EXTRA...

DAs give back $500k; Cape Cod in South Africa; Swim the Atlantic; Wind as Cabinet Post

"Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse." -Lily Tomlin

Capetown, Cape Cod... whatever...
A Washington, DC, airport ticket agent offers some examples of why the country is in trouble!

1. I had a New Hampshire Congresswoman ask for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window. (On an airplane!)

2. I got a call from a candidate's staffer, who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information. Then she interrupted me with, 'I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts ' Without trying to make her look stupid, I calmly explained, 'Cape Cod is in Massachusetts , Capetown is in Africa ' Her response - click... eTravel.

On eve of governor's budget-cut announcement
O'Keefe, other D.A.s "voluntarily returning" $500k

With Gov. Deval L. Patrick expected to announce hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts tomorrow, Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall and Chief Justice for Administration and Management Robert A. Mulligan issued a joint statement today saying no job losses are expected at the Trial Court...

Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe said he and his fellow DAs have proposed 2.5 percent budget cuts.

"It will hurt all the facets of our offices, and it may, in some instances, result in furloughing people," said O'Keefe. "That will depend on attrition and whether we're able to find a way to tighten our belts in other areas."  Ninety percent of each DA's budget goes to salaries, O'Keefe pointed out.

The DAs have proposed "voluntarily returning" $500,000 granted by the Legislature to help retain assistant district attorneys who have been on the job for three to five years... Massachusetts Lawyers Journal.
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Swimmer plans odyssey in the Atlantic
Hey, a guy swam to France from Cape Cod in 1998

Trailed relentlessly by a 10-foot (man-eating) shark, this remarkable 31 year-old Frenchmansuccessfully swam across the Atlantic Ocean from Cape Cod to Brittany in France.

Jennifer Figge, mother of LeMans series race-car driver Alex Figge, plans to swim 2,100 miles from the coast of Africa to Barbados. Your 56-year-old mother tells you she plans to swim 2,100 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, from the Cape Verde Islands off the African coast to Barbados. She will swim behind a sailboat, in a giant cage to ward off sharks. She figures she'll be in the water six to eight hours a day, which means it will take her just over two months to fulfill her mission.

She'll dive in Dec. 1 and reach her destination sometime in early February 2009.

Your reaction?

If you're race-car driver Alex Figge, you smile, shrug your shoulders, and say: ``Way to go, Mom. Be careful out there. We'll miss you at Christmas"...

Guy Delage, a Frenchman, claims to have swam the same route from Cape Verde to Barbados with the help of a kickboard in 1994, but the swim was unsupervised and its authenticity has been questioned. In 1998, Frenchman Benoit Lecomte, who lived in Austin at the time, swam 3,716 miles from Cape Cod to Brittany to raise money for cancer research in the name of his father, who died of colon cancer. It took him 73 days, and he stopped along the way at the Azores Islands... Miami Herald.

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Wind Farms need to be closer to coast

Planning rules for offshore wind farms need to be relaxed for the UK to meet its EU renewable energy targets by 2020, says the Carbon Trust. In a report published today, the Trust argues that allowing offshore wind turbines to be built closer to the shore will cut their cost by £16 billion.
   Current constraints mean the next round of wind farms need to be built 70 miles offshore in deep waters. Such sites, however, require 40 per cent more capital expenditure than locations nearer to the coast.
   The Trust says that if the government and Crown Estate -- which owns the seabed -- remove site restrictions, the UK could build wind farms generating 29 GW by 2020. By contrast, a single proposed coal plant at Kingsnorth in Kent would generate 1.6 GW.
   Without changes, however, the report suggest just a quarter of that 29 GW would be built. "Without urgent action there is a risk that little additional offshore wind power will be built by 2020 beyond the 8GW already planned or in operation," it says... SmartPlanet.

UK Establishes Department of Energy and Climate Change

As part of Prime Minister Gordan's reshuffle, a new department was created that is likely to boost growth in the renewable energy industry, while addressing climate change.

The UK is a country that is particularly vulnerable to the affects of climate change and has identified it as an issue of vital national importance. The EU's goal to reduce carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 may help mitigate this predicament, but requires significant action.

Energy and climate change had been addressed across two departments, the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) . As an attempt to bridge the gap between energy strategy and climate change policy, the UK has created a new department.

Energy and climate change were two topics previously addressed by separate teams. "Combining them may help identify both synergies and trade-offs, but we must avoid either one becoming subordinate to the other," said Dr Neil Bentley, the CBI director of business environment."

"The new department puts climate change where it belongs, with its own seat at the cabinet table," said Stephen Hale, Director of the think-tank the Green Alliance... A tidal barrage across the River Severn could supply 5% of Britain’s electricity and plans for the world’s biggest offshore wind farm, the London Array, have been approved... ECO World.