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Nokia Siemens Networks has confirmed it will be cutting 7 percent to 9 percent of its global workforce. The move is part of a reorganization effort that could impact employees working at the company’s U.S. headquarters in Irving.

Natural gas producer XTO Energy Inc. said Wednesday its third-quarter profit fell 4 percent from last year even as the company experienced an 8 percent increase in total sales. (XTO)

Leaving it to the last minute, the team from Masten Space Systems has made a come-from-behind effort to win the $1 million prize after successfully flying its lunar lander last week. The team flew a new ship, called Xoie, to qualify for level 2 of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.

After looking at the qualifying teams, Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace, the competition came down to inches.

In order to qualify for the level 2 of challenge, each participating team’s rocket had to autonomously make a round trip between two separate launch pads, flying to an altitude of at least 164 feet and remain aloft for at least 180 seconds. Armadillo Aerospace successfully met the requirements back in September. Their lander, Scorpius, had an average landing accuracy of about 35 inches.

When the team from Masten flew Friday, one day before the end of the competition, they managed to make the round trip with an average landing accuracy of about 7.5 inches. John Carmack’s Armadillo Aerospace team lost the million dollar prize by a little more than two feet.

Masten’s winning lander is larger and more powerful than Xombie, the vehicle that qualified for the earlier prize. Xoie’s rocket motor provided more than 1,000 pounds of thrust, “our engines go to 11!” exclaimed a happy Jonathan Goff, Masten’s propulsion engineer.

Masten’s winning flight was the third attempt last week after several glitches and a small fire prevented earlier attempts. There was some debate whether or not a third attempt would be allowed by judges, but in the end the team was given the go ahead.

The Lunar Lander Challenge was one of NASA’s Centennial Challenges aimed at spurring development in space transport. Level 1 and 2 of the competition were designed to simulate landing and taking off from the lunar surface.

The $1 million payday comes after the Masten team won second prize for level 1 of the competition earlier in the month. First prize for level 1 was awarded to Armadillo Aerospace in 2008. Between the two teams, a total of $1.65 million was awarded. The awards ceremony will take place in Washington D.C. on Thursday.

Video of the winning flight after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

There was a rare show of bipartisan support on Capitol Hill as senators from both sides of the aisle marveled at a fast-charging electric bus that may be coming soon to a city near you.

Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) and John Ensign (R-Nevada, shown yakking into the mic above) mugged for the cameras last week and took turns playing Ralph Kramden behind the wheel of a 35-foot fast-charging Proterra Eco-Ride bus. While it’s startling to see Republicans and Democrats united over anything these days, the batteries that power the Proterra are pretty amazing.

Tucked under the floor of the bus are lithium titanate batteries from Altairnano. The company claims they can cover a 2.5 hour-long bus route after a single five or ten minute rapid charge and says the batteries have an expected lifespan of 12 to 15 years in any climate. Those stats make the batteries ideal for public transportation, the company says.

“A bus will go in a 25 mile loop at 11-12 miles per hour on a two hour circuit, always coming back to the same spot during that circuit,” AltairNano CEO Terry Copeland told Autopia. “If bus drivers are stopping every loop for a five minute break, you know you can recharge the battery.”

The secret to the rapid charge and long lifespan is the lithium titanate. Unlike conventional lithium-ion batteries that use graphite that expands and contracts over time, lithium titanate batteries don’t suffer from volume change during recharging. “It just sits there,” Copeland said. That leads to greater efficiency, lower temperatures and less wear and tear on the battery.

Because the batteries are so resilient, Copeland says they can be partially recharged along the route. “You could be recharging every time you stop to pick up passengers,” he told Autopia. They’re also suitable for use with range extenders: the bus on display in D.C. had a fuel cell range extender on board.

Even old-fashioned catenary wires could get a new lease on life with the Proterra. “You don’t have to have the wires over the entire route, you can have maybe one block out of ten so you can just do a periodic two minute charge,” Copeland said. “The other thing you could do, if you have those kinds of wires at the end of the line, you’re fully charged and now you can run offline for 2.5 hours.” Copeland estimates that the batteries can take over 100,000 shallow charges.

Despite the estimated cost of around $1 million per Proterra — about twice the cost of a comparable diesel bus — Copeland says that transit agencies can look at the overall cost of ownership for cost savings. The average diesel bus gets no better than 4 MPG, while the Proterra averages an equivalent MPG of 15-21. That’s not to mention the lifestyle benefits that cities gain from electric buses that don’t belch diesel fumes and that — lacking an engine compartment — are ten feet shorter than comparable 37-passenger diesels.

Eco-Ride buses are already being tested in Colombia, with more on order for Los Angeles, Burbank and Fort Lewis, WA. According to Copeland, 21 other cities have put in for grants to helpreplace existing buses with quiet, clean electric models from Proterra.

Photos: Proterra and Altairnano.

Not surprisingly, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is turning right behind the wheel of a Proterra electric bus.

International expectations went through the roof one year ago today with the election of Barack Obama. The United Stated had elected the man whom many across the globe expected to be the anti-Bush. As controversial abroad as President Bush’s stance on the long war against terrorism had been, just as euphoric was the reaction to the election of the Democratic presidential nominee. The jubilation reflected a belief that as president, Obama would think less like an American and more like the rest of the world – however that was defined.

During the presidential campaign, candidate Obama had done much to encourage this belief. In his July speech in front of the Victory column in Berlin, Obama set the theme for many of his later foreign policy speeches, the apology for American actions. “I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lives up to its best intentions.” The German audience and the world lapped it up.

As for public diplomacy, which had been one of the problem areas of the Bush administration, Mr. Obama and his chosen Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emphasized a new era of communication with audiences world wide. Through the use of the new media, Internet and cell phone technology, the incoming Obama administration’s message was pushed aggressively to young audiences. Marketing the personal appeal of the president – particularly to audiences in the Muslim world and in Africa – promised to be a major focus.

It soon became clear, however, that being popular, even winning toe Nobel Peace Prize and displaying an apologetic attitude about the United States is far from enough to conduct effective foreign policy. In fact, setting the bar of expectations so high has created a problem in itself.

Today, looking back over the president’s anniversary, even media that have been solidly on the side of the Obama administration have started to notice. On the front page of The Washington Post, glowing reviews of Obama’s vision of a world of “shared interests,” is tempered by the dawning reality that “on the farthest-reaching U.S. foreign policy challenges, he is struggling to translate his own popularity into American influence, even with allies that have celebrated his break with the Bush administration’s emphasis on military strength, unilateral action and personal chemistry.”

On critically important challenges like Iran and Afghanistan, the president has failed to persuade even friendly governments to support American positions, and on the major real multilateral issues of the day, like the Doha trade round, the administration has failed to show desperately needed leadership. On climate change, an issue of almost religious significance to Europeans, President Obama has not shown the inclination to engage that Europeans had hoped for in the run-up to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December, relegating the issue at best to a 3rd tier in his order of priorities.

Frustration with the lack of European international support was recently expressed in surprisingly direct terms by Assistant Secretary of State for Europe Philip Gordon, speaking to a startled audience in Brussels in early October. In response to a question from the audience, Mr. Gordon told the assembled that the Obama administration will be cherry picking European allies if the EU as a whole cannot be counted on. “We want to see a strong and united Europe, speaking with one voice. In the best of all possible worlds, that one voice will be saying what we want to hear….If it is not saying what we want to hear, then we would rather that voice was less united. For the foreseeable future we will have to have relations with the EU and with nations. You go to the place that can deliver… [For example] on trade, we deal with the EU, as the EU is the decider.” Later, he was asked if he felt Europe needed to think more strategically. Absolutely, he replied: “We want to see Europe thinking more strategically, because we think if they do think more strategically, they’ll think more like Americans.” Had this come from a Bush administration official it would have been headline news in all the major U.S. papers.

In the Middle East, the president’s approach has not been reaping fruit either. Whereas Mr. Obama’s initial outreach to Arab audiences through his first major media appearance on al-Hurra television and his Arab outreach speech in Cairo won him huge plaudits, audiences in the Middle East are still waiting for the policy follow up and registering some impatience. Both Palestinians and Isrealis are expecting U.S. arm twisting to begin on the issue of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the Palestinian with impatience, the government of Israel with concern over relations with its old ally the United States.

Meanwhile, human rights advocates and democracy activists are wondering what U.S. foreign policy will add up to the Obama era. Values and ideals that have been at the heart of American foreign policy for most of the past century are being muted by the administration as it pursues shared interests with China, Iran, Cuba, Russia and anyone else who will sit down and talk.. According to Anne Marie Slaughter, undersecretary of state for policy planning speaking to a Washington audience last week, the Obama administration believes that you can address global challenges without at least initially raising issues of governance and legitimacy among foreign governments. This amounts to a values neutral foreign policy that makes the content of public diplomacy difficult to articulate.

As far as institutional initiatives on public diplomacy that could facilitate the transmission of the U.S. governments message to foreign publics – as well as foreign leaders – the Obama administration is still working on them through the recently begun Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. Even the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the body that overseas Voice of America and the other U.S. international broadcasting services, is in a holding pattern with the terms of all nine board members expired and none yet nominated by the White House to fill the posts. The inaction is typical in many ways of the Obama administration’s failure to engage the world substantively – despite all the president’s appealing imagery, symbols and oratory.

Visiting the complicated world of emerging adults (young people between the ages of 18 and 29, with data now available up to age 23), Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker report back with findings that raise challenges for the future of marriage as an institution. Some of their findings, which will appear next year in a volume from the Oxford University Press titled Premarital Sex in America, were presented last week at a Heritage Foundation conference on what scholarly research says about religious practice in America.

The good news is that emerging adults (five percent of fewer) say almost without exception that they expect and want to marry someday. The bad news is that this goal is not only being postponed for their late 20s or even 30s chronologically, but repositioned in ways that call into question whether marriage as they conceive it can be more than a mirage.

Regnerus and Uecker note, among other findings, that the “majority of young adults in America not only think they should explore different relationships,” including sexual intimacy, “but they believe it may be foolish and wrong not to.” This belief has much to do with their ideas regarding sexual chemistry, which emerging adults tend to think of as a form of spontaneous combustion rather than smoldering possibility. Such concepts as the preservation of independence and “being your own person” combine with the belief that marriage is about finding the perfect “soul mate” to persuade emerging adults that a period of trial-and-error with various prospects is necessary to find the best fit for the permanent oasis of marriage.

Chemistry and biology are not necessarily compatible in this course of self-fulfillment. Most of the emerging adults the researchers studied desire to have children (albeit they are seen as drags on such perceived imperatives as career selection and travel), but to postpone that particular life change until later. While the findings the researchers excerpted for the Heritage conference did not address this factor directly, the reality that female fertility declines as a woman reaches age 30, and sharply so after age 35, does not seem to have impressed itself upon emerging adults as a prime consideration. Moreover, the potential impact of having multiple premarital sexual partners for comparison’s sake on the health of a later, permanent relationship, where such comparisons may hamper sustained intimacy and happiness, is a question that can be deferred but not avoided.

The sociological result is that the age at first marriage in the United States is rapidly rising, to 26 for women and 28 for men. In addition, the out-of-wedlock birth rate is approaching 40 percent for all U.S. births and is at 60 percent for the age group that Regnerus and Uecker studied. These changes follow both experiential disappointment with marriage (children watching their parents’ struggles) and cultural devaluation and deinstitutionalization of marriage. Such phenomena as no fault divorce, cohabitation, and same-sex marriage may not be altering the marriages contracted 20 years ago, but each may be playing a role in affecting the marriages not yet contracted and the families not yet formed. We are learning more, rapidly, about premarital sexual activity, with much more to learn about the hopes and hazards for post-sexual-activity marriages.

On the anniversary of the November 2008 election, it seems appropriate to assess the impact of the Administration on America’s relationship with the United Nations. After all, one of President Obama’s sharpest criticisms of the Bush Administration was its supposed resistance to multilateral efforts—particularly U.N.-led multilateral efforts—to resolve international problems.

Well, we can’t say we weren’t warned. In its first 9 months, the Obama administration has sought to purchase goodwill at the U.N. by conceding U.S. policy positions, downplaying the U.N.’s many problems, and seeking to engage with the U.N. on a host of priorities in which is unlikely to prove a capable partner.

Shortly after the election, Obama described the United Nations as “an indispensable and imperfect forum” that was vital to U.S. interests. While he acknowledged the need to reform the body, his comments clearly indicated that he was far more interested in seeking to make the U.N. a “more effective … venue for collective action” than in fixing the problems facing the organization.

The trend has been particularly striking in the past two months. As Obama explained in his first address to the U.N. General Assembly, his administration has spent the months since his inauguration weakening or reversing U.S. policies that have traditionally caused heartburn at the U.N. and reframing others to sound as though they were new and different. He listed the actions he has taken:

• prohibiting “the use of torture by the United States of America” (as though the U.S. did intentionally and as a matter of policy use torture before he became president);
• closing Guantanamo (although his predecessor had also said the U.S. aimed to do so);
• quickly ending the U.S. engagement in Iraq (again a goal of the Bush Administration);
• putting American support behind “a world without nuclear weapons”(something even President Reagan sought to do);
• supporting the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (which the Senate rejected in 1999);
• addressing global warming multilaterally (despite the abject failure of the Kyoto treaty to address that issue);
• joining the Human Rights Council (which has continued to serve as an anti-Israel forum despite new membership by the U.S. under President Obama);
• supporting the Millennium Development Goals (widely acknowledged to be unattainable); and
• ending America’s “selective” support of democracy (which apparently means ignoring abuses committed in Iran during this summer’s election while strong-arming constitutional efforts to preserve the rule of law in Honduras).

The administration has joined with the majority in Congress to pay nearly a billion dollars in U.S. “arrears” to U.N. peacekeeping—predominantly resulting from the failure of the U.N. to reduce the U.S. peacekeeping assessment to 25 percent of the total budget as it had agreed to do—without demanding a single reform in exchange. Meanwhile, U.N. peacekeeping suffers from a serious lack of oversight and U.N. peacekeepers continue to go unpunished for grave misconduct on a regular basis.

As we speak, plans are afoot to “resynchronize” U.S. payments to the U.N. so that the U.S. pays its share of the U.N. budget at the beginning of the year rather than at the end as is the current practice (the U.S. began doing this in the early 1980s). In the abstract this is a good idea. But, when America is running trillion dollar deficits, is borrowing an extra $1.3 billion just to spare the U.N. the discomfort of a nine month delay in payments really a priority? Of course, Congress and the Administration are not asking the U.N. to actually do anything in return for resynchronizing its payment to the U.N.

This is tragic, because the U.N. has proven to be susceptible to corruption, mismanagement, and abuse with distressing frequency and the reforms agreed to in past years have either stalled or been severely weakened.

President Obama, however, is eager to defer to U.N. leadership on a number of critical issues. In his General Assembly speech, he announced four U.S. “pillars” as priorities at the U.N.: non-proliferation and disarmament; promoting peace and security; addressing global warming; and a “global economy that advances opportunity for all people.” In just the past few weeks, however, we’ve seen:

• The effort to bring pressure through the U.N. on Iran to end its nuclear enrichment program defused; and
• The U.N. Human Rights Council’s biased resolution on Israel’s actions in Gaza earlier this year, which has undermined the Administration’s effort to forge a Middle East peace agreement.

This is the “indispensable” organization in which the Obama administration wishes to vest so much responsibility? No wonder that, according to a September 2009 poll by Rasmussen, so many Americans hold a poor opinion of the U.N.

That the U.N. has proven a poor vehicle for advancing these issues comes as no surprise to the authors in ConUNdrum: The Limits of the United Nations and the Search for Alternatives. They noted that the U.N. was particularly ill-suited to addressing disarmament, international security, international environmental issues, and economic development for a host of reasons.

For a group that prides itself on knowledge and mastery of multilateral diplomacy, the Obama administration was unprepared for the tough and combative environment at the U.N. Goodwill and symbolic concessions by the Obama administration will not translate into support for U.S. policies. Most U.N. member states consider these concessions their due. They will pocket them and stand firm to defend their interests in the U.N. Cooperation will be on their terms, on issues they wish to pursue.
President Obama is right in one thing—it is time to rethink and reshape U.S. engagement with the United Nations so that it better serves both American interests and the organization’s own stated purposes.

Unfortunately, President Obama appears to sees the U.S. rather than the U.N. or most of its member states as the primary problem. Accommodation and encouragement does not advance U.S. interests in the U.N. nor does it advance the lofty principles in the U.N. Charter. It simply opens the door for more inaction, disappointment, ineffectiveness, and mismanagement at the U.N.

It would be ironic if, through their actions in “support” of the U.N., the U.N. devotees populating the Obama administration end up further diminishing its reputation and hobbling its ability to act effectively at all.

On May 12, 1990, 28-year old Jimmy Cotaling of Michigan drove his car to a store to buy his mother a Mother’s Day card. When he failed to return home, his family filed a missing person’s report. His car was found in Ohio. The police investigated the two occupants of the car, one of whom had suffered a stab wound to the stomach. Three days into the investigation, one of the suspects confessed that she and the co-defendant lured Jimmy into a house and killed him. Further investigation revealed that they lured Jimmy to a house in Michigan on his way to the store, stabbed him 26 times, and almost cut his head off. Police found Jimmy’s body in the house. The 16-year old female, who was the ring leader, received life without parole.

Last night, elections were held in several states across the nation, and by most independent observations, the results served as a warning to liberals. Whether it was Republican victories in Virginia, New Jersey or even in typical liberal bastions like Westchester County, New York, the post-analysis was framed on what does this mean on Capitol Hill, and more importantly, what does this mean for the conservative movement. However, last night did not represent a new day for conservatives. On Monday, the same could have been said: the state of conservatism is strong.

The state of conservatism can be measured through its popularity, its policies and its people. Most observers would say Election Day 2008 was not a good day for conservatives. However, putting election results aside, President Obama campaigned as a centrist. Obama promised to address jobs, the economy, our national security and even hold teachers accountable for our children’s education. Obama promised that most of America would receive a tax cut. He promised to win a “necessary” war in Afghanistan. These are conservative principles.

While many Americans knew he would skew left on health care, the environment and diplomacy, they also took him at his word on his conservative window dressing. Matching reality to rhetoric, President Obama has made Jimmy Carter look conservative, promoting job killing policy after job killing policy. He has taken over nine months and counting to make a basic strategic decision on troop levels in Afghanistan, endangering our troops and our mission. This reality versus rhetoric is reminding the nation that conservatism is not merely a talking point but a first principle.

The Pew Research Center released a poll in May 2009 that was conducted in March and April when President Obama was still hugely popular.  The poll showed that the overwhelming trend is toward conservatism, and not merely among Republicans. The number of Independents calling themselves conservative was increasing to 33%, up from 26% in 2005.  The number of Democrats calling themselves conservative was up to 8%. In this poll 37% described themselves as politically conservative; almost double the number identifying as liberal (19%).  The values of these respondents demonstrated an increasing trend away from big government as the solution and towards local and community based approaches. 

These results were in line with a Gallup poll in June that showed Conservatives were the single largest ideological group (40%) and more recently on October 26, when Gallup showed that Conservatives maintain a two to one advantage over liberals (40%-20%).  Conservatism wasn’t grounded in any one party or candidate.  It was election neutral.  In fact it was the only tri-partisan issue or philosophy overwhelming numbers of Americans seemed to agree on.  The state of conservative popularity is strong.

This overwhelming conservative philosophy in America is the reason why failed liberal policies of the past are failing once again in 2009.  President Obama promised jobs, but quickly learned that he can’t create 7 million jobs in government alone, although he tried.  As of now, President Obama is 7.6 million jobs short of his promise to the American people, and that number is unfortunately growing.  Obama’s response has been to support and liberal Cap and Trade bill that would kill millions of jobs.  Obama signed a stimulus that not only hasn’t created jobs, but actually slowed down economic activity.  Obama supports a health care plan that imposes mandates on employers to help fund it.  Employer mandates would put 5.2 million low wage workers at risk of unemployment, and put another 10.2 million at risk of lower wages or reduced benefits.

Conservatives have been offering alternatives throughout.  Conservatives support a health care plan that eliminates imaginary barriers from true competition by allowing insurance to compete across state lines, by allowing consumers to take their insurance from job to job, by giving them the same tax breaks the federal government gives big corporations.  Conservatives understand that states are the best incubators for this reform.  Conservatives have argued for reforming Medicare and other entitlements rather than growing their membership while cutting their benefits. Conservatives have proposed real energy solutions for America that include zero-emissions nuclear energy. Conservatives have proposed job creation through small business incentives and tax cuts.  Conservatives have argued for a strong missile defense, rather than a raw deal for our eastern European allies, and a strong national security strategy that supports our troops and America’s leadership around the world.  The state of conservative policies is strong.

And Conservatives have been seen and heard in 2009.  They went to tea parties in April, town hall meetings in August, and to the U.S. Capitol in September.  Pictures of multi-generational families spending the day together protesting big government expansion, increasing debt and deficits, and an apologetic footing by our President on the world stage.  Conservatives have been re-energized to participate in the public policy process demanding transparency, dividing up 2,000 page bills among their friends and reading them, and pointing out where government has gone too far.  The White House spent September 12 denying hundreds of thousands of conservatives were in their backyard.  And last night, the White House promised again that they were paying no attention to the voices of the people.  But conservatives are not universally being ignored, especially on Capitol Hill where conservative Republicans, Democrats and Independents are demanding bills be modified to represent the will of the people.  The state of conservative people is strong.

Conservatives have a destiny.  Conservatives can strengthen our economic and national security.  Conservatives can offer real solutions to the nation’s challenges, without robbing Peter to pay Paul.  Conservatives can continue to learn about the issues that affect their families, their communities, their businesses, and with this knowledge, they can affect real change.  The Heritage Foundation has never been stronger, with over a half million members and growing.  We thank you, and we invite those still waiting, to sign up to become a member now.  Your conservative destiny starts here.

Quick Hits:

• Senior Congressional Democrats told ABC News that it is highly unlikely that a health care reform bill will be completed in 2009.
• Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Rockefeller (D-WV) told Politico that cap and trade legislation might have to wait until after the 2010 elections.
• Maine became the 31st state in the Union where voters have rejected same sex marriage.
• According to new analysis by the Praxis Strategy Group, jobs and population continue to flow out of highly taxed and regulated blue states and into lower taxed and regulated red states.
• Thousands of people turned out for a government-sponsored rally to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Crowds shouted ‘God is great’ and ‘death to America’ as speakers recalled the events of 1979, when revolutionary students seized the US Embassy and held 52 Americans hostage for more than a year