text:
Immigration reform could be bonanza for Democrats
Published on April 23rd, 2013
By EMILY SCHULTHEIS
The immigration proposal pending in Congress would transform the nation's political landscape for a generation or more — pumping as many as 11 million new Hispanic voters into the electorate a decade from now in ways that, if current trends hold, would produce an electoral bonanza for Democrats and cripple Republican prospects in many states they now win easily.
Beneath the philosophical debates about amnesty and border security, there are brass-tacks partisan calculations driving the thinking of lawmakers in both parties over comprehensive immigration reform, which in its current form offers a pathway to citizenship — and full voting rights — for a group of undocumented residents that roughly equals the population of Ohio, the nation's seventh-largest state.
If these people had been on the voting rolls in 2012 and voted along the same lines as other Hispanic voters did last fall, President Barack Obama's relatively narrow victory last fall would have been considerably wider, a POLITICO analysis showed.
Key swing states that Obama fought tooth and nail to win — like Florida, Colorado and Nevada — would have been comfortably in his column. And the president would have come very close to winning Arizona.
Republican Mitt Romney, by contrast, would have lost the national popular vote by 7 percentage points, 53 percent to 46 percent, instead of the 4-point margin he lost by in 2012, and would have struggled even to stay competitive in GOP strongholds like Texas, which he won with 57 percent of the vote.
The analysis is based on U.S. Census and Pew Research Center estimates of illegal immigrant populations by state, and presidential exit polls showing how Obama and Romney performed among Latinos.
Extrapolating 2012 voting trends to elections several cycles in the future is an inherently speculative exercise. Under a 13-year path to citizenship, this would mean most undocumented immigrants could join the voting rolls in the 2028 presidential election (though the proposed 5-year timeline for citizenship under the DREAM Act and for agricultural workers would start the process even earlier than that). But it is one that highlights the political sword hanging over Republicans as they consider immigration reform with a path to citizenship, an idea that is already deeply unpopular with many red-state constituencies.
To support the measure virtually guarantees millions of new Democratic voters. But for Republicans to oppose immigration reform invites hostility among Hispanic-Americans who already are punishing the GOP and imperiling its electoral prospects.
This reality, say many Republican strategists, gives the party no long-term alternative but to welcome the new voters and hope this allows the party to compete for Hispanic voters in ways that are closer to how President George W. Bush performed in 2004. National exit polls that year showed he won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote. Some analysts have questioned this data, but there is little doubt that Bush performed significantly better with this group than Romney, who got just 27 percent.
If Republicans do nothing to repair their relationships with current and future Latino voters, "we certainly won't be a national political party anymore," said GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, a top adviser to John McCain in 2008.
If one adds 11 million new Hispanic voters after immigration reform but applies 2004 percentages, the damage to Republicans is real but much less severe: Romney would have still won border states Texas and Arizona, albeit by smaller margins, while Obama would have held other Latino-heavy swing states like Nevada and Florida by slightly larger margins than the ones he did win by.


text:
I want to talk a little about growth and why it is such a powerful force in society.
Growth is an interesting denial topic because it is obvious, even to a child or uneducated person, that infinite growth is not possible on a finite planet. Yet growth is a top priority for every country in the world, and most citizens. I have a hunch that most of our leaders and citizens do not understand the real reason they want growth which makes this topic even more interesting.
Albert Bartlett argued that part of the problem is that the human brain does not understand the exponential function. He has a point. I have taken about 10 university level mathematics courses and I still needed to create a little spreadsheet to satisfy myself that Bartlett was correct. Anything that grows exponentially, regardless of how small the exponent is, will eventually explode into a hockey stick. So if you want society to become more sustainable, it is not sufficient to argue that we should reduce our goal of say 4% annual growth to a smaller number. Any growth rate bigger than zero is a problem.
But even without this advanced understanding of exponential growth, it is still obvious that growth creates many problems. Why then does almost everyone want growth?
I think most people want growth because most people want the future to be better for themselves and their children. The logic being that in a growing economy there is a good chance my income and wealth will grow. There are other human behaviors that create a desire for growth such as competition for status, the maximum power principle, and our dopamine response to novelty. But I think most people mainly want the future to be better rather than worse. More is a happy thought. Less is a depressing thought.
There is in fact a much bigger reason to desire growth that few people understand and it has to do with the design of our monetary system.
We have a debt based fractional reserve monetary system. Money is not created at the same time that we create real stuff to buy. Money is created in advance of us creating real stuff to buy. In other words, money is loaned into existence on the promise of it being repaid from future earnings. The mathematics of this system requires growth to pay the interest on debt. I may write another essay to explain this in more detail but for the purposes of this essay please assume these statements as true, because they are.
The real reason growth is so important is not because growth will give us a little more next year, it is because growth gives us A LOT more today.
It's all about debt. An example is probably the best way to explain this.
Let's assume you are an environmentally aware person trying to live a low impact life. You need and want a place to live. A small used house will suffice. Lets say it costs $200,000. You have a modest income and you are able to save $10,000 per year. In a no-growth economy the only money available to borrow is surplus money saved by someone else. Therefore a no-growth economy has very little credit available and you would probably have to live with your parents and save for 20 years before you could buy the house. In a growing economy, you can save a down payment for 2 years and then borrow the balance of $180,000 to be repaid over the next 18 years. No other people had to save the $180,000 you borrowed. The $180,000 was created out of thin air on the promise of you repaying it with interest. Even though you only own 10% of the house, you get to enjoy 100% of the house now. You do not have to wait 20 years.
This logic applies to everything we typically purchase on credit like education, cars, furniture, appliances, and vacations. For many people struggling today, this logic also applies to necessities like groceries and gasoline.
Back to the original example. You are a green aware person. You did your best by buying a small used house. To enjoy the house now rather than waiting 20 years you needed an economy that is growing. What are the implications of an economy that is growing at say 3%? Anything that grows at 3% per year will double in size every 25 years (5% doubles in 16 years, 2% doubles in 36 years). So if you live for 75 years in an economy that is growing at 3% then the human footprint will be 8 times larger when you die than when you were born. Eight times! Think about that. Imagine you have a baby today and imagine Earth with 8 x 7=56 billion people and an economy of 8 x $108 = $864 trillion dollars when your child dies. Obviously this is not going to happen and we will destroy our home and most other life if we try to get there.
We all need some form of shelter to survive. A house with furniture and appliances and plumbing really does improve the quality of our lives. But we can't destroy the planet to have a house. What to do?
There are no easy answers to this conundrum. There may be no answer. Perhaps in the long run we won't be able to live in a nice house. I need to think more about this but my current belief is that if we could constrain our population to zero growth, and if we adopted policies to ensure the economy does not grow, then it probably means that multiple generations of a family need to share a house. For example, in a richer world, newly weds would move into their grandparent's home and the grandparents would move into the space vacated by the newly weds in their child's home. In a poorer world, all 3 generations would live in the same house.
There are many other deep implications of a no-growth world.
Most of the technology we enjoy today requires a large amount of up-front capital. For example, a television takes hundreds of people to design, billion dollar mines to extract the raw materials, billion dollar factories to produce its components, a billion dollar global supply chain of ships and trucks for transport, a many billion dollar energy infrastructure for oil and electricity, a billion dollar industry for television program content creation and fiber optic distribution. None of this is possible without a lot of debt to build and maintain the infrastructure.
It's quite possible that we won't be able to have advanced technology products like cars and airplanes and televisions and cell phones in a no-growth world.
A no-growth world also has huge implications for governments. Every country in the world today operates with a deficit which means they spend more than they collect in taxes by borrowing money. This in turn means that most citizens enjoy many more services like health care, education, water, sanitation, security, unemployment insurance, and old age pensions than they pay for. This is only possible when governments have access to large amounts of credit and this is only possible in a growing economy.
Politicians usually get elected by promising things to citizens that cost money. Since all countries are already running large deficits, our leaders are highly motivated to achieve more economic growth because this helps them stay in power. This dynamic also explains why government deficits tend to grow and often become dangerously high.
Banks make money by loaning money and more growth means they can loan more money. A no-growth world would have many fewer banks.
The value of a company is primarily determined by the growth rate of its profits. It's much easier for a company to grow when the overall economy is growing. Managers are often compensated based on share price and are highly motivated to grow their company.
The concept of retiring and living on a pension depends on growth. If the value of money invested by pension funds in company shares did not grow there would not be sufficient funds for most people to live on at retirement. It may not be possible to retire in a no-growth world.
Last but not least, growth is required to maintain the value of the majority of our wealth which is in the form of debt. Without growth it is not possible to make interest payments and the debt will default and lose its value. This in turn will reduce the value of assets purchased with debt. Goodbye investment portfolios and million dollar shacks in San Francisco. Hello a much poorer world.
Clearly there are some very good reasons for growth. At the same time, growth cannot continue forever due to physical limits, and because we are already destroying the planet with our current footprint.
Today's myriad economic problems and our weird and unprecedented responses to these problems are primarily due to the fact we have hit limits to growth.
Everything we do and make requires energy. By using external energy, in addition to our muscles, we increase our productivity and ability to create wealth. Energy extraction and consumption must increase for the economy to grow. Efficiency can help, but we have already harvested most of what is possible and are bumping up against the laws of physics for any further efficiency gains.
Most of our energy is fossil carbon which is a depleting non-renewable resource and extraction rates cannot increase without higher energy prices. Higher energy prices, above say $80 (not the current temporary $30 deflation price), are not possible because consumers and governments have already borrowed the maximum that is possible, even at zero interest rates.
Most renewable energy costs more than most non-renewable energy, and renewable energy is dependent on non-renewable energy so the price of both tend to scale together. It is therefore unlikely we could run today's civilization on renewable energy, but even if we could, switching over would require a huge amount of up-front debt that will not be available in our growth constrained world.
It's too late to change, and it probably never was possible to continue this lifestyle without cheap fossil energy.
Pain is on the horizon. It can't be avoided. I think a proactive response of conservation, austerity, and population reduction measures might help by slowing us down in a more controlled manner, rather than our current high-speed trajectory towards a brick wall.
In conclusion, the end of growth is a really big issue.
We are not considering wise strategies to mitigate the problem.
We don't even talk about it.
We deny the problem exists.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Watch this video, and share this big tip with your loved ones. Get a bigger cock by being HAPPY! It's really that easy. Happiness releases oxytocin, which reduces the stress hormone cortisol. It's science.
This video is smashing records on my #YouTube #Channel Thanks for looking.
SUBSCRIBE on YouTube, and via email to get all the Survival Bros blogs first. Email me if you like: email@example.com


text:
New species discoveries in the Greater Mekong
Three very different freshwater fishes are among ten animal and plant species highlighted in a new WWF report entitled 'Extra Terrestrial'.
Among the 126 species newly identified by scientists in the Greater Mekong region in 2011 new were a bat named after its devilish appearance, a subterranean blind fish, a ruby-eyed pit viper, and a frog that sings like a bird.
"While the 2011 discoveries affirms the Mekong as a region of astonishing biodiversity, many new species are already struggling to survive in shrinking habitats," said Nick Cox, Manager of the WWF's Greater Mekong Species Programme.
A new 'walking' catfish species Clarias gracilentus Ng, Hong & Tu 2011, discovered in freshwater streams on the Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc, can move across land using its pectoral fins to stay upright while it moves forward via snake-like movements.
A beautiful miniature fish, Boraras naevus Conway & Kottelat 2011, just 2cm in length, was found in southern Thailand and named after the large dark blotch on its golden body, naevus meaning 'blemish' in Latin.
It's already known to aquarium hobbyists and is sometimes referred to as B. sp. 'strawberry' or B. sp. 'red micros'.
A pearly, rose-tinted cyprinid fish was discovered in the Xe Bangfai catchment, a Mekong River tributary in Central Laos that runs 7 km underground through limestone karst. The hypogean Bangana musaei Kottelat & Steiner 2011 is totally blind and was immediately assessed as vulnerable due to its restricted range.
The Mekong River supports around 850 fish species and the world's most intensive inland fishery. Laos' determination to construct the Xayaburi dam on the mainstream of the Mekong River is a significant threat to the Mekong's extraordinary biodiversity and the productivity of this lifeline through Southeast Asia that supports the livelihoods of over 60 million people.
"The Mekong River supports levels of aquatic biodiversity second only to the Amazon River," added Cox. "The Xayaburi dam would prove an impassable barrier for many fish species, signalling the demise for wildlife already known and as yet undiscovered."
Extra Terrestrial spotlights 10 species newly identified by science, among the 82 plants, 13 fish, 21 reptiles, 5 amphibians and 5 mammals all discovered in 2011 within the Greater Mekong region of Southeast Asia that spans Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and the south-western Chinese province of Yunnan.
Since 1997, an incredible 1,710 new species from the Greater Mekong region have been described to science.
Click here to download the full report.
May we also extend congratulations to friends of SF Peter Macguire for his superb photos of Boraras naevus which are featured in the report, and Dr. Ng Heok Hee who co-described Clarias gracilentus.
Category: Blogs, Conservation | Tags: Extra Terrestrial, Mekong, WWF, Xayaburi | Comment »


text:
This tutorial is for Dojo 1.9 and may be out of date.
Up to date tutorials are available.
Creating Template-based Widgets
In this tutorial, you'll learn about the importance of Dijit's
_TemplatedMixin mixin, and how to use templates to quickly create your own custom widgets.
Getting Started
If you are not already familiar with the basics of creating widgets with Dijit you will want to first read the Understanding _WidgetBase tutorial. The Creating a custom widget tutorial and Writing Your Own Widget guide will also help you learn to create widgets.
_WidgetBase provides a fantastic foundation for creating widgets, but the
_TemplatedMixin mixin is where Dijit really shines. With
_TemplatedMixin and
_WidgetsInTemplateMixin, you can quickly create widgets that are highly maintainable, quickly
modifiable and easy to manipulate.
The basic concept of
_TemplatedMixin is simple enough: it allows a developer to create a small HTML
file that has a few small extensions, and loads this HTML file as a string at run-time (or inlined during the
build process) for re-use by all instances of the templated widget.
Let's walk through what
_TemplatedMixin defines (and why), and then build a simple widget from scratch
using its functionality.
Note that
_TemplatedMixin is intended to be used as a mixin, and not directly
inherited from. In class-based parlance, that means that is more like an interface than a class (although with
JavaScript, the difference between the two is muddied). See the Dojo Declare Tutorial for
more information on how classes work in Dojo.
_TemplatedMixin Provides
For the working developer, mixing
_TemplatedMixin into a widget definition provides you with the
following additional properties on your widget:
templateString // a string representing the HTML of the template
This property is deceptively simple — after all, how can so much power come from so little? The
answer lies in what else
_TemplatedMixin adds to your widget's definition.
A small note:
templatePath is also added, but no longer used for template loading. It
is still there for backwards-compatibility. We'll show you later on how to use
dojo/text! to load a
widget's template.
Overridden Methods
In addition to the property above,
_TemplatedMixin overrides two methods defined in Dijit's widget
buildRendering and
destroyRendering. These two methods handle the parsing
and filling out of the template (
buildRendering) and destroying the widget's DOM correctly
Because both methods are critical to the templating process, if you override either of these methods
in your custom code — make sure that you include a call to the parent version by adding
this.inherited(arguments) in your overridden method. See the
Understanding _WidgetBase Tutorial for more information on the widget lifecycle.
To make your custom widget "templatable", all you need to do is add
dijit/_TemplatedMixin as the
second or subsequent argument in the array of class declarations for your widget. For example, a SomeWidget
widget might be declared like so:
define([ "dojo/_base/declare", "dijit/_WidgetBase", "dijit/_TemplatedMixin", "dojo/text!./templates/SomeWidget.html" ], function(declare, _WidgetBase, _TemplatedMixin, template) { return declare([_WidgetBase, _TemplatedMixin], { templateString: template }); });
Dijit adheres to a standard of creating a separate directory called
templates in the folder containing the widget module — a standard we'd advise you follow in your own code.
Notice that in our bare-bones declaration above, we used the
templateString property in conjunction
with a template loaded via
dojo/text!{path}. This is the recommended way of setting up references to
your template files, as it ensures that the files can be loaded asynchronously and properly integrated when
creating a build of the Dojo Toolkit.
Now that we've set up our widget declaration to be template-based, let's write a template and talk about some of the special hooks in them that are available.
Writing Templates
A template is an HTML document fragment in which you define a DOM structure, along with any special "hooks" to tie things back into your widget declaration. Let's look at a quick example before diving into each of these hooks, and how variable substitution takes place in a template. Here's a hypothetical template for our SomeWidget, above:

While simple, this template demonstrates three of the most important aspects of the Dijit template system: variable substitution, attach points, and event attachments.
Note that when you define a template, it can only have one root node definition ( just like with XML documents). Multiple nodes at the top level is not allowed.
Variable Substitution
A template can have values set on DOM rendering though the use of a simple variable placeholder syntax, which looks like this:
The variable name is any property or field defined in your widget declaration; the example above used the property
baseClass (available with any widget), but custom fields work just as fine — for instance, if
we'd defined a property called
foo in our SomeWidget, we would simply use
${foo} in our
template. If the property in question happens to be a reference to an object, and you want to use the value of a
property in that object, you may easily do so via normal object reference notation:
To prevent
_TemplatedMixin from escaping quotations within a string, place a "!" before the full
variable name, like so:
Variable substitution in a template is only recommended for values that will not be changed
during the lifetime of the widget. In other words, if you expect to be able to set the value of a property
in a widget during the lifetime of your application programmatically, we recommend instead using your widget's
postCreate method to set any variables programmatically through your widget's
set() method.
Attach Points
Dijit's template system has a special attribute it will look for in your templates called an
attach point — implemented using HTML5's data attribute syntax. An attach point tells the
template renderer that when a DOM element is created with a
data-dojo-attach-point attribute defined,
to set the value of that attribute as a property of your widget to be a reference to the DOM element created. For
example, the template for SomeWidget (above) defines two DOM elements. The main element (the outer
div) can be referenced in your code through the property
domNode, and the inner
div element can be referenced in your code through the property
Normally, the root node of your template becomes the
domNode property of your widget,
so you wouldn't normally include an attach point attribute in your definition. However, sometimes this is done in
the template to allow the root node to also function with other subsystems, such as Dijit's focus manager.
containerNode Attach Point
Dijit also defines a "magical" attach point called a containerNode. The basic concept of a container node is to provide some place for any additional markup to go if a widget is created declaratively. For example, given the template for SomeWidget:

We might use it in declarative markup like so:

This is arbitrary content!

More arbitrary content!

When the Dojo parser traverses the document, it will find our example widget and instantiate it — and as part of that instantiation, any markup inside the widget will be appended to the containerNode. So when the widget is finished with its startup, the resulting DOM will look like this:

Our Some Widget

This is arbitrary content!

More arbitrary content!

Note that we removed some of the custom attributes for brevity; Dijit does not remove them when rendering templates.
Also be aware that if you embed other widget definitions in the main markup, and your widget has a
containerNode attach point, any widgets will be instantiated inside the container node. For example,
the following is a typical scenario when assembling an application:

This is arbitrary content!

My Button

More arbitrary content!

Event Attachments
In addition to attach points, the Dijit template system gives you a way of attaching native DOM events to methods
in your custom widget. It does this through the use of the HTML5 data attribute
data-dojo-attach-event. This is a comma-delimited string of key/value pairs (separated by colon); the
key is the native DOM event to attach a handler to, and the value is the name of your widget's method to execute
when that event is fired. If only a single event needs to be handled, omit a trailing comma. For example, here's
dojo-data-attach-event attribute defined on Dijit's MenuBarItem:
When your widget is instantiated and the DOM fragment is created from your template, the Dijit template system will
then go through any attached event definitions and "auto-magically" wire these events (using
from the resulting DOM and your widget object — making it incredibly simple to wire your visual
representation to your controlling code. In addition, when those event handlers are fired, the same arguments
normally passed by the native DOM event mechanism will be passed along to your widget's handler so that you have
full access to what the browser is reporting.
Also, we want to use the
dijit/_OnDijitClickMixin which adds in a modified event that supports more functionality than the standard DOM
onclick event. Therefore we need to modify our widget declaration:
define([ "dojo/_base/declare", "dijit/_WidgetBase", "dijit/_OnDijitClickMixin", "dijit/_TemplatedMixin", "dojo/text!./templates/SomeWidget.html" ], function(declare, _WidgetBase, _OnDijitClickMixin, _TemplatedMixin, template) { return declare([_WidgetBase, _OnDijitClickMixin, _TemplatedMixin], { templateString: template // any custom code goes here }); });
We also need to modify our widget template:

And our container:

View Demo
_WidgetsInTemplateMixin Mixin
Finally, Dijit's template system allows you to create more complex widgets from templates through the use of the
_WidgetsInTemplateMixin mixin. This mixin tells the template system that your template has other widgets
in it and to instantiate them when your widget is instantiated.
For example, let's modify both our declaration to always include a Dijit button:
define([ "dojo/_base/declare", "dijit/_WidgetBase", "dijit/_OnDijitClickMixin", "dijit/_TemplatedMixin", "dijit/_WidgetsInTemplateMixin", "dijit/form/Button", "dojo/text!./templates/SomeWidget.html" ], function(declare, _WidgetBase, _OnDijitClickMixin, _TemplatedMixin, _WidgetsInTemplateMixin, Button, template) { return declare("example.SomeWidget", [_WidgetBase, _OnDijitClickMixin, _TemplatedMixin, _WidgetsInTemplateMixin ], { templateString: template // your custom code goes here }); });
And then we would create a template like:

 My Button

Notice that in our modified template, we've added an attach point called
buttonWidget along with the
button's markup. This is an additional bonus of Dijit's attach point system; because the definition in question
is to be a widget, the added property to our widget —
myWidget.buttonWidget — will be a
reference to the actual button widget, and not a reference to a DOM element. This allows you to
create "uber-widgets" out of simpler building blocks, such as a widget to view a list of emails, a toolbar that
has preset widgets in it, and a lot more.
Also, notice that you should require in any widgets into the module that are used by the template. You cannot take
advantage of the "auto-require" feature of the
dojo/parser introduced in Dojo 1.8 with widget
templates because the creation life-cycle is synchronous but the auto-require feature has to run
Unless you have an explicit need to define widgets in your templates, don't mixin
dijit/_WidgetsInTemplateMixin. The extra overhead that it incurs can affect the performance of the
widget, and your application, if overused.
In this tutorial, we've learned about Dijit's powerful template system as implemented by the mixins
_TemplatedMixin and
_WidgetsInTemplateMixin, and how you can use this system to quickly
create your own custom widgets for use in your applications. We've reviewed how the template system's attach
points and event attachments allow you to quickly bind DOM elements to your code, and how to replace
values in your template — as well as how to include other widgets in your widget template to create
Happy widget building!


text:
You are currently browsing the tag archive for the 'Governors Meeting' tag.
PHILADELPHIA – Vice President Cheney always seemed to relish working in the shadows. After all, he's the one who popularized the term "undisclosed location." But that doesn't seem to suit his successor.
Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. appeared glad to be out in public on Tuesday when he joined President-elect Barack Obama in meeting with the nation's governors here. In the month since the election, he has been the mostly silent sidekick, joining Mr. Obama in private meetings and standing behind him wordlessly during news conferences.
But this week, Mr. Biden looks to be unleashed, at least a little bit. He was given a speaking role both at the unveiling of the national security team in Chicago on Monday and then again during the meeting with the National Governors' Association here on Tuesday. By word count, he even had somewhat more to say to the governors than Mr. Obama did.
And then there was that little moment that may or may not have been revealing. At one point during his remarks, Mr. Biden noted the presence of his former opponent, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, and greeted her warmly.
"Since the race is over, no one pays attention to me at all," Mr. Biden said. "So maybe you will walk outside with me or something later and say hello to me."
Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska spoke at The Republican Governors Association in Miami on Thursday
MIAMI — Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska did something here on Thursday that she did not do in her entire campaign as the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee: she stood behind a lectern and held a news conference. She was asked what had changed.
"The campaign is over," she said.
Granted, the question and answer session lasted only four minutes, and for only four questions. As she stood on a stage in a hotel overlooking Biscayne Bay, surrounded by 12 fellow governors, Ms. Palin was asked what message she hoped to get across.
"I'm trying to convey the message that Republican governors are a unique team," said Ms. Palin, who said she was uninterested in discussing the campaign.
But Ms. Palin did allow herself a look back after the brief news conference ended, as she addressed a session of the Republican Governors Association and told them that she had managed to keep busy since their last conference.
"I had a baby, I did some traveling, I very briefly expanded my wardrobe, I made a few speeches, I met a few VIPS, including those who really impact society, like Tina Fey," she said.
And yes, she spoke again of "Joe the Plumber," the Ohio man who briefly dominated the McCain-Palin campaign and its talk about taxes.
Ms. Palin thanked the people who attended her rallies, including young women she hopes she has influenced.
"I am going to remember all the young girls who came up to me at rallies to see the first woman having the privilege of carrying our party's VP nomination," she said. "We're going to work harder, we're going to be stronger, we're going to do better and one day, one of them will be the president."
That raised again the question surrounding Ms. Palin since the election ended: will she run in 2012?
"The future is not that 2012 Presidential race, it's next year and our next budgets," she said. It is in 2010, she said, that "we'll have 36 governors positions open."
Ms. Palin tried to downplay her celebrity (even after a week in which she was featured in interviews on NBC, FOX News and CNN). In her speech, she tried to change the focus from herself to the work that Republican governors must now do, including developing energy resources to health care reform.
"I am not going to assume that the answer is for the federal government to just take it over and try to run America's health care system," Ms. Palin said. "Heaven forbid."
She implored her fellow Republican governors to "show the federal government the way," while also reforming their own party.
"We are the minority party. Let us resolve not to be the negative party," Ms. Palin said. "Let us build our case with actions, not just with words."
Her appearance was the highly anticipated moment of the conference, coming a day after other emerging governors spoke about the direction of the Republican Party. Entering the political wilderness after its losses this month, the group that many consider its future met to talk about what went wrong, and what to do next.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, who was very nearly Senator John McCain's running mate this year, told the decidedly subdued, post-election conference Wednesday about a revelation he had recently while looking into the bathroom mirror at his home in Minnesota.
Mr. Pawlenty said that after wearily returning from the campaign trail, he looked at himself in the mirror and complained about what he saw to his wife, Mary. "I said, 'Mary, look at me,' " he said. " 'I mean, my hairline's receding, these crow's feet and wrinkles are multiplying on my face by the day, I've been on the road eating junk food, I'm getting flabby, these love handles are flopping over the side of my belt.'
"I said, 'Is there anything you can tell me that would give me some hope, some optimism, some encouragement?' " he said. "And she looked at me and she said, 'Well, there's nothing wrong with your eyesight.' "
As his fellow governors laughed, he came to the moral of the story: "If we are going to successfully travel the road to improvement, as Republicans, we need to see clearly, and we need to speak to each other candidly about the state of our party."
The long, sometimes painful post-mortem of the election — where Republicans were widely repudiated, losing the White House and more seats in Congress — began in earnest here among Republican governors, a group that has traditionally served as a wellspring of new ideas and talent for the party. It was, at times, a bit glum.
Frank Luntz, the communications strategist, gave the Republicans a slideshow describing how Republicans have just endured their worst back-to-back elections since 1930 and 1932. And Mr. Luntz said that the prospect of sharing his polling research with a group of Republicans gave him pause. "I understand how Dr. Kevorkian feels at an AARP convention," he said.
Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, another rising star in the party who is considered potential presidential fodder, said that the party needed to recapture the high ground on the ethics and good government, and that it could draw lessons from the high-tech campaign that Barack Obama waged.
"We should learn from that," Mr. Jindal said.
Mr. Pawlenty kicked off the conference with a somewhat gloomy appraisal of where things stand for the Republican Party.
"We cannot be a majority governing party when we essentially cannot compete in the Northeast, we are losing our ability to compete in Great Lakes States, we cannot compete on the West Coast, we are increasingly in danger of competing in the Mid-Atlantic States, and the Democrats are now winning some of the Western States," he said. "That is not a formula for being a majority governing party in this nation."
"And similarly we cannot compete, and prevail, as a majority governing party if we have a significant deficit, as we do, with women, where we have a large deficit with Hispanics, where we have a large deficit with African-American voters, where we have a large deficit with people of modest incomes and modest financial circumstances," he said. "Those are not factors that make up a formula for success going forward."
"There will be calls, and voices across the country for Republicans to return to traditional conservative approaches in almost all respects," he said, adding that there would also be calls to modernize the party.
"The good news is both are true, and both can be harmonized in my view," Mr. Pawlenty said. "We can be both conservative and we can be modern at the same time."


text:
Here's an archive post originally published March 30, 2010 (if you've received two notifications of this, I apologize – I'm reposting it for the second time today, because I don't think the e-mail notifications worked the first time):
The best yard sale ad I ever saw was in a Moncton newspaper many years ago…it gave the pertinent details of the sale, followed by this: "Early birds will be ignored." My kind of vendor! There's nothing more frustrating than arriving at a sale at the advertised start time, only to find that vultures have picked all the best meat off the bones!
I've been going to yard sales/house sales/flea markets/auctions since I was small…we'd get up many Saturday mornings, and head for a nearby farm auction. At one of these, my brother and I decided we'd really like to have a calf, but Dad convinced us that our mom would have a COW if he came home with one! On Sunday drives, I remember us sitting in the car as Mom looked angrily at her watch waiting for Dad to stop talking to some stranger who had something to sell (my mom caught the yard sale bug much later in life, after she started collecting and selling Sherman jewellery). In the late '70's, Dad started setting up his own stall at flea markets (he collected sealers and pretty much anything to do with farming, as well as books).
After I was married and had kids, going yard-saling was an inexpensive outing for a Saturday…we lived in Moncton and didn't have a car then…we walked to all the sales we attended. I'd set the alarm early, pack up the kids, and off we'd go, with a carefully-planned list of sales we wanted to get to and their start times. I mostly bought books, clothes and toys then, although I would keep my eyes open for bells/wooden boxes for my mom's collections.
We moved to Saint John in late 1997, and continued our yard-saling habit…since opening the bookstore in the summer of 2000, we also started looking for old/local books on our Saturday mornings. We go to the Sussex Flea Market every summer, where over 1000 vendors set up outside to sell everything from antlers to zinnias. I started training my middle daughter, Anna, how to "pick" old books at age 8, and today, at 15, she definitely has "the eye"…she knows what to take and what to leave behind!
I even yard-sale on vacation…I was in Belleville, Ontario for a college reunion, and went to a few sales in the east end where the beautiful old homes are. Lying on the grass, I spied a beautiful Native Canadian print that I wanted as a gift for my best friend, who is of aboriginal descent. As I leaned over to pick it up, someone with faster fingers snatched it out from under me…after shooting her a look that should have caused her to at least feel faint (it didn't seem to have any effect), I let her have it…
I was tramping around the West Side of Saint John, when I found a gorgeous pen and ink drawing of a farmhouse – I liked it because it reminded me of my grandma's house. The problem was that it was huge – about 2′ x 3′, and I was on foot. It was also in the most hideous frame I'd ever seen, with floral wallpaper acting as a homemade mat. I asked the woman how much it was – $8! I told myself that I would go to one more sale around the corner and then come back…if the drawing was still there, I'd buy it and call a cab to get home. I was lucky that day…I forked over the money and took my prize home. The next day, I called my friend, Amy, who has a frame shop on the West Side, Amy's Custom Framing. We made a barter deal for a proper frame and mat – $150 worth. Amy did a beautiful job on the artwork, and I hung it over the fireplace in my living room. I've never been able to determine the artist's name – I assume it's local though.
Since moving to Hammond River a little over a year ago, yard-saling has been more difficult…I don't have a driver's license, and Jim doesn't like getting up early. However, I was able to make the rounds at the Quispamsis Community Yard Sale last spring. He even started to get into it, especially after one lady started giving us stuff! I was buying a computer chair ($10) from her, and Jim had two routers ($2 each). She pointed out the "free pile," which contained a dehumidifier and two boxes of computer network cable that Jim said were sold retail for about $1 a foot! We grabbed them! Other finds that day were an apple peeler for $3; a gooseneck pole lamp for $5; two non-stick muffin pans for $1 each; a laptop bag for $2 for my stepdaughter, Brianna; a pair of Robeez baby shoes for $5 and a nursing pillow for $4 for my unborn granddaughter; and several books. My daughters, Anna and Hope, got a High School Musical dance game. Hope even picked up a stuffed teddy bear for our dog, Jake, which he wasted no time destroying! A month or so later, we went to the Hampton Community Yard Sale, and got a good haul of books, but not much else.


text:
News Story
Court Rulings Add Urgency to State Exchange Decisions
Mel Evans/AP2013
Rachael Richardson, left, helps Louis Peters at a health center in Trenton, N.J., as he fills out papers to sign up for health insurance through the state's federally-assisted exchange. New Jersey is one of 36 states that has deferred to the federal government to run its exchange. A recent court decision could jeopardize billions in premium subsidies for residents of those states. (AP)
As states ready their health insurance exchanges for a second open enrollment season in November, many have more to worry about than the computer glitches that plagued them last year.
Last month's federal appeals court ruling that said language in the Affordable Care Act allows only state-run exchanges to give consumers tax credits to help pay for policy premiums is spurring several states to solidify their state-based credentials.
"Until now, it was inconsequential what you were called," said Larry Levitt, vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. "All of a sudden, it may matter."
Only the District of Columbia and 14 states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington — have established state exchanges and are on firm legal ground, according the decision, Halbig v. Burwell.
Consumers in the remaining 36 states that use the federal exchange ultimately could be blocked from future premium subsidies if the U.S. Supreme Court sides with Obamacare opponents. At stake is discounted insurance coverage for more than 7 million people and access to federal subsidies amounting to billion in 2016, according to a study by the Urban Institute.
The July 22 decision by the federal court of appeals in Washington, D.C., struck down an Internal Revenue Service rule that authorizes payment of tax subsidies for policy premiums in states that rely on the federal insurance exchange. The court strictly interpreted language in the law that says individuals can apply for tax subsidies at "state" exchanges.
The same day, another federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, took the opposite view, ruling that despite the glitch in the drafting of the law, Congress intended that consumers in all states, regardless of the legal status of their exchanges, could receive subsidies. Two other cases on premium subsidies and federal exchanges are pending in federal district courts in Oklahoma and Indiana.
In all of the cases, plaintiffs argue that the ACA refers only to state exchanges, not federal exchanges, in its provision calling for subsidies. Qualifying individuals, the law says, can receive subsidies toward the purchase of health insurance "through an exchange established by the state."
ACA supporters argue there is no evidence that Congress ever intended to exclude consumers who live in states that failed to establish their own exchange and defaulted to using the federal exchange.
Oregon, which secured state exchange credentials in 2011, decided earlier this year to let the federal government take over its day-to-day website operations after experiencing some of the worst technical difficulties in the country last fall. Nevada did the same thing for the same reasons, and Massachusetts is contemplating it as well.
Officials in those states say they plan to take back their sites in the future, while maintaining overall legal authority for them in the meantime. Legal experts agree that the exchanges in all three of those states are technically state-based exchanges.
Opinions differ, however, on whether Idaho and New Mexico, which received state-exchange status from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services too late to build their own websites, qualify as state exchanges.
The Richmond panel included New Mexico and Idaho in its list of states that ran their own exchanges, but the Halbig decision did not. Idaho's exchange group issued a statement saying it will continue to operate its "state-based exchange" for the 2014 open enrollment period. New Mexico exchange officials decided to postpone taking over operation of its exchange until next year's open season.
No Easy Fix
The question is when does an exchange legally become a "state" exchange? According to Timothy Jost, a health law professor at Washington and Lee University, it is when state lawmakers or the executive branch appoints a state entity, such as a government agency or nonprofit organization, to run its exchange.
In theory, Jost said, that state entity could then contract with the federal government to use the federal HealthCare.gov insurance marketplace, and it would be considered a state exchange. Under Jost's definition, New Mexico and Idaho are clearly in the state exchange column since they both named state entities to take charge of their exchanges.
Unflagging political opposition to the ACA over the four years since its enactment has made it difficult for governors who want to establish state exchanges to get their legislatures to agree. That's why only the District of Columbia and the 14 states, most run by Democratic governors, have been able to set up their own exchanges.
Under the ACA, there is no deadline for states to let the federal government know they want to run their own exchanges. The administration has so far accommodated every request, provided the state had a reasonable plan for running its insurance marketplace. But there is a deadline of mid-November for states to receive additional federal money to complete their exchanges. After that, states are on their own financially.
If the case against the health law is accepted for consideration by the Supreme Court, and many expect it will be, a decision won't come until 2016. That gives states time to reconsider operating their own exchanges when most legislatures reconvene next year. Premium subsidies to consumers are expected to remain unchanged until that time.
In a gray area are seven states — Arkansas, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, New Hampshire and West Virginia — that have entered a partnership with the federal government to operate their exchanges. For legal purposes, those exchanges are currently considered federal exchanges, although the states do their own marketing and outreach under the partnership.
Arkansas is preparing to ask the federal government for state exchange status, and lawmakers in Illinois are trying to get agreement within the state to do the same thing.
For states that have not established legal authority to run their own exchanges, there is still time. But if this legislative season is any indicator, there may not be a flood of new applicants anytime soon.
According to a July 20 report from the National Conference of State Legislatures, bills were introduced in Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin to change their exchanges from federal to state-administered. No bills became law.
Maine lawmakers passed a bill, but Republican Gov. Paul LePage vetoed it. State exchange bills are pending in New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania, where legislatures are open until the end of the year. For lawmakers on the fence, the prospect of losing millions in federal tax subsidies could make a difference.
"There are a lot of similarities between the exchange decision and the Medicaid expansion," Kaiser's Levitt said. "Lawmakers will be under a lot of pressure from providers and insurers in the state to keep the money flowing."
Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.


text:
My efficient Errorstat Blogpeople1 have put forward the following 3 reader-contributed interpretive efforts2 as a result of the "deconstruction" exercise from December 11, (mine, from the earlier blog, is at the end) of what I consider:
"….an especially intriguing remark by Jim Berger that I think bears upon the current mindset (Jim is aware of my efforts):
Too often I see people pretending to be subjectivists, and then using "weakly informative" priors that the objective Bayesian community knows are terrible and will give ridiculous answers; subjectivism is then being used as a shield to hide ignorance. . . . In my own more provocative moments, I claim that the only true subjectivists are the objective Bayesians, because they refuse to use subjectivism as a shield against criticism of sloppy pseudo-Bayesian practice. (Berger 2006, 463)" (From blogpost, Dec. 11, 2011)
Andrew Gelman:
The statistics literature is big enough that I assume there really is some bad stuff out there that Berger is reacting to, but I think that when he's talking about weakly informative priors, Berger is not referring to the work in this area that I like, as I think of weakly informative priors as specifically being designed to give answers that are _not_ "ridiculous."
Keeping things unridiculous is what regularization's all about, and one challenge of regularization (as compared to pure subjective priors) is that the answer to the question, What is a good regularizing prior?, will depend on the likelihood. There's a lot of interesting theory and practice relating to weakly informative priors for regularization, a lot out there that goes beyond the idea of noninformativity.
To put it another way: We all know that there's no such thing as a purely noninformative prior: any model conveys some information. But, more and more, I'm coming across applied problems where I wouldn't want to be noninformative even if I could, problems where some weak prior information regularizes my inferences and keeps them sane and under control.
Finally, I think subjectivity and objectivity both are necessary parts of research. Science is objective in that it aims for reproducible findings that exist independent of the observer, and it's subjective in that the process of science involves many individual choices. And I think the statistics I do (mostly, but not always, using Bayesian methods) is both objective and subjective in that way. That said, I think I see where Berger is coming from: objectivity is a goal we are aiming for, whereas subjectivity is an unavoidable weakness that we try to minimize. I think weakly informative priors are, or can be, as objective as many other statistical choices, such as assumptions of additivity, linearity, and symmetry, choices of functional forms such as in logistic regression, and so forth. I see no particular purity in fitting a model with unconstrained parameter space: to me, it is just as scientifically objective, if not more so, to restrict the space to reasonable values. It often turns out that soft constraints work better than hard constraints, hence the value of continuous and proper priors. I agree with Berger that objectivity is a desirable goal, and I think we can get closer to that goal by stating our assumptions clearly enough that they can be defended or contradicted by scientific theory and data—a position to which I expect Deborah Mayo would agree as well.
This comment was published in Bayesian analysis which has an obviously specialist audience, the two articles and the comments on the two articles reveals a near unanimous preference for subjective Bayes as the foundations of statistics. To this narrow specialist audience "subjective" is a complement, an idealized limiting case of an optimal statistical analysis. If you have a philosophical objection to subjective Bayes (or Bayes in general) as the foundations of statistics then you are really far outside the target audience and understandably the comment will be opaque.
I think Berger is saying that an objective Bayesian might understand the consequences of diffuse priors better than a subjective Bayesian, he is probably employing both Bayesian and non-Bayesian criteria to investigate the consequence of priors, making objective Bayes a bit of a piece meal "theory". My reading of the article is that Berger is a subjectivist, who is promoting tools outside standard subjective Bayesian theory (objective Bayes and frequentist) on practical grounds, it is interesting that the more extreme objective Bayes arguments of Jefreys and Jaynes seem to be largely abandoned now.
Of course the article reveals differences in Bayesians, but I think also reveals a remarkable convergence of opinion. Subjective Bayes is the foundations of statistics, but in an operational sense fully specifying subjective probabilities and then conditioning on observables is not remotely practical. Berger and Goldstein suggest different tools for dealing with this problem and the debate is largely carried out within this context (excluding Wasserman's comments).
My guess is that there is a typo, and Berger meant to say "the only true objectivists are the objective Bayesians…" in the quote above. Mystery solved!
Deborah Mayo (from blogpost, December 11, 2011):
How might we deconstruct this fantastic remark of Berger's?5 (Granted, this arises in his rejoinder to others, but this only heightens my interest in analyzing it.)
Here, "objective Bayesians" are understood as using (some scheme) of default or conventionally derived priors. One aspect of his remark is fairly clear: pseudo-Bayesian practice allows "terrible" priors to be used, and it would be better for them to appeal to conventional "default" priors that at least will not be so terrible (but in what respect?). It is the claim he makes in his "more provocative moments" that really invites deconstruction. Why would using the recommended conventional priors make them more like "true subjectivists"? I can think of several reasons—but none is really satisfactory, and all are (interestingly) perplexing. I am reminded of Sartre's remarks in Being and Nothingness on bad faith and irony:
"In irony a man annihilates what he posits within one and the same act; he leads us to believe in order not to be believed; he affirms to deny and denies to affirm; he creates a positive object but it has no being other than its nothingness." (Sartre)
So true! (Of course I am being ironic!) Back to teasing out what's behind Berger's remarks.
Now, it would seem that if she did use priors that correctly reflected her beliefs (call these priors "really informed by subjective opinions"(riso?), and that satisfied the Bayesian formal coherency requirements, then that would be defensible for a subjective Bayesian. But Berger notices that, in actuality, many Bayesians (the pseudo-Bayesians) do not use riso priors. Rather, they use various priors (the origin of which they're unsure of) as if these really reflected their subjective judgments. In doing so, she (thinks that she) doesn't have to justify them—she claims that they reflect subjective judgments (and who can argue with them?).
According to Berger here, the Bayesian community (except for the pseudo-Bayesians?) knows that they're terrible, according to a shared criterion (is it non-Bayesian? Frequentist?). But I wonder: if, as far as the agent knows, these priors really do reflect the person's beliefs, then would they still be terrible? It seems not. Or, if they still would be terrible, doesn't that suggest a distinct criterion other than using "really informed" (as far as the agent knows) opinions or beliefs?
Berger, J. (2006),"The Case for Objective Bayesian Analysis", and "Rejoinder", Bayesian Analysis 1(3), 385–402; 457-464.
Sartre, J.P Being and Nothingness: an essay in phenomenological ontology (1943, Gallimard); English 1956, Philosophical Library Inc.
[1] This is totally unrelated, I think, but the crew from Elba have wanted me to blog about some symbiotic worm one of them studies in Elba. I don't know if there is a suggestion of an analogy between a symbiotic relationship between objective and subjective Bayesians , but I really prefer not to blog about worms, or even think about them (this footnote is all**). The truth is, I used to dig for worms with my brother when we were kids, but then had some bad experiences in Ferndale one summer. Sorry guys, start a blob blog of your own.
**Here's a website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxEC4CVswYI
[2] Strictly speaking, you could submit your creative attempts by Wednesday, Dec. 28, and of course, you can always comment, as I will. There were 4 other contributions which are fine as comments, more than deconstructions.


text:
It seems pretty likely that this is the first touchdown on the opening kickoff in football history to be scored by the kicking team, right? Ah, Arena Football.
Here's the sequence of events: Iowa Barnstormers kicker Ross Gornall doinks the opening kickoff off the bottom of the frame that holds up Arena Football's two nets (designed to give returning teams a chance to bring back missed kicks); the ball bounces out to the 10-yard-line, where it caroms off another player; it bounces up in the air, just high enough for Barnstormers receiver Darius Reynolds to snag it and score a touchdown; all of the hilarity of a local broadcast of an Arena Football game trying to wrap its head around something incredible ensues.
This all transpired last Friday night, and the San Antonio Talons compounded getting scored on by the kick coverage team by going down 20-7 in the second quarter. But the Barnstormers' kicking luck was clearly all spent on the game's first play: A failed extra point in the first quarter left them needing a field goal late, and San Antonio blocked that kick to preserve a 35-34 win.


text:
The world is a mess and it looks like it is only going to get worse. Even if the present problems simply fester, that would be horrid enough but we cannot but pray for such good fortune. Turkey's Erdogan has plans of reconstituting the Ottoman Empire. Erdogan is starting smaller than the Ottoman Empire stretching across MENA (Middle East North Africa) and only including small areas of Syria and Iraq. He designs on taking care of some trouble spots including Aleppo and Mosul while also eradicating the Kurds in a manner likely resembling their solution for their former 'problem' of the Armenians or the Greeks or any others who have had the temerity to stand against Turkish Islamic superiority. The new map in Turkish texts is below and shows the initial expansions Erdogan seeks. They are taking advantage of their special units they have positioned north of Mosul under the pretense of security against anti-Turkish elements. These new lands are being incorporated as Erdogan stands to throw out recognition of the Treaty of Lausanne claiming that Turkey has the rights to these lands due to the National Pact which also includes Kirkuk. Erdogan has also shown interest in some Grecian owned islands, which is dangerous as what is Greece but a collection of islands. What next, Islamic State and Jordan?
While in the area of the Middle East we can list a few other spots which have differing potentials for exploding at any point in time, any day of the week, may those days be lost into distant times that never arrive. Islamic State has made their principle to find more and more horrid and gross means of slaughtering innocents simply for being different in even the slightest of ways. They have taken to slaughtering Muslims as they have run out of any of the others they took such pleasure of torturing while robbing them of their lives. Jordan is suffering from many refugees from the Syrian debacle which they are caring for as best as they are capable. They receive additional assistance of natural gas and other needful things from an unlikely source, one who need remain unannounced and unrecognized though all know and understand that friend is Israel. Remarkable that with all the Islamic nations who claim friendship and alliance with Jordan as members of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) with all their oil wealth yet they give no assistance for the care of the refugees, refuse to take in even a single Syrian refugee while demanding the rest of the world show kindness which they refuse to spare themselves. Perhaps this is the great plan; push enough Muslims into the West that they can tear democracies down from within. This is what the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic organizations backed by many Islamic governments and has been a preferable and useful manner of Jihad over the years. There is even a name for this subversive means of disruption and conquest, it is Civilizational Jihad. You would think that at least one leader in the Western World would identify this problem and perhaps suggest a plan to address this threat, or at least label this a challenge. We live and hope somewhere outside of Israel someone will wake up and smell the Dracunculus Vulgaris, also called a Voodoo Lily (pictured below), with an appropriately unpleasant aroma, really unpleasant. Of course any mention that this might actually be real problem, a real situation, is automatically labelled as being racist and is ridiculed as if there was no historical reference to such methods.
Then there is the one news item which is sucking the oxygen out of the rest of the news cycle, the United States elections, especially the Presidential free-for-all. The polls tell a story, well, two stories depending on which polling organization to which you listen. The only candidates the polls are able to rule out are the 'third party' candidates, who include the following names and parties but may not be limited to Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party, Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party, plus five from small parties who have the most remote of chances and dozens more with absolutely no possibility but might actually make better alternatives than the top two candidates. This election has been the most raucous, illiberal, shrill, fiercely contested and in many ways the most unprofessional and unclassical of any election in modern history. What would probably be beyond the belief of most Americans is the rancor and mean-spirited accusations that pale compared to some rhetoric from the earliest of United States elections. One of the most famous was the obscene accusations from John Adams and Thomas Jefferson campaigns in the election of 1800 and 1808. The campaigning in both elections was dirty, bordering libelous and filled with sexual innuendo accusations back and forth which can be found with minimal research on the net with an introduction here. Theirs was just the juiciest and most severe campaign filled with slurs and crass accusations which make Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump seem to be holding a seniors' tea social.
The other international news story consuming the remaining oxygen not eaten by the American elections has been the decision by UNESCO that the Temple Mount and most if not all of the Old City of Jerusalem are Islamic holy sites with no Jewish, and also Christian, history. This should be no surprise as UNESCO has referred to numerous ancient Jewish and Israelite sites throughout the region as being Islamic Mosques including but not limited to Rachel's Tomb and Cave of the Patriarchs. As the Islamic and third world nations, most of which being dictatorships with poor actual human rights records, though don't expect the United Nations to notice, have an unsinkable majority in virtually every corner of the United Nations arms and agencies as well as the General Assembly only lacking complete control due to the Security Council, but they are working on forcing a restructuring. Abba Eban, Israeli diplomat, former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations and held numerous positions in the Israeli government during his career once quipped, "If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions." The numbers were slightly off but the entire gist of his statement was valid as valid can be. UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova wrote that she believes in the 3,500 year-old connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, and promised to work against anti-Semitic and anti-Israel activism as part of her letter rejecting and expressing regret over the ruling. Unfortunately that ruling remains standing and will be the world body's official position until, if ever, repealed.
Finally, it need be mentioned a few odds and ends which need no explanations or are fairly unimportant for now but may prove highly important down the road. Rumors continue to float around that President Obama will place a motion setting the Green Line as the border for a Palestinian state when or if such ever comes to fruition. This will probably depend on whether Hillary Clinton wins the election to carry forward President Obama's slights and campaigns against Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, and Israel herself. Talking of Ms. Clinton, she is rumored to have moved a $1.8 billion transfer from the Clinton Foundation to the Qatar Central Bank. Further, the Clintons have their own luxurious hidey-hole, a $200 Million Maldives Estate pictured below. At least we know where she and Bill will be running to should Hillary lose the election. Oh, if she wins we also know where the personal e-mail server will be located.
And let us end with a positive piece of news from a few weeks back. Blue Origin tested their escape system for their space vehicle which landed with adequate results but that was almost secondary to what followed. Even the company engineers believed the second part of the test would probably fail. That part of the test must be witnessed to believe so the video is below. Prepare to be blown away.
Beyond the Cusp


text:
The strings returned by gettext and friends are by default encoded in the preferred charset for the user's locale, but there is no portable way to find out, whether this is utf-8 or not. That means, you either have to enforce utf-8 as the output character set (by means of bind_textdomain_codeset() and/or the environment variable OUTPUT_CHARSET) and override the user preference, or you run the risk of marking strings as utf-8 which really aren't utf-8.
The whole concept behind that utf-8 flag introduced in Perl 5.6 is seriously broken, and the above described dilemma is a proof for that. The best thing you can do with that flag is get rid of it, and turn it off. Your code will benefit from it and become less error prone, more portable and faster.
BEGIN { bind_textdomain_filter 'org.bar.foo', \&turn_utf_8_on; bind_textdomain_codeset 'org.bar.foo', 'utf-8'; }
See the File GTestRunner.pm of Test::Unit::GTestRunner(3pm) for details.
use POSIX qw (setlocale LC_ALL); my $language = 'fr'; my $country = 'FR'; my $charset = 'iso-8859-1'; setlocale LC_ALL, "${language}_$country.$charset";
Sadly enough, this will fail in many cases. The problem is that locale identifiers are not standardized and are completely system-dependent. Not only their overall format, but also other details like case-sensitivity. Some systems are very forgiving about the system - for example normalizing charset descriptions - others very strict. In order to be reasonably platform independent, you should try a list of possible locale identifiers for your desired settings. This is about what I would try for achieving the above:
my @tries = qw ( fr_FR.iso-8859-1 fr_FR.iso8859-1 fr_FR.iso88591 fr_FR.ISO-8859-1 fr_FR.ISO8859-1 fr_FR.ISO88591 fr.iso-8859-1 fr.iso8859-1 fr.iso88591 fr.ISO-8859-1 fr.ISO8859-1 fr.ISO88591 fr_FR French_France.iso-8859-1 French_France.iso8859-1 French_France.iso88591 French_France.ISO-8859-1 French_France.ISO8859-1 French_France.ISO88591 French.iso-8859-1 French.iso8859-1 French.iso88591 French.ISO-8859-1 French.ISO8859-1 French.ISO88591 ); foreach my $try (@tries) { last if setlocale LC_ALL, $try; }
Set Locale::Util(3pm) for functions that help you with this.
Alternatively, you can force a certain language by setting the environment variables LANGUAGE, LANG and OUTPUT_CHARSET, but this is only guaranteed to work, if you use the pure Perl implementation of gettext (see the documentation for select_package() in Locale::Messages(3pm)). You would do the above like this:
use Locale::Messages qw (nl_putenv); # LANGUAGE is a colon separated list of languages. nl_putenv("LANGUAGE=fr_FR"); # If LANGUAGE is set, LANG should be set to the primary language. # This is not needed for gettext, but for other parts of the system # it is. nl_putenv("LANG=fr_FR"); # Force an output charset like this: nl_putenv("OUTPUT_CHARSET=iso-8859-1"); setlocale (LC_MESSAGES, 'C');
These environment variables are GNU extensions, and they are also honored by libintl-perl. Still, you should always try to set the locale with setlocale for the catch-all category LC_ALL. If you miss to do so, your program's output maybe cluttered, mixing languages and charsets, if the system runs in a locale that is not compatible with your own language settings.
Remember that these environment variables are not guaranteed to work, if you use an XS version of gettext. In order to force usage of the pure Perl implementation, do the following:
Locale::Messages->select_package ('gettext_pp');
If you think, this is brain-damaged, you are right, but I cannot help you. Actually there should be a more flexible API than setlocale, but at the time of this writing there isn't. Until then, the recommentation goes like this:
1) Try setting LC_ALL with Locale::Util. 2) If that does not succeed, either give up or ... 3) Reset LC_MESSAGES to C/POSIX. 4) Switch to pure Perl for gettext. 5) Set the environment variables LANGUAGE, LANG, and OUTPUT_CHARSET to your desired values.
Locale::Maketext claims to fix design flaws in gettext. These alleged design flaws, however, boil down to one pathological case which always has a workaround. But both programmers and translators pay this fix with an unnecessarily complicated interface.
The paramount advantage of libintl-perl is that it uses an approved technology and concept. Except for Java(tm) programs, this is the state-of-the-art concept for localizing Un*x software. Programmers that have already localized software in C, C++, C#, Python, PHP, or a number of other languages will feel instantly at home, when localizing software written in Perl with libintl-perl. The same holds true for the translators, because the files they deal with have exactly the same format as those for other programming languages. They can use the same set of tools, and even the commands they have to execute are the same.
With libintl-perl refactoring of the software is painless, even if you modify, add or delete translatable strings. The gettext tools are powerful enough to reduce the effort of the translators to the bare minimum. Maintaining the message catalogs of Locale::Maketext in larger scale projects, is IMHO unfeasible.
Editing the message catalogs of Locale::Maketext - they are really Perl modules - asks too much from most translators, unless they are programmers. The portable object (po) files used by libintl-perl have a simple syntax, and there are a bunch of specialized GUI editors for these files, that facilitate the translation process and hide most complexity from the user.
Furthermore, libintl-perl makes it possible to mix programming languages without a paradigm shift in localization. Without any special efforts, you can write a localized software that has modules written in C, modules in Perl, and builds a Gtk user interface with Glade. All translatable strings end up in one single message catalog.
Last but not least, the interface used by libintl-perl is plain simple: Prepend translatable strings with a double underscore, and you are done in most cases.
print __'Hello';
And you get an error message like ``Can't find string terminator '''`` anywhere before EOF at ...'', or even ``Bareword found where operator expected at ... Might be a runaway multi-line '' string starting on''. The above line is (really!) essentially the same as writing:
print __::Hello';
A lesser know feature of Perl is that you can use a single quote (``''') as the separator in packages instead of the double colon (``:''). What the Perl parser sees in the first example is a valid package name (``__'') followed by the separator (``'''), then another valid package name (``Hello'') followed by a lone single quote. It is therefore not a problem in libintl-perl but simple wrong Perl syntax. You have to correct alternatives:
print __ 'Hello'; # Insert a space to disambiguate.
Or use double-quotes:
print __"Hello";
Thanks to Slavi Agafonkin for pointing me to the solution of this mystery.
If you are using Locale::Messages or Locale::Gettext for localizing Perl code, the default keywords and default flags built into xgettext are correct.
If you are using Locale::TextDomain you have to use a long plethora of command-line options for xgettext. Beginning with libintl-perl 1.28 you can use the library itself to produce these options:
perl -MLocale::TextDomain -e 'print Locale::TextDomain->options'
If you want to disable the use of the built-in default keywords, precede the output of the above command with '--keyword=""'. That will reset the keywords for xgettext.
xgettext --keyword=N__x --flag=N__x:1:perl-brace-format filename.pl
First of all, xgettext(1) will always set the flag correctly if the argument to N__() looks like a brace format string.
Second, you can set any flag you want on the PO entry with a source code comment:
# xgettext: no-perl-brace-format my $msg = N__("Placeholders are enclosed in {curly} braces.");
When xgettext(1) extracts the string, it will appear like this in the .pot file:
#: filename.pl:2304 #, no-perl-brace-format msgid "Placeholders are enclosed in {curly} braces." msgstr ""
No reason to pollute the namespace with N__x functions.


text:
Your sweet little baby girl is a princess and we have a huge selection of baby girl ornaments that can be traditional glass balls, whimsical characterizations or contemporary designs. No matter what your decorating style is, we have a Baby's First Christmas ornament for your new arrival that is perfect just like she is. Most of our baby girl ornaments are pink but you can find holiday red too!
Girl Ornaments
Note: some white or light colored ornament images may show a shadow that is not part of the actual ornament


text:
Name (Age): Alexis Maxwell (21)
Tribe Designation: Beauty Tribe
Current Residence: Addison, Ill.
Occupation: Student at Northwestern University
Personal Claim to Fame: Studying abroad in Ireland and visiting eight different countries while I was there. It made me more independent, adventurous and responsible.
Inspiration in Life: My mom, because she is a fearless and confident woman. My Dad, because he is smart and hardworking, and my brother, because he is my role model and pushes me to be better.
Hobbies: Traveling, watching scary movies and eating.
Pet Peeves: Guys who turn into "Stage five clingers" and people who blow their nose in public. 3 Words to Describe You: Funny, flirty and smart.
If You Could Have 3 Things on The Island What Would They Be and Why? More than one bikini-- I like to change it up; hair ties—I have a lot of hair and need to put it up for challenges, and a blanket.
SURVIVOR Contestant You Are Most Like: Hopefully Parvati, because she combined sex appeal with strategy and intelligence.
Reason for Being on SURVIVOR: My dad! He loves the show so much and would kill to be on it. I'm playing for both of us.
Why You Think You'll "Survive" SURVIVOR: My strongest asset is my background in psychology. I have studied and experimented with group dynamics and understand how to play a specific role in a group. I will also use sex appeal and flirting as a means of disguising my intelligence.
Why You Think You Will Be the Sole SURVIVOR: I have always been aware of my role in a group and know how to lead in a sneaky way. I will use my education and flirty personality to assure I'm always in a good position.
Do You Consider Yourself a Brain, a Beauty or a Brawn? I would consider myself a brain! I work my butt off at Northwestern and consider this an accomplishment that defines me.
Who Do You Think Has the Best Chance in the Game of Survivor: Brains, Beauty or Brawn? I would say beauties for the mere fact that they possess the least threatening label. No one would expect a beauty to be a challenge threat or a strategic player, so they enter the game with the smallest target on their back.
Watch Alexis' Cast Video!


text:
Let me just start by saying that I really couldn't ask for a better year in film. 2010 offered many beautiful works of art that I shall watch for years to come. That being said, it was all the more difficult to make this list based on that fact. It can always be pretty difficult making a top ten list because you always find yourself second guessing yourself and making my list of my favorite films from this year was a prime example of that occurring often. I finally was able to do it though and here it is:
10. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
In all good conscious I couldn't make this list without putting Scott Pilgrim vs. The World on it. Of course this film isn't a piece of cinematic artwork that can be considered a "masterpiece". What it is though, is a blast. Its almost impossible not to just sit down with a couple of friends and have an awesome time watching this movie. Its absolutely hilarious with out the use of vulgarity and it never fails to entertain.
9. Shutter Island
I have a feeling that due to its release date, this film will be overlooked by the Academy, but that doesn't change the fact that Shutter Island is a spectacular film. There's not much else you can expect from Martin Scorsese, but this film truly blew me away. Quite honestly, this is one of the greatest depictions of mental instability ever put on screen. Shutter Island is a film that everyone seemed to forget about, but I was never able to.
8. The King's Speech
The King's Speech is such a fascinating feel-good film that never lets up and always keeps your full-fledged attention. In a film that could easily fallen flat and felt dry, you get fantastic performances in order to entertain from beginning to heart-wrenching end. Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush make a perfect pair and you find that both are performing to the absolute best of their abilities. The King's Speech is simply a film that will please. I promise.
7. Toy Story 3
The films of pixar have never let me down. I love every last one of them, but I wasn't sure what I should expect from Toy Story 3. Though I did love Toy Story 2, I would have to say that it was my least favorite of the pixar films so I wasn't as excited for Toy Story 3 as I was for their future tales of originality. Needless to say, Toy Story 3 blew me away. It is my favorite of the series and one of the few films in history to actually bring me to tears.
6. A Prophet
Technically this film came out last year and was a huge hit at Cannes, but it wasn't available for popular viewing until this year so I put it into consideration for my list this year. A Prophet is nothing short of a gritty masterpiece and a crime tale that can be held to the caliber of any before it. A Prophet actually finds a way to be perfectly epic, while sticking to the realism and brutality of prison life. The tale of Malik's rise in a crime-driven french prison is one I will watch and enjoy for many years to come.
5. Black Swan
Black Swan is so brilliantly unique in its substance that it's almost impossible not to draw interest from it. Black Swan is so relentless in its execution that you truly never want to take your eyes off the screen. While the film pushes the envelope for all the right reasons it still manages to find a way to be breathtakingly beautiful. A film of this caliber is the only thing you could expect when you combine Darren Aronofsky and the brilliant prowess of Natalie Portman. Black Swan is a film that, based on its content, cannot go unnoticed.
4. True Grit
It's always a breath of fresh air to see good western come out nowadays, but True Grit is more than good. True Grit is a masterpiece and one that I feel should and will breath life into a dying genre. True Grit is a light-hearted and real look into the west. It was a simple enough tale, but a tale that was told to perfection. To put it simply, True Grit is a prime example of every piece of the puzzle that is film, fitting together perfectly. That might be due in part to the fact that it was reinforced by brilliant performances and directed by the greatest minds working in the industry.
3. Inception
I could write a short novel on what makes Inception one of the greatest movies, just in general, but I'll keep this a little shorter. Inception isn't a story that would've been nearly as good in book form, its not a tale I could've retained from a picture or a song. Inception is a movie made specifically for its artistic medium and it is a true example that my favorite art form is not only alive, but always will be because truly amazing films are still being made today. Inception is a gift that I accept with open arms.
Inception is a reminder to the James Cameron's of the world, and the 3D generation they're helping to create, that great films are based on soul and passion. They're not based on how much money you can spend to make your action sequences. They're based on love for the art of telling a story through a camera. Inception is an example of what an amazing film is. What else could you possibly expect from Christopher Nolan?
2. The Social Network
I know the King's Speech won the Oscar, but if any one film is remembered from 2010, it will be the always spectacular The Social Network. Like The Godfather, which tells a beautiful tale of family and power while masking its themes beneath a tale of gangsters, The Social Network tells a beautiful tale of friendship, corruption and betrayal, while masking its reverent ideals with plot about facebook. The Social Network is not a film about facebook, it's a film about humans and their nature and it is absolutely breath-taking.
What makes The Social Network so much greater than so many films before it, and keep in mind I'm not implying just this year, is that there is so much you can get out of this masterfully told tale. You've got the obviously topical and fascinating plot, but beneath that you've got a relentless character study of the protagonist, Mark Zuckerberg and on top of that, thematically you get a timeless morality tale that has been told many times in the past and will be told many times in the future. It was never this fantastic though and I have my doubts that it ever will.
1. 127 Hours
A common expression when commenting on a film is that "it's hard to put into words why I love this film so much" or something along those lines. I'm fairly certain I've used it myself at some point, but it has never been more true when I say it here. It is hard to put into words, exactly what makes 127 Hours one of the greatest films in history and that's mostly based solely on the fact that 127 Hours isn't a film you watch, but one you experience.
Like The Lord of the Rings, which takes you on an incredible journey with Sam, Frodo and all kinds of memorable characters, 127 Hours also takes you on a journey, but a very different kind. 127 Hours takes you on an emotional journey, arguably the greatest ever, with climber Aron Ralston. There are few films in history that touch on an emotional level to the caliber that 127 hours is able to because it honestly makes you feel every emotion you could think of at all the right times. With brilliant direction by Danny Boyle and the greatest performance of the year by James Franco you get a truly phenomenal look into sheer pain, imminent death and an eventual feeling of pure solace.
127 Hours shows the power of truly flawless filmmaking and exactly what a movie can do to you. It's a testament to human will and shows us that just because you're breathing doesn't mean that you're living. It is able to establish perfectly, that life is fragile and precious, so live it up today because you never know what could happen tomorrow. 127 Hours is a true example of a masterpiece in every sense.


text:
19 dogs, cat removed from north Georgia home
BALL GROUND, Ga. - Authorities in Cherokee County say a man has been arrested on animal cruelty charges after 19 dogs and a cat were removed from his home.
Investigators arrested 55-year-old Rud Tietjen Wednesday on 20 counts of animal cruelty. Susan Garcia, of the county animal shelter, told WGCL-TV that the animals housed in the man's Ball Ground home were emaciated, anemic and covered in fleas.
Investigators say a tip about barking and a smell emanating from Tietjen's property led investigators to the man and they found dog carcasses, bones, rancid meat and feces scattered across his property.
Garcia says the dogs are expected to make a full recovery and are not yet available for adoption.
It's unclear if Teitjen has an attorney.
Ball ground is about 50 miles north of downtown Atlanta.


text:
I recently came across Tungsten FSM whilst looking for an off the shelf FSM implementation. Ideally I was looking for something which was a lightweight and no-frills but robust FSM implementation, and Tungsten FSM seemed to exactly fit the bill. All configuration is done in code, so no messing around with XML files, and the […]
Tag Archives: tungsten
Tungsten FSM: A lightweight Java finite state machine library
December 5, 2010 – 6:36 pm
By James Furness | Posted in Java | Also tagged finite state machine, fsm, Java | Comments (1)


text:
Regina joined the project staff in June of 2000 after relocating from the Island of Kauai.
About the Papers Project
Featured Documents
Search Documents
Document Research Requests
Freedom's Ring
Online King Records Access
King Institute Publications
Recommended Readings
About the Institute
Visit the Institute
Our Supporters
Our Staff
Make a Gift
Gandhi-King Global Initiative
Cypress Hall D, 466 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305-4146
P: (650) 723-2092 | F: (650) 723-2093 | email@example.com | Campus Map
The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. Please contact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. at email@example.com or 404 526-8968. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice.
© Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305.