The Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce and its partners were successful last night in gaining the council’s approval of a fair and workable lobbying ordinance. With a vote of 15-4, a new lobbying ordinance was passed into law by the Madison Common Council. After months of hard work on this issue, the ordinance that passed was supported and endorsed by the GMCC and will have minimal impact on the business community’s access to local government. Thanks to all of our partners that worked so hard over the past months: Downtown Madison, Inc., the Small Business Advisory Council, Smart Growth Madison, and the Realtors Association.
Daily Archives: September 21, 2005
Sun could power New Orleans
Sun Rising Over New Orleans
John F. Wasik
September 20, 2005
As hundreds of thousands of souls return to the birthplace of jazz, one of the most critical questions facing the Big Easy is how to rebuild the estimated 200,000 homes that were damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Let’s take some of the estimated $100 billion or more it will take to fix the city and create the nation’s largest, most sustainable solar city.
Google Free WiFi: Doing Evil?
This is big and potentially scary news, for a couple of reasons. The first is fairly obvious: If the reports of Google’s purchasing of “dark fiber” — unused bandwidth and network infrastructure — are true, the firm could conceivably roll out a “last-mile” Internet delivery service. Maintaining and operating all that infrastructure (along with servicing all those WiFi hubs) would be very expensive. But the idea makes more sense if you assume that the company will deploy its real capital once the new WiMax standard, which broadcasts wireless Internet over a much wider area than WiFi, rolls around. Coupling this with an upgraded version of Google Talk could conceivably make the tech startup a force in telecom
Google WiFi traffic is subject to their privacy policy, which everyone should be fully aware of.
Lutz on the Future of the Car
Bob Lutz on diesels, hybrids and fuel cells:
The addition of a second hybrid mode to the drive system improves efficiency, and reduces the need for large electric motors found in typical single-mode systems available today. And we’re putting it on our largest vehicles first, where it will have the greatest effect on fuel consumption.
However, the two-mode system will be scalable, meaning it’s suitable for use in a variety of front-drive, rear-drive and all-wheel-drive vehicles.
In the long-term, GM sees the hydrogen fuel cell as an opportunity to transform our entire industry. Our progress in fuel cell research has been seen before, especially in our show cars the GM AUTOnomy, Hy-wire and Sequel. These vehicles clearly demonstrated that fuel-cell-powered cars can become a reality.