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I HOPE THE LABEL WILL WORK

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Stimulus dollars for weatherization create thousands of jobs in New York

New York expects to help more than 45,000 low-income households by blowing in insulation, sealing air leaks and installing energy-efficient lighting and appliances for free.

This program is expected to create  14,000 jobs statewide as demand for contractors rises.

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Sharing Baby Food Saved My Sanity

This is a story of a woman who wanted to make healthy food for her baby, and also wanted to sleep. She formed a group of like minded parent who each made a big batch of one kind of food and shared it with the group. This idea works for baby food, soup, casseroles, you name it. If anyone in the Santa Rosa area wants to try this, I'm in.

How do you create and host a local babyfood exchange?

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Car Share Service - Rent Your Car for extra $$

GetAround is a basic idea -- most of our cars aren't in use during the day. We use them to drive to work, and then they just sit there until the work day is over. What if someone else could be using them when we don't need them? GetAround provides you with a keyless entry system for your car. You can then register it on their site so that someone who needs wheels nearby can find it, and rent it from you. It's sort of like a hybrid of Rentalic and ZipCar.

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Insurance Companies Required to Spend More on Patient Care

In 2011 health insurers will have to follow a new set of rules that details how much money they must spend on patients' medical care, according to guidelines the Obama administration released Monday.

The rules are part of the health care reform law, which mandates that insurers spend a minimum of 85 percent of the premiums that they take in on patient care rather than administrative costs or profit (insurers who sell to small groups and individuals will spend a minimum of 80%).

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Do-It-Yourself: Winter Break Camp Co-ops

The original article promotes a summer camp co-op, but since the kids will be out of school over the Winter Break this idea may just save a few of the Moms out there.

If you are looking for ways to save on childcare and day camp over the holiday, consider forming Holiday Camp Co-op through Care.com.  By creating your own day camp with other parents in your neighborhood, you can be certain that the care will be affordable, trustworthy, and provide unique learning experiences for your child.

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India Develops $35 "laptop"

India has come up with the world's cheapest "laptop," a touch-screen computing device that costs $35. India's Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal unveiled the low-cost computing device that is designed for students, saying his department had started talks with global manufacturers to start mass production.

"We have reached a (developmental) stage that today, the motherboard, its chip, the processing, connectivity, all of them cumulatively cost around $35, including memory, display, everything," he told a news conference.

To see the laptop in action select the "Read More" link below:

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Smart Power Outlets

John La Grou unveils an ingenious new technology that will smarten up the electrical outlets in our homes, using microprocessors and RFID tags. The invention, Safeplug, promises to prevent deadly accidents like house fires -- and to conserve energy.

His solution, Safeplug, is a cheap data chip placed into the plugs of appliances that can be read by a cheap wireless receiver in the socket. The device and the outlet are now an intelligent network, trading information of the safe operating ranges of the device. This allows the wall socket to shut off power if too much energy is flowing.

Whenever there is nothing plugged in, the wall unit can just simply shut off. Considering the amount of sockets in the States alone, shutting them off when not in use can save an unbelievable amount of wasted energy. It could even prevent injuries caused by children playing with electrical sockets. 

Watch the video and read more at
http://www.ted.com/talks/john_la_grou_plugs_smart_power_outlets_1.html

I found this article at the TED site - ideas worth spreading
http://www.ted.com/

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The Sharing LifeStyle and How to Legally Define it

This good idea is a "twofer":
1. sharing instead of owning to make your $$ and energy go farther

2. supporting a type of law that helps facilitate cooperation instead of promote contention.

I strongly recommend you read the entire article instead of just reviewing my summary. This is  big one.

The author, Janelle Orsi calls this sharing law which would help people like Lynne:

• Lynne lives in an urban cohousing community and shares ownership of a car with two neighbors. Every day, she fluidly shares, borrows, and lends (rather than owns) many household goods, tools, electronics, and other items.

• She is a member of a cooperative grocery, through which she receives significant discounts in exchange for putting in a few monthly work hours. She grows vegetables on an empty lot and sometimes sells the veggies to neighbors.

• She has a successful rooftop landscaping business, which she launched using 20 microloans and investments from friends and family. She often barters, doing odd jobs in exchange for goods and services.

• She also owns a 5 percent share of a hot springs retreat center outside of town, which she acquired through sweat equity.

To learn more about this lifestyle and the legal challenges that will arise as more of un embrace this concept read the full article:
http://shareable.net/blog/birth-of-sharing-law

Janelle has also written a book on the subject, you could purchase it, or try and get it thru the paperback book exchange (an earlier post).
http://www.nolo.com/products/the-sharing-solution-SHAR.html

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Tennessee helps elderly stay in homes

Tennessee has made changes to its health care system which are allowing the elderly and disabled to get the assistance they need in their homes - at a much lower cost than at a nursing home. A lot of this change is the direct result of efforts by Governor Phil Bredesen.

“It’s a good thing to do and it probably can save some costs, but more importantly it really is an easy way to keep an awful lot of people in their homes, which is what I would want. I know it’s what my mother wants,” Bredesen said in an interview with Stateline.

There are many success stories. A 56-year-old Nashville resident named Larry is a good example. He suffered a stroke two years ago and had an amputation. Because his wife could not care for him at home, he reluctantly entered a nursing facility. When the new program began providing training and support services for his wife, Larry was able to go home and spend time with his children and grandchildren.

The AARP, which advocates for the elderly, says that three people can receive long-term care services in the community for the cost of serving just one person in a nursing facility. Still, the big fear in offering more home-based services is that people who never would consider entering a nursing home “will come out of the woodwork” and apply for Medicaid. Surveys have shown that for each patient in a nursing facility, two more with the same level of disability are making do at home.

Alaska, California, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington State now spend more than half of their long-term care dollars on alternatives to nursing facilities.

The new federal health care law — the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — has a chance of changing that. It includes financial incentives for states to spend at least 50 percent of their long-term care dollars on non-institutional services and offers a grant for every person who leaves a nursing home to receive services in the community. Still, experts say the federal dollars may not be enough to persuade some states to make the changes.

Read Article
http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=520026

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