It's time for the U.S. Senate to ratify the new arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia (New START).
The treaty's benefits are clear and concrete (PDF). Each side would reduce its nuclear stockpile by about one-third. Each side would adhere to an effective, multi-faceted monitoring scheme -- including satellite reconnaissance, on-site inspections, and extensive information exchanges -- that would ensure compliance with the agreement. The treaty would also set the stage for enhanced U.S. and Russian cooperation on urgent issues such as curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions and securing nuclear weapons and bomb-making materials to keep them out of the hands of terrorists. And it would signal to the rest of the world that the United States and Russia -- which together account for over 90% of the world's more than 20,000 nuclear weapons -- are serious about their commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The treaty calls for existing nuclear weapons states to reduce and eventually eliminate their arsenals in exchange for other signatories agreeing not to develop nuclear weapons.
The fewer nuclear weapons there are, the safer we all will be. New START offers an important step in the right direction.
So why hasn't the Senate ratified the treaty yet? First, the administration needed to make the case for the treaty, with a particular focus on Republican skeptics whose votes were needed to reach the 67 vote total needed to ratify a treaty. But that case has been made. There have been 18 hearings, dozens of briefings, hundreds of questions answered at the request of individual Senators, not to mention hundreds and hundreds of pages of reports, analysis, and testimony. An impressive bipartisan group of experts, including national security advisors and secretaries of state and defense from the Reagan, Bush (father and son) and Clinton administrations, has endorsed the treaty. So have all of the nation's top military leaders, along with key retired leaders like seven former commanders of U.S. nuclear forces.
So what is the holdup? Laura Rozen of Politico got hold of a memo by a staffer from the Senate Republican Policy Committee that purports to supply the reasons why the Senate should delay any vote on the treaty. In fact, the memo acknowledges that two of the main objections raised by the treaty's critics have already been addressed.
The first issue is "nuclear modernization" -- the ability to build a new generation of nuclear delivery vehicles and to preserve the reliability of existing warheads in the context of an upgraded nuclear weapons complex. There are serious questions about whether spending in these areas is in fact needed at a time when U.S. and Rusian arsenals are being reduced. But whatever one may think about building a shiny new weapons complex at a time when a growing number of world leaders are calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons, the Republican memo notes that New START will "preserve the ability of the United States to modernize its nuclear forces." The real complaint is that the Obama administration is not doing so quickly enough, even though it is spending more on the nuclear weapons complex than even the George W. Bush administration did.
As Linton Brooks, the head of the nuclear weapons complex in the Bush administration, said in April, "I'd have killed for that budget and that much high-level attention" during the Bush years compared to the Obama years.
A second major issue raised by Republican skeptics has been whether New START constrains the United States from developing whatever kind of missile defense system it chooses to. It does not. The Republican memo notes that this "may be a true statement," but that the real question is how much money and effort the Obama administration is willing to devote to missile defense. As with nuclear modernization, this is an issue of administration policy that has no direct link to the New START treaty. The treaty allows any administration to pursue as extensive a missile defense system as it desires; it does not, and should not, dictate what shape that system should take, or how much should be spent on it. That is an ongoing policy issue.
Holding New START hostage to the policy preferences of some -- not all -- Republican skeptics makes no sense. New START is valuable in its own right, and it will make us all safer by reducing the number of nuclear weapons in both Russia and the United States. Debates over what kind of missile defense system to build, or how much to spend on modernizing nuclear delivery vehicles and the nuclear warhead complex, should be pursued on their own merits, outside the context of the treaty.
The Senate should ratify New START before the end of the year, during its lame duck session. There is no good reason to wait, and there are a number of very good reasons to move forward now.
Election week is done. It's time to get back to the business of finding real solutions for our nation's economic recovery. As this week ends it is clear that the appetite for federal stimuli is beginning its ebb tide. We see the Federal Reserve playing the risky cards of quantitative easing trying yet again to spark an economic recovery against the odds of a main street economy still mired in the collateral damage of central government's past grand visions.
Don't get me wrong. I actually agree that Fed needs to be doing what it is. We need to find a sustainable balance for our economy and it's a data intensive compass that can only be seen with clarity from the offices occupied by people like Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner and Sheila Bair. What I do worry about though is that these central solutions too often take from the small and give to the big because the simplifying assumptions used by the economists and statisticians that support the process aren't capable of seeing the one-by-one trench warfare fights being fought by small businesses and individuals. It's an inherent policy formulation weakness of the academic brain trust behind our system that may be costing ordinary people more pain than necessary. But these ordinary Americans are there. We know this because they voted on Tuesday.
Fortunately, the United States is a big country and Washington D.C. isn't the only place exploring ways to find economic recovery formulae. Across the country, cities and states are beginning to chart independent paths to creating their own "islands of recovery". The City of Los Angeles' proposed Responsible Banking Ordinance continues to move through the committee process improving bit-by-bit into what I believe is an important emerging economic policy counterweight to ensure that the "small to big" tendencies of central solutions do not take us astray yet again.
The tale of the tape is something I believe worth sharing with the readers of the Huffington Post.
On October 26th, there was a public hearing by the L.A. City Jobs Committee chaired by Councilman Richard Alarcon on item CF 09-0234, Responsible Banking. The measure was approved with a number of questions to be investigated and reported to a hearing of the L.A. City Budget and Finance Committee to take place on Monday, November 8th. The questions aired by Councilman Bernard Parks focused on two areas. He asked for more information to determine if the cost and design of the process for implementation by the City was indeed workable. He also asked for clarification about how the differences between community banks, large complex banks and the city's debt underwriters would be recognized within the final ordinance.
Mr. Park's questions tell me that the L.A. process is indeed making progress because these are no longer questions about whether this a good thing for the economic interests of the City but rather how well is the plan risk managed. The interests behind the initiative become more positive as banks, large and small, begin to recognize that there is opportunity to be had here. The carrot being offered by the City of L.A is preference to win lucrative contracts that the City will be issuing anyway if evidence can be presented by the bidders that they are placing the interests of the region higher up the business priority list than their competition. It's subtle and far reaching in its potential to encourage money to circulate locally longer.
So now to ponder details,
As I reviewed the current version of the ordinance draft, it was clear the that City of Los Angeles had specified a data collection and reporting request that seeks to get banks to translate the nature of their business activities into measurement language that city governments can understand. The policy question is actually spot on but I'm also pretty sure that asking a bank to deliver the answer on a silver platter to the city first time out is a bit of a stretch. I think there's a better way to make it work for everyone and bring the cost/risk of the process well into good comfort.
The path to success here is to recognize two things. The first is that banks know how to report data to their regulators. They actually track all the information the city wants to know. Once a year they even have to report data to the granularity of branch-by-branch information to the FDIC. The other thing that's clear from the city draft is that municipal governments analyze their quality of service based on census tracts because that's how voters are bucketed. The trick in getting one system to talk to the other is to leverage by translating between the two universes via the zip codes of the U.S. postal service.
Asking the banks to do all the work is a lot of work. But if the City of Los Angeles were to re-design the ordinance implementation process to be a two step process where the banks report data in branches with identification of which zip codes are affected by that branch and there was a post- process by the City to morph the submittals into census tract visibility I think this would actually work reasonably well. City employees and/or other specialty vendors are more knowledgeable about the second step of the transformation than any bank will ever be. And there's a reason for that. Bankers, being lenders, have been discouraged from doing the second step for a long time because the technology that does so equates to gathering the data to do "red lining". So it's actually a better plan for the City of L.A. to deliberately separate these two steps from each other in its ordinance design.
My point here is that by taking a step back and recognizing where natural divisions of skill can be used to complement each other what seems onerous as an all-in-one data request can quickly become very doable.
This gets us to Mr. Park's second inquiry about larger out of area institutions and debt underwriters seeking to do business with the City. To that my observation is that the City of Los Angeles needs to set up a fair playing field for everyone. It's my read that by combining the suggestion above for banks with local branches with the tenets of the current ordinance draft language requesting distilled data into zip codes there's plenty of wiggle room for presentation of evidence of local involvement by these larger institutions, even those that do not have physical branches in the region. Complex transforms of data to support reporting requests are well within the capabilities of the IT departments of these larger businesses. Bearing in mind that these are also the banks that will go after the largest contracts with the City there's plenty of incentive for them to get their systems to produce the reports that will give them an advantage over competing bidders.
And in the long run I'm not just talking about competing just for L.A.'s business. There's a far larger universe of municipal and state government opportunities out there and I'll remind the readers of the Huffington post to look back at the history of my blogs for the one reporting on Bill Lockyer's inquiry earlier this year to the largest municipal bond underwriters.
I mean does anyone really think that the rest of America's League of Cities isn't watching how this plays out? Or that incoming California Governor Jerry Brown, the former Mayor of Oakland, doesn't already know that Los Angeles, San Jose and other cities in California are actively exploring how to affect the future of the State's economy using local strategies? Or that Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, Sheila Bair and Barack Obama won't read about this?
Keep going L.A. La-La Land may yet become the next shining star of economic recovery innovation.
bench craft company rip off
bench craft company rip off
Pulse <b>News</b> Reader app celebrates VC success by going free
Celebrating their anticipated announcement of a successful VC injection of $800000, Alphonso Labs, makers of the Pulse News Reader iOS application , have made the application a free download. The Pulse News Reader, which formats RSS ...
Senator-Elect Rand Paul Pushes Earmark Ban - FoxNews.com
Paul said during an interview with Fox News on Sunday, "I think ear markings are bad. There is some symbolism. Definitely the symbolism is bad. And, I think it encourages people to vote for large appropriations bills, because all of a ...
What to Expect in House Lame Duck - FoxNews.com
FOX News covers politics on America's Election Headquarters. FOX News political coverage on elections, races, foreign policy, candidates, and national security.
bench craft company rip off
bench craft company rip off
Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/15 - Arrowhead Pride
Well, that happened. Who invited the 2009 Chiefs to yesterday's game? As you can imagine, there are a lot of recaps and opinions on the game (and a missing handshake). Here's today's Kansas City Chiefs news.
Networked <b>news</b>: the digital future of regional journalism | Media <b>...</b>
US local and regional media are rebuilding using new business models, including that of Washington-based site TBD. By Kevin Anderson.
» Movie Review: LennoNYC - Blogger <b>News</b> Network
We are pleased to announce our latest endeavor, Blogger News is now sponsoring some radio shows on Blog Talk Radio. You can check our full schedule, and listen to previous broadcasts here, and we hope that you will join us on the air in ...
bench craft company rip off
Networked <b>news</b>: the digital future of regional journalism | Media <b>...</b>
US local and regional media are rebuilding using new business models, including that of Washington-based site TBD. By Kevin Anderson.
Senator-Elect Rand Paul Pushes Earmark Ban - FoxNews.com
Paul said during an interview with Fox News on Sunday, "I think ear markings are bad. There is some symbolism. Definitely the symbolism is bad. And, I think it encourages people to vote for large appropriations bills, because all of a ...
» Movie Review: LennoNYC - Blogger <b>News</b> Network
We are pleased to announce our latest endeavor, Blogger News is now sponsoring some radio shows on Blog Talk Radio. You can check our full schedule, and listen to previous broadcasts here, and we hope that you will join us on the air in ...
bench craft company rip off
NBC Ad Urges Recording <b>News</b> - NYTimes.com
The anchor Brian Williams encourages people to record "Nightly News" if they cannot watch it at 6:30 pm.
Afghan Insurgents in Weakened State « Liveshots
KABUL, Afghanistan -US and NATO officials claimed Sunday that insurgents in Afghanistan are.
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> And Views About China Stocks (Nov. 15 <b>...</b>
Stocks in China may face more declines today after large losses in mainland and US-traded China shares on Friday. Chinese media have been reporting that the government plans interest-rate increases to curb rising prices in the country.
bench craft company rip off
Monday <b>News</b> Roundup - - The Offside - Liverpool Football Club Blog
Hodgson, aka The Manatee, as seen in this stock photo from 1937. A short international break.
Senator-Elect Rand Paul Pushes Earmark Ban - FoxNews.com
Paul said during an interview with Fox News on Sunday, "I think ear markings are bad. There is some symbolism. Definitely the symbolism is bad. And, I think it encourages people to vote for large appropriations bills, because all of a ...
Kinect - OpenSource - amazing work created within a few <b>...</b>
November 14, 2010 | In News, c++, openFrameworks | View Comments. There have been a number of exciting developments in the last few days related to XBox Kinect. For those that may not be aware of what it is, it's a brand new interface ...
bench craft company rip off
bench craft company rip off
Networked <b>news</b>: the digital future of regional journalism | Media <b>...</b>
US local and regional media are rebuilding using new business models, including that of Washington-based site TBD. By Kevin Anderson.
Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Juxtaposition FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and <b>...</b>
epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Juxtaposition FAIL.
What to Expect in House Lame Duck - FoxNews.com
FOX News covers politics on America's Election Headquarters. FOX News political coverage on elections, races, foreign policy, candidates, and national security.
bench craft company rip off
Pulse <b>News</b> Reader app celebrates VC success by going free
Celebrating their anticipated announcement of a successful VC injection of $800000, Alphonso Labs, makers of the Pulse News Reader iOS application , have made the application a free download. The Pulse News Reader, which formats RSS ...
Cable announces new business mentoring network - <b>News</b> : NDS
p>Vince Cable announced a new 40000-strong network of business mentors at the launch of Global Entrepreneurship Week today, and called on more businesses to join up.</p>
Sea Ice <b>News</b> #29 | Watts Up With That?
In sea ice news this week, Arctic sea ice continues its inexorable climb toward the summit, to be reached sometime in March 2011. At present the ice growth is tracking just below the rate of 2007, but it should also be pointed out that ...
bench craft company rip off
Debian Project <b>News</b> - October 18th, 2010
State of Debian 6.0 Squeeze , ask.debian.net, updated DebianEdu, new sloppy backports, Debian project membership.
Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Juxtaposition FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and <b>...</b>
epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Juxtaposition FAIL.
Monday <b>News</b> Roundup - - The Offside - Liverpool Football Club Blog
Hodgson, aka The Manatee, as seen in this stock photo from 1937. A short international break.
bench craft company rip off
Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/15 - Arrowhead Pride
Well, that happened. Who invited the 2009 Chiefs to yesterday's game? As you can imagine, there are a lot of recaps and opinions on the game (and a missing handshake). Here's today's Kansas City Chiefs news.
Denver Broncos <b>News</b>: Horse Tracks - 11/15/10 - Mile High Report
Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee .. Horse Tracks!
<b>News</b> - Jessica Simpson, Eric Johnson Are Engaged! - Healthy <b>...</b>
The singer flashed a sizable ring during an in-store appearance on Saturday.
bench craft company rip off
Networked <b>news</b>: the digital future of regional journalism | Media <b>...</b>
US local and regional media are rebuilding using new business models, including that of Washington-based site TBD. By Kevin Anderson.
Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/15 - Arrowhead Pride
Well, that happened. Who invited the 2009 Chiefs to yesterday's game? As you can imagine, there are a lot of recaps and opinions on the game (and a missing handshake). Here's today's Kansas City Chiefs news.
What to Expect in House Lame Duck - FoxNews.com
FOX News covers politics on America's Election Headquarters. FOX News political coverage on elections, races, foreign policy, candidates, and national security.
bench craft company rip off
Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/15 - Arrowhead Pride
Well, that happened. Who invited the 2009 Chiefs to yesterday's game? As you can imagine, there are a lot of recaps and opinions on the game (and a missing handshake). Here's today's Kansas City Chiefs news.
Monday <b>News</b> Roundup - - The Offside - Liverpool Football Club Blog
Hodgson, aka The Manatee, as seen in this stock photo from 1937. A short international break.
Cable announces new business mentoring network - <b>News</b> : NDS
p>Vince Cable announced a new 40000-strong network of business mentors at the launch of Global Entrepreneurship Week today, and called on more businesses to join up.</p>
bench craft company rip off
Kinect - OpenSource - amazing work created within a few <b>...</b>
November 14, 2010 | In News, c++, openFrameworks | View Comments. There have been a number of exciting developments in the last few days related to XBox Kinect. For those that may not be aware of what it is, it's a brand new interface ...
Senator-Elect Rand Paul Pushes Earmark Ban - FoxNews.com
Paul said during an interview with Fox News on Sunday, "I think ear markings are bad. There is some symbolism. Definitely the symbolism is bad. And, I think it encourages people to vote for large appropriations bills, because all of a ...
Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Congressional FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and <b>...</b>
epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Congressional FAIL.
bench craft company rip off
Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Juxtaposition FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and <b>...</b>
epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Juxtaposition FAIL.
Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Congressional FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and <b>...</b>
epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Congressional FAIL.
Senator-Elect Rand Paul Pushes Earmark Ban - FoxNews.com
Paul said during an interview with Fox News on Sunday, "I think ear markings are bad. There is some symbolism. Definitely the symbolism is bad. And, I think it encourages people to vote for large appropriations bills, because all of a ...
bench craft company rip off
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> And Views About China Stocks (Nov. 15 <b>...</b>
Stocks in China may face more declines today after large losses in mainland and US-traded China shares on Friday. Chinese media have been reporting that the government plans interest-rate increases to curb rising prices in the country.
Sea Ice <b>News</b> #29 | Watts Up With That?
In sea ice news this week, Arctic sea ice continues its inexorable climb toward the summit, to be reached sometime in March 2011. At present the ice growth is tracking just below the rate of 2007, but it should also be pointed out that ...
Networked <b>news</b>: the digital future of regional journalism | Media <b>...</b>
US local and regional media are rebuilding using new business models, including that of Washington-based site TBD. By Kevin Anderson.
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the most important thing to make money online. If you know the basic concept of SEO, you can be confident to make money online by SEO. Here I am jotting down best SEO tactics that I have learned from hands on SEO experience on SEO for online marketing.
1) Think where to write SEO articles? Answer is - blog, website or article submission websites. If you have a blog or website, SEO is important to promote your website through search engines by doing SEO. If you have a good search engine ranking, you can get more target traffic/visitor to your website and if you run Google adsense /adbrite/chitika or any other contexual ad providers, your earning potential will be increased by an increasing CTR (click through rate).
If you have no website but you want to promote your affiliate product, then SEO for article marketing is important to you for your affiliate marketing. Figure out the right product for your affiliate marketing.
2) Now decide what topic you should choose. You need to research on various SEO trends, Google search volume on particular keyword, Google AdWord selector tool to select best paying and popular keywords and the most important tool is to use some best keyword selector tools like KEYWORD ELITE 2.0. You choose the best keywords with maximum volume of global search and good no. of advertiser competitions. Learn Why Keyword Elite 2.0 Will Allow You To Dominate The Competition
3) Now comes SEO content writing. Try to focus on the most important 3 keywords or key phrases that you have researched from KEYWORD ELITE2.0. Try to use these keywords meaningfully in your content title and use frequently in your content body. The content body should contain a SEO keyword density of 3-4%. So, if you write a 300 words article, it should contain 9-12 times repeatation of that particular keyword in your content. You have to maintain keyword proximity too. That means the most important keywords should be in a sequence and close to each other. It gives the content a SEO boost.
4) Now if you have a website, use title tag, meta description, meta tag optimization for good SEO and then paste the SEO content in website content area. The title should contain 3 keywords and meta description and title should be relevant to the content of the website. Try to put some unique keyphrases/combination of keywords to make your title different from the crowd. Your creativity along with the techniques I described is vital for a good SEO title. Then write a keyword rich meta description (meaningful)
You can use H1-H6 tags in your web page HTML to boost SEO. Also don't forget to put put alt text for images. If you have blogs try to put some good blogger hacks for better SEO
5) Put keyword rich anchor text in body of the content, that links to your other web pages. Cross linking with anchor text is a must for good SEO practice.
6) If you are writing articles put your signature line and affiliate links there. the rest of the SEO article writing is same as discussed above. Also using Mass Article Control Tool is a good choice to make money by article marketing
7) If you are using wordpress, then change your permalink structure to custom field /%postname%/ or anything else you would like that act as static HTML pages. Also use All in one SEO plugins and other best wordpress plugins for good SEO. The keyword research is sufficient if you use KEYWORD ELITE2.0. It will save your time and effort to make you decide what niche you should choose to work and to make money online. Don't forget to upgrade your wordpress to latest version.
8) Now comes promotion of your content by SEO. Do link exchange with other good relevant sites. Give links to other authority sites like Google, yahoo, wikipedia from your site. Do social media marketing and social bookmarking in Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Propeller, Yahoo Buzz, Simpy, Mixx, Netvine, Mybloglog, Technorati, Blogcatalog, and Feedburner for the best SEO
9) Submit your article or sites to article directories, blog directories. Do rss submissions for better SEO.
10) Write free press releases and submit that also acts good to boost up your backlinks and thus SEO
11) Use SEO tools like SEO centro meta analyzer, keyword density checker, page rank checker, Google banned checker, Google webmaster central, domaintools to get your SEO score.
12) Always update your self what is happening in internet marketing and SEO industry. Read Google's Matt Cut's blog, problogger.net and search Google on different other SEO topics. Read 2 SEO Tips That I Bet You Really Didn't Know
Hope you like these SEO tips that I have summed up here to give you a brief idea on SEO and online marketing tips to promote your website and to earn money.
Have some fun with loads of funny jokes and funny pranks. Article Source: |  |
Pulse <b>News</b> Reader for iOS now free
This is both a strength and a weakness -- it works better with some types of feeds than others -- but overall it provides a pleasant way to catch up with the news over your breakfast. Tags: AlphonsoLabs, ipad, new york times, ...
Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> And Views About China Stocks (Nov. 15 <b>...</b>
Stocks in China may face more declines today after large losses in mainland and US-traded China shares on Friday. Chinese media have been reporting that the government plans interest-rate increases to curb rising prices in the country.
Sea Ice <b>News</b> #29 | Watts Up With That?
In sea ice news this week, Arctic sea ice continues its inexorable climb toward the summit, to be reached sometime in March 2011. At present the ice growth is tracking just below the rate of 2007, but it should also be pointed out that ...
No comments:
Post a Comment