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/ History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology
Other History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons™
Search Other History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology
Stephen F. Austin State University
Full-Text Articles in Other History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology
Archaeological Investigations Of A Shell Midden (41hr39) At De Zavala Point, Harris County, Texas, Anna J. Taylor Jan 1985
Archaeological Investigations Of A Shell Midden (41hr39) At De Zavala Point, Harris County, Texas, Anna J. Taylor
Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State
Archaeological investigations at site 41 HR 39 on De Zavala Point in Channelview, Harris County, Texas, were conducted by personnel from the Center for Archaeological Research, The University of Texas at San Antonio from December 16 through December 22, 1984. The site is recorded as an aboriginal shell midden with a historic component which will be impacted by the proposed disposal of dredged materials under the Department of the Army Permit Application No. 17151, during industrial development of the area. The field investigations were conducted for the Department of the Army, Galveston District, Corps of Engineers, to determine the eligibility ...
Archaeological Testing Of Site 41hr564 Harris County, Texas, Joe T. Denton Jan 1985
Archaeological Testing Of Site 41hr564 Harris County, Texas, Joe T. Denton
Prehistoric Site 41HR564, located in Harris County, Texas, near Keegans Bayou and US Highway 59, was tested in August 1985 to determine eligibility for inclusion within the National Register of Historic Places and State Archaeological Landmark status. Testing also was conducted to ascertain site depth and archaeological significance. No cultural materials were recovered as a result of the test and no further investigations are recommended.
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The Parables of Fascination
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. (Matthew 13:44-46)
Whoever loves his life will lose it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (John 12:25)
The question is, "Does the Good News of the Kingdom impose impossible or intolerable demands on one's life?" The answer is, of course, yes -- if one still loves his self-centered life in this world. But the one who sees it as good news gives up his old, selfish life to receive a new, unselfish life.
The Good News is fascination. The Good News is fascinating. If it were not, who could be saved? It's like the word gospel or god-spell. Those who are willing to do God's will are attracted to Yahshua and give up their lives to Him, and all they possess, for the fascinating hope the Gospel presents. The Kingdom of God exerts a fascinating appeal -- a fascination that takes the burden away and gives grace for all the difficulties of the narrow way.
In Acts 14:22, it says that Paul "strengthened the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God." That was the Good News of the Kingdom, and they received it as good news. It gave them hope, strengthening and confirming them.
If one understands the parables in Matthew 13:44-46, he will see that after the man found the hidden treasure or the pearl, obeying Luke 14:33 ceased to seem like a radical, harebrained decision, but one which he gladly and joyously made, even as the faithful men and women in Hebrews 11 and Acts 2:44-45; 4:32-37. The find was so wonderfully and overwhelmingly super-abundant that what he had to give up was nothing in comparison, even as Hebrews 12:2 says: "He endured the cross for the joy set before Him."
The fascination for what he has found overwhelms him and permeates everything he does from then on. "Rejoicing at his find, he went and sold everything he had." This is the theme of the two parables -- a profound joy. They gladly did what they had to do to gain the object of their fascination, just as normal disciples do in giving up their life, not only when they find Yahshua, but also in their daily life living together in community. It does not seem to them like a daily grind. Community life is only a torture chamber to those who do not see the treasure as a cause of rejoicing and profound joy.
Being fully absorbed in the task of gaining the treasure made it automatic for both men to sell all their own possessions. They had no need to think things over first: "Hmmm... Let me see now... Is it really worth it?"
So, re-read Matthew 13:44-46 and Luke 12:31-33, especially verse 34. Whatever people consider valuable is where their heart's energy goes. All their time and energy is spent on what is most valuable to them. Knowing the value of the pearl or the hidden treasure causes them to give no consideration to its cost from then on, until the Kingdom comes.1
What does a person seek first?2 What he values most. And if one is ashamed of Yahshua and His words or gospel, then what is it that he values most?3 What is recorded in Matthew 10:37-38 shows what men commonly love most, and what one must gladly do to gain the hidden treasure. But most do not even see the treasure, for it is hidden from them,4 and John 7:17 tells the reason why the treasure remains hidden from them -- their unwillingness to do God's will.
Matthew 13:44-46 is simple to the one who is willing to do God's will -- the Kingdom of God is of such value that he will give up all he has in order to gain it. This does not mean that he can purchase it with his possessions, but to the contrary, it is something that cannot be compared with the value of his possessions. Overwhelming value is placed on the Kingdom. A person cannot have one without leaving the other behind. The demonstration or the witness of this is what brings the world to its end, and brings the Kingdom of God to earth. Matthew 24:14 is the witness of Matthew 13:44-45. It is people who live their lives to demonstrate and bear witness to the truth of these parables in Mt 13:44-46.5
All who are a part of this witness of their find are as the man in Matthew 13:44 -- rejoicing over his find, he loses his old life to gain it.6 Then, in obedience to Luke 9:23, he begins to daily take up his cross and follow Yahshua, His exceedingly great treasure. All who have found Him to be this Pearl gladly give up their old life, and gladly give up their life daily in the Body of Messiah.7 As 2 Corinthians 4:17 says, there is no comparison of the value of the Kingdom versus one's possessions.8
The living, authentic, corporeal demonstration of the Body of Messiah in accessible places (townships) in view of the watching world, as a witness and a foretaste of the coming Kingdom, projects a fascinating appeal to all who are willing to do God's will. It is so appealing and fascinating that it will not be at all difficult to exchange one's life at the cross, and to live in this kingdom community from now on, enthralled by what he has found.9
The parables of the treasure and of the pearl give us understanding of the full-orbed splendor of the Witness of the Kingdom that is Yahshua's new family10 -- those who do His will, the will of the Father.11 It is only Yahshua's new family in Mark 3:34-35 who can do the Father's will. Only when each recipient of the Holy Spirit draws strength from one another can it be done.
This story in Mt 13:44-46 gives the reason why one would be able to give up everything to follow Him, and it tells why one is able to receive the gift of eternal life, and to live from then on for the sake of Him and His name.12 To live under the demands of the Kingdom does not make those who see the hidden treasure tortured, bitter, or down-trodden. They receive faith and grace to endure to the end13 as they are purified in doing the good works prepared for them.14
They who are able to hear and to see have a profound freedom which is known only to those who are fascinated and captivated by what is truly important and truly valuable. Their burdens become light.15 This is still the cry of the Savior and Redeemer16 -- that there would be true disciples who live faithfully and strictly for the One who saved them. Messiah's yoke replaces the Torah: one must be under Messiah's yoke to be saved, since the new social order of the Gospel replaces the old social order of Sinai. His yoke does not oppress. It is not a legal burden. Why? Because Yahshua is gentle and humble of heart, unlike the rulers in Mark 10:42. He is a servant of all. He lives not for Himself, for His power, or His interests, but completely and exclusively for His Father in heaven and for His kingdom.
Mark 8:35 or 10:25 is not a merciless law, but one which is liberating, like a treasure one finds and begins rejoicing that he can now obey the Gospel's demands with joy. It is a light burden and an easy yoke that enables him to breathe freely, and by this a nation is founded upon Messiah's name and His word.17
His commandments are not addressed to isolated individuals but to a community, such as was the result of men and women receiving the Holy Spirit.18 His commandments cannot be obeyed by a Christian because he can only claim to see and to know Him,19 since he does not obey Him.
The Sermon on the Mount can only be lived out alongside of others who have undertaken the journey together as the people of God. Only then is His burden light. Other burdens were too heavy to carry.20 If the law of Messiah is not fulfilled, He died in vain.21 Only where the community exists, as in Matthew 16:18 (the community that sticks together at all costs, where everyone helps one another) can the law of Messiah be fulfilled. Otherwise, it's just the Christian church life, which does not demonstrate the value of the Pearl,22 but is only a counterfeit.
So the treasure that is hidden is as:
But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him" -- these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)
Yahshua is our exceedingly great reward.23 He is beyond all comparison.24 But Matthew 13:47-50 also says what the Kingdom of Heaven is like -- that there will be many who will be the bad fish who do not see the overwhelming value of salvation as an exceedingly great reward,25 beyond all comparison to anything else one could offer.
So, all a man can do is give up all he has -- his life, his family, his wife, his children, his house, his farm, and yes, his tractor, also. Then the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation,26 from faith to faith and ever increasing.27 Matthew 13:44-46 shows us what the Kingdom of God is like, as what must be witnessed if the end of the age is going to come,28 and its fruit produced.29
If one finds and properly values the Pearl of Great Price, then he will join himself to those who bear the fruit of the Kingdom as a witness to the world.30 He will not have any other thought than to obtain that Pearl and what it yields -- the fruit of the Kingdom. The Gospel is the power of God if it is seen as Good News. The witness of it in the life of the twelve-tribed nation is the Kingdom. Those who see the Kingdom,31 and enter the Kingdom,32 are those who produce its fruit by becoming the witness which demonstrates its worth, as each one walks in the works prepared for him and is made ready for Messiah.33 That witness is made possible by: Ephesians 4:2-3, John 13:35, John 15:8, John 17:11,23, etc., etc., etc.!
So, the question is whether the Gospel of the Kingdom imposes intolerable demands, or whether the Kingdom compels a fascination which takes away the burden from all that it demands.34
What can make someone hate his life in this world? Expressing that hatred is leaving the world for Messiah's kingdom. Unless one sees the Pearl or finds the hidden Treasure, nothing else can enthrall him enough to be converted, born again, transferred out of Satan's kingdom and into the kingdom of God's beloved Son.35
If the Good News is not a good spell, if it does not fascinate someone, does not attract, allure, and all the rest of what the word draw means, then there can be NO salvation such as Acts 2:38-41. The "many other words" attracted them to do such a radical thing as follows in verses 42-47. Only these kinds of hearers can receive the Holy Spirit, to be entrusted with such a prized gift as the very life of God, becoming one Spirit with Him,36 which is no light thing.
The community life is the means by which one is proved or tried. One's faith is tested37 to be recognized, to be proven, to be tried as metals are tried by fire. Thus, one is purified, being approved as accepted men and women in the furnace of adversity.38
The only route into the desired haven is through the "narrows" -- the "dire straits" of normal community life.39 Going through "the narrows" of community life is the only way to the Kingdom.40 Community life as Acts 4:32-35 is the Strait Gate,41 which is contracted by pressure, which as one endures in love, joy, peace, patience, etc., and self-control makes him into Messiah's own image.42
1. Matthew 6:9-11,33
2. Luke 14:26; John 12:25; Mark 8:35
3. Hebrews 12:2
4. Matthew 13:14; 15:8
5. Isaiah 52:15; 53:10-11; Daniel 2:44
6. Romans 6:2-5; Matthew 10:38
7. Acts 26:7
8. 1 Corinthians 2:9; Mark 10:17-22,23,28-30
9. 2 Corinthians 5:15
10. Mark 3:35
11. Matthew 7:21
12. Mark 10:29; 8:35
13. Matthew 24:13
14. Ephesians 2:8-10; Revelation 19:8
15. Matthew 11:28-30
16. Ecclesiasticus 51:23-27; 24:22-25
17. 1 John 2:4; 5:2-3; Luke 13:23-24
18. 1 Corinthians 12:13; Acts 2:32-47
19. John 9:41
20. Galatians 6:2
21. Isaiah 53:10-11
22. Ephesians 4:1-6; John 13:35; 17:23
23. Genesis 15:1
24. Romans 8:18-21; 2 Corinthians 4:17; Matthew 13:44-46
25. Galatians 3:29
26. Romans 1:16-17
27. 2 Corinthians 3:18; 1 Corinthians 6:20
29. Matthew 21:43; Daniel 2:44
30. Matthew 21:43; 24:14
31. John 3:3
33. Colossians 1:10; Ephesians 2:10; Revelation 19:8
34. 2 Timothy 2:12
35. Colossians 1:13
36. 1 Corinthians 6:17
37. James 1:3; 1 Peter 1:6-9; 2 Timothy 2:12
38. James 1:12; Romans 16:10; 14:18; 2 Corinthians 10:18; 13:7; 2 Timothy 2:15; 1 Corinthians 11:19; 2 Corinthians 13:5
39. Acts 14:22; Psalm 107:25-30, New Jerusalem Bible
40. Acts 14:22
41. Luke 13:23-24
42. 2 Corinthians 3:18; 1 John 3:1-3; blameless as Genesis 17:1; Galatians 3:29
Gospel of the Kingdom
‹ Fascination up For What It's Worth ›
You May Like These Articles:
Light and Darkness
Why This Waste?
The Pearl of Great Price
The Call to Give All!
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Adath Israel San Francisco | Modern Orthodox Synagogue in San Francisco | A Welcoming Shul and Jewish Community
Rabbi Landau
Living Jewish in San Francisco: THE RABBI'S BLOG
Rabbi's Blog
Rabbi Joel Landau (rabbi@adathisraelsf.org) has been the Rabbi of Adath Israel since May 2013. He was ordained by the Chief Rabbinate in Jerusalem and has served previously as a congregational Rabbi in Charleston, South Carolina and Irvine, California. A full biography of Rabbi Landau is available here.
Modern Orthodoxy: A Model for the Great American Jewish Dream
In this past Monday’s Times of Israel, AMANDA BORSCHEL-DAN interviewed Brandeis University Prof. Sylvia Barack Fishman. They discussed a number of topics. What interested me the most was Fishman’s take on how Modern Orthodox Jews have found balance in today’s holy trinity — family, career and religion. From her perspective Modern Orthodoxy is a model for the great American Jewish dream. Hope you find the article as interesting as I did.
JERUSALEM — Interestingly, one of the least egalitarian denominations of American Judaism fosters the most matched pairing of spouses. In terms of education level, careers and salary, Modern Orthodox spouses are the most equal — and successful professionally. Modern Orthodoxy, says Brandeis University Prof. Sylvia Barack Fishman, is the new model of the American Jewish dream.
“The story of American Modern Orthodox Jews is an incredible success story,” says Fishman, the Joseph and Esther Foster Professor of Contemporary Jewish Life and also co-director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute. Noting that the headlines surrounding last year’s Pew Research Center Survey “A Portrait of Jewish Americans” were mostly a cry of Oy gevalt about the upswing of intermarriage and secular Jews who self-identified as having “no religion,” Fishman says the survey also showed there is a “very clear demographic indication that Modern Orthodoxy is thriving.” No one was surprised last year when the Pew survey found 98 percent of Orthodox marriages are between two Jews — whether from birth or through conversion. Other findings showed that statistically some 83% of Orthodox Jews starting families today were raised Orthodox themselves and go on to raise Orthodox children, with an average of 4.1 children per family. Additionally, although Orthodox Jews are only 10% of the total US Jewish population, they form some 22% of all synagogue-going American Jews.
Modern Orthodoxy is a subset of Orthodoxy in which its adherents interact fluently both in normative secular society and in Jewish spaces. Unlike ultra-Orthodoxy, which tends to congregate in densely populated self-selected Jewish ghettos, Modern Orthodox are at home living among non-Jews. Fishman, who has authored seven books and countless papers on contemporary Judaism, says she is “a cheerleader for all wings of American Judaism.” Today, however, American Modern Orthodox are statistically the country’s highest educated, most financially successful Jewish population, with the greatest occurrence of homogamous relationships — those that pair individuals who share certain criteria like socioeconomic status. Counterintuitively, in Modern Orthodoxy these equally matched marriages live in parallel to the relatively non-egalitarianism of their religious lives.
There is much discussion in academia of the “feminization” of religion in America today. In her 2008 paper, “Matrilineal Ascent, Patrilineal Descent: The Gender Imbalance in American Jewish Life,” written with Daniel Parmer, Fishman explores the pushback of the feminist movement on American Jewish life. She writes, “When it comes to gender equality or gender balance, contemporary American Jewish life is caught between a rock and a hard place.” She explains that while Orthodox Jewry continues to be male-dominated, “contemporary liberal American Judaism, although supposedly egalitarian, is visibly and substantially feminized.”
In the 70-page paper, she cites examples of men who abandon the synagogue as a way of fleeing the “maternal vibes” of the archetypical Jewish mother. She finds that men are leaving the egalitarian prayer of Reform and Conservative synagogues — but not Orthodoxy. Unfortunately for Jewish feminists, the reason why not may gall. She writes, “in Orthodox congregations, the fact that someone — girls and women — are excluded gives male religious responsibilities sociological piquancy and power.” In Orthodoxy, by the time boys reach their bar mitzvas, they are equal prayer partners and “poised to take the male responsibilities of daily group prayer,” writes Fishman. As Jewish male adults, “they — and they alone — can help create a prayer quorum, minyan. They develop the loyalties of men in battle to their buddies—they feel responsible to overcome considerable inconvenience to make sure there will be a minyan.”
In the prayer group, Jewish men can still feel like providers, necessary. Because of this obligation, Orthodox men attend weekly services twice as much as their spouses, whose own rates of attendance are significantly higher than non-Orthodox Jewish men or women. In her paper, Fishman writes that this “alienation” of male Jews in the egalitarian streams of Judaism is at a critical point. She calls it a “systemic problem” in American Jewry because, at its worst, it leads to less dedicated Jews, more intermarriage, less Jewish children and less support for Israel. Orthodox Jewish men, however, “despite their more emphatic gender role definitions,” are consistently in sync with their wives about Jewish values, with mutual goals for a strong religiously observant family life and Jewish education for the children.
Like their husbands, Modern Orthodox women tend to work in high-status professions outside of the home, even while raising multiple children. This phenomenon, says Fishman, is in its third generation and is self-perpetuating: Today’s young Modern Orthodox mothers saw their own mothers and grandmothers as role models in balancing rich professional and personal lives and feel confident to do the same. People whose mothers did this already assume that’s the way you live,” says Fishman. These women statistically have four children — double the US average of 2.2, and more than double the US Jewish average of 1.9 — which points to a very not politically correct reality: To have multiple children, women need to start giving birth earlier.
This stark biological fact is an unspoken boogeyman that needs to come out of the closet for women to achieve all their life goals, not only professional. As a feminist I want women to have what they want in their lives,” she says. In a society obsessed with career, women are concerned that taking time out for families will hamper their professional lives. Fishman says, however, young women need to be better informed as they plan their lives. She refers to research and popular “triumphalist stories” in mainstream periodicals with headlines proclaiming “I waited until 40 and had two children.” In these articles, she says, the cited statistics are that 80% of women over 40 who try to conceive, succeed. But that means that 20% don’t! If you think about statistics surrounding diseases, saying 1:9 will be afflicted makes people rightfully concerned. One in five is a huge amount of grief, much of which could be avoided,” Fishman says.
Fishman says the Jewish community needs to address this problem, perhaps through small focus groups of men and women in their early 20s, and explore how to get the now culturally forbidden idea of starting families earlier into the mainstream. With the perspective of a scholar who conquered gender bias to make it to the top of her field while raising a family, she says, “Women who say they can’t have it all may need to redefine what ‘it all’ is.”
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Upcoming Exhibition: Pouya Afshar’s OUT OF CHARACTER
Read the official press release here.
View the official exhibition catalogue here.
Artist Bio:
Pouya Afshar is an alumnus from the California Institute of Arts Character Animation department and is a graduate of University of California Los Angeles Graduate Department of Film and Television focusing in Animation and Digital Media. He has exhibited his work as an animator and visual artist throughout Los Angeles and United States at renowned locations such as Harold M. Williams Auditorium at the Getty Center, Bovard Auditorium at University of Southern California, Royce Hall at University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Santa Monica Art studios, 18th street Art Center, and numerous galleries and art fairs around the world. Pouya has presented his research at Stanford University, Harvard University, University of Southern California, School of Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and Residency Unlimited NY. He is also the recipient of a Create Economy Grant in the state of Massachusetts as well as a Fulbright Scholar award. Pouya is the creator, character designer and producer of the animated series “Rostam in Wonderland” and the co-creator of 1PA2PA comics. He is currently an assistant professor of art and Design at University of Massachusetts, Lowell.
Artists are the ones recording the history.
In storytelling, it is imperative to understand a character’s personality and behavioral tendencies in order to capture an appealing characterization of that persona within the narrative structure. One has to live, breathe, and feel the surroundings alongside the characters he/she creates. For me, within this context, I intend to restructure real personalities visually and create a new persona. In a way, I am distorting history by projecting these characters through a humorous lens.
I am implementing fictional characterizations of these individuals within the audience’s mind regardless of the reality. My intention is to build these characters from the inside out, investing them with a past and a persona only hinted at in the history.
For the creation of these characters, I tend to concentrate more on the refinements than general aspects. I intend to re-imagine their roles within specific time periods of our contemporary culture and crystalize the clichés about them. I intend to creep up on my audience hinting on the importance of reviewing the history and how characters carry the weight of its narrative.
From ADVOCARTSY director Roshi Rahnama:
ADVOCARTSY is thrilled to present this diverse body of work by Pouya Afshar which exemplifies his range and depth of knowledge in history and Iranian culture as well as his masterful art of character design and storytelling. OUT OF CHARACTER is Pouya Afshar’s second solo exhibition with ADVOCARTSY. Elegantly combining historical research with unflinchingly honest caricatures, Afshar reminds us of the power and knowledge begging to be discovered within our pasts. “Artists are the ones recording the history.” states Afshar matter of factly, a sentiment that is echoed again and again within each work.
Email info@advocartsy.com for additional information about Pouya Afshar’s upcoming exhibition or to inquire about previewing work.
Installation Shots:
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© 2020 AdvocArtsy. All Rights Reserved.
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This township history is transcribed from History of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Volume II, A. Warner & Co., Publishers, Chicago, Ill., 1899, Chapter VI, pp. 63-64.
CHAPTER VI.
UNION TOWNSHIP.
[and Green Tree Borough]
This township formed part of Chartiers from 1851 to 1860. March 24, 1860, a petition for the division of Chartiers having been presented to the court, John Young, Isaac Walker and Alexander McKee were appointed commissioners to make inquiry as to the propriety of so doing. Their report was favorable, and at a special election, September 9, 1860, there was a large majority in favor of the measure. September 29, 1860, the division as thus proposed was confirmed by the court, and the name "Kirkpatrick" conferred upon the new district. February 9, 1866, the impropriety of so large a name being affixed to so small a township was brought to the notice of the court, with the request that a shorter designation be substituted, and on the same day the name was changed to Union.
Isaac Sellers came from Virginia in 1773, and settled within the present limits of Union township. He was probably the first settler. James Kearns and William Chess, both from Ireland, settled on adjoining tracts in the township, probably in 1774. All the earliest settlers were subjected to frequent alarms by marauding Indians.
The coal-mining interests are important. The Little Saw-Mill Run Railroad company was incorporated July 23, 1850, and the road was opened in April 1853. It extends from the mouth of Saw-Mill run, at Temperanceville, to Banksville, a distance of three miles. John Haworth is president of the company; Charles S. Fetterman, secretary; Jacob Henrici, treasurer, and Thomas Hartley, general manager. Thousands of tons of coal are mined every year. Shipments are both by rail and by water, and the sale of the product is controlled by Hartley and Marshall.
The mining industry centers at Banksville, a town of three hundred or four hundred inhabitants, the houses being owned principally by the coal operators. There is a large and flourishing Methodist Episcopal church. The Baptist Church was organized in 1866, and a church-edifice was built in 1870. The Christian Church was organized in 1882. The town was laid out by George S. Carnahan, on the Alexander Carnahan farm, and was so named from the Banks family, with which Mrs. Carnahan was connected. The postoffice was established in 1878. Isabella Bell is the postmistress.
The population in 1870 was 1,968; in 1880, 2,367.
Green Tree Broough.--This borough was formed from the estern part of Union, July 14, 1885. It is an exclusively agricultural district, with suburban propensities. The Washington road has been macadamized, and other improvements are contemplated. The name was first applied to a hotel, it is still retained in that capacity. It became a postoffice May 10, 844. There are three churches-Wesley Methodist, Mount Pisgah Presbyterian and German Lutheran. Rev. G. H. Schnorr, pastor of the latter, was the first burgess of the borough. Mount Pisgah was organized in 1830, and reorganized in 1869. Rev. Philip S. Jennings is pastor.
Janice G. Donley
©2003, Janice G. Donley
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About 22 results.
Description. Lang: en
Pune (Marathi pronunciation: [puɳe]; English: ; also called Poona, the official name until 1978) is the second largest city in the Indian state of Maharashtra, after Mumbai. It is the ninth most populous city in the country with an estimated population of 6.4 million. Along with its extended city limits Pimpri Chinchwad and the three cantonment towns of Pune, Khadki and Dehu Road, Pune forms the urban core of the eponymous Pune Metropolitan Region (PMR). According to the 2011 census, the urban area has a combined population of 5.05 million while the population of the metropolitan region is estimated at 7.27 million. Situated 560 metres (1,837 feet) above sea level on the Deccan plateau on the right bank of the Mutha river, Pune is also the administrative headquarters of its namesake district. In the 18th century, the city was the seat of the Peshwas, the prime ministers of the Maratha Empire and so was one of the most important political centres on the Indian subcontinent. Pune is ranked the number one city in India in the ease of living ranking index.The city is considered to be the cultural capital of Maharashtra. It is also known as the "Oxford of the East" due to the presence of several well-known educational institutions. The city has emerged as a major educational hub in recent decades, with nearly half of the total international students in the country studying in Pune. Research institutes of information technology, education, management and training attract students and professionals from India and overseas. Several colleges in Pune have student exchange programmes with colleges in Europe.
Description provided by Wikipedia.
Pune Weather
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Pune To Mumbai
Pune City in India
Ranjangaon Village in India
Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board of education in Pune, India
Pune Municipal Corporation Government office
Pune Junction railway station Railway station
Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University Deemed university in Pune, India
Film and Television Institute of India Institute
Pimpri-Chinchwad City in India
Armed Forces Medical College College in Pune, India
Hadapsar Town in India
Punic Wars War
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune Research institution in Pune, India
Oregano Plants
Maharashtra Open Tennis tournament
Oreganos Plants
You Don't Mess with the Zohan 2008 film
Pune division Indian division
International Labour Organization Government agency
Pune F.C. Football club
Pune What's With Indian Women episode (season 1, episode 2)
Pune Fictional character
Full-size car Automotive class
ftp.atdd.noaa.gov
www.accessmylibrary.com
business-standard.com
www.chicagotribune.com
www.cirtindia.com
edition.cnn.com
www.dnaindia.com
City in India
Desc: Pune is the second largest city in the Indian state of Maharashtra, after Mumbai. It is the ninth most populous city in the country with an estimated population of 6.4 million.
URL: http://www.pune.life/
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pune
Type: LocalBusiness, Place, Thing, City, AdministrativeArea
Result Score: 6049.64
Village in India
Desc: Ranjangaon is a village located at a distance of about 50 km from Pune. Located there is the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation Industrial area and a shrine to Mahaganapati.
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranjangaon
Type: City, Place, Thing
Result Score: 522.25
Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education
Board of education in Pune, India
Desc: The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education is a statutory and autonomous body established under the "Maharashtra Secondary Boards Act" 1965.
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharashtra_State_Board_of_Secondary_and_Higher_Secondary_Education
Type: Organization, EducationalOrganization, Thing
Pune Municipal Corporation
Government office
Desc: The Pune Municipal Corporation is the civic body that governs Pune City, the second largest city of Maharashtra. It is in charge of the civic needs and infrastructure of the metropolis, which is spread over an area of 331.26 sq. km. and has 3.4 million residents.
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pune_Municipal_Corporation
Type: Organization, GovernmentOrganization, Thing
Pune Junction railway station
Desc: Pune Junction railway station is the main railway station of Pune. It is a railway junction on the Mumbai–Chennai line. The Pune–Bengaluru line starts from here.
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pune_Junction_railway_station
Type: Place, Thing
Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University
Deemed university in Pune, India
Desc: Bharati Vidyapeeth is a Deemed to be University and a group of higher educational institutions located in Pune, India. It was established in 1964 by Indian politician and educationist Patangrao Kadam.
URL: http://www.bharatividyapeeth.edu/
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharati_Vidyapeeth
Type: Place, Organization, Thing, EducationalOrganization, CollegeOrUniversity
Film and Television Institute of India
Desc: The Film and Television Institute of India is an autonomous institute under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Government of India and aided by the Central Government of India.
URL: http://www.ftiindia.com/
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_and_Television_Institute_of_India
Type: Place, Organization, Thing, MovieTheater, EducationalOrganization, CollegeOrUniversity
Desc: Pimpri Chinchwad is the extended city limits of Pune, and part of the Pune Metropolitan Region. However, it is a separate city from Pune with its own taluka and municipal corporation.
URL: http://www.pcmcindia.in/
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pimpri-Chinchwad
Type: Place, Thing, City, AdministrativeArea
Armed Forces Medical College
College in Pune, India
Desc: The Armed Forces Medical College is a medical college in Pune, India, in the state of Maharashtra. The college is managed by the Indian Armed Forces.
URL: http://armedforces.nic.in/interservice/isiafmc.htm
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_Medical_College_(India)
Town in India
Desc: Hadapsar is a developed town in eastern Pune City, Maharashtra. After 1990, Hadapsar developed into a major industrial area and is now one of the most densely populated and developed areas of Pune District. It is well connected to all parts of city.
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadapsar
Punic Wars
Desc: The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage from 264 BC to 146 BC. At the time, they were some of the largest wars that had ever taken place.
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punic_Wars
Type: Thing, Event
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune
Research institution in Pune, India
Desc: Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, established 2006, is one of the seven Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research of India. It is located in Pune, Maharashtra.
URL: http://www.iiserpune.ac.in/
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institute_of_Science_Education_and_Research,_Pune
Desc: Oregano is a flowering plant in the mint family. It is native to temperate Western and Southwestern Eurasia and the Mediterranean region.
Oregano is a perennial herb, growing from 20–80 cm tall, with opposite leaves 1–4 cm long. The flowers are purple, 3–4 mm long, produced in erect spikes. It is sometimes called wild marjoram, and its close relative, O. majorana, is known as sweet marjoram.
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregano
Type: Thing
Maharashtra Open
Tennis tournament
Desc: The Maharashtra Open is a professional men's tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts that takes place in Pune, India. It is part of the ATP World Tour 250 series of the Association of Tennis Professionals World Tour.
URL: http://www.chennaiopen.org/
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharashtra_Open
Type: SportsOrganization, Organization, Thing
Oreganos
Desc: Origanum is a genus of herbaceous perennials and subshrubs in the family Lamiaceae, native to Europe, North Africa, and much of temperate Asia, where they are found in open or mountainous habitats.
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origanum
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
Desc: You Don't Mess with the Zohan is a 2008 American comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan and produced by Adam Sandler, who also starred in the film. It was the fourth film that included a collaboration of Sandler as actor and Dugan as director.
URL: http://www.youdontmesswiththezohan.com/
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Don't_Mess_with_the_Zohan
Type: Thing, Movie
Pune division
Indian division
Desc: Pune division is one of the six administrative divisions of India's Maharashtra state. Pune Division is bound by Konkan Division to the west, Nashik Division to the north, Aurangabad Division to the east, and Karnataka State to the south.
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pune_division
Desc: The International Labour Organization is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social justice and promote decent work by setting international labour standards. It was the first specialised agency of the UN.
URL: http://www.ilo.org/
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Labour_Organization
Type: Organization, Corporation, Thing
Pune F.C.
Desc: Pune Football Club is an Indian professional football club based in Pune, Maharashtra. The club was one of the most professional clubs in Indian football history, known mainly for their focus on fanfare, professional playing set-up, and focus on youth development.
URL: http://www.punefc.com/
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pune_F.C.
Type: SportsTeam, Organization, Thing
What's With Indian Women episode (season 1, episode 2)
Type: TVEpisode, Thing
Result Score: 7.00
Full-size car
Automotive class
Desc: Full-size car— also known as large car is a vehicle size class which originated in the United States and is used for cars larger than mid-size cars. It is the largest size class for cars.
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-size_car
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What is this 'SIEGE Engine' anyway?
Some people who have heard about Castles & Crusades may not know much about it. Others may have read a reference about the 'SIEGE Engine' but not actually know what this is referring to. I'll be honest and admit that I haven't tried to systematically try to explain what it is very often and usually I explain the concepts to a new player during character creation. Most of it is quite intuitive and I haven't had a player who didn't understand the key concepts. However, a basic explanation and background might be beneficial to those who stumble upon this blog.
Basically, the SIEGE Engine is the underlying system and mechanic which the game is built up on. Now C&C has many similarities to what I refer to as 'classic D&D' and AD&D. It is a level-based game whereby you choose a character archetype to play and each character has six key attributes to help quantify their strengths and limitations.
With both D&D and AD&D, you had certain differences aside from one of them being referred to as 'Advanced'. The only reason I bring this up is that AD&D also led to the introduction of a proficiency based system. This was basically the introduction of a more complete skill system to the game. At first it was introduced as an option, but with the advent of AD&D 2nd Edition, it became recognized as a core concept. Classic D&D on the other hand didn't have this kind of itemized skill system. It kept things relatively simple but in no way was this inferior. Both games had their strengths and people preferred one over the other as more of a matter of taste. Both games also had certain classes with key skills (notably the Thief) and resolution for these special skills were built into the class. They both used a similar system of Saves -- a five category system to answer the needs of a Fantasy role playing game. However, the game also had different methods to resolve different sort of tasks. Some things required a high roll and the dice and others a low roll. Some used a d20 and others used percentile dice.
WOTC changed the shape of the game when they bought TSR and put out what they called 3rd Edition. No longer was there a differentiation between D&D and AD&D; it became one line which clearly progressed from AD&D 2nd Edition. They took the various ways to resolve saves, skills, and abilities, and unified the manner in which these were resolved. Only one die-type was needed -- the d20.
Now, what does all this have to do with Castles & Crusades? Well, 3rd Edition also introduced a new style of play and a level of book keeping that some just didn't like. Suffice to say that some gamers longed for an older style of play and something that was considered 'rules-light' to better achieve this. There was no doubt that key improvements had been made with the advent of 3rd Edition but there already existed some some great, foundational material.
Work on Castles & Crusades began and the SIEGE Engine quite simply was the attempt to reconcile certain features from the newer 'd20 based' system but be in keeping with the older style of games that came before it.
For skills, it adopts the philosophy found in Classic D&D -- there are no itemized skill lists though certain classes (like that Rogue again) had skill-like abilities built into the class. However, one key difference exists. This is the designation of certain abilities as 'Prime'. These Primes represent an additional advantage the character has with regards to those specific abilities for the purposes of task and skill resolution as well as saving throws. The designation of a Prime means that the associated ability need not be high score for the character to be competent at doing certain things. A fighter may naturally be strong because of his stats but may also be modeled as an intelligent or wise tactician because of which stats have been designated as Prime stats.
One way to perhaps illustrate this concept would be an example of a character who knows how to use a particular ability to their best advantage compared to someone who doesn't. In this way for example, someone who knows how to best use their strength to complete a task may end up doing better compared to another character who doesn't even if they happen to be the physically stronger of the two.
As briefly mentioned these primary attributes will also affect saving throws. C&C links different saving throws to each of the six main attributes which hadn't been the case. Though it means that there is no 'dump' stat for each character now, the selection of primes can make a significant difference and help offset a low ability score. The game rational is that the character has probably 'worked' to compensate for this shortfall.
Each attribute will have a modifier attached to it, which will also factor into these die rolls as will the actual level of the character. In this way, a 8th level character will be much better at accomplishing the sort of tasks or making his save compared to what he was like at 2nd level.
The inclusion of these Prime Attributes helps to provide an additional level of 'customization' than what Classic D&D offered but without adding the complexities that AD&D only began to introduce. Finally, it also uses the d20 to accomplish all these things but remains consistent in how it's done.
I guess that rounds off the basics on what the Siege mechanic represents for C&C. I'm just hoping I did an adequate job at trying to explain it.
Yet another Blog...
It's been a little less than two months since I decided to focus my efforts and form up Arcana Creations -- a design studio of sorts with the purpose to help produce material for my favorite hobby. With the efforts made on 'The Secret of Ronan Skerry' about to go to print and into distribution, and with the recent release of a digest-sized conversion of 'The Ruins of Ramat' for the Castles & Crusades role playing game, my friend John from Brave Halfling Publishing had another idea.
'Why don't you start up a blog?'
Well, I gave it some thought. The idea on one that also dealt with C&C, the Siege Engine, and some of the things I'm doing didn't seem to be a bad one either. However, I realize that some of the regular bloggers do so successfully with dedication and effort. Since my focus would also gravitate towards C&C and the Siege Engine, I thought that 'Under Siege' might be an apt name for the blog.
Hopefully, this will prove to be a enjoyable experience -- both for the reader and the writer.
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Comedy Manga Nagasawa Kun Go for Live Action Version
Chibi Maruko-chan creator Momoko Sakura’s another hit manga series is getting a live action drama adaptation which is launched on April 1. The Nagasawa-kun comedy series will be starred by Hitori Gekidan as the lead role. Originally a part of the Chibi Maruko-chan cast, the Nagasawa-kun comic focuses on one of the characters and gives smart but really hurting jokes with his blunt speeches.
Hitori Gekidan is known for his roles in Ikigami, Dororo and Densha Otoko. Alongide him are Satoshi Hanada of Hannya Comedy Duo, playing Fujiki Kun. Another comedy member Miyuki Oshima, will lay as Kosugi-kun. Eiji Wentz will play as Hanawa-kun, Haruka Minowa of the comedy duo Harisenbon will be Noguchi-san and Aiko Kaitou, who played the live-action Chibi Maruko Chan, as Jogasaki. The creator, Momoko Sakura, will also collaborate on the show’s scripts, as well as writing the lyrics for the theme song Futto Shiyoze sung by Yo Matsuyuki.
Yukihiko Tsutsumi and Hisashi Kumura are co-directing the series, which is a spin-off from the original manga. This live action projects Nakasawa-kun into a full adult but still has his comedic stunts. The main plot, as written in the CHibi Maruko-chan, depicts Nagasawa as a foul-mouthed middle school boy whose head is distractingly shaped like an onion. The original story ran in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Spirits magazine from 1993 to 1995, and the company has released a compiled volume in 2003.
Nagasawa-kun live action will be of five minute shorts that will air on the late night schedules from Mondays to Thursdays. Comic Natalie webzine has posted pictures of the cast in costume from a formal conference on Thursday. The original Chibi Maruko-chan from which this series has been derived has ran in Shueisha’s Ribon shoujo manga magazine from 1986 to 1996. That’s ten years of sweet girly stories!
The series shorts will start on April 1.
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FEBRUARY in HiSTORY
FEBRUARY 24 ~ ON THiS DAY in History
February 24, 2013 Anton K Leave a comment
1582 – Pope Gregory XIII announced the Gregorian calendar on the 24th February 1582.
1711 – The London première of Rinaldo by George Frideric Handel was on the 24th February 1711, the 1st Italian opera written for the London stage.
1863 – Arizona was organized as a United States territory on the 24th February 1863.
1875 – The SS Gothenburg hit the Great Barrier Reef and sank off the Australian east coast on the 24th February 1875, killing approximately 100 people, including high profile civil servants and dignitaries.
1920 – The Nazi Party was founded on the 24th February 1920.
1942 – The Battle of Los Angeles was on the 24th February 1942, one of the largest documented UFO sightings in history. The event lasted into the early hours of the 25th February 1942.
1942 – Paul Jones the English singer and harmonica player from Manfred Mann was born on the 24th February 1942.
1947 ~ Rupert Holmes the British-born American composer, singer-songwriter, musician and author was born on the 24th February 1947. Rupert Holmes is best known for his number one hit Escape (The Piña Colada Song) in 1979, and also his Top 10 song Him in 1980. Rupert Holmes is also known for his 1985 Tony Award-winning musical Drood and his 2007 Drama Desk Award-winning book for the Broadway musical Curtains, and his television series Remember WENN. Official website: www.RupertHolmes.com |YouTube video: Rupert Holmes – Escape (The Piña Colada Song – 1980)… YouTube video: Rupert Holmes – Him (1979)…
1948 ~ Dennis Waterman the English actor and singer was born on the 24th February 1948. Dennis Waterman is best known for his tough-guy roles on television including The Sweeney, Minder and New Tricks. As well as starring in Minder, Dennis Waterman also sang the theme song I Could Be So Good For You which was a No.3 hit in the UK and in the Top 10 in Australia in 1980 (written in 1979 by his then wife Patricia Waterman and Gerard Kenny). YouTube video: Dennis Waterman – I Could Be So Good For You (1980)…
1950 ~ George Thorogood the American singer-songwriter and guitarist was born on the 24th February 1950. YouTube video: George Thorogood ~ Bad To The Bone (1982)…
1954 ~ Plastic Bertrand the Belgian musician, songwriter, producer, editor and television presenter was born Roger Allen François Jouret on the 24th February 1954. Plastic Bertrand is best known for the international hit single Ça plane pour moi in 1978. The 1977 Ça plane pour moi song was written by Yvan Lacomblez aka Pipou, and the vocals were actually performed by the record’s producer Lou Deprijck. Ça plane pour moi is a French idiomatic expression which roughly translate to Everything’s going well for me (literal meaning = It is gliding for me). YouTube video: Plastic Bertrand – Ca Plane Pour Moi (1978 promo-video on rage)…
1955 – Alain Prost the French race car driver was born on the 24th February 1955.
1955 – Steve Jobs the American businessman and co-founder of Apple Inc. and Pixar was born on the 24th February 1955 (died 2011).
1965 – Kristin Davis the American actress was born on the 24th February 1965.
1966 – Billy Zane the American actor and producer was born on the 24th February 1966.
1989 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini offerred a US$3 million bounty for the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie on the 24th February 1989.
1989 – United Airlines Flight 811, bound for New Zealand from Honolulu, Hawaii, ripped open during flight on the 24th February 1989, blowing 9 passengers out of the business-class section.
2007 – Japan launched its 4th spy satellite on the 24th February 2007, stepping up its ability to monitor potential threats from North Korea.
2008 – Fidel Castro retired as the President of Cuba on the 24th February 2008, after nearly 50 years.
2010 – Sachin Tendulkar became the 1st Cricket player to score a Double hundred in One Day International format on the 24th February 2010.
2011 – Final Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery was on the 24th February 2011.
Previous PostHAPPiNESS HATERSNext PostFEBRUARY 25 ~ ON THiS DAY in History
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Call for 2020 Conference Papers
Keynote and Guest Speakers
Tertiary Round Table
Conference Venue and Location
#LetHerSpeak
Legal Studies Teachers' Conference - QUEENSLAND CHAPTER
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The ANZELA Journal called "IJLE" (previously ANZJLE) brings together people and ideas about Education Law. The decision was made to change the name of the journal to reflect the increasingly international focus of the articles published in its pages. Be sure to read and share, as each edition tackles emerging issues for educators, administrators and advocates.
Editor Mr John Orr, School of Law & Justice, Southern Cross University, Lismore, Australia
International Journal of Law & Education is the journal of the Australia and New Zealand Education Law Association Ltd. ANZELA was established in 1991 in order to promote the interests of educators, academics and lawyers in Australia and New Zealand on issues related to law and education. Two objectives of ANZELA are to promote: (i) the research, study, discussion, writing and/or dissemination of information about issues on laws relating to education; and (ii) publication of articles, newsletters, journals and other literature.
The journal would appeal to persons with an interest in education and the law including: school principals, teaching and administrative staff; personnel in colleges of technical and further education; university staff in the faculties of law and education; education policy makers; and legal practitioners with an interest in education law.
Opinions expressed in the journal are those of the individual contributors and no responsibility is accepted for them by the Editorial Board or ANZELA. The contributors shall indemnify the editors and the publisher from all liability including costs which may arise as a result of the publication of any article.
Manuscripts should be submitted, in accordance with the guidelines and sent to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Any queries regarding the manuscript should be directed to International Journal of Law and Education, c/- Mrs Stephanie Hodgson, Office Logistics, Suite 154, 4/16-18 Beenleigh Redland Bay Road, Loganholme, Queensland, 4129, Australia, Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
Annual Subscription: Please send all order and subscription enquiries to: International Journal of Law and Education, c/- Mrs Stephanie Hodgson, Office Logistics, Suite 154, 4/16-18 Beenleigh Redland Bay Road, Loganholme, Queensland, 4129, Australia (Phone: (07) 3806 1220, Fax: (07) 3112 6838, Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)). ANZELA members will receive the journal as part of their annual membership. (For all membership enquiries email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
Those wishing to subscribe to International Journal of Law & Education in North America are advised to contact: Gaunt Inc., Gaunt Building, 3011 Gulf Drive, Holmes Beach, Florida 34217-2199 USA, (Telephone: 941-778-5211, Fax: 941-778-5252, Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)) who are sole distributors of the journal in that area.
Copyright © 2013 ANZELA, except where otherwise stated. The author(s) retain copyright in the article. The author(s) will be asked to grant a non-exclusive licence to ANZELA to authorise the reproduction of the article for further research, teaching, publication and other academic purposes.
ISSN 1836-9030 Published by the Australia and New Zealand Education Law Association Ltd (ANZELA)
Editorial Board Professor J. Joy Cumming, School of Education and Professional Studies, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia (Immediate Past Editor) Dr Elizabeth Dickson, School of Law, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia (Immediate Past Editor) Professor Dennis Farrington, SEE University, Republic of Macedonia Mr Andrew Knott, Macrossans, Lawyers, Brisbane, Australia Dr Paul McCann, Catholic Education Office, Wollongong, Australia Professor Martha McCarthy, Indiana University, USA A/Professor Ben Mathews, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia Professor Ralph Mawdsley, Cleveland State University, Ohio, USA A/Professor Reid Mortensen, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia Professor Ian Ramsay, Faculty of Law, University of Melbourne, Australia Professor Paul Rishworth, Faculty of Law, University of Auckland, New Zealand Professor Charles Russo, Dayton University, USA A/Professor Joan Squelch, Curtin University, Perth, Australia Dr Sally Varnham, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia The Honourable Justice Marvin Zuker, Ontario Court of Justice, Canada
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AldenMath
Mathematical software by Tim Davis.
World-class mathematical software
Our open-source software is widely used around the world by industry, academia, and government laboratories. We also provide software consulting and development to adapt our sparse solvers to end-user applications.
SuiteSparse: industrial-quality sparse matrix solvers and graph algorithms
SuiteSparse is a collection of sparse matrix and graph algorithms. It's already in use around the world in many every-day applications, from consumer products such as smartphones, drones, and Google Maps, to MATLAB and other widely-used applications in science, math, and engineering.
Software can be downloaded at suitesparse.com
SuiteSparse Matrix Collection
Sparse matrices arise from a vast domain of applications, ranging from augmented reality and computer graphics to circuit simulation and financial portfolio optimization. Each domain gives rise to unique matrix structures. Our SuiteSparse Matrix Collection is a widely used set of benchmark matrices from these domains, mirrored by Amazon.com and indexed by Thomas/Reuters.
The matrix collection is available at sparse.tamu.edu
NotesArt Studio
Connecting music and art via mathematics: This artwork is created by a mathematical algorithm that converts an entire piece of music from its natural domain of time and frequency into a domain of space and color, relying on Fourier transforms, graph theory, sparse matrix methods, and force-directed graph visualization, to create visual music. Our work has appeared on London billboards and is available for commission.
Visit the gallery at notesartstudio.com.
Dr. Tim Davis, PhD
Tim Davis is a Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Texas A&M University. His primary scholarly contribution is the creation of widely-used sparse matrix algorithms and software. As an NVIDIA Academic Partner, he is creating a new suite of highly-parallel sparse direct methods that can exploit the high computational throughput of recent GPUs. He was elected in 2013 as a SIAM Fellow, in 2014 as an ACM Fellow, and in 2016 as an IEEE Fellow. He serves as an associate editor for ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software, the SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, and the Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing. Tim is a Master Consultant to The MathWorks, and the primary author of x=A\b in MATLAB when A is sparse.
Copyright © 2020 AldenMath — Lyrical WordPress theme by GoDaddy
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Rumor Rating Description
A rumor rated as 'speculation' is one that has no supporting information
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A rumor rated as 'fact' is one that has proven to be true
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These rumors are just that, RUMORS, and are not to be taken as 'fact' unless so noted. Please visit our Hot News page for news. If you have a rumor, or can supply more information about one listed here, e-mail us with as much supporting information as possible and we may post it. User Agreement and Disclaimer. Newer rumors supersede older ones of the same topic. Go to our forums to discuss any rumor.
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DATE News (chronologically)
Latifi's dad to buy him Williams seat for 2020, replace Kubica (12th Update)
Latifi has a billionnaire daddy just like fellow Canadian Lance Stroll
UPDATE This rumor is finally upgraded to 'fact' with this announcement. Our 2020 F1 Silly Season page has been updated.
11/25/19 (GMM) Nicholas Latifi has given another strong indication that he will move into Formula 1 in 2020.
It is essentially an open secret that the 24-year-old son of billionaire McLaren co-owner Michael Latifi will replace Robert Kubica at Williams.
In Brazil, where he drove the Williams in Friday practice, he said: "I hope to announce my plans for 2020 very soon."
2019 was Latifi's fourth consecutive season in F2, and he looks set to finish this year's championship as runner-up.
He is quoted by La Gazzetta dello Sport as announcing that he will not return to the feeder category in 2020.
"Right from the start of the season I knew it would be my last year, whether it was good or bad," Latifi told the Italian newspaper.
"I am happy to have done a good season. We will see what the plan will be for next year."
11/16/19 (GMM) Nicholas Latifi says his plans for 2020 should be known "very soon".
It is essentially an open secret in the paddock that the 24-year-old Canadian, whose father is the billionaire McLaren co-owner Michael Latifi, will replace Robert Kubica at Williams.
At Interlagos, where Latifi drove the British team's car once again in Friday practice, he said: "This was my last practice this year, but I hope to announce my plans for 2020 very soon."
Latifi looks set to finish the 2019 Formula 2 series in second place.
11/03/19 (GMM) Nicholas Latifi is not willing to confirm that he will make his Formula 1 race debut with Williams in 2020.
Le Journal de Montreal newspaper is certain that the well-funded 24-year-old Canadian will be George Russell's next teammate.
But Latifi, whose billionaire father Michael co-owns McLaren, is not admitting that.
"It's too early to announce anything," he said in Austin.
However, he does admit that he will not be returning to Formula 2 in 2020. He looks set to finish the F1 feeder series second overall this year.
"After four years in F2, I have to move on," said Latifi. "After Abu Dhabi, I will be finished there."
As for Formula 1 and Williams, however, he has little to say.
"I will do another practice session in Brazil, and then I will focus on the last Formula 2 race in Abu Dhabi," he said.
"Nothing has been decided about next season, but I want to become a Formula 1 driver for Williams. We'll see."
11/02/19 (GMM) Nicholas Latifi will reportedly replace Robert Kubica at Williams in 2020.
The 24-year-old Canadian, whose father is the wealthy McLaren co-owner Michael Latifi, is already driving the Williams on Friday in Mexico, Austin and Brazil.
And Le Journal de Montreal says he will definitely race in 2020.
"The contract is well and truly signed, but the announcement is only expected at the end of the month," the newspaper said, citing 'reliable sources'.
It is believed the only potential obstacle to the deal is a super license, but Latifi will qualify if he simply keeps his current place in the Formula 2 standings.
In Austin, however, Claire Williams denied that a deal has been done.
"The plan was always to have Nicholas in the car for these practice sessions," she said. "It's no clear indication (of a race seat).
"We've made it very clear in the media that we won't be making our driver announcement for that second seat for 2020 until after Abu Dhabi."
Nicholas Latifi - has check, will drive
10/21/19 Formula 2 frontrunner Nicholas Latifi will drive for Williams during opening free practice at the next three Formula 1 grands prix.
Latifi, who currently occupies second place in the F2 standings, will contest FP1 sessions at this weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix, before making further appearances in the United States and Brazil.
He will drive Robert Kubica’s FW42 at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, before stepping in for George Russell at the Circuit of the Americas.
“I’m really excited to get back in the car in Mexico as it feels like a long time since my previous outing at Spa,” Latifi said.
“I got the chance to drive in Mexico last year in FP1, so I am familiar with what to expect.
“It’s quite a unique track because of the elevation, so you have a lack of grip, which makes it challenging. As always, my goal remains the same for FP1, to have a clean session and help guide the team going into FP2.”
Williams senior race engineer Dave Robson added: “Nicholas Latifi joins us this weekend for the first of three consecutive FP1 sessions. This weekend he will drive Robert’s car, before taking over George’s car in Austin.
“Nicholas has done an extremely good job each time he has driven the car this season and we look forward to welcoming him back and getting his impression of the latest upgrades.”
09/09/19 (GMM) Nicholas Latifi looks set to replace Robert Kubica at Williams for 2020.
Kubica, having returned to Formula 1 this year but clearly struggling, said at Monza that he doesn't know if he has done enough to keep the race seat.
Williams has kept supporting the 34-year-old despite his struggle, but boss Claire Williams said at Monza: "We're working out what we're going to be doing from a race driver perspective for 2020 at the moment."
George Russell already has a Williams contract for 2020.
And Charrel Jalving, a well-connected motorsport marketing expert, has reported from Monza that the Latifi deal for 2020 is now done.
"Another great bag of money for Williams to continue to survive," he said.
Indeed, 24-year-old Latifi's father Michael is a billionaire and McLaren co-owner.
Latifi is already Williams' reserve and Friday driver, and he looks on course to qualify for his F1 Super License for 2020 by doing well in Formula 2.
"At the end of the summer, we'll know where he is," Michael Latifi said in June.
06/08/19 (GMM) Nicholas Latifi's influential father says the Canadian driver wants a place on the 2020 grid.
This weekend, the 23-year-old Formula 2 championship leader appeared for Williams in the Friday morning session.
Latifi has been linked with Robert Kubica's seat for 2020.
"Williams is a good fit for Nicholas," Michael Latifi, a billionaire and McLaren co-owner, told Le Journal de Montreal.
"It is a family team with a good track record in the development of young drivers, including Jacques Villeneuve and Valtteri Bottas."
For now, Latifi is focusing in Formula 2, where he needs to finish in the top 5 in 2019 in order to get the mandatory F1 Super License.
"At the end of the summer, we'll know where he is," Michael Latifi said.
"The goal is always to get a full-time position in F1, but there is no guarantee. The better you do in F2, it can open doors in F1.
"Some drivers are in danger, including Robert Kubica and Antonio Giovinazzi," he added.
Michael Latifi played down his son's chances of a seat at McLaren, even though he has invested heavily in the Woking based team.
"There is no discussion about that," said the 10 per cent McLaren shareholder.
"We have two good young drivers and are very happy. My involvement at McLaren has never been linked to the prospect of offering a job to my son," Latifi insisted.
Indeed, he thinks a Williams seat would be ideal.
"It's easier for a young driver to start in a smaller team rather than a big one where you have to perform right away," said Latifi.
06/05/19 (GMM) Nicholas Latifi has played down suggestions he is now on the cusp of a F1 race seat.
The 23-year-old, whose father Michael co-owns McLaren, is the test driver at Williams this year.
He tested in Bahrain and Barcelona but this weekend in his native Canada, Latifi will take over Robert Kubica's car in Friday practice.
Last month, Le Journal de Montreal said Latifi was first in line should Williams decide to oust Kubica, the struggling Pole, altogether.
Latifi played that down, and now ahead of the Canadian GP he says: "First and foremost I have to focus on Formula 2."
So far, he is doing that well, leading the F1 feeder series. It is likely he will obtain the credential he needs to race in 2020 by finishing in the top five.
"I don't yet have my Super License that I need to race in F1," Latifi said. "My goal has not changed. I want to be there as soon as possible."
Latifi will be back in the Williams at Paul Ricard, that time replacing George Russell on Friday.
Canadian Nicholas Latifi
05/21/19 Speculation that Nicolas Latifi may replace Robert Kubica at Williams for the entire Canadian Grand Prix weekend appears to be way off the mark as the team are committed to their current driver line-up for the foreseeable future.
A Williams spokesperson put an end to the speculation and clarified, “As part of Nicolas’s role with us he gets six FP1 outings. Three of these in place of Robert, three in place of George. Nic’s first FP1 outing will be in Canada in place of Robert, his second will be in France in place of George.”
Thus for Montreal Latifi will be out on the Friday morning practice in place of Kubica, but thereafter the Pole will return to the cockpit for the remainder of the weekend.
05/16/19 After two full days of testing, Canadian Nicholas Latifi confirms he will be driving in FP1 on Friday morning during the Canadian Grand Prix.
"I am pleased with the two days of testing and I look forward to my next outing with the team for FP1 at the Canadian Grand Prix," Latifi said in his Williams testing debrief.
The two Williams cars run at the back of the grid, but rookie George Russell has beaten one-armed Kubica in all five Grands Prix. The British team hope to close the gap and they managed to test some upgrades in Barcelona.
"I got to trial some of the softer compounds of tires, I used the C3, C4 and C5 which is fun to push a bit more. I tried some new development items that were brought to the car," he added.
"Unfortunately, we had a problem that cost us one or two runs at the end of the morning and delayed our afternoon session by a few hours. However, we were still able to get back out and do some high fuel running which is good for my experience."
05/15/19 (GMM) Nicholas Latifi is not denying that he wants to get into Formula 1.
The Canadian is Williams' reserve driver, and he has been promised some Friday practice outings in 2019.
Not just that, amid the hype surrounding Mick Schumacher, it is actually 23-year-old Latifi - whose father is a billionaire - who is leading the Formula 2 standings.
And Le Journal de Montreal reported recently that Latifi is first in line should the struggling Robert Kubica be ousted before the end of the season.
"Of course my goal is to get into Formula 1," Latifi said as he tested for Williams in Barcelona this week.
"But my program this year is focused on Formula 2. That is my priority.
"I have to concentrate on maintaining my current form there and winning the championship. If I do that, I think I will find myself in a good position to go to Formula 1 next year," he added.
However, he said there have been no talks with Williams about 2020 yet.
"Honestly, not yet," said Latifi. "The season has just begun and a lot can happen.
"But if you look at the past, and those who won the Formula 2 and GP2 titles, I think most of them found themselves in Formula 1.
"From my point of view, if I win the championship, then my goal is an immediate transition to Formula 1."
One-armed (note mangled right arm) Robert Kubica simply too slow
05/11/19 (GMM) The first rumors that Robert Kubica could be ousted by Williams have emerged.
The Pole has struggled alongside George Russell on his return to F1 after an eight year absence with a permanent arm injury.
Kubica, 34, has been questioning whether his car is identical to Russell's, so for Barcelona the pair's respective chassis have been switched.
"I think the differences between the cars was a problem with a sensor," Russell said.
"This weekend I am using Robert's chassis and Robert has the new one."
But Russell remained significantly faster in the second Friday practice session in Barcelona.
"The main problem that I had in Baku is still there," Kubica told Eleven Sports.
As for Williams' upgrades this weekend, Kubica said: "We brought improvements to the parts that we already have.
"Some work and some ... unfortunately we did not achieve the results we expected."
Le Journal de Montreal claims that Canadian Nicholas Latifi, the Williams reserve driver whose father is a billionaire, could replace Kubica before the end of the season.
"According to our information, it is time for major decisions within the British team," the newspaper claimed.
"Apparently Kubica has a clause in his contract stating that he could be replaced during the season."
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Follow Stephani on Social Media
As YOUR judge of the 45th District Court for 3 + years Judge Stephani Walsh combines her skills learned as a former emergency room nurse with her 30 years of legal experience to assess and adjudicate hundreds of cases involving serious issues impacting the lives of men, women, and children of Bexar County.
A civil court the 45th District Court hears cases involving primarily family law matters as well as all types of commercial litigation, personal injury, oil and gas, and landlord-tenant. As a trial attorney with a renowned personal injury firm for 7 years she gained substantial trial experience that has proven invaluable to Judge Walsh as she presided over jury trials involving serious injuries and complex issues of oil and gas and commercial litigation.
Judge Stephani Walsh finds her Board Certification by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization in Family Law especially helpful in rendering difficult, often heart wrenching decisions in the divorce, child modification, child abuse and neglect cases (child protection cases) that come before her on a daily basis.
As YOUR judge of the 45th District Court for 3 ½ years Judge Stephani Walsh combines her skills learned as a former emergency room nurse with her 30 years of legal experience and her Board Certification in Family Law to assess and adjudicate (make often difficult decisions in ) hundreds of cases involving serious issues impacting the lives of men, women, and children of Bexar County.
Certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization in Family Law in 1996, Judge Stephani Walsh is especially qualified to hear family law matters which make up more than 85% of the cases heard daily on the Civil side of the courthouse.
Follow Renée on Social Media
Judge Renée Yanta has served as a District Court Judge for almost seven years. She has practiced law since November 1993—just shy of 25 years. As a partner in her law firm, she built a nation-wide appellate and business litigation practice and served as the first woman chair of USLAW. Before starting her legal career, Judge Yanta was a public school teacher for 9 years.
Presiding over the 150th District Court, Judge Yanta handles civil litigation, including medical malpractice, complex business and construction disputes. She also handles family law, from divorce to contested custody. Most important, she has handled hundreds of child protection cases, focused on protecting children and, if possible, helping mothers and fathers heal and develop into safe and good parents.
While presiding over child protection cases, Judge Renée saw the special challenges faced by teen girls stuck in Foster Care. So she deployed her judicial resources to change the lives of these amazing young women, creating a healing program—called PEARLS Court, which she administers at night and on weekends (after finishing the rest of her docket). With the help of hundreds of volunteers, PEARLS Court has served over 60 teen girls, providing trauma-informed therapy, Judge Renée’s strong oversight, mentorship, and life-skill training.
With a “village” of women volunteers, PEARLS Girls become empowered, enabling them to graduate from high school, wait to become pregnant, focus on serving others, and build stronger futures.
Judge Yanta’s foundational principle is from Micah 6:8: Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly.
Follow Richard on Social Media
Judge Richard Price presently serves the citizens of Bexar County as Judge of the 285th District Court. A native of San Antonio, his legal career spans over 29 years as a well-known highly respected trial attorney, mediator and Judge. He was rated one of the Best Lawyers in San Antonio in Scene in S.A. Magazine publications 2005, 2008, 2009, 2010.
Judge Price has served as a District Court Judge for over nine years. During his time as a Judge, Judge Price has been consistently rated as one of the top Civil District Court Judges in Bexar County. In the 2011-2012 Judicial Survey, Judge Price tied for the 2nd highest rating for Judges Performance of all Civil District Court Judges in Bexar County. In a March 2014 S.A. Scene Judicial Report Card, Judge Price received an “A” grade of 95.13. In a more recent 2017 Judicial Poll, Judge Price rated 90% in the area of Works Hard, rated 91% in the area of Punctual, rated 92% in the area of Temperament and rated 90% in the area of Performance. Widely recognized for his wisdom, calm demeanor and respect for everyone, Judge Price deserves to be re-elected.
Clint’s 22-year legal career and qualifications exceed those you would expect of your judge. Since Family Law cases dominate the docket of the 288th District Court, Clint’s designation as “Family Law Board Certified” by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization is a valuable attribute. Clint is an experienced trial attorney who has participated in each stage of the appellate process, including the presentation of an oral argument to the Texas Supreme Court.
The mastery of the Texas Rules of Evidence is a prerequisite for a judge to fairly adjudicate a court trial. Clint’s demonstrated accomplishments as a trial attorney plus board certification are strong indicators of his superior competence in this area.
Clint is a recognized leader within the Bexar County legal community. He is the immediate past president of the San Antonio Family Lawyers Association and is a “2016 Pro Bono Partner” with Disability Rights Texas for his work with disabled Texans. Clint is rated “AV Preeminent” by Martindale Hubbell’s Peer Review Rating Service and is a Fellow of both the Texas Bar College and American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.
On a personal note, Clint is married to Marline Carter Lawson, a San Antonio native, a stepfather to their 6 grown children, and grandfather of 4.
Follow Marialyn on Social Media
Marialyn Barnard has served on the Texas Fourth Court of Appeals since January 1, 2009, when then Governor Perry appointed her to the bench. After serving two years as an appointed appellate justice, the people of Texas elected and re-elected Justice Barnard to continue serving on the appellate court. As an appellate justice, Justice Barnard has written well over 1,000 civil and criminal opinions from the South Texas 32 county district. As a proud Texan born into a military family, Marialyn Barnard has a strong work ethic, a drive for excellence in her work, and a deep commitment to the Constitution and rule of law. She is dedicated to serving the people of our great State of Texas and our great United States of America.
Follow Rebecca on Social Media
After twenty years in private practice, she was appointed and then elected District Judge of the 408th District Court in Bexar County. In May 2005, she was appointed and then elected to serve as a Justice on the Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio. In 2006 she was specially commissioned to hear a case as a Justice on the Texas Supreme Court. Since returning to private practice in 2013, Rebecca continues to sit as a visiting judge at both the trial and appellate court levels across the State.
Rebecca’s broad legal experience provides unique insight into the types of cases that go before the Fourth Court of Appeals. For over 20 years, Rebecca has served as an adjunct professor at St. Mary’s Law School. Before serving on the district court, she practiced at Cox & Smith, Inc. and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP in San Antonio, where she specialized in complex litigation. She has served as Associate General Counsel for Acelity, LLP, a worldwide wound care company, overseeing a broad range of litigation. In addition to her judicial duties, Rebecca provides arbitration and mediation services through her firm RebeccaSimmonsPLLC. Rebecca is a noted author and speaker on a variety of legal topics including technology and appellate and trial practice.
Rebecca is active in her service to the community. She is Chair of the Judicial Committee on Information Technology, which advises the Texas Supreme Court on technology issues including access to court records. She serves as a Director of the State Bar of Texas, a Litigation Section Council member, and a member of the Court Rules Committee. Rebecca belongs to Our Lady of Grace parish where she serves on the Evangelization and Parish Outreach Committees and has taught sixth grade students about the Old Testament for over 20 years.
Rebecca is a graduate of Baylor University School of Law where she served as a notes and comments editor for the Baylor Law Review. After law school, she served as a briefing attorney for the Texas Supreme Court. A recipient of an International Rotary Fellowship, Rebecca continued her legal studies at Durham University in England prior to settling in San Antonio.
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That's the meanest captcha I've ever seen
Was just trying to leave a comment over at Baboon Pirates and got this captcha.
I thought I should write something here just to show a little activity of some sort.
We are now in the part of the year that I fondly refer to as "hell-time." June, July and August are the worst months of the year. It is just so hot being outside all the time. Our department was told to hire 10 more people. New people in our department always start out as temps. Due to corporate red tape, it's much easier to fire someone who's a temp if he/she isn't working out. In the past, temps were required to drive their own vehicles while working, and were paid a gas allowance. But someone in H.R. decided that NO ONE WOULD DRIVE THEIR OWN VEHICLE ANYMORE FOREVER PERIOD. But the budget department says we can't have 10 more trucks. So one of our managers has to ferry the temps out to routes and drop them off, then go back out and pick them up when they finish. Fortunately, we have only 3 temps right now so it's possible, but in another month or so when there will (theoretically) be several more, it will be impossible. I suggested they have them mop the floors every day. This is how your water company works, folks.
My son was just watching Forrest Gump (1st time). He just walked in here and said, "There was 14 minutes left, but it got too sad." Heh.
Our family reunion is coming up soon, so I've been hitting the ukuleles pretty hard, since my "gig" last year went over so well. Sometimes I have to stop because my fingers get too sore. I have some calluses built up, but still they hurt sometimes after a couple of hours of strumming. I wrote one new song recently, which was really cool. I haven't written any songs in many years. I mostly use the tenor uke now, but there are still a few songs that I switch back to the soprano for.
When I was growing up, every summer for several years I went to a church music camp where I was taught pretty much everything there is to know about a capella singing as well as learning song writing (classical music theory). I'm planning on going again this year, after a hiatus of decades, to see what the current incarnation of the school is like and to get a refresher course. I'm taking my daughter with me this time, and she's looking forward to it because it's a music school.
In a related subject, one of the purposes of this school was not only to learn about music, but to learn about it so we could go back and teach at our home congregations. Well, I'd never done such a thing, but about a month ago I started teaching a music class at my congregation. There hasn't been a lot of participation, but there are several hard-cores who attend every week and I've been enjoying it (surprisingly). My goal is to get several people trained up enough that they can read music well enough to learn new songs without too much trouble.
I used up all of my bulk pipe tobaccos a while back, so I've been dipping into my small stash of tinned tobaccos that have been aging for several years. The good thing about tinned tobacco is that it's vacuum-sealed, and as long as that seal isn't broken, they can last a long, long time. Sometimes they will even "sugar," that is, the oils will partially crystallize and appear like small glistening sugar crystals on the leaves. I had one tin of a kind called Balkan Flake that did this a little. Man, it was good. I've already finished it. It was like eating a rich, well-done steak. It's a latakia blend, and I don't usually like stuff with latakia that much anymore (I used to like it a lot more), but this one I just loved. I'm currently working my way through one of my two tins of Escudo, which is a Perique blend that I've had before and I knew I would like it--so much so that I kept putting off using it. I had to use some of my overtime to buy a new computer for the kids, but I think I will be able to place another order soon. More bulk, plus at least one new tin each of Balkan Flake, 1792 Flake and Escudo. Maybe a tin of Nightcap, which I also really like. 1792 Flake is a Virginia flake that is flavored with tonquin, which is a flavor that must be experienced because it can't be described. Some people hate it. Some people love it.
Escudo is a Virgina/Perique rope tobacco. The leaves are spun into a rope so that they are all pressed together, then cut into discs or "coins." Each coin is about halfway between the size of a quarter and a 50-cent piece. When it's not burned, it smells sort of like fresh hay and molasses. A "flake" tobacco is when the leaves are pressed into sheets and then cooked for several hours under pressure before being cut into more conviently-sized strips that can fit into a tin. Rope tobaccos like Escudo are usually put into round tins, while flakes are usually put in rectangular tins.
Oh yeah, I also recently learned that Three Nuns is once again available in the U.S. It's a Dutch rope tobacco that's somewhat similar to Escudo, but the coins are smaller, about the size of dimes or nickels. Might have to get one of those tins, too.
If any of my legions of readers are anime fans, I recommend one that I just started watching called Attack on Titan. It's really intense, and one of the "realistic" anime, by which I mean doesn't use "cartoonish" animation, but it's sci-fi themed, so it isn't "realistic" in that sense. They started showing the English dub on adult swim, but it was so good I started watching the original Japanese (with English subtitles) on Netflix. Sometimes the voice differences are almost shocking. One character in the English dub version sounds like the pimply-faced teenager from the Simpsons. It would be funny if that character weren't transfixed in abject terror most of the time. It's a war story, so there are a lot of violent deaths. It's could be the most horrific show I've ever seen.
Some more podcasts
I thought I would mention a few more podcasts that I have been enjoying. I'll try to remember and not talk about something I've already covered.
You may wonder how I have time to listen to a lot of these podcasts, but it's not that hard. If I'm working in a quiet enough neighborhood, I can burn through several hours worth in one day. Also, due to a bone-headed management decision, about half of my work days every month require me to find a shady out-of-the-way spot to park and do nothing for 3-4 hours (I've been finding all the best, most secluded city parks--preferably the ones with restrooms). I also have a long commute, so it all adds up to a lot of down time. Sometimes I use my time-killing time to read a book or watch stuff on Netflix on my phone, and I still have plenty of time for listening to podcasts.
Cabinet of Curiosities (also here). Usually runs around 15-20 minutes per episode, and covers odd stuff. Sometimes supernatural, sometimes conventional but just plain weird. You can download pretty much all the archives from those links, but I don't think either site is still being updated. Current episodes can be had by following Cabinet of Curiosities on Facebook.
Daily Knowledge Podcast -- Quite short, about 5-10 minutes each, about why and how certain things are the way they are, from the folks behind the Today I Found Out website. Recent episodes include "why inhaling helium makes your voice sound higher" and "where the phrase 'pleased as punch' comes from."
Damn Interesting -- A podcast about interesting things from the website of the same name. Recent episodes include how absolute zero was determined and the history of the potato.
The Lovecraft Geek -- Lovecraftian scholar (and scholar-in-general) Robert M. Price answers questions about H.P. Lovecraft and his writings sent in by listeners. Not really any set length to this one, so far they seem to run about an hour or more each.
Mysterious Universe -- Usually about 45 minutes to an hour or more each. Two guys discuss various recent news, books, and so forth about paranormal stuff, with an occasional interview. Fortunately, they don't believe everything they hear and they are quite amusing and entertaining. If you are a hard-core skeptic, you probably won't care much for it, but if you can suspend your disbelief for a little while for the sake of entertainment, it's pretty good.
The Paranormal Podcast -- On the other hand, this one apparently accepts every ridiculously outlandish claim made by anyone without ever calling B.S. on them. I still find it enjoyable, and it gives me a chance to keep my skepticism well-honed.
Skeptoid -- Skeptoid is a dedicated debunker podcast, covering paranormal, conspiracy theories, and things that many people accept as "common knowledge" but which aren't really true. Some recent episodes dealt with black-eyed kids, the death of Glenn Miller and aromatherapy.
Star Trek: The Continuing Mission -- This is not a podcast, but more of a "radio" drama, about the starship Montana, a ship from about the time of TOS that gets thrust forward through time into about the time of TNG. There were seven episodes made several years ago, and they are about to release an eighth episode any day now. It's supposed to have a Lovecraftian theme.
Illusion Travels by Streetcar -- This is an odd one. Each "episode" usually runs 2 hours or more. It's brought to us by the same guy behind Radio Free Gunslinger, which I have mentioned previously. A group of cinephiles sit around discussing...cinema, but with frequent digressions into other topics which are often humorous and/or interesting. I myself am not a cinephile, and at first I only listened to it because it was made by Tom Sutpen (the Radio Free Gunslinger guy). But for some reason I have found it very enjoyable and always look forward to getting hold of the next episode. To paraphrase Zapp Branigan, never have I been so fascinated by a topic which I care so little about.
Why Snickers can burn in h*ll
8 Bizarre Ways Corporations Have Attempted to Save $$
I don't know why they said this was "bizarre" when it's really more "clever" or "devious." There's one that they missed, but I didn't.
A few years ago, Snickers began selling their candy bars split in two, instead of one full-sized candy bar. This "break" in the middle of the bar reduced the net weight by about half an ounce, but they still cost the same as the old bar. I know this because when it happened, some stores were still stocking both the new "broken" bar and the old single-piece bar, and I immediately noticed it and checked the net weights.
With some bars, it's even worse. Their peanut butter bar is now broken into four pieces, reducing the net weight from the old single-piece bar by more than one ounce, but they still cost the same as the old bar.
For this reason, Snickers is dead to me. Reese's Nutrageous bars are better anyway, and they still come in one big bar.
The snake story
I still haven't come across the photo I took of all these dead snakes, but my dad passed on to me the newspaper that this article was in. This was our smalltown newspaper at the time, the Stockdale Star. My grandmother went to the office and told them the story. She thought it was news-worthy. I guess it was. I think the Floresville Chronicle-Journal also ran this article, with slightly different wording; if I recall correctly, their headline used the words "sandhill boy" instead of my name. August of 1981 would mean I was 17 years old at the time.
You've already seen this clipping if you're "friends" with me on FB, but I thought I'd detail the whole story here just for kicks.
I was shredding the field in front of our house with the old Ford 8N tractor that I have mentioned previously. The field is mostly open, but through one side of it runs a very shallow "creek," really just a low spot that rain drains through when it rains enough. There are several trees growing along this low spot. So I was winding my way through this tree-section on the tractor, and at one point just happened to spot a copperhead. So naturally, I stopped the tractor to kill it. We routinely killed venomous snakes, which almost always meant copperheads where we lived (my dad still lives there, by the way), but occasionally a cottonmouth or coral snake would turn up, too. Anyway, we had this metal pipe that was about 5 feet long with a 90-degree elbow on one end; we used this pipe as our post hole tamping tool. It was leaning against the fence nearby, so I used it to smack the snake. As I have also previously said, the 8N had a front-end loader on it, and the hydraulic system wasn't able to keep it up completely all the time, so we had another big pipe baling-wired across the front end to hold the loader up. The baling wire loops were big enough, so I just slipped our post-hole tamper through the loops and continued on my way.
I made another circle around the field and came back by the trees again. I saw another snake, and thought at first that I had somehow failed to stove the first snake's head in hard enough, and it was still alive. So I got down off the tractor, took out the post hole tamping pipe, and walked toward the snake. Then I saw another snake. So I stopped, and then saw another snake. And another one. I appeared to be surrounded by copperheads. I retraced my steps back to the tractor and got back up in the seat, and standing there atop the tractor I surveyed the area to see what was going on. I could see several snakes.
So I got back down and began working my way from the nearest snake to the farthest. After smacking a snake I would scoop it up with the bent end of the pipe and toss it back behind me so I would know where all the dead ones were. After I killed all the ones I could see there near the tractor, I made a circle around the trees and found a couple more. I remember thinking, "Daddy's never gonna believe this." I kept snooping around and eventually noticed a hollowed-out space beneath the roots of one of the trees. Down in that hollow was a seething mass of copperheads.
So I checked my pile of dead snakes to make sure they were all good and dead and walked back to the house and got my dad's old 16-gauge single-shot shotgun. My grandmother asked me what I was doing, and I told her, "I found a whole bunch of copperheads." "Okay," she said, "be careful."
I remember wondering if any of the BBs would ricochet off the tree and hit me, but I went and fired into that hole anyway. I waited a minute for the dust to clear, and saw movement, so I shot a second time. Then I decided that I was just wasting shells, so I started using the hook on the end of that pipe to rake out one snake at a time and dispatch it.
It turned out that the top layer of snakes had caught all the shot and I only killed 3 or 4 by shooting them. One really big one had been blown in two; it was in the process of digesting a toad, which was pretty gross. The snakes all ranged in size from about a foot up to about 18 inches.
Anyway, one at a time, I pulled out snakes and smacked them with the pipe until the hole was, as far as I could see, empty. Then I lined them all up and counted 24 snakes. I took a picture of them with one of those old Kodak telephoto cameras with the 110 film. The last time I saw that picture, it had faded pretty badly. The old 110 film didn't stand up to time very well.
And that wasn't exactly the end of the story. Over the next few years, I took to checking out the "snake hole" periodically. Every summer I found a few more snakes there, although never as many at once as that first time. I guess that over a period of 4 or 5 years, I probably killed more than 40 snakes out of that one hole.
Rain and erosion have since filled the snake hole in. The tree is still there, but there's no place for the snakes to hide there anymore. I'm sure they've found another spot somewhere.
My daughter, who is recently turned 15, came to me today and asked if there was a word for when you love something so much it just hurts.
She has a love for music that is much like mine, that is, we are not casual listeners. I have experienced many times when a song felt like it just punched me in the gut and it stays with me forever afterward.
So I asked her what she was referring to, and she said it was the album by a group called Bastille. So, I thought, I gotta hear this.
Well, I like them quite a lot. They are a British synthpop group, to put it simply, but they use a lot of harmony vocals.
What I love most about this is that she has found music that speaks to her so strongly that she loves it so much it just hurts. I know how that feels. We have something in common. This makes me happy. They've released only one album so far, in 2013. I know she will be following and listening to this group for years to come, provided, of course, that they keep making more albums, in much the same way I have listened to and followed groups like Marillion, Styx and Rush.
Here's my favorite song from the album.
They don't have an official video for this one, so I picked a lyric video that fan made.
4 Lead Singers That Sound Shockingly Bad Without the Band.
Read it and listen to the clips all the way to the end. It has a great punch line.
Funeral today
Well, today I attended a funeral. It was the most interesting funeral I have ever been to. It was at a relatively new and still somewhat rough place just inside the Selma city limits on Lookout Road. It is supposed to cater to ex-military and ex-police. I was told such people get a "discount" or whatever the funeral industry calls it in their carefully couched terms.
Anyway, the funeral was for a very old friend of the family. His first wife was my mother's first cousin, but...well I don't really know if I can explain it. It seemed to be above blood relation. They were close as friends as well. His wife was several years older than my mother, and my mom as a teenager baby-sat her kids. He became close friends and an occasional business partner with my dad. His first wife died of leukemia when I was about 4 or 5 years old, but like I mentioned she had had kids, a boy and a girl. He re-married a year or two later, and his second wife had two daughters from a previous marriage, but they never had kids with each other. None of this is especially relevant to the story, except to say that he knew me from the time I was born, and he was always part of my life. Even though he was not technically related to us, having been an sort of cousin-in-law from his first wife, he still attended family reunions and always came to my dad's house for our yearly Christmas mini-reunion. I think it says something that most of the people there were from my dad's side of the family, although none of them were related to him.
One weird thing that I realized today was that I think this was the first time I'd ever seen his second wife, although they'd been married for decades. She just never came out to the country. Although his official residence was in S.A., he had a ranch near here and spent most of his time out here watching after his cattle and, I think, just not being in the city. When I was a teenager I spent a lot of summers working for him, helping him work cattle, clearing brush, building and fixing fences and doing all the stuff that a cattle ranch requires. And by "ranch," I'm not using it in the city-dweller term when they seem to think anything more than 5 acres is a ranch. He used to own 500 acres, but about 300 of it was fairly dense forest, and he eventually sold the back 300 to some insanely rich guy who built his own exotic game ranch out of it. Back when our friend owned it, we hunted there all the time. I spent a lot of time just roaming around in the pasture all by myself, sometimes hunting or trapping, and sometimes just being out in the "wilderness" because I enjoyed it so much. I find myself wondering now what's going to happen to his remaining 200 acres. I suppose his wife will sell it. I wish I had the money to buy it.
I remember the first summer I ever worked for him, I guess I was about 13. I had an old Boy Scout pocket knife that my dad had found on the side of the road--he worked for the highway department and was always finding useful things lost on the side of the road--anyway, the first thing our friend did was ask me if I had a pocket knife. I told him yes, and showed it to him because I was kind of proud of it, since it had a bottle opener and can opener and so forth, but he gave me another pocket knife anyway. I still have it.
He had been in the army, and he had been a police officer in S.A. for more than 20 years. He had been a pilot. He was a skilled leather worker. He was a skilled ammunition reloader. He had once been an extra in a movie. He had done so many things. He loved to talk. During my time "working" with him, he told me so many stories about so many things. We both liked to talk about guns and hunting. He built a makeshift shooting range on his place and he loved it when I came out just to shoot. He would always break out one of his guns and join me. Whenever I brought a gun he hadn't shot before, he would always shoot it and then give me his opinons on it, which would almost always remind him of something that had happened once and he'd tell me another story about it.
When I was a teenager, during our conversations he found out that I loved to read. He did, too. He gave me his entire collection of Edgar Rice Burroughs paperbacks. Just about every original Tarzan story is in there. Only one Mars book, but I think also all of the Pellucidar books and all the Lost Island books. I still have them.
He liked to boast about being from Mt. Airy, North Carolina, and he was always sure to mention that that was also Andy Griffith's home town, and the town that Mayberry was based on. He grew up on a tobacco farm, and told me stories about tobacco farming.
He told me some scary stories about things he'd seen and done while a cop. He told me a few hairy stories from when he was a pilot. He gave me endless advice and information about guns. A few years ago, he gave me two of his old reloading scales in case I ever wanted to take up reloading. Of course, I still have them, too.
The funeral began with flag ceremony and the playing of Taps. It was the first time I'd ever witnessed that ceremony. His grand-daughter, who has Down Syndrome, played "Amazing Grace" on her accordion. He had also been a Mason, so there were some Masons there who had their own special part in the service. And that was the first time I'd ever seen the public Masonic ritual for a funeral. I'm sure that later on, they'll have their own private service for their departed brother.
I can say with complete confidence that I would not be the same person if I hadn't known him.
Dough overflow
This supposedly happened at a Papa John's.
I assume that somebody made too much dough and they threw it out before it had risen. I have a couple of dough-making stories from my days of working at a pizza place.
Once we ran out of our "yeast mixture." Mr. Gatti's had (I guess they still do, if any still exist) a specific yeast mixture that was used in making their dough. It was mostly yeast and some spices mixed in. I don't know how it happened because I wasn't responsible for ordering stuff. But anyway, we ran out. So our manager got on the horn and got a substitute recipe that we could put together ourselves. But it required a lot of yeast. This was back before H.E.B. came to town, and when we needed to buy stuff off the shelf from a local store, we just walked down the sidewalk to the nearest "supermarket," which was a place called Mayfield's. So our manager went down there and bought a big box of Fleischmann's yeast. It had, I don't know, a couple dozen of those little yeast envelopes in it. He put together several plastic baggies of yeast mixture according to the recipe he'd been given and that night I made dough with it.
The dough did not rise. The next day we had to make do with decidedly sub-standard pizza dough. It was like making pizza with unleavened bread, because that's pretty much in fact what it was. So while everyone was standing around scratching their heads and wondering what had happened, I went in the back and checked the box. The expiration date on it was for a date more than a year in the past. "Hey, Joe," I asked the manager, "Can yeast die? Because check out the expiration date."
It was a relief to figure out what had gone wrong, but he was still pretty miffed that the store had been stocking yeast that had died long ago. He got it exchanged for a fresh box and the next day we were back to normal.
Story number two: we always had some dough left over that had to be thrown out. It was made at night, then left to rise until morning when it was made into crusts. The unused dough would keep rising, and would usually completely fill one of the huge plastic buckets that we kept it in (I'd guess it was at least a 50-gallon bucket). We would keep it for a while, just in case we had a rush of business and ran out of crusts, so we could make some emergency crusts to finish out the night if we needed to. But at some point, it would become obvious that we wouldn't need it, so the guy who made the dough (often myself) would haul it outside and throw it into the dumpster. It was always pretty heavy. One night I guess I was throwing about 60-70 pounds of it out. It heaved the bucket up onto the lip of the dumpster and tipped it up to spill the dough out. About that time a homeless guy who was scavenging in the dumpster popped up and said, "Oh, hey there!" Scared the crap out of me. "Dude," I told him, "you need to be careful. I nearly dumped this on your head. It would've snapped your neck like a twig." He actually apologized and then asked if I could just leave it out there so he could take it. So I left the bucket out there and he took the dough, leaving the bucket. I have no idea how he could haul off all that dough without taking the bucket, but he did it. When I went outside later, the empty bucket was still there and the man and all the dough was gone.
A collection of unrelated links
Not really, I'm being sarcastic. These links are totally related.
Because people are still stupid enough to to claim that mangy coyotes (or possibly coydogs) are...well, you know.
Pics show chupacabra in Texas, some believe
Here is a link about the original Puerto Rico sighting: Seeking the Puerto Rican chupacabra
You should note two things from this article: 1. The sketch of the original alleged creature based on the woman's description of the thing; and 2. That she supposedly saw it in the second week of August, 1995.
Next, please view this image of a model made of the monster from the movie Species.
And finally, the imdb page for the movie Species. If you scroll down to the movie details, you will see that it was released on July 7, 1995.
How the chupacabra morphed from an alien vampire into a mangy dog, I'll never know.
Gin (the drink, not the game)
A Man's Primer on Gin from The Art of Manliness.
I tried a gin drink once. I had gone to a local area...well, I don't know what to call it. It wasn't a bar, because it was too "classy" for that. Oh yeah, it was called Chelsea Street Pub, so I guess it was pub. Anyway, I was there with two friends, and myself and one of them decided to try a gin drink.
It was horrible. I had paid for it, so I drank it all, but I didn't enjoy it. We both agreed that it tasted like Kool-Aid-flavored turpentine.
Maybe it was just bad gin. I don't know. I never will know, because I'll never drink gin again.
Avocado intolerance
10 Insane Diets No One Should Ever Try
I want to comment on this only because of this line:
I've studied all the diets, and the only thing they all agree we should eat is half an avocado.
Not true. I have an avocado intolerance. I do not like avocados, and I will not tolerate them.*
Apparently there is a certain fatty acid that is particular to avocados which many animals are unable to digest, which is why you should avoid feeding them to your pets. A very small percentage of humans are also unable to digest this fatty acid.
Within a couple of hours of attempting to eat avocado (I have tried eating guacamole only twice, both with disastrous results), I will be vomiting it back up. My two times trying to eat it engraved themselves so firmly into my memory that just seeing avocados makes my guts clench, and the last time was more than 20 years ago.
I have the same reaction, though to much lesser dramatic and traumatic extent, to coconut and pineapple. I can handle a little of either, like I can generally handle coconut macaroon cookies with no problem. If someone makes a ham with pineapples on it, I scrape the pineapple off and can eat it with no problem.
When I was about 10 years old, a baby-sitter made me eat a whole slice of canned pineapple for a snack and it wasn't pretty. That never happened again.
So...don't ever offer me anything with avocado in it.
*Paraphrasing Jerry Seinfeld in regard to his lactose intolerance.
Smartest dog breed?
Which Dog Breeds Make the Smartest Dogs?
We once had a dog that was a border collie/Australian shepherd mix, and I think she was in fact pretty smart. Back then the watering "trough" for our cattle was actually just the bottom half of a 55-gallon barrel with a float valve on it. It was set on top of some cinder blocks so it wouldn't be resting directly on the ground, which helped prevent the bottom from rusting out. So, if you can picture it, you should be able to imagine that it wasn't particularly easy for a small dog to jump into it or even drink from it. By the way, the dog had a different water supply that was built for her size, so she didn't have to drink from it. But still, she somehow figured out that when it was hot during the summer, she could just jump into the trough and get really good and wet and cool off. Sometimes I would look down at the cow pens and just see her head sticking up out of that water barrel.
Shelby the shepherd mix never had any special training, but she was an expert herder. But here's the thing: when she wasn't herding the cattle, she hung around with them. In cold weather, she would even go sleep with them to keep warm. And as long as she wasn't nipping at their heels, the cattle didn't mind her being there one bit.
At a different time, we also had a dog that was half German shepherd/half Australian shepherd. That dog couldn't herd worth a darn, but he was the best raccoon hunting dog I ever had, and I also had a few hound mixes in there at times. None of them hunted like Rex the shepherd mix.
On the other hand, the best squirrel/rabbit dog I ever had was just a rescued street mutt named Patches.
We had a Golden Retriever (named Pardner) that one time snatched a wounded dove out of the air when it was about 3 feet off the ground. He brought it back, and her grip was so gentle, the bird was still alive when he turned it over to us.
There was also a Chesapeake Bay retriever named Major who could retrieve a bird without damaging it but would also catch armadillos and crack their shell with a bite. Unfortunately, he would also do the same thing to watermelons, so we had a hard time growing watermelons when we had him.
A link and a podcast to recommend
Top 10 Alleged Real-Life Werewolves and Wolf-Men.
Just today I listened to a very interesting podcast on the topic of #3 from this list, the Beast of Gévaudan.
This podcast is one I just recently started listening to, and have been going through their entire archive. It's called Monstertalk, and is from a group of skeptics who talk about the scientific basis behind monsters. Mostly it's a debunker podcast. Anyway, the specific podcast about the Beast is here. You can find their archives at that page by checking the left sidebar.
The conclusion: it was wolves. Multiple wolves. A couple of years ago, the History Channel had a show about the Beast, and the people involved in that show concluded it was a hyena escaped from someone's private bestiary. However, it seems that the real reason people are loathe to say it was wolves is because it's currently politically incorrect to say that wolves are vicious wild animals who eat meat that is easy to kill and plentiful. When people are more plentiful and/or easier to kill than other prey, they are going to eat people.
If you're a hardcore Bigfoot believer, or chupacabra believer, or whatever, you won't like it. But if you are honestly open-minded about and interested in these things and can overlook the hosts' occasional arrogance, you should check it out.
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The Real Price of China's Value-Added
post Saturday February 4, 2012
America’s trade deficit with China hit almost $300 billion last year despite the fact that U.S. exports to China were the largest they have ever been. America’s deficit with China makes up a staggering 40% of the total U.S. trade deficit. Although, studies show that the trade deficit with China may be exaggerated.
The main imports into the U.S. from China are consumer electronics, clothing and machinery. China also serves as a contract manufacturer for a lot of U.S. multinational companies since assembly work is much cheaper in China. And even though the products assembled in China are mostly profiting American-owned companies, for U.S. trade statistic purposes, these products are still labeled as imports. [Source: U.S. Census Bureau]
One example is American-owned company, Apple Inc., who “imports” iPads from China even though none of the component parts are made in China, only assembly is carried out there. The value-added by the Chinese assembly process is around $10, yet each iPad sold in America adds $275 (the total production cost) to America’s trade deficit with China. It is estimated that in 2011, iPads made up around $4 billion of America’s $300 billion trade deficit with China, but if China’s exports were measured on a purely value-added basis, their exports would only make up $150 million of the U.S.-China deficit. In terms of overall profits from selling an iPad, most go to America, i.e. Apple’s shareholders, American suppliers, and American distributors, where product design, software development, and marketing are based. Yet, trade deficit statistics still report only the total production cost from the last part of the supply chain (Chinese assembly) and not true domestic content, making deficit numbers look worse for America than they really are. [Source: The Economist “iPadded”]
Even Pascal Lamy, the head of the World Trade Organization, said in his 2010 speech on measuring international trade in value-added that “case studies have shown that the innovating country earns most of the profits; but traditional statistics tend to focus on the last link of the chain, the one which ultimately earns the least”. He also noted that if we look instead at the national origin of where the value added comes from in the final product, we would see that a significant proportion comes from re-importation costs paid by the U.S. and very little from China assembly.
This notion is further supported by a 2006 study by Peter Schott in which he uses the factor-proportions framework along with the Heckshler-Ohlin model that shows that a country’s product mix depends on its relative factor endowments. Schott’s finding was that China’s export bundle has become more sophisticated than other countries with similar factor endowments (labor and capital) like Korea and Mexico. Although, even though China’s products have become more sophisticated, China’s exports sell for a significant discount relative to its level of GDP and relative to similar exports from developed OECD countries. This shows that China is not benefitting as much as developed countries for similar products exported, and so we should take trade statistics that suggest otherwise with a grain of salt. [Source: Peter Schott “The Relative Sophistication of Chinese Exports”]
Image by jscreationzs
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As Earth cools, global warmists get desperate
Wednesday, November 4th 2009, 8:10 AM EST
The bloom is finally coming off the global warming rose. A NASA study of satellite temperature data over the last decade has revealed that global temperatures stopped rising in 1998 and have declined since then. Even the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has grudgingly acknowledged that the temperature has dropped in spite of increasing CO2 production.
This 10-year cooling trend can't be happening, according to the computer climate models that predict warmer temperatures as CO2 increases. When the computer climate predictions don't match what we are actually observing, obviously there is something wrong with the climate models. So when Al Gore says "The science is settled, the debate is over," he is full of baloney. The science clearly is not settled, and simply claiming that the debate is over is a debating tactic designed to avoid debate.
It is with much amusement that I watch the global warmers desperately trying to convince the public that this unforeseen cooling trend, which may last for 10 or 20 years more, is really just a symptom of global warming.
It is worth pointing out that during the post-WWII industrial boom, from 1945 to 1977, we produced more CO2 than ever before and the global temperature kept declining. The "scientific consensus" at that time was that we were entering a glacial period. Scientists were envisioning billion dollar strategies such as placing giant mirrors in space to reflect extra sunlight to the earth to stop the advancing ice caps. Time magazine ominously headlined "The Coming Ice Age."
I guess it's a good thing we didn't spend all those billions fighting global cooling then. The scientific consensus was wrong 30 years ago; what confidence should we have that they are right this time? As the current scientific consensus crumbles and more and more scientists flee the global warming bandwagon, those remaining on board are becoming increasingly hysterical. They are downright angry that their predicted catastrophes have yet to materialize. Imagine that ... upset because millions of people haven't died!
As ski areas open earlier and earlier and snow falls at Foxborough in mid-October, people are beginning to realize that global warming is a fraud. This explains why Obama and his minions are pushing so hard for immediate passage of the Cap and Trade bill. The longer it's delayed, the more people ask why would we destroy what's left of our economy over a problem that only exists in computer models.
Why do global warmists persist in spite of contradictory evidence and data? Are they really that concerned about the environment or is there an ulterior motive? Christine Stewart, the former Canadian Minister of Environment, gives us a glimpse behind the curtain when she said "No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits ... climate change provides the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."
This is a stunning admission. It's not about the environment at all; it's about the redistribution of wealth. The environment is merely the current vehicle to accomplish this socialist aim of "redistributive" justice. Don't let it happen, America. Cap and Trade must be stopped.
Rick Gilmore
Source Link: eagletribune.com
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Indonesian Orthodoxy
Bookstore Blog - Indonesian Orthodoxy
Posted by Staff on 5th Nov 2015
In Part One, we discussed the Scriptural basis for the Church's strong tradition of missionary endeavors, beginning with Christ's own commandment to go "teach all nations" (Mt. 28:19) and continuing with the Byzantine mission to the Slavs and the Russian Church's own missionary endeavors within the expanding borders of the Russian empire. Today, we offer this further discussion of 19-20th cc. Orthodox missions and ongoing efforts in our own day.
After the stabilization of the Russian borders, the Russian Church cast its missionary nets further still. Official missions were formed China and Japan, where the seeds of the Orthodox faith bore great fruit. The man sent by God to the Japanese was Father Nikolai Kasatkin, later canonised as Saint Nikolai of Japan.
His unique take on missionary work presented the Gospel and Orthodox faith to the Japanese in the context of their own culture, Saint Nikolai having taken great care to understand Japanese culture as best as he could. His great work produced thousands of converts and survived the Russo-Japanese war, the Russian Revolution, and the devastation of the Second World War. Today, the Japanese Orthodox Church forms an autonomous (self-governing) part of the Russian Church. Now in its fifth and sixth generations after Saint Nikolai, whose prayers still surely guide the Church there, the Church continues to grow and witness to the truth of the Gospel. The strong connection with the Church of Russia continues, as evidenced by the recent ordination of a Japanese hierodeacon in Moscow. In fact, the new Father Nikolai is himself a descendent of Father John Ono, a Japanese samurai who became one of Saint Nikolai’s first converts.
Elsewhere in Asia, the work of the Orthodox Church continues, with a large, and growing, mission existing in Indonesia under the Russian Church Abroad, led by the charismatic and revered Archimandrite Daniel (Byantoro). As a missionary church in a predominantly Muslim country, the Indonesian Church no doubt faces difficulties, but with God’s help, and the generous support of faithful Orthodox all over the world, they continue to bear witness to the Truth in their beautiful land. Fr. Daniel recently visited Holy Trinity Monastery and Seminary, giving talks about his work in Indonesia and answering many questions. We hope to follow up this post with one dedicated to this man and his work for Christ.
Another recent development has been the establishment of a large mission in the Philippines by the Church of Russia, which is currently in the process of catechising and baptising some several thousand converts spread over the entire archipelago.
Another aspect of missionary work in the 20th century has been the revival of local Churches long thought to be extinct, such as the Church of Albania, which almost vanished entirely under the former Communist regime. Since the end of communism, the Albanian Orthodox Church has gone from strength to strength, guided by its missionary Archbishop, Anastasios, and assisted by the important work of the OCMC, as detailed in this book. New churches are opening frequently, monasteries are filling with men and women answering God’s call, and many young men are studying to enter the Holy Priesthood.
The late 20th century saw the first fruits of Orthodox missionary work south of the Sahara with the entry into the Church of two groups of converts in Kenya and Uganda. Fifty years later, the Church in Africa, under the leadership of the Patriarch of Alexandria, now numbers several million souls, with new missions and parishes being founded with increasing regularity. Beautiful, traditional, Orthodox churches are being built, seminaries are being established and the first monasteries for both men and women are being founded under guidance from the Holy Mountain.
The responsibility of spreading Orthodoxy on the African continent has been taken up mostly by the Churches of Greece and Cyprus, and the missionary societies in those countries. The Holy Mountain of Athos has offered some of its finest monastics as missionaries andbishops. The most notable of them has been Blessed Father Kosmas of Zaire, whose struggles against the witch doctors and the demonic sources of their ‘powers’ demonstrates the necessity for missionaries to be spiritually sober and experienced. His life and works are detailed in this excellent book.
Another notable figure is Metropolitan Makarios of Kenya, the beloved pastor of the 2 million-strong Kenyan flock. His inspiring missionary work is told through his homilies and reflections of Orthodox life in Africa. The Orthodox communities in Kenya and Uganda are now in their third generation, and have already started producing their own bishops. Mass baptisms continue to be a regular occurrence all over Africa, in places like Tanzania and Congo.
Your Mission
We shouldn’t be led into thinking that missionary work is exclusively about heading into distant foreign lands to convert the natives. All Orthodox Christians have the commission to spread the Gospel, by word, act, and deed. We can help spread the Orthodox faith in our own countries and communities just by bearing witness to that faith and living Christ-centred, Orthodox lives. It is our work to defend and cultivate Orthodoxy wherever we find ourselves. As a young man, Saint John of Kronstadt wished to follow the example of St Herman and serve as a missionary abroad. But he soon realized that the Russian people needed just as much missionary attention and so he turned his efforts to his own homeland. His life and work is an inspiration to Orthodox pastors the world over, and we are blessed with having his memoirs available for edification.
Another example is the work of the missionary priest, Fr. Daniil Sysoev, who laboured in the Lord’s vineyard primarily in Moscow, but also in other parts of Russia, where he helped many people overcome atheism, sects, cults, and Islam, and find salvation in the bosom of the Holy Orthodox Church. A prolific and skilled writer and orator, his many books are steadily being translated into English for the edification of those Orthodox who dwell in the Anglosphere. These titles include his Catechetical Talks, a candid and enlightening discussion with a Protestant, and an exhortation to attend the Divine Services frequently. Fr. Daniil entered into eternal life on November 20th 2009, when he was martyred by a Muslim in his parish church. His work continues with the missionary society founded in his memory.
By looking at the past 200 years of missionary work, we can be encouraged by the knowledge that, despite whatever unfavourable situations the Church may find itself in, God will always make His Truth known, and, even in our own days, we can see His providential assistance for the Holy Orthodox Church as it spreads the Gospel in previously unevangelised lands. We should ask great saints like Saint Herman and Saint Innocent for their prayers, beseeching them to assist brave missionaries like Fr. Daniel in Indonesia, and local missionaries like those who have followed in the footsteps of Fr. Daniil in Russia.
May the Truth of Holy Orthodoxy enlighten the entire world!
Orthodox mission
Orthodox Asia
African Orthodoxy
Japanese Orthodoxy
Into All Nations: Modern Orthodox Mission
Christ’s commandment to “go into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15) is something taken very seriously by the Orthodox Church, from the Apostolic age to the present day. For nigh on 2,000 years, the Church has been spreading the message of the Gospel to the four corners of the [...]
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UN says US must take lead on climate change
by solcomhouse
Email: solcomhouse (nospam) hotmail.com 25 May 2001
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has stressed that developed countries, particularly the United States -- the world's leading emitter of greenhouses gases -- must take the helm in stemming global climate change.
Delivering the commencement address to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Massachusetts, on Sunday, Mr. Annan noted that the US, which produced the most greenhouse gases largely because it was the world's most successful economy, must "join in reducing emissions and in the broader quest for energy efficiency and conservation."
we have the story and press release on solcomhouse-
http://www.solcomhouse.com/annan.htm
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You are here: Home > 2009 Teams > UCF > Roster > Jamar Newsome > Scoring Split Stats
@SportSourceA
2009 UCF Knights Jamar Newsome #9 Scoring Split Stats through 01/07/2010
Points/G
All Games 10 3 0 0 0 0 18 1.8
at Home 5 2 0 0 0 0 12 2.4
on Road/Neutral Site 5 1 0 0 0 0 6 1.2
in Wins 6 3 0 0 0 0 18 3.0
in Losses 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
vs. Conference 6 2 0 0 0 0 12 2.0
vs. Non-Conference 4 1 0 0 0 0 6 1.5
vs. Ranked (AP) 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
vs. Unranked (AP) 9 3 0 0 0 0 18 2.0
vs. FBS (I-A) 9 2 0 0 0 0 12 1.3
vs. FCS (I-AA) 1 1 0 0 0 0 6 6.0
vs. FBS Winning 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
vs. FBS Non-Winning 4 2 0 0 0 0 12 3.0
vs. BCS AQ 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
vs. BCS non-AQ 7 2 0 0 0 0 12 1.7
in August/September 4 1 0 0 0 0 6 1.5
in October 3 2 0 0 0 0 12 4.0
in November 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
in December/January 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Copyright © 2006-2019 www.cfbstats.com All rights reserved.
Player Home
Total Offense
All-Purpose Running
Yards From Scrimmage
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Posts Tagged ‘rule of law’
Treasury Dept. Approves $3 Billion Transfer to Insurance Companies that Congress Denied
A letter from House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) demands an explanation from the Treasury Department on why it allowed $3 billion in payments to ObamaCare insurance companies that Congress never approved.
In a well-documented piece, Philip Klein gives a disturbing summary of the Obama administration deliberately refusing to follow the law.
“At issue are payments to insurers known as cost-sharing subsidies,” writes Klein. “These payments come about because President Obama’s healthcare law forces insurers to limit out-of-pocket costs for certain low income individuals by capping consumer expenses, such as deductibles and co-payments, in insurance plans. In exchange for capping these charges, insurers are supposed to receive compensation.”
Here’s the rub.
“What’s tricky is that Congress never authorized any money to make such payments to insurers in its annual appropriations, but the Department of Health and Human Services, with the cooperation of the U.S. Treasury, made them anyway,” says Klein.
As proof, Klein cites a $4 billion funding request for the cost-sharing subsidies program in 2014 that was not fulfilled by Congress. It’s now 2015, the bills are coming due, and the Obama administration effectively said, “Never mind.”
Whether the domain is immigration or ObamaCare, the default setting for this administration seems to be that if it can’t get what it wants the legal way, it’s just as good to go around the law.
Tags: Congress, health, immigration, Insurance, Obamacare, Paul Ryan, rule of law, subsidy, Treasury
Is Obama’s Diva Status a Reason to Accelerate Amnesty Lawsuit?
Consider the following as an example of how much President Barack Obama and his administration think the rule of law should bend to suit their political calculations.
The Justice Department asked a federal court on Monday to reverse its decision to halt the president’s unilateral amnesty directive within 48 hours so that Obama could assure activists attending a town hall in Miami on Wednesday that deportation waivers and work permits would be in the mail.
The expedited timeline is being objected to by Texas and the 20+ other states suing to require the Obama administration to follow federal law and give advance notice and a comment period to the public, reports the LA Times.
Fairness suggests that if the Justice Department took a week to file its request to reverse, Texas and its fellow challengers should get at least as much time to defend their position.
The Justice Department’s self-serving request highlights the central problem driving this litigation – Obama is a diva whose political calculations trump the rule of law.
The federal courts should slap down that dangerous misconception, early and often.
Tags: amnesty, Barack Obama, immigration, Justice Department, rule of law, Texas
Gov. Abbott: 20,000 Crossed Texas Border Since January 1
It looks like the surge of illegal immigration across the southern border isn’t getting any better.
“Already this calendar year, since January 1, we have had more than 20,000 people come across the border, apprehended, unauthorized. And so we have an ongoing problem on the border that Congress must step up and solve,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said while appearing on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ on Sunday.
Abbott said that to stem the tide he is posting an additional 500 Texas Rangers near the border. The cost for the expanded presence will come from the state’s budget, even though responsibility for securing the border belongs to the federal government.
Abbott was on the show to discuss the Texas-led lawsuit he initiated challenging President Barack Obama’s unilateral amnesty program because it failed to follow federal law granting the public a notice and comment period before being implemented. Last week a federal district judge agreed with the challengers and granted a temporary injunction to halt Obama’s program.
Barely a month into office, Abbott is proving himself to be a conservative leader who knows how to get results in the courtroom and the court of public opinion.
Tags: amnesty, Barack Obama, Greg Abbott, immigration, rule of law, Texas
GOP Congress Working on ObamaCare Alternative If Subsidies Struck Down
Republicans on both sides of Capitol Hill are busy strategizing for ways to minimize the political fallout if the Supreme Court invalidates health insurance subsidies for millions of people currently receiving them under ObamaCare.
The case, King v. Burwell, challenges the IRS’ decision to make insurance premium subsidies available to citizens of 34 states that do not have a state-run ObamaCare exchange. The policy is in direct conflict with ObamaCare’s text, providing the justices with a clear opportunity to hold the Obama administration to the letter of the law.
The Hill is reporting that Republican members of the House and Senate are discussing ways to be ready when and if an estimated 5 to 6 million Americans suddenly can’t afford to purchase mandated health insurance.
So far, no details have emerged regarding specifics. There is a lot to consider since any change in the law will require President Barack Obama’s signature. A complicating factor may be this president’s willingness to let the media portray Republicans and the Court as heartless conservatives, even though all that’s being asked for is the Obama administration to implement its own law as written.
Nothing new here.
On the flip side, it’s encouraging to hear that Republicans in Congress are trying to get in front of a potentially damaging issue by coalescing around an alternative they can sell to the public.
Hopefully this is the start of a welcome trend.
Tags: Barack Obama, Congress, health, Obamacare, rule of law, subsidy, Supreme Court
Washington Post: Obama’s Immigration Amnesty “Unprecedented”
Add the editorial board of the Washington Post to the list of people who think President Barack Obama is setting a very troubling precedent with his decision to grant temporary amnesty and work permits to as many as 5 million illegal aliens.
Key to the Post’s criticism is the revelation that part of the justification for Obama’s amnesty has been completely falsified. Since the president announced his executive order, he and members of his administration have said that the percentage of people who will benefit from his amnesty are similar to an amnesty granted by President George H. W. Bush. Specifically, Obama & Co. claim that Bush’s order benefited 1.5 million illegals, while Obama’s would benefit around 4 million. In both cases, the beneficiaries are estimated to be around 36 percent of all illegal aliens.
But according to Post reporter Glenn Kessler, that assertion cannot be verified. At best, the total number of Bush beneficiaries was no more than a couple hundred thousand – far less of a percentage than what Obama is targeting.
It gets worse. As the editorial board notes, “Even the apparent original source of the 1.5 million figure – Gene McNary, who led the Immigration and Naturalization Service at the time – told Mr. Kessler he believes the number is false and was based on a misunderstanding from testimony he gave to Congress. And no underlying data or methodology to justify the 1.5 million figure has been uncovered.” (Emphasis mine)
The facts don’t lie. What Obama is trying to do with his unilateral and unconstitutional immigration amnesty has no precedent in practice and no place in a country governed by the rule of law.
Tags: amnesty, Barack Obama, immigration, precedent, rule of law
Obama Won’t Extend Unilaterial Amnesty to Tax Reform
Sounds like no one prepped President Barack Obama for the obvious question posed by ABC’s George Stephanopolous: “How do you respond to the argument, a future president comes in and wants to lower taxes. Doesn’t happen. Congress won’t do it; so he says ‘I’m not going to prosecute those who don’t pay capital gains tax.’”
After dithering a bit, Obama replied with, “The vast majority of folks understand that they need to pay taxes, and when we conduct an audit, for example, we are selecting those folks who are most likely to be cheating. We’re not going after millions and millions of people who everybody knows are here and were taking advantage of low wages as they’re mowing lawns or cleaning out bedpans, and looking the other way.”
Stephanopolous pressed harder. “So you don’t think it’d be legitimate for a future president to make that argument?”
Without a hint of irony, Obama says, “With respect to taxes? Absolutely not.”
And yet the president has no reason in principle for limiting his successors in office from willfully disregarding whatever laws they don’t like. The former constitutional law professor seems to be completely unaware of the precedent he is setting by unilaterally suspending immigration enforcement. If left unrebuked, this action will teach future Oval Office occupants that the rule of law can – and at times should – be replaced with the whim of one.
The only saving grace in this interview is that the President of the United States seems genuinely clueless as to the logic of his own order. Such is the state of the chief executive.
H/T: Media Research Center
Tags: amnesty, Barack Obama, Executive Order, immigration, Reform, rule of law, taxes
HHS Reduces ObamaCare 2015 Enrollment Prediction by 30%
On Monday, the Obama administration threw out a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate that ObamaCare would have 13 million enrollees by February 15, 2015. It also discarded a CBO forecast that the controversial health law would have 25 million enrollees by 2017.
Instead, the federal department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said a more likely scenario would be between 9 and 9.9 million by mid-February – a reduction of 30% from CBO’s calculations. As for 2017 totals, HHS will not commit to any numbers.
“The reduced projection is due to recent data showing ‘mixed evidence’ about how quickly – and how dramatically – people will shift from employer-sponsored health insurance and non-ObamaCare plans into insurance plans sold on government-run marketplaces such as HealthCare.gov,” reports CNBC.
What HHS isn’t saying is how the Obama administration playing politics with statutorily mandated deadlines has fouled up ObamaCare’s implementation timetable. Originally, CBO and others could reasonably anticipate quick and dramatic shifts onto ObamaCare plans because the employer mandate made it financially smart to dump workers onto the exchanges and pay a relatively small fine.
But fearing a voter backlash at such a quick and dramatic change, the Obama administration has delayed implementing the employer mandate at least three times. It now isn’t scheduled to go into effect until 2017 – the first year after President Barack Obama is out of office.
According to an HHS report, “there is considerable uncertainty that a large shift will occur over the new two years”, which, “contributes to an analysis that the ramp up to 25 million will take more than three years.”
In other words, thanks to politically motivated regulators, no one knows when, or if, ObamaCare will meet its most important benchmark – sustainable enrollment.
Tags: 2017, health, HHS, Insurance, Obamacare, Regulation, rule of law
Report: IRS Failed to Disclose Info in 100s of Cases
The IRS is out-of-control.
In the last year we’ve learned that Lois Lerner and other officials in the tax-exempt unit singled out conservative groups for extra scrutiny before approving their requested non-profit status.
That was followed by revelations from IRS higher ups that they mysteriously lost thousands of emails from Lerner and others during the timeframe of interest to congressional investigators.
Last week, a private jet company alleged that the IRS “wiped clean a number of computer hard drives containing emails and other electronic documents that the Government was required to produce.”
“The Internal Revenue Service wrongly withheld or failed to adequately search for records in hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests, while accidentally releasing sensitive taxpayer information in other instances, an independent government watchdog found,” reports the Washington Free Beacon.
The Beacon is summarizing an analysis released by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).
“TIGTA sampled FOIA requests to the IRS and found 11 percent ‘in which taxpayer rights may have been violated because the IRS improperly withheld or failed to adequately search for and provide information to the requestors’.”
As an independent federal agency, the IRS has a grave obligation to be accountable to the citizens it serves, either directly through FOIA requests or indirectly through congressional oversight panels. That the IRS seems chronically incapable – and increasingly, it seems, unwilling – to honor due process and the rule of law is reason enough to launch a full-scale reconsideration of what the agency does, how it does it and what kind of people should be entrusted to follow the rules.
Tags: Congress, FOIA, IRS, Lois Lerner, rule of law
GAO Says CMS Lacks Authority to Bail Out ObamaCare Insurers
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for power-hungry bureaucrats.
Recently, the General Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report faulting the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for being unable to produce itemized spending documents, and thus not complying with federal audit guidelines.
This week, the non-partisan government watchdog agency issued a legal opinion saying CMS does not have the authority to bail out ObamaCare-aligned insurance companies, unless Congress agrees.
GAO’s non-binding but influential legal opinion was generated by a request from congressional Republicans concerned about a CMS announcement that it would use money appropriated for other activities to fund ObamaCare’s “risk corridor” program.
Risk corridors refer to a scheme within ObamaCare to compensate insurance companies who lose more than a specified amount of money covering high-cost patients. Initially, funds are redistributed from highly profitable companies. But if the losses exceed a certain threshold, federal taxpayers step in via CMS, the primary agency implementing ObamaCare.
With all of ObamaCare’s pricey mandates – most importantly “guaranteed issue,” which requires insurers to enroll customers with preexisting conditions – there is concern that significant losses among participating companies could put taxpayers on the hook to bailout several firms in the health insurance industry.
It’s worth noting that GAO released its legal opinion on the same day Federal District Judge Ronald A. White struck down a similar bureaucratic power grab by the Internal Revenue Service. While the timing is unconnected, the central issue is not. In both cases agencies within the Obama administration are attempting an end run around the plain meaning of a statute in order to make the president’s legacy program appear to work better than it is.
The rule of law is more important than avoiding bad press for a poorly written bill. Bravo to the GAO and Judge White for having the courage to hold the executive branch accountable.
Tags: CMS, GAO, IRS, Obamacare, rule of law
Ramirez Cartoon: To Faithfully Execute…
Tags: cartoon, Michael Ramirez, President Obama, presidential oath, rule of law
Ramirez Cartoon: The Imperial President
Tags: cartoon, Michael Ramirez, Obama, rule of law
Cruz Highlights 76 Lawless Actions by Obama Admin
Today, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) unveiled his fourth cataloguing of the Obama administration’s abuses of power.
Among the 76 instances described, the Daily Caller spotlights eight that show the range and depth of the executive department’s dereliction of duty:
1. “Obama implemented portions of the DREAM Act by executive action”
2. “Ended some terror asylum restrictions”
3. “Recognized same sex marriage in Utah despite a Supreme Court stay on a court order allowing the institution”
4. “Illegally revealed the existence of sealed indictments in the Benghazi investigation”
5. “Illegally delayed ObamaCare verification of eligibility for healthcare subsidies”
6. “Ordered Boeing to fire 1,000 employees in South Carolina and shut down a new factory because it was non-union”
7. “Terminated the pensions of 20,000 non-union Delphi employees in the GM bankruptcy”
8. “Government agencies are engaging in ‘Operation Choke Point,’ where the government asks banks to ‘choke off’ access to financial services for customers engaging in conduct the Administration does not like – such as ‘ammunition sales.’”
As this partial listing makes clear, good luck finding an example where the Obama administration has flouted the law to favor conservatives and obstruct liberals.
Download the full report (pdf) here.
Tags: DREAM Act, marriage, Obama, Obamacare, rule of law, Ted Cruz, terror, union
Free Market Fairness
Ben Domenech says that one way for conservatives to reframe their economic message before the 2014 midterms is to start using the phrase, “free market fairness.”
“Those on the right should be prepared to make the case that the warped relationship between Wall Street and Washington needs to be fixed, that socialized risks and privatized profits are fundamentally unfair, and that… equality-focused policy solutions, and those of the left, would hurt income mobility and systematically destroy wealth and growth,” he writes in the Wall Street Journal.
Free market fairness can be thought of as the alternative to crony capitalism. The latter can be defined as “government efforts to tilt markets in favor of preferred firms [to] reward political connections and lobbying money.” Troy’s recent article on eliminating the elite-driven Export-Import Bank is an excellent example of how conservatives can show they are serious about removing barriers to equal economic opportunities.
Adopting the free market fairness frame also strengthens the GOP’s insistence on a government dedicated to the rule of law. As Solyndra and other Recovery Act era abuses fade from memory, the rule of law critique has been increasingly focused on abuses of executive discretion like Deferred Action for illegal immigrants, Justice Department refusals to defend the Defense of Marriage Act and the growing litany of delays and waivers of ObamaCare. Refocusing on how crony capitalism picks winners and losers would bring the rule of law argument full circle.
Maintaining a fair playing field isn’t the same as giving one team extra points. The only way the American dream can remain open to everyone is if the people in charge of the rule book fairly to all participants.
Tags: 2014, capitalism, crony, economy, fairness, free market, Obama, rule of law
The Dangerous Unfairness of ObamaCare Delays
Viewed in the most favorable light, the Obama administration’s decision this week to extend ObamaCare’s enrollment deadline into the middle of April is a measure of justice to people forced to buy health insurance but unable to complete the transaction because of lousy government websites. Simply put, it’s just wrong to penalize people for failing at a task the government makes it impossible to do.
However, for every person receiving his due there are others getting the shaft. For example, consider all the people who diligently signed up for coverage last fall, spending hours surfing through glitch-prone websites and incoherent call centers, all because the Obama administration swore up-and-down that insurance had to be purchased by mid-December if coverage was wanted on January 1st. And then the deadline was extended.
Recall that millions of people lost their individual and family plans because they didn’t comply with ObamaCare’s heightened benefits mandates. Responsible customers swallowed hard and leapt into an ObamaCare exchange because the government said so. And then the Obama administration decided not to enforce its own law.
And let’s not forget the insurance companies, business owners and tax experts who spent thousands of hours trying to comply with ObamaCare’s deadlines and mandates only to watch those who did little or nothing to prepare get rewarded with delay after delay, or as we used to say during the last Bush administration, bailout after bailout.
So while it is true that it’s unjust that people should be penalized for government’s failures, it is equally unjust to punish those who are trying valiantly to play by the rules but then get hosed by last minute changes. The takeaway here is that the implementation of ObamaCare is destroying the incentive to take the government at its word. If this becomes its legacy, the law will be far more destructive than anyone thought possible.
Tags: delay, exchange, health, Insurance, Obamacare, rule of law
ObamaCare’s Employer Mandate Delay is Purely Political
Sarah Kliff, a liberal health policy blogger at Wonkblog, explains why the Obama administration won’t delay the individual mandate like it has other elements of ObamaCare.
“…all the delays so have one thing in common: They erased political headaches for the law while barely denting the number of people that the health overhaul will cover in 2014,” writes Kilff. “The delays Republicans are asking for now would cause major political and substantive headaches for the law while sharply reducing the number of people it covers.”
The political headaches Kliff alluded to include vociferous opposition by businesses to the employer mandate. That’s because, once implemented, the employer mandate – the requirement to provide government-approved health insurance on any firm employing 50 or more full-time workers or pay a fine – will very likely result in shedding jobs to avoid compliance costs.
“This predictable employer response is a very good reason to want to postpone the mandate until after the midterm,” wrote Walter Russell Mead said when the employer mandate delay was announced this summer. “Nobody wants to run as an ally of the job-killing President whose policies led your voters’ employers to dump their health insurance.”
It’s both refreshing and appalling to see an ObamaCare cheerleader like Kliff admit that the only kind of acceptable delays are the ones that politically advantage the Obama administration.
No wonder opponents see the only real solution to ObamaCare’s metastasizing problems as repealing and starting over.
Tags: delay, Election, employer, health, Jobs, mandate, Obamacare, Reform, repeal, rule of law
The Administrative State: Too Big to Scrutinize
From Obamacare to the current Gang of Eight immigration bill, the only thing more threatening to consensual government than enormous pieces of legislation is the even larger corpus of rules and regulations that they inevitably breed. Consider this analysis of Dodd-Frank, as reported by The Hill:
Rules implementing the Dodd-Frank financial reform law could fill 28 copies of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, according to a new analysis of the Wall Street overhaul [by the law firm Davis Polk]…
All told, regulators have written 13,789 pages and more than 15 million words to put the law in place, which is equal to 42 words of regulations for every single word of the already hefty law, spanning 848 pages itself.
And if that seems like a lot, keep in mind that by Davis Polk’s estimate, the work implementing the law is just 39 percent complete.
I don’t think you have to be a limited government conservative to realize that government of this scope just can’t work. We no longer have a meaningful legislative branch if members of Congress are only responsible for writing 2 percent of what eventually becomes the law (the easiest 2 percent, it should be noted — it’s in the rules and regs, not the statutes, that oxes really get gored). There will be no one capable of enforcing all of these provisions, nor anyone capable of complying with all of them (though you can bet that they’ll be an army of consultants offering compliance services for a pretty penny).
For the rule of law to mean anything, rules have to be few enough to be digestible and clear enough to be intelligible. That’s also, by the way, a good rule of thumb for creating a legal environment that leads to economic growth. Rulemaking orgies like Dodd-Frank? They take us in precisely the opposite direction.
Tags: Adminstrative State, Big Government, Dodd Frank, financial regulation, Immigration Reform, Obamacare, Regulation, rule of law
Sebelius Pressuring Health Companies to Promote ObamaCare
Earlier this year Michael Barone catalogued a litany of abuses to the rule of law perpetuated under the Obama Administration. “Gangster Government” is the term Barone coined to describe the behavior.
As of Friday, Barone needs to update his list.
Sarah Kliff broke the news that Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, has been calling health care executives, “asking them to make large financial donations to help with the effort to implement President Obama’s landmark health-care law…”
Imagine the conversation. A health care CEO gets a personal call from the chief regulator of his business suggesting that the company and the people it employs make financial donations to promote a law administered by the regulator.
Sounds like a suggestion that can’t be refused, right?
As Barone would say, this is Gangster Government.
Republicans in Congress need to push back hard on this abuse of power by Sebelius.
The people running businesses are there to make profits, not spend precious resources on ruinous fights with thugs spending taxpayer money.
If Sebelius can get away with coercing businesses to “donate” money to promote a law that increases her power over them, an awful precedent will be set. She – and any of her successors – will be able to tax, fine and now “fundraise” the very people they regulate.
Fail to pay enough, and say goodbye to your livelihood.
Congress needs to put a stop to Sebelius’ abuse of power. Now.
Tags: Congress, health, HHS, Kathleen Sebelius, Obamacare, rule of law
January 3rd, 2013 at 6:02 pm
Boehner Reelected Speaker, Vows to Follow Rules
After House Speaker John Boehner was narrowly reelected Speaker today, his spokesman promised that there would be no more end-runs around the constitutional process for making laws; even those that seek so-called “grand bargains” behind closed doors with the President of the United States.
Instead, said the spokesman of Boehner, “he is recommitting himself and the House to what we’ve done, which is working through regular order and letting the House work its will.”
This is welcome news. Conservatives have long argued that many of the Obama Administration’s signature achievements – such as Obamacare’s abuse of the budget reconciliation process, failure to defend the border or the Defense of Marriage Act, and backdoor amnesty through deferred action, among others – have violated the rule of law.
But those criticisms ring hollow when Republicans in Congress go outside the legislative process to negotiate in secret. It’s even worse when what’s produced would never be passed if it had been floated during the normal hearing and debate process.
Honoring the rule of law should be a natural and fundamental principle for the Republican Party. Those wanting a conservative comeback should keep Speaker Boehner to his word.
H/T: Fox News
Tags: House Republicans, John Boehner, rule of law, Speaker
Required Pre-Election Day Reading: Obama’s Imperial Presidency
Just in time for Election Day, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has released a report entitled “The Imperial Presidency,” which serves as an exhaustive chronicle of all the ways in which President Obama has undermined — or outright ignored — the rule of law. It covers everything from regulatory overreach to ignoring the traditional “advise and consent” process to abusing the waiver process, and it’s well worth a read.
As we approach November 6, it’s important to remember that these offenses aren’t just abstract violations of the constitutional order — they’re also ingredients for economic decline. As Conn Carroll notes today in the Washington Examiner:
Conservatives are not the only ones who have documented Obama’s assault on the rule of law and its impact on the U.S. economy. Every year, the World Economic Forum issues a Global Competitiveness Report, ranking more than 100 countries on a number of key economic indicators. When Obama was sworn into office, the United States was ranked as the best country in the world to do business. After just four years under Obama, the U.S. has dropped to seventh. The report specifically cites the collapse in the rule of law in explaining this decline.
Before Obama was president, the U.S. ranked 40th in “favoritism in decisions of government officials.” Today, the U.S. ranks 59th, a fall of 19 places. Before Obama was president, the U.S. ranked 50th for lowest “burden of government regulation.” Today, the U.S. ranks 76th, a fall of 26 places. Before Obama was president, the U.S. ranked 28th in “transparency of government policy making.” Today, the U.S. ranks 56th, a fall of 28 places.
Care to venture a guess as to where those rankings would be after another four years of Obama?
Tags: Barack Obama, Competititveness, Constitution, Economics, Eric Cantor, Imperial Presidency, rule of law
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The Hunchbacks of Notre Dame
Currently, Matt’s ensemble, Under the Table, is touring and booking The Hunchbacks of Notre Dame, a physical comedy about three hunchbacked siblings in a theatre company doing their version of Hugo’s classic tale. Like the novel, the play explores beauty, betrayal, and what it means to be normal… but with more confetti.
Created in residence at Dell’Arte International in 2011, The Hunchbacks of Notre Dame has played across the US, Canada, and Mexico in Festivals, at Universities, and theaters.
“For sheer ingenuity in adapting a classic, it’s almost impossible to top the agile clowns of Brooklyn’s Under the Table… expertly inexpert…brilliant physical comedy.”
-Liz Nichols, The Edmonton Journal
May we be Happy and Free
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CHASE COUNTY COURT HOUSE
Information compiled and wriiten by Leroy Mathers and W.G. Adams, courtesy of Lester Adams, his son.
xxxThe 1880 census of Chase County shows a population of 70 people. The oldest person on the list was 65 years old. She was Minerva Lawton of Wauneta, mother of Mrs. Geo Rowley, whose husband was murdered by a Cheyenne Chief in 1878. Mrs. Rowley appears on the list as Sarah Rowley and she has two children, Eddie, age 8, and Earl, age 3. By 1890 with the coming of the homesteaders, our population had grown to 4,807.
xxxFeb. 8, 1910, the county commissioners met in special session — an emergency existing because of the burning of the court house. The Imperial Republican dated Fri., Oct. 21, 1910, states the court house burned Feb. 2, 1910. The paper also reports that a new Court house will be constructed and says, “It will be the best court house in the Fourteenth Judicial District.”
xxxRecord shows an entry made July 28, 1911, E. Hollinger is paid $232 for the use of blood hounds to search for the culprit who knocked a hole in the clerk’s old vault and set fire to the records.
xxxThe county voted for a bond issue of $25,000 to construct a new court house. The contract for the building is recorded June 7, 1911, awarded to Winters and Short of Atwood, Kansas, and the bid for the heating plant was awarded to Frank Peterson of Red Cloud, Ne.
xxxIt was after the county was organized, but before a court house was provided, when fires began to interfer with county business and raise havoc with records. The first Court house building was given to the county by the Lincon Land Co. in 1889. This structure was also burned down in Feb. 1910. The vaults remained standing. A temporary frame building was ordered, and a few months later, a fire was set and did considerable damage. Record of meeting on Feb. 9, 1910 shows: “It being very evident that the fire that destroyed the Court House was of incendary origin, we hereby offer a reward of $300 for the arrest and conviction of the party or parties who set said fire.”
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Romantic Road: Vienna and Budapest 40 Years Ago
Vienna is a glorious city, a city that reverberates with the music of Mozart and of Johann Strauss. Its palaces and galleries are a delight and its food is delectable. It is the home of Sacher Torte, that wonder confection of thin layers of cake filled with and covered by the richest chocolate imaginable. And hot chocolate in Vienna, drunk on a cold day in December, is so thick one can almost eat rather than drink it — covered, of course, with schlag, thick whipped cream. Vienna is certainly not for dieters. None of this has changed in the last forty years.
Vienna's Statsoper
However, my heroine in Romantic Road, Lacy Telchev, is in the Vienna of today and she isn’t there for the food or the culture. She’s running for her life when she takes refuge in a small B&B near the legendary Statsoper, the gilded, wedding-cake like opera house. She has to reach a famous diva there, who has an important message for her. In Vienna, the man Lacy is running from finds her. She must escape him somehow, but how?
I had great fun with the sections of Romantic Road that were set in Vienna and Budapest, cities I’ve known for many years. When I was a music student in Budapest, I used to drive the five hour trip to Vienna once a month, just for the feeling of freedom and affluence that city exuded. It was in the early 1970’s, and Budapest, beautiful as it is now, was a grim place then. Stony faced Russian soldiers patrolled in twos, and there were still gunshot holes in many buildings from the ill-fated 1956 revolution. Among a number of people with whom I spoke, there was deep resentment over both the original decision made in Malta by “those three old men” (Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt) to “throw Hungary to the Russian wolves”, and also over America’s inaction when the Hungarians tried to overthrow their Russian occupiers of their country in 1956. They felt betrayed.
But Hungarians are survivors. One of them told me “We survived the Turks, and we’ll survive the Russians.” There was much black humor quietly circulating in those days. One of my favorites was:
“The man rubbed a lamp and a Genie appeared, offering him three wishes.
The man said, “I’d like the Chinese to invade Sweden.”
The genie said, “Done . Now for your second wish?”
“I’d like the Chinese to invade Sweden again.”
The genie said, “Done again. And your third wish?”
“I’d like the Chinese to invade Sweden once more.”
“Done. But why on earth have you wasted your three wishes in this way?”
“For the Chinese to invade Sweden three times, they have to fight their way across Russia six times.”
In the Budapest of my student days, home heating was a luxury, and food, though plentiful enough, was basic. There had been a long period of near famine after the war. I was told that even thirty years later, the more luxurious items, the fruit and vegetables raised in the south, were largely unavailable to Hungarians. They were all shipped to Russia. The two vegetables on a plate, in even the best restaurants, were an ice-cream scoop of (usually cold) mashed potatoes and an ice cream scoop of congealed rice.
On my monthly trips to Vienna, I brought back such varied items as oranges, car batteries, and a furnace pump for friends.
People were afraid to voice opinions, and gatherings of large numbers of people, even for social purposes, were considered suspicious. At a Thanksgiving party I gave for teachers and friends, the police came to see why there were so many people gathered under one roof. At an embassy party, when I started to say something injudicious, an aide cautioned me, “Don’t say anything you don’t want the Russians or the police to hear.” Listening devices were common, even in public places such as coffee houses and restaurants.
Budapest was a grim place in those days, while Vienna was full of light and joy. In spite of this, the Hungary of that day was the scene of one of the richest musical cultures in the world. Musicians trained there filled the first chairs of orchestras all over Europe and North America. Great composers and conductors flourished in Hungary. Even Hollywood had its share of great Hungarian musicians, producers, directors and actors. Perhaps hardships were in some way responsible for the incredible flowering of the arts during this long period of Russian occupation. The arts were an unfettered outlet and the education system from which they sprang was unparalleled.
The Chain Bridge
But the story of Romantic Road is set in today’s world, and Budapest has returned to its former splendor, to the city often referred to as “the Paris of the East.” There are few sights as beautiful as that of the Chain Bridge dressed in its costume of lights, reflected in the swift flowing Danube in a free Hungary.
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Following are my own published novels. For further details about these books, as well as my reviews of books I have read, go to my Goodreads page.
To purchase one of my books, just click on the book cover below and select the vendor of your choice.
COMING SOON! Romantic Road, a romantic thriller set in Europe.
RELEASE DATE: Jan. 28, 2015.
• Romantic Road ~ Takes you on a chase across Europe with our heroine who finds herself in a series of precarious situations. She encounters a handsome stranger, but is he helping her, or is he dangerous? This story has hair raising suspense, romance and a sprinkling of humour
• The Memory of Roses ~ The story of a secret and how it impacts two generations of the McQuaid family. It unfolds on the beautiful Greek Island of Corfu and is a tale complete with beautiful and passionate women, handsome and fiery men, and an intriguing mystery.
"The Memory of Roses by Blair McDowell is simply an incredibly lovely story. It’s also a love story, and a story about finding yourself, and about closure. The theme running through the book is “all’s well that ends well.” -- Marlene, Reading Reality
• Delighting In Your Company ~ Delighting In Your Company is a paranormal romance set on an exotic Caribbean island, featuring a handsome ghost and an adventurous heroine who travels back in time to solve a mystery!
"Delighting In Your Company is a unique paranormal romance that brings together island folklore, history, and mystery with an unlikely romance between the past and present that had me going through a torrent of emotions and made it impossible to put down." -- The Romance Reviews
• Sonata ~ Sayuri McAllister has just arrived home to Vancouver to find that a robbery has taken place at her family home, and it is being investigated by her old flame. She also has a new stepmother with a charming brother who is intent on bedding and wedding the rich and beautiful Sayuri. It’s a confusing and difficult time for Sayuri, especially when dangerous accidents happen to her father and herself – or are they accidents?
“I found Sonata to be a charming novel that left me laughing out loud in parts and gnawing nails in others. It was a delight to read.” – Night Owl Reviews
• Abigail's Christmas (short story) ~ An enchanting tale of love and romance, with a magical touch of fantasy.
"Abigail’s Christmas is a sweet and special story that honors both love and the holidays." -- Sizzling Hot Books
Labels: Blair McDowell, Budapest, romance, Romantic Road, suspense, thriller, Vienna
Romantic Road Settings - Salzburg and the Salzkammergut
Old Town Salzburg
Salzburg has always been one of my favorite towns. I knew I had to place my Romantic Road characters here at some point in the story. Buried deep in the Austrian Alps, on two sides of the River Salzach, it’s as picturesque as a postcard. No matter where one turns in the “Old Town” it’s like living in another time. Scrolled wrought-iron signs hang over doorways, identifying shops, hotels, and restaurants. A number of the cobblestone streets are pedestrian-only, and the old town is small enough to walk almost any place; and yet Salzburg is a city, not a village, with all of a city’s amenities. There are numerous concert venues, and the world famous music school, the Mozarteum, is here. Each summer Salzburg is host to one of the most famous music festivals in the world. Mozart spent his early years here, and there is a statue of one of his most beloved characters, the bird-man, Papageno, in one of its many squares.
Traditionsl Austrian Clothing
Here one may sometimes see men and women unselfconsciously wearing clothes that look like they came from The Sound of Music, loden green boiled wool jackets with stand-up collars on the men, full skirted dirndls on the women. To them these are not costumes, but simply their usual way of dressing. To be in Salzburg’s old town is to step into another culture, another time.
Hotel Elefant
We stayed in The Elefant, an historic inn I would recommend to anyone both for its comfort and for its convenient location in the heart of the town, a short walk from the funicular that takes one up to the historic castle and its restaurant overlooking the town and the countryside.
I love shopping in Salzburg. For me, shopping is never a major consideration when traveling, but Salzburg is an exception. I always stock up on lovely underwear and on gorgeous silk scarves in the old town. The shops are small, and they exist, not for just tourists, but for the people who live in and around the town.
I had fun putting my Romantic Road heroine, Lacy Telchev, in Salzburg, shopping, and in sudden danger on the narrow, pedestrian-only, streets of the town.
And then there is the Salzkammergut. In the hills and mountains to the east of Salzburg is some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. This is Sound of Music country. Lakes wind their way through green valleys, with majestic, snow peaked mountains in the background. I gave the hero of my book, Romantic Road, a home on one of those lakes, and it is here Max and Lacy take refuge from her pursuers. And here that they fall in love. Until danger overtakes them and they must once more flee.
RELEASE DATE: Jan. 28, 2015
Labels: Austria, Blair McDowell, book, Europe, novel, romance, Romantic Road, romantic thriller, Salzburg, travel
Romantic Road Settings - Salzburg and the Salzkamm...
Romantic Road - The Influence of Setting on Story
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