like we are seeing with Plan B."

Plan B is a drill used to make water bore holes. It has not been drilling since it hit a steel beam in the mine which "completely destroyed" the drill's bit. Workers are digging the broken bit out and then they will replace it - but that process could take several days.

On Saturday, more pieces of the Plan C platform arrived at the drilling site. This oil drilling platform the size of a soccer field, is expected to drill faster than the other two drills already at work.

Mexican Guest Workers

Raquel Trejo Rubio, a 28-year-old Mexican migrant, is among the 66,000 migrants who enter the United States legally as H2B Guest Workers.

H2B is a visa program that gives foreign workers access to minimum-wage, temporary non-agricultural jobs that employers say are not filled because the pay is low, the employment seasonal and the work often back breaking and tedious.

To qualify for H-2B nonimmigrant classification, the employer:

* must establish that its need for the prospective worker’s services or labor is temporary - a one-time occurrence, a seasonal need, a peak-load need, or an intermittent need
* must demonstrate that there are not sufficient U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available to do the temporary work
* must show that the employment of H-2B workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers

A Comparative-Superlative Quiz

Click HERE to start the 15-question quiz. Don't forget to check spelling before submitting!

Mexican Guest Workers Take Jobs Few Americans Want

Message in a Boat Made of Plastic Soda Bottles

Photos: Courtesy Adventure Ecology
A sailboat made almost entirely from plastic bottles arrived in Sidney, Australia a month ago, ending a four-month voyage across the Pacific Ocean to highlight the importance of recycling.

The Plastiki is an 18-meter catamaran made up of 12,500 plastic two-liter soda bottles and is the brainchild of 31-year-old British banking heir David de Rothschild., who led a crew of six through fierce storms on the 15,000-kilometer trip from San Francisco.

David de Rothschild's unusual boat is his way of drawing attention to the plastic polluting the world's oceans while also showcasing a solution.
"We're on a mission to beat waste," says de Rothschild. "The Plastiki project is trying to showcase that waste is inefficient design and that we can reuse everyday materials. We can repurpose and build items that can be reused so we can close the loop."

The name Plastiki echoes the Kon-Tiki, the raft that Norwegian anthropologist and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl built to cross the Pacific in 1947. His grandson, Olaf Heyerdahl, was one of six crew members on the first leg of the Plastiki voyage, from San Francisco to Christmas Island.

David de Rothschild, founder of Adventure Ecology — a London-based environmental education group — brought ecology-minded features to all aspects of the expedition, starting with the Plastiki's design.
Rothschild says they learned a lot during the process. " It took three years to build this unique vessel. One of the breakthroughs of the project was that we actually reenergized every bottle with a little bit of CO2. We invented an effective glue made of sugar and the husks of cashew nuts to hold the plastic parts together. Even the ship's sails were made from recycled plastic. We installed solar cells, wind and propeller turbines and a human-powered bicycle on board to power communications equipment. And we had a hydroponic garden to get fresh vegetables. The provisions were designed to last 110 days, and one month before reaching Sydney, we were still eating fresh, organic food from San Francisco. But when water ran low, we chose to drink it rather than water the garden, which wilted".
During the vessel's first 8,000 kilometers, the catamaran moved somewhat sideways because it was built without a keel. That made it difficult to steer. When the Plastiki reached its second port of call, Samoa, de Rothschild made needed repairs and adaptations to the boat, adding a rudimentary retractable keel.

The voyage, combined with intense tropical heat, caused some material to shift and soften so Samoa workers put a layer of aluminum over the original recycled plastic material.

The boat also traveled more slowly than de Rothschild had hoped, leading to discomforts beyond the exposure to sun and salt and lack of bathing facilities.

"There were days when the boat barely moved, like when we sailed almost on the same spot for 24 hours. That became a little bit of a challenge mentally."
The crew lived on a 6-by-18 meter covered platform suspended between the two hulls. When not sailing the vessel, the crew members blogged on the Plastiki website, posted photos on Flickr and videos on YouTube, and took questions from followers on the boat's Facebook page. All the while, they sent messages about plastic pollution in the ocean.

The feedback came in almost instantaneously. Like from a conversation via skype with 150 children at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History in Texas. They had just walked through a tunnel built from 8,000 plastic bottles called, "Sea 'n' Recycle: In Honor of Plastiki."
He originally planned to recycle the boat in Australia. But an international outpouring of interest in its use for educational purposes convinced him to keep it afloat, at least for a few more years. Its first stop will be the Australian Maritime Museum at Darling Harbor.


Average plastic concentration and range of the North Atlantic garbage patch(source: Wired)

Adapted from VOA and Wired