Questões de Concursos Inglês

House Approves Higher Debt Limit Without Condition
By JONATHAN WEISMAN and ASHLEY PARKER
Feb. 11, 2014

WASHINGTON - Ending three years of brinkmanship in which the threat of a devastating default on the nation’s debt was used to wring conservative concessions from President Obama, the House on Tuesday voted to raise the government’s borrowing limit until March 2015, without any conditions.
The vote - 221 to 201 - relied almost entirely on Democrats in the Republican-controlled House to carry the measure and represented the first debt ceiling increase since 2009 that was not attached to other legislation. Only 28 Republicans voted yes, and only two Democrats voted no.
Simply by holding the vote, Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio effectively ended a three-year Tea Party-inspired era of budget showdowns that had raised the threat of default and government shutdowns, rattled economic confidence and brought serious scrutiny from other nations questioning Washington’s ability to govern. In the process, though, Mr. Boehner also set off a series of reprisals from fellow Republican congressmen and outside groups that showcased the party’s deep internal divisions.
During the October 2013 government shutdown, The Times’s David Leonhardt explained the debt limit and how a failure to raise it could have affected the economy both at home and abroad.
"He gave the president exactly what he wanted, which is exactly what the Republican Party said we did not want,” said a Republican representative, Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, who last year unsuccessfully tried to rally enough support to derail Mr. Boehner’s re-election as speaker. “It’s going to really demoralize the base.”
The vote was a victory for President Obama, Democrats and those Senate Republicans who have argued that spending money for previously incurred obligations was essential for the financial standing of the federal government. “Tonight’s vote is a positive step in moving away from the political brinkmanship that’s a needless drag on our economy,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said in a statement.
"A clean debt ceiling is a complete capitulation on the speaker’s part and demonstrates that he has lost the ability to lead the House of Representatives, let alone his own party,” said Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots. “It is time for him to go.”
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, commended the speaker and promised to pass the bill as soon as possible. “We’re happy to see the House is legislating the way they should have legislated for a long time,” he said.

(Adapted from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/us/politics/ boehner-to-bring-debt-ceiling-to-vote-without-policy- attachments. html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_2014021 2&_r=0)

How to dig out from the information avalanche
Majority of workers feel overwhelmed by deluge of data, survey finds
By Eve Tahmincioglu updated 8:18 p.m. ET March 16, 2008

Don"t expect Shaun Osher, the CEO of Core Group Marketing in New York, to answer your e-mail right away. He has stopped responding to e-mails every minute and only checks his e-mail account twice a day. He also started turning off his BlackBerry during meetings. This tactic has made him so much more productive that earlier this year he held a meeting with his staff of 50 and "strongly suggested" that they stop relying so heavily on e-mail and actually start calling clients on the phone. And, he requested his employees put cell phones and PDAs on silent mode during meetings, as well as curtail the common practice of cc-ing everybody when sending out an e-mail. "There was so much redundancy, so much unnecessary work," he explains. "One person could handle an issue that should take two minutes, but when an email goes out and five people get cc-ed, then everybody responds to it and there"s a snowball effect." It"s not that Osher has anything against technology. In fact, he loves it. The problem is, last year he realized he was inundated with so many e-mails and so much information in general that he began to experience data overload. "In the beginning, e-mail and all this data was a great phenomenon, revolutionizing what we do. But the pendulum has swung way too much to the other side," he maintains. "We"re less productive." Osher isn"t the only one out there under a data avalanche. Thanks to technological innovations, you can be talking to a customer on your cell phone, answering a LinkedIn invitation on your laptop, and responding to email on your PDA all at the same time. Besides, during tough economic times, who will want to miss any information when your job could be on the line if you indulge in the luxury of being offline? Turns out, seven out of 10 office workers in the United States feel overwhelmed by information in the workplace, and more than two in five say they are headed for a data "breaking point," according to a recently released Workplace Productivity Survey. Mike Walsh, CEO of LexisNexis U.S. Legal Markets, says there are a host of reasons we"re all on the information brink: "exponential growth of the size of the information "haystack," the immensity and immediacy of digital communications, and the fact that professionals are not being provided with sufficient tools and training to help them keep pace with the growing information burden." Ellen Kossek, a professor from Michigan State, believes we are less productive in this age of 24-7 technology, and our multitasking mentality has spawned a "not-mentallypresent" society. "We"re becoming an attention-deficit disorder society switching back and forth like crazy," Kossek says. "We"re connected all the time. We"re working on planes, in coffee shops, working on the weekends. Work is very seductive, but yet we"re actually less effective." The key to getting your head above the data flood, according to workplace experts, is managing and reducing the information you"re bombarded with.

© 2008 MSNBC Interactive - (slightly adapted) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23636252/

What are the best energy sources? "Best" depends on many factors - how the energy is being used, where it is being used, what energy sources are available, which sources are most convenient and reliable, which5 are easiest to use, what each costs, and the effects on public safety, health, and the environment. Making smart energy choices means understanding resources and their relative costs and benefits. Some energy sources have advantages for specific10 uses or locations. For example, fuels from petroleum are well suited for transportation because they pack a lot of energy in a small space and are easily transported and stored. Small hydroelectric installations are a good solution for supplying power or mechanical energy close15 to where it is used. Coal is widely used for power generation in many fast-developing countries - including China, India, and many others - because domestic supplies are readily available. Efficiency is an important factor in energy costs.20 How efficiently can the energy be produced, delivered, and used? How much energy value is lost in that process, and how much ends up being transformed into useful work? Industries that produce or use energy continually look for ways to improve efficiency, since this is a key to25 making their products morecompetitive. The ideal energy source - cheap, plentiful, and pollution-free - may prove unattainable in our lifetime, but that is the ultimate goal. The energy industry is continuing to improve its technologies and practices, to30 produce and use energy more efficiently and cleanly. Energy resources are often categorized as renewable or nonrenewable. Renewable energy resources are those that can be replenished quickly - examples are solar power,35 biomass, geothermal, hydroelectric, wind power, and fast-reaction nuclear power. They supply about seven percent of energy needs in the United States; theother 93 percent comes from nonrenewables. The two largest categories of renewable energy now in use in the U.S.40 are biomass - primarily wood wastes that are used by the forest products industry to generate electricity and heat - and hydroelectricity. Nonrenewable energy resources include coal, oil, natural gas, and uranium-235, which is used to fuel45 slow-reaction nuclear power. Projections of how long a nonrenewable energy resource will last depend on many changeable factors. These include the growth rate of consumption, and estimates of how much of the remaining resources can be economically recovered. New exploration50 and production technologies often increase theability of producers to locate and recover resources. World reserves of fossil energy are projected to last for many more decades - and, in the case of coal, for centuries.In: http://www.classroom-energy.org/teachers/energy_tour/pg5.html