The “Twelve Lies of Sarah Palin“. Andrew Sullivan documents the list of information that the candidate for VP has misrepresented:

1.  She has lied about her firing of the town librarian and police chief of Wasilla, Alaska.
2.  She has lied about pressure on Alaska’s public safety commissioner to fire her ex-brother-in-law.
3.   She has lied about her previous statements on climate change.
4.   She has lied about Alaska’s contribution to America’s oil and gas production.
5.   She has lied about when she asked her daughters for their permission for her to run for vice-president.
6.  She has lied about the actual progress in constructing a natural gas pipeline from Alaska.
7.  She has lied about Obama’s position on habeas corpus.
8.  She has lied about her alleged tolerance of homosexuality.
9.  She has lied about the use or non-use of a TelePrompter at the St Paul convention.
10.  She has lied about her alleged pay-cut as mayor of Wasilla.
11.  She has lied about what Alaska’s state scientists concluded about the health of the polar bear population in Alaska.

Why does a college education cost so much?

“For more than two decades, colleges and universities across the country have been jacking up tuition at a faster rate than costs have risen on any other major product or service - four times faster than the overall inflation rate and faster even than increases in the price of gasoline or health care (see the chart to the right). The result: After adjusting for financial aid, the amount families pay for college has skyrocketed 439% since 1982.”

It certainly isn’t the quality of the teaching - most of your children are being taught by graduates students, and not the exalted professor’s for whom you chose the prestigious college or univerity. Once again, why does the cost keep rising?

The answer: Just keeping up with the Joneses!

“In the absence of any objective measure of the value of an education, price becomes the default yardstick. The more expensive a college is, the better the education it presumably provides. (After all, if other families were willing to pay this much to send their kids here, it must be worth it.)”

Source: CNNMoney.com

A new US Geological Survey Report estimates the Arctic could hold “approximately 90 billion barrels of oil, 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids.” Key point in the report however, “approximately 84% of oil and gas reserves occur offshore.”  Long time before it comes to market.

Source: USGS

In the future window glass will be used as a solar concentrator to funnel the suns light to high voltage solar cells at the edge of the glass and produce electricity. A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology “has found a way to coat panes of glass or plastic with a mixture of several dyes that essentially replace the mirrors that are typically used as solar concentrators.

Source: BBC Technology News

Curtains

Architect Sheila Kennedy demonstrates how thin film could be used on textiles, in this case curtains, to capture solar radiation and turn it into energy. At present these are cost prohibitive, but the point is that alternative solar energy ideas are advancing beyond big silicon based solar panels.

Solar Paint

The Swansea Solar Paint project aims to develop a solar coating that can be painted on to building products.

Source: Inhabitat