Colossal Waste Exposed in Afghan Electric Projects

These are tough times for science and technology journalists, who, if they still have jobs, rarely have the time and travel budgets required for in-depth reporting. But some journalists are still managing to produce tough, labor-intensive, on-the-ground investigations of vitally important topics. One standout is my long-time friend Glenn Zorpette of IEEE Spectrum, the magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Six years ago Glenn traveled to Iraq and came back with a disturbing series, ?Re-engineering Iraq?, on how the U.S. and its allies were wasting billions on efforts to give Iraqis a steady supply of electricity. Zorpette has now followed up that report, a finalist for a National Magazine Award, with an even more alarming investigation of bungled attempts to electrify Afghanistan. Glenn spent three weeks in Afghanistan reporting ?Re-engineering Afghanistan?, published in the October issue of Spectrum. He shows that, at a time when millions of Americans are struggling to make ends meet, our government is squandering tens of billions of our tax dollars overseas.

Providing Iraq and Afghanistan with reliable electricity, Zorpette notes, has long been viewed as crucial to the reconstruction of these nations. The goal is to ?stimulate economic activity and create jobs; to make life more comfortable and secure; to give people a more attractive alternative to the typically medieval societies imposed by insurgents. And last, but certainly not least, to win the allegiance of citizens and build their confidence in fledgling government institutions and officials who are all too often bungling or corrupt. Or both.?

Far from learning from its mistakes in Iraq, Zorpette charges, the U.S. is repeating them in Afghanistan. The U.S. has spent an estimated $55 billion on reconstruction in Afghanistan over the past decade, but ?as in Iraq, much of that money has been wasted or badly spent, particularly in the electrical sector.? Zorpette identifies several key problems that have thwarted Afghan electrification projects. The country suffers from a ?crippling deficiency of homegrown engineers,? and the Afghan national electric utility ?is unable to collect enough revenue to sustain its own operations and it has trouble simply keeping records consistently.?

Furthermore, the contracting methodology of U.S. development agencies ?does nothing to discourage overspending and inefficiency.? Zorpette reserves his harshest criticism for USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is ?the dominant development organization in Afghanistan.? Zorpette contends that USAID has ?made major missteps in every significant electrical construction project it has undertaken in the country.?

One such project is a diesel plant built in Tarakhil, a village near Kabul. According to Zorpette, the Bush administration decided to build the plant in 2006 to boost the re-election prospects of President Hamid Karzai. Construction of the plant, by the firm Black & Veatch, cost more than $300 million, and yet since its completion over a year ago the plant ?has hardly been used,? Zorpette notes. ?The main reason is that its diesel fuel must be imported by truck at great cost. This past April the electricity generated at the Tarakhil plant cost around 42 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to engineers and development specialists interviewed in Afghanistan.?

In comparison, electricity can be piped in from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan at 6 cents per kilowatt-hour. Instead of being impressed by the Tarakhil plant, Afghans started mocking it as ?Karzai?s winter coat.? ?In a war zone,? Zorpette writes, ?the rules of logic sometimes seem suspended. Still, it is hard to understand why anyone thought it was a good idea to build, in a wretchedly poor country, a plant that would consume vast quantities of extraordinarily costly diesel fuel.?

The Tarakhil plant is just one of many boondoggles that Zorpette uncovers. He concludes: ?As a reporter, I have over the years dug up the occasional isolated and carefully concealed incident suggesting incompetence or wrongdoing. But I?ve never reported on anything quite like USAID in Afghanistan, where the examples of ineptitude, poor decisions, and apparent impropriety sometimes seemed to come swarming at me like targets in a video game.? What makes this editorial aside especially poignant is that Zorpette was in favor of the U.S. missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, which he thought would benefit those countries as well as U.S. security.

I don?t know any other journalist with the combination of technical know-how (Zorpette has an electrical engineering degree), writing chops, physical courage and dogged determination needed to produce work such as ?Re-engineering Iraq? and ?Re-engineering Afghanistan.? I hope Zorpette?s articles receive the attention they deserve from the public, government officials and other journalists.

Photo of Glenn Zorpette (second from right) in Iraq courtesy of IEEE Spectrum

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=1afa9726d8028f9adf2b047613e4e1f0

steve jobs and bill gates steve jobs quotes pancreatic cancer symptoms apple stock aspergers tcu apple computer

China spacecraft to launch soon to test docking (AP)

BEIJING ? China will launch an unmanned spacecraft early next month that will attempt to dock with an experimental module, the latest step in what will be a decade-long effort to place a manned permanent space station in orbit.

In space, the Shenzhou 8 will carry out maneuvers to couple with the Tiangong 1 module now in orbit.

The ship and the modified Long March-2F rocket that will sling it into space were transferred early Wednesday to the launch pad at the Jiuquan space base on the edge of the Gobi desert in northern China, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Its exclusive report did not specify a date for the launch. Chinese space officials rarely speak to foreign media.

The 8.5-ton, box car-sized Tiangong 1 launched last month has moved into orbit 217 miles (350 kilometers) above the Earth and is surveying Chinese farmland using special cameras, Xinhua said.

It is also conducting experiments involving growing crystals in zero gravity, the report said, citing the launch center's chief engineer, Lu Jinrong.

Following Shenzhou 8, two more missions, at least one of them manned, are to meet up with the module next year for further practice, with astronauts staying for up to one month.

Plans call for launching two other experimental modules for more tests before the actual station is launched in three sections between 2020 and 2022.

At about 60 tons when completed, the Chinese station will be considerably smaller than the International Space Station, which is expected to continue operating through 2028.

China launched its own space station program after being rebuffed in its attempts to join the 16-nation ISS, largely on objections from the U.S. It is wary of the Chinese program's military links and the sharing of technology with its chief economic and political competitor.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111026/ap_on_sc/as_china_space

andy kaufman october 21 2011 ohio ohio john beck john beck mariska hargitay

Cult of LEGO Book Review

Even though I’m a big fan of eBooks, I still love browsing through honest to goodness physical books. I find that there are some types of books that I prefer to be of the dead tree variety. One of these types is the large format, picture rich, coffee table book. I have a great example [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/10/24/cult-of-lego-book-review/

alley boy wanda sykes napoleon dynamite bristol palin bethenny frankel morgan freeman orlando brown

Africans remember Gadhafi as martyr, benefactor

FILE - In this March 19, 2011 file photo, supporters of besieged Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi cheer as they rally in support of him in the city of Bamako, Mali. While Western powers herald the death of Gadhafi, killed Thursday, Oct. 20, 2011, many Africans are mourning a man who poured billions of dollars of foreign investment into desperately poor countries. Gadhafi backed some of the most brutal rebel leaders and dictators on the continent, but tens of thousands are now gathering at mosques built with his money and are remembering him as an anti-colonial martyr, and as an Arab leader who called himself African. (AP Photo/Harouna Traore, File)

FILE - In this March 19, 2011 file photo, supporters of besieged Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi cheer as they rally in support of him in the city of Bamako, Mali. While Western powers herald the death of Gadhafi, killed Thursday, Oct. 20, 2011, many Africans are mourning a man who poured billions of dollars of foreign investment into desperately poor countries. Gadhafi backed some of the most brutal rebel leaders and dictators on the continent, but tens of thousands are now gathering at mosques built with his money and are remembering him as an anti-colonial martyr, and as an Arab leader who called himself African. (AP Photo/Harouna Traore, File)

FILE - In this March 19, 2011 file photo, supporters of beseiged Libya leader Moammar Gadhafi cheer as they rally in support of him in the city of Bamako, Mali. While Western powers herald the death of Gadhafi, killed Thursday, Oct. 20, 2011, many Africans are mourning a man who poured billions of dollars of foreign investment into desperately poor countries. Gadhafi backed some of the most brutal rebel leaders and dictators on the continent, but tens of thousands are now gathering at mosques built with his money and are remembering him as an anti-colonial martyr, and as an Arab leader who called himself African. (AP Photo/Harouna Traore, File)

(AP) ? Moammar Gadhafi's regime poured tens of billions of dollars into some of Africa's poorest countries. Even when he came to visit, the eccentric Libyan leader won admiration for handing out money to beggars on the streets.

"Other heads of state just drive past here in their limousines. Gadhafi stopped, pushed away his bodyguards and shook our hands," said Cherno Diallo, standing Monday beside hundreds of caged birds he sells near a Libyan-funded hotel. "Gadhafi's death has touched every Malian, every single one of us. We're all upset."

While Western powers heralded Gadhafi's demise, many Africans were gathering at mosques built with Gadhafi's money to mourn the man they consider an anti-imperialist martyr and benefactor.

Critics, though, note this image is at odds with Gadhafi's history of backing some of Africa's most brutal rebel leaders and dictators. Gadhafi sent 600 troops to support Uganda's much-hated Idi Amin in the final throes of his dictatorship.

And Gadhafi-funded rebels supported by former Liberian leader Charles Taylor forcibly recruited children and chopped off limbs of their victims during Sierra Leone's civil war.

"Is Gadhafi's life more important than many thousands of people that have been killed during the war in these two countries?" asked one shopkeeper in the tiny West African country of Gambia, who spoke on condition of anonymity fearing recrimination.

Some analysts estimate that the Gadhafi regime invested more than $150 billion in foreign countries, most of it into impoverished African nations.

"Gadhafi was a true revolutionary who focused on improving the lives of the underdeveloped countries," said Sheik Muthal Bin-Muslim, from the Gadhafi mosque in Sierra Leone's capital that was built with Libyan funds. Muslim worshippers were planning an all-night vigil in honor of the slain Libyan leader.

In Bamako, the capital of the desert nation of Mali, one huge Libyan-funded mosque was built right next door to the U.S. Embassy.

And in Uganda, Gadhafi built a mosque that can host more than 30,000 people. Libyan-funded companies ? everything from mobile phone companies to cookie factories ? are valued at $375 million and employ more than 3,000 people in the small East African country. Schoolchildren and Muslim supporters lined the roads, waving Libyan flags, whenever Gadhafi visited.

"Gadhafi was a godfather to many Ugandans," said Muhammed Kazibala, a head teacher at a Libyan-funded school in the country's capital.

The Libyan leader also built a palace for one of Uganda's traditional kingdoms. It was a fitting donation for a man who traveled to African Union summits dressed in a gold-embroidered green robe, flanked by seven men who said they were the "traditional kings of Africa."

Gadhafi used Libya's oil wealth to help create the AU in 2002, and also served as its rotating chairman. During the revolt against Gadhafi, the AU condemned NATO airstrikes as evidence mounted that his military was massacring civilians.

Gadhafi's influence even extended to Africa's largest economy: The Libyan leader supported the African National Congress when it was fighting racist white rule, and remained close to Nelson Mandela after the anti-apartheid icon became South Africa's first black president.

Current President Jacob Zuma also was one of the most outspoken critics of the NATO airstrikes in Libya, and he told reporters he thought Gadhafi should have been captured and tried, not executed.

The ANC Youth League described Gadhafi as an "anti-imperialist martyr" and a "brave soldier and fighter against the recolonization of the African continent."

For many of Gadhafi's supporters, the military operation to oust him was another example of the Western interference and neocolonialism that he railed against.

F. Mbossa, 52, a school teacher in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, said she was shocked by the "arrogance of the West" in carrying out the NATO airstrikes.

"It's clear that France and the others never truly wanted an independent Africa and that is why they never hesitated to kill all those who advocate for a strong and unified Africa," Mbossa said with tears in her eyes. "But for Africa, Gadhafi remains a martyr."

In Central African Republic, Gadhafi sent troops to support a government confronting coup attempts and an insurgency in 2001. But he also fomented instability. He funded rebel movements that committed some of the worst human rights abuses on the continent, including the brutal civil war in Sierra Leone. Gadhafi also supplied arms, training and finance to rebels in Liberia and Gambia, and invaded Chad from 1980-1989.

Historian Stephen Ellis called Gadhafi's World Revolutionary Headquarters, just outside Benghazi, "the Harvard and Yale of a whole generation of African revolutionaries."

In the 1980s, they included Charles Taylor of Liberia and Foday Sankoh of Sierra Leone, as well as former Congolese President Laurent Kabila.

While Gadhafi won praise from some for not fleeing Libya, others chastised him for failing to see how it all would end.

In Zimbabwe, businessman Daniel Musumba said Gadhafi had been trapped by his own ego.

"For a man who was telling his people they were rats and cockroaches to end up in a drain. Who is the rat now?" he said. "But the rat needed to be captured alive."

___

Larson reported from Johannesburg. Associated Press writers Godfrey Olukya in Kampala, Uganda; Michelle Faul in Johannesburg; Abdoulie John in Banjul, Gambia; Clarence Roy-Macaulay in Freetown, Sierra Leone; Louis Okamba in Libreville, Republic of Congo; and Gillian Gotora in Harare, Zimbabwe contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-10-24-AF-Gadhafi's-African-Allies/id-2f6e6d9d45ac43bb8a5df3617623f99d

oomph cmj olin kreutz olin kreutz au pair au pair trinidad

Decision-making: What you want vs. how you get it

ScienceDaily (Oct. 21, 2011) ? New research reveals how we make decisions. Birds choosing between berry bushes and investors trading stocks are faced with the same fundamental challenge -- making optimal choices in an environment featuring varying costs and benefits. A neuroeconomics study from the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital -- The Neuro, McGill University, shows that the brain employs two separate regions and two distinct processes in valuing 'stimuli' i.e. 'goods' (for example, berry bushes), as opposed to valuing the 'actions,' needed to obtain the desired option (for example flight paths to the berry bushes).

The findings, published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Neuroscience and funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, are vital not only for improving knowledge of brain function, but also for treating and understanding the effects of frontal lobe damage, which can be a feature of common neurological conditions ranging from stroke to traumatic brain injury to dementia.

Decision making -- selecting the most valuable option, typically by taking an action -- requires value comparisons, but there has been debate about how these comparisons occur in the brain: is value linked to the object itself , or to the action required to get that object. Are choices made between the things we want, or between the actions we take? The dominant model of decision making proposes that value comparisons occur in series, with stimulus value information feeding into actions (the body's motor system). "So, in this study we wanted to understand how the brain uses value information to make decisions between different actions, and between different objects," said the study's lead investigator Dr. Lesley Fellows, neurologist and researcher at The Neuro. "The surprising and novel finding is that in fact these two mechanisms of choice are independent of one another. There are distinct processes in the brain by which value information guides decisions, depending on whether the choice is between objects or between actions." Dr. Fellows often sees patients with damage to the frontal lobe, where decision making areas of the brain are located. "This finding gives me more insight into what is happening in the brain of my patients, and may lead to new treatments and new ways to care for them and manage their symptoms."

"Despite the ubiquity and importance of decision making, we have had, until now, a limited understanding of its basis in the brain," said Fellows. "Psychologists, economists, and ecologists have studied decision making for decades, but it has only recently become a focus for neuroscientists. For clinicians, this relative neglect is surprising; neurologists and psychiatrists have long identified poor judgment as a core feature of conditions ranging from dementia to drug addiction." The bad decisions made by such patients can lead to disastrous encounters with society and the legal system, and are an important source of distress and disability for patients and their families. "This area of study represents a paradigm shift in our perspective on frontal lobe disorders. We have known for a long time that patients with frontal lobe damage have trouble getting organized and planning to reach goals but with this new research we are now seeing that frontal injury can make it hard for patients to choose their preferred goal to begin with, or to keep track of what they want. This may explain the erratic, impulsive or inappropriate choices they sometimes make."

The study examined action-value and stimulus-value learning in patients with frontal lobe damage. "Iinvestigating a damaged area of the brain provides particularly solid evidence to prove if that area is necessary for a particular function," said Dr. Fellows. Two groups of patients with damage to different parts of the frontal lobes played games where they learned to choose either between two actions (twisting movements of a joystick) or between objects (decks of cards). They won or lost play money depending on their choices, gradually learning which choices were better. In people with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex their ability to sustain the correct choice of stimulus (the better deck of cards) was disrupted but they chose normally between different actions.

On the other hand, people with damage in a separate frontal lobe region known as the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) had the opposite deficit. They weren't as good at choosing between two actions with different values, but they could choose between objects as well as participants without brain injury. These results indicate that the orbitofrontal cortex plays an important role in linking stimuli to their subjective, relative values, and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex plays a similar role in the selection of an action based on value. It seems the brain has at least partly separate systems for deciding between actions and objects.

"As a clinician, my patients inform the research I conduct, and as a researcher, my work informs me on ways to better treat and manage patients, as well as gain new insights into brain function." Studies of patients with frontal lobe injury that trace the neural pathways of decision making, show that cognitive neuroscience tools can be applied to understand this complex behaviour, and provide new perspectives on illnesses marked by frontal lobe dysfunction.

Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:


Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by McGill University.

Note: ScienceDaily reserves the right to edit materials for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. N. Camille, A. Tsuchida, L. K. Fellows. Double Dissociation of Stimulus-Value and Action-Value Learning in Humans with Orbitofrontal or Anterior Cingulate Cortex Damage. Journal of Neuroscience, 2011; 31 (42): 15048 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3164-11.2011

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/8HH54VvPqhY/111021125707.htm

ron white ron white widespread panic widespread panic alcs alcs miguel cabrera

NJ candidate's 'whore-in-bedroom' advice panned

(AP) ? A political candidate in New Jersey is taking heat for tweeting that the way for a woman to keep her man is to be a "whore in the bedroom."

Republican state Senate candidate Phil Mitsch says he didn't mean to offend women. He says the comments were a version of advice given by others, including women.

Democrats attacked Mitsch for the tweet as well as others the candidate claims were doctored.

The state GOP has also withdrawn support, telling The Philadelphia Inquirer his comments made him unfit for office.

Mitsch's tweet read: "Women, you increase your odds of keeping your men by being faithful, a lady in the living room and a whore in the bedroom."

Even without the controversy, Mitsch was a long shot in solidly Democratic Camden County.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2011-10-21-Candidate-Bedroom%20Advice/id-611a8d6d47fe4dcf8f563749ca8e19ee

kelly cutrone kelly cutrone florida marlins dancing with the stars 2011 dwts bill buckner christmas island

285 Indian girls shed 'unwanted' names (AP)

MUMBAI, India ? More than 200 Indian girls whose names mean "unwanted" in Hindi have chosen new names for a fresh start in life.

A central Indian district held a renaming ceremony Saturday that it hopes will give the girls new dignity and help fight widespread gender discrimination that gives India a skewed gender ratio, with far more boys than girls.

The 285 girls ? wearing their best outfits with barrettes, braids and bows in their hair ? lined up to receive certificates with their new names along with small flower bouquets from Satara district officials in Maharashtra state.

In shedding names like "Nakusa" or "Nakushi," which mean "unwanted" in Hindi, some girls chose to name themselves after Bollywood stars such as "Aishwarya" or Hindu goddesses like "Savitri." Some just wanted traditional names with happier meanings, such as "Vaishali," or "prosperous, beautiful and good."

"Now in school, my classmates and friends will be calling me this new name, and that makes me very happy," said a 15-year-old girl who had been named Nakusa by a grandfather disappointed by her birth. She chose the new name "Ashmita," which means "very tough" or "rock hard" in Hindi.

The plight of girls in India came to a focus after this year's census showed the nation's sex ratio had dropped over the past decade from 927 girls for every 1,000 boys under the age of 6 to 914.

Maharashtra state's ratio is well below that, with just 883 girls for every 1,000 boys ? down from 913 a decade ago. In the district of Satara, it is even lower, at 881.

Such ratios are the result of abortions of female fetuses, or just sheer neglect leading to a higher death rate among girls. The problem is so serious in India that hospitals are legally banned from revealing the gender of an unborn fetus in order to prevent sex-selective abortions, though evidence suggests the information gets out.

Part of the reason Indians favor sons is the enormous expense of marrying off girls. Families often go into debt arranging marriages and paying for elaborate dowries. A boy, on the other hand, will one day bring home a bride and dowry. Hindu custom also dictates that only sons can light their parents' funeral pyres.

Over the years, and again now, efforts have been made to fight the discrimination.

"Nakusa is a very negative name as far as female discrimination is concerned," said Satara district health officer Dr. Bhagwan Pawar, who came up with the idea for the renaming ceremony.

Other incentives, announced by federal or state governments every few years, include free meals and free education to encourage people to take care of their girls, and even cash bonuses for families with girls who graduate from high school.

Activists say the name "unwanted," which is widely given to girls across India, gives them the feeling they are worthless and a burden.

"When the child thinks about it, you know, 'My mom, my dad, and all my relatives and society call me unwanted,' she will feel very bad and depressed," said Sudha Kankaria of the organization Save the Girl Child. But giving these girls new names is only the beginning, she said.

"We have to take care of the girls, their education and even financial and social security, or again the cycle is going to repeat," she said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111023/ap_on_re_as/as_india_unwanted_names

gumby derrick mason derrick mason lamichael james lamichael james epstein glen campbell

Scarlett Johansson Banging Adorable Joseph Gordon-Levitt?

Scarlett Johansson Banging Adorable Joseph Gordon-Levitt?

Scarlett Johansson is reportedly dating Joseph Gordon-Levitt, after being seen kissing the adorable actor in New York recently. An eyewitness revealed, “They were kissing. They [...]

Scarlett Johansson Banging Adorable Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2011/10/20/scarlett-johansson-banging-adorable-joseph-gordon-levitt/

barry sanders tim allen enlightened enlightened stand and deliver sean hannity brian urlacher