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The riches of ISIS 9
The Islamic State is a state, whether the world likes it or not (and its doesn't). A state is populated territory governed by an authority which is able to enforce its will internally and hold off its enemies. IS/ISIS/ISIL is fully able to do that. It is doing it. (Though being at war, its borders are not yet firmly established.) It does not require recognition by other states, nor to be a member of the ludicrous United Nations.
What is more, it is a rich state.
From the Heritage Foundation:
The army of radical Islamists [IS/ISIS/ISIL] controls production of 30,000 barrels of oil a day in Iraq and 50,000 barrels in Syria. By selling the oil on the black market at a discounted price of $40 per barrel (compared to about $93 per barrel in the free market), ISIS takes in $3.2 million a day. …
The oil revenue, which amounts to nearly $100 million each month, allows ISIS to fund its military and terrorist attacks — and to attract more recruits from around the world, including America.
According to James Phillips, veteran expert in Middle Eastern affairs at The Heritage Foundation:
ISIS sells oil to consumers in territory it controls, roughly the size of Maryland, inside Syria and Iraq. The terrorist group also sells oil to a network of smugglers that developed in the 1990s during Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's rule; that network smuggled oil out of Iraq into Turkey to avoid sanctions imposed by the United Nations.
ISIS also reportedly sells oil, through middlemen, to the Assad regime in Syria that is trying to quell rebellion there. When it comes to making a fast buck, the Middle East has no shortage of "strange bedfellows" willing to do business with each other.
[This is very likely to be true. It is the sort of thing that happens in the Arab Middle East. In Lebanon in the early 1980s, when war and civil war were raging there, I learnt that certain factions bought their weapons from other factions that they were fighting fiercely every day – JB]
Oil is only one of the sources of revenue for the Islamic State.
This is from Business Insider:
ISIS brings in nearly $12 million a month in revenues from extortion and other shady practices in the Iraqi city of Mosul alone in addition to $1 million to $3 million a day selling oil illegally. …
In a recent interview with Der Spiegel, Brookings Doha Center fellow Charles Lister explains how ISIS uses its control of food and water supplies to further its goals:
Money is key here. It is well-known that the IS is almost entirely self-financed. Its money comes from the control and illicit sale of oil and gas, agricultural products like wheat, the control of water and electricity and from imposing taxes within areas it controls. It is literally earning millions of dollars each week, and a great deal of this money is pumped into social services.
ISIS's advance throughout northern Iraq has put vast quantities of prime farmland under the control of the militant organization. Large portions of five of Iraq's most fertile provinces are currently under ISIS control.
These provinces are collectively responsible for producing 40% of the country's wheat crop. The militants have also raided between 40,000 and 50,000 tons of grain from government silos in the north of the country.
Al Arabiya reported that ISIS has transported at least 700 tons of grain from western Iraq into Syria for milling and refining. ISIS then proceeded to sell the grain to the Iraqi government through third-parties in order to raise further funds.
ISIS has expanded this effort recently by making flour using the grain it stole from government mills throughout Mosul.
A source at Iraq's Agricultural Ministry told Reuters that ISIS has placed close to 30% of Iraq's entire farm production at risk.
This scarcity and food insecurity has driven up prices and increased the windfall that ISIS receives from its wheat trade.
Control of water resources and hydroelectric power stations provide further funding for ISIS. The control of massive pieces of infrastructure, such as the Tabqa Dam outside of ISIS's de facto capital of Raqqah, Syria, along with the group's short-lived seizure of the Mosul Dam in Iraq, further demonstrates ISIS's capabilities and ambitions. … The dam generates electricity for Aleppo and the surrounding region. ISIS fighters made sure that the dam's staff was left relatively unmolested, in order to ensure that the dam remained operational.
ISIS collects taxes on a variety of commercial items, such as trucks and cellphone towers … Raqqa's Credit Bank has transformed into a functioning tax authority, with shop owners paying $20 every two months to ISIS in exchange for utilities and security. …
ISIS [also engages] in extortion, carjacking, and kidnapping. Kidnappings have become an especially lucrative source of funding for the organization as the group targets foreigners, and attempts to ransom them. …
If kidnappings have "become an especially lucrative source of funding" for the Islamic State, it must be because some of their attempts to ransom the captured foreigners have been successful.
ISIS also seized cash and gold from the banks it captured.
Hundreds of airstrikes by the US Air Force will not destroy the Islamic State. Words of condemnation at international summits will not defeat it. The West has allowed the growth of this savage force, has encouraged Islam to believe that it can conquer the Middle East, Europe, and eventually the world. Islam is crowing its triumphalism. It will take iron resolve, a huge commitment of military forces, persistence, and first and foremost the precise defining of the enemy as Islam, if IS/ISIS/ISIL is to be destroyed.
President Obama has poked the nasty thing with a tentative finger, and reluctantly sanctioned some attacking of it from a dizzy height. He will not call the engagement a war. He has sent a few hundred military personnel to Iraq to … what? Advise someone about something?
He's hoping other nations will do any real fighting that might be necessary. His fervent wish that America will not be perceived (by whom? his political base? the Nobel Peace Prize Committee?) as leading a coalition of states using military force is so desperate that he includes China, and even Iran in his hopes.
Meanwhile the Islamic State is growing, strengthening, flourishing, mass-murdering, and drawing tides of men from all over the world to join its wild jihad.
One hundred years ago today World War One began 1
Today is the centennial anniversary of the start of the First World War. On 28 July, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian army fired the first shots, to crush rebellious Serbia. What happened then, and why, is traced in this video.
Blame is laid on the growth of nationalism, and even more on imperialism – the acquisition of colonies by the powers of Europe on other continents, in fierce competition with each other, Britain being far and away the winner. The fact that at least some empires, chiefly the British, brought incalculable benefits to the lands they conquered, colonized and ruled, is touched on briefly; in our view, too briefly.
We think it is an overview worth watching, though there are points where we would place a different emphasis.
We agree with the presenters that the day World War One broke out was the day Europe began its terminal decline.
Obama's tyrants, their hokum, and their corruption 4
Fifteen of EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee members have received $180.8 million in EPA grants since 2000. One CASAC panelist (Ed Avol of USC) received $51.7 million!
Repeat: $51.7 million dollars. Whatever did the man do to deserve that much tax-payers' money? What unique skill has he acquired and uses to the enormous benefit of America or all mankind?
Read on to find out.
This is from Townhall, by Paul Driessen:
The Obama Environmental Protection Agency recently slashed the maximum allowable sulfur content in gasoline from 30 parts per million to 10 ppm. The agency claims its new "Tier 3" rule will bring $7 billion to $19 billion in annual health benefits by 2030. "These standards are a win for public health, a win for our environment and a win for our pocketbooks," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy insists.
Note that name. She is one of the most dangerous sub-tyrants in the Obama administration.
It's all hokum. Like almost everything else emanating from EPA these days, the gasoline regulations are a case study in how America's economy, jobs, living standards, health and welfare are being pummeled by secretive, deceptive, and indeed fraudulent and corrupt government practices.
Since the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, America's cars have eliminated some 99% of pollutants that once came out of tailpipes, notes air quality expert Joel Schwartz. Since 2004, under Tier 2 rules, refiners have reduced sulfur in gasoline from an average of 300 ppm to 30 ppm – a 90% drop, on top of pre-2004 reductions. In addition, because newer cars start out cleaner and stay cleaner throughout their lives, fleet turnover is reducing emissions by 8 to10 percent per year, steadily improving air quality.
The net result, says a 2012 Environ International study, is that ground-level ozone concentrations will fall even more dramatically by 2022. Volatile organic pollutants will plummet by 62%, carbon monoxide by 51% and nitrous oxides by 80% – beyond reductions already achieved between 1970 and 2004.
EPA (which once promised to be ultra-transparent) claims its rules will add less than a penny per gallon to gasoline prices; but it won't say how it arrived at that estimate. Industry sources say the Tier 3 rules will require $10 billion in upfront capital expenditures, an additional $2.4 billion in annual compliance expenses, significant increases in refinery energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, an extra 5-9 cents per gallon in manufacturing costs, which will certainly hit consumers at the pump.
But regardless of their ultimate cost, the rules will reduce monthly ozone levels by just 1.2 parts per billion during rush hour, says Environ. That's equivalent to 12 cents out of $100 million or 1.2 seconds out of 32,000 years. These minuscule improvements could not even have been measured by equipment existing a couple decades ago.
Their contribution to improved human health will be essentially zero.
Not so, say the EPA, Sierra Club and American Lung Association (ALA). The rules will reduce asthma in "the children," they insist. However, asthma incidences have been increasing, while air pollution has declined – demonstrating that the pollution-asthma connection is a red herring. The disease is caused by allergies, a failure to expose young children to sufficient allergens to cause their immune systems to build resistance to airborne allergens, and lack of sufficient exercise to keep lungs robust. Not surprisingly, a Southern California study found no association between asthma hospitalizations and air pollution levels.
Moreover, EPA paid the ALA $20 million between 2001 and 2010. No wonder it echoes agency claims about air quality and lung problems. The payments continue today, while EPA also funnels millions to various environmentalist pressure groups – and even to "independent" EPA scientific review panels – that likewise rubber stamp too many EPA pollution claims, studies and regulatory actions.
As Ron Arnold recently reported in The Washington Examiner, 15 of EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee members have received $180.8 million in EPA grants since 2000. One CASAC panelist (Ed Avol of USC) received $51.7 million!
The seven CASAC executive committee members pocketed $80.2 million. Imagine Big Oil paying that kind of cash to an advisory group, and calling it "independent." The news media, government and environmentalists would have a field day with that one.
The Clean Air Act, Information Quality Act, Executive Order 12866 and other laws require that agencies assess both the costs and benefits of proposed regulations, adopt them only if their benefits justify their costs, and even determine whether a regulation is worth implementing at all. However, EPA and other agencies systematically violate these rules, routinely inflate the alleged benefits of their rules, and habitually minimize or even ignore their energy, economic, health and social costs.
Reporting on a hearing held by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, Arnold noted that CASAC members say they weren't even aware that they are obligated to advise EPA on both benefits and costs. Former EPA Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation Jeff Holmstead testified, "As far as I know, CASAC never fulfilled this requirement as it relates to the ozone standard or any other" rule.
Former CASAC chairman Dr. Roger McClellan told Rep. Smith he did not think the panel "ever advised EPA to take account of the role of socioeconomic factors, unemployment or other risk factors" adversely affecting people's health. Another former CASAC member testified that the advisory committee was not even "allowed to discuss any of the adverse consequences" associated with new rulemakings.
EPA regulations impose countless billions of dollars in annual impacts on the US economy, according to studies by the Heritage Foundation, Competitive Enterprise Institute and Government Accountability Office. Estimates of total compliance costs for all federal regulations range to nearly $2 trillion per year. Some may bring benefits, but many or most also inflict significant harm on human health.
They mean millions of layoffs, far fewer jobs created, and steadily declining quality of life for millions of Americans, who cannot heat and cool their homes properly, pay the rent and mortgage, or save for retirement. …
In another example, EPA justifies its onerous carbon dioxide regulations by asserting that Earth's climate is highly sensitive to C02, hypothesizing every conceivable carbon cost, and imputing huge monetized damages from hydrocarbon use and CO2 emissions ($36/ton of CO2 emitted). It completely ignores even the most obvious and enormous job, health and welfare benefits of using fossil fuels; even the benefits of higher carbon dioxide levels for food crops, forests and grasslands; and even the harmful effects that these regulations are having on energy prices and reliability, and thus people's jobs, health and welfare.
The EPA, ALA and CASAC likewise insist that new Mercury and Air Toxic Standards for coal-fired power plants will bring huge health benefits. However, the mercury risks were hugely overblown, the proclaimed dangers from fine particulates were contradicted by EPA's own illegal experiments on human subjects – and the agency never assessed the health and welfare damage that the MATS rules will impose by causing the loss of 200,000 jobs and 23,000 megawatts of reliable, affordable electricity by 2015.
So who is Ed Avol, and what did he do to earn $51.7 million of your money?
He is Professor of Clinical Medicine, Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, specializing in "respiratory health, air pollution and the public health impacts of traffic".
Here he is.
And what did he do?
He rubber-stamped the tyrannous rulings of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Citoyons – is this not cause, and is it not time, to rebel?
Re-Volting waste 5
This is from Fox News:
A Michigan hybrid battery plant built with $150 million in taxpayer funds is putting workers on furlough before a single battery has been produced. …
Workers at the Compact Power manufacturing facilities in Holland, Mich., run by LG Chem, have been placed on rotating furloughs, working only three weeks per month based on lack of demand for lithium-ion cells.
The facility, which was opened in July 2010 with a groundbreaking attended by Obama, has yet to produce a single battery for the Chevrolet Volt, the troubled electric car from General Motors. The plant's batteries also were intended to be used in Ford's electric Focus.
Production of the taxpayer-subsidized Volt has been plagued by work stoppages, and the effect has trickled down to companies and plants that build parts for it – including the batteries.
"Considering the lack of demand for electric vehicles, despite billions of dollars from the Obama administration that were supposed to stimulate it, it's not surprising what has happened with LG Chem. Just because a ton of money is poured into a product does not mean that people will buy it," [said] Paul Chesser, an associate fellow with the National Legal and Policy Center.
Or, to put it another way - you can't buck the market. As Friedrich Hayek says.
The 650,000-square-foot, $300 million facility was slated to produce 15,000 batteries per year, while creating hundreds of new jobs. But to date, only 200 workers are employed at the plant by by the South Korean company. Batteries for the Chevy Volts that have been produced have been made by an LG plant in South Korea.
The factory was partly funded by a $150 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. LG also received sizeable tax breaks from the local government, saving nearly $50 million in property taxes over 15 years and another $2.5 million annually in business taxes. Landing the factory was hailed as a coup when shovels first hit the ground.
"You are leading the way in showing how manufacturing jobs are coming right back here to the United States of America," Obama told workers at the ground-breaking ceremony. …
Chesser said no amount of government subsidies can counter the practical problems posed by plug-in cars.
"Electric car batteries do not perform much better than they did 100 years ago," he said. "Research has not conquered the battery storage issue, and therefore the electric transportation 'stimulus' did not boost the 'technology of the future,' but instead a century-old technology as far as performance and capability goes."
He added that the LG Chem plant's problems show that the unpopularity of electric cars despite heavy taxpayer subsidies has had more widespread negative effects than most realize.
"Billions of dollars were put into Volt research, and Ford received $5.9 billion in stimulus loans to retrofit plants to produce [electric vehicles]," Chesser said. "The battery companies like LG Chem that were supposed to service them have no customers to speak of. Their existence was solely based on access to taxpayer money.
"Had it been private investors rather than government bureaucrats making the decision, there either would have been a reality check about the industry, or only those who made individual decisions to invest would have lost their money, not taxpayers."
Obama picks losers. As Mitt Romney says.
(Hat-tip for the Fox report, our reader and commenter Robert Yarber)
Preparing for dictatorship? 6
Food and water may from now on be allocated to or withheld from you on the decision of a single Obama deputy.
Very quietly on March 16 the President issued an Executive Order – the instrument by which he is increasingly inclined to govern – which gives him and his gang this power.
The EO grants the administration martial law powers in peacetime.
Drudge and Canada Free Press have carried this news. The mainstream media must know about it. If they choose not to report it, what are they allowing by their silence?
The issue of such an order in peacetime raises suspicion that Obama may be preparing to refuse to relinquish power if he is defeated in the November presidential election.
This is from Canada Free Press, by Alan Caruba:
An Executive Order posted on the White House website on Friday, March 16, 2012, has generated a wave of fear. It is officially about "National Defense Resources Preparedness" and its stated policy addresses "national defense resource policies and programs under the Defense Production Act of 1950."
Its stated policy is that "The United States must have an industrial and technological base capable of meeting national defense requirements and capable of contributing to the technological superiority of its national defense equipment in peacetime and in times of national emergency." …
In effect, the EO allows the federal government, directed by the President, to commandeer and control all aspects of the economy and the lives of all Americans. It centralizes control to an astonishing and frightening degree. …
It parcels out control to the Secretary of Agriculture with respect to food resources …
The Secretary of Energy with respect to all forms of energy;
The Secretary of Health and Human Services with respect to health resources;
The Secretary of Transportation with respect to all forms of civil transportation;
The Secretary of Defense with respect to water resources; and
The Secretary of Commerce with respect to all other materials, services, and facilities, including construction materials.
The obvious question is why is this EO necessary in the absence of any threat of an invasion or even an attack? [And] why should the President of the United States, in the run-up to a national election, feel that this is the time to issue such an EO?
I have frankly been dismissive of widely expressed fears that Obama would or could carry off a coup d'etat to establish himself as an American dictator. The problem, however, is that Obama has surrounded himself with Cabinet Secretaries and a shadow government of "czars" that would likely support him if he were to attempt such an audacious move.
The "legality" of such a move would be rubber-stamped by the Attorney General whose regard for the Constitution and laws of the nation is dubious at best, elastic at worst. The President's views about the Constitution are well known and he resents the limits it puts on his powers.
Would Congress stand by and allow its powers be usurped? Imagine yourself a Senator or Representative fearful of arrest and detention. Rounding up all 435 members would not be a difficult task.
The nation's media, with exceptions, has "covered" for this President regarding the legitimacy of his right to hold office, his absurd energy policies, and his takeover of various segments of the nation's economic base; the auto industry, the insurance industry, and Obamacare's attempt to takeover the healthcare sector.
That is why this EO has evoked such fear and concern and that is why Congress has to assert its Constitutional powers before this President is permitted to overthrow the legislative branch of government and seize control through an EO that is so broad that it is a breathtaking seizure of power that could only be considered if the nation was, in fact, under attack.
This EO is about "preparedness", but for whom?
Is this unwarranted scare-mongering? Or is it valid cause for fear?
Tyranny American-style 3
An inspector from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture raided the fish fry at St. Cecilia's Catholic Church in Rochester. He had been there for his annual inspection of the church's kitchen, but … he espied an elderly parishioner unwrapping some pies. He swooped. Would those by any chance be homemade pies?
They were. Four ladies had made each her favorite pie. They'd brought them to the church to sell at a dollar a slice. The inspector stopped them doing so, telling them that if they did they'd be committing a crime. In Pennsylvania, it is illegal to bake a pie in a home kitchen for sale at a church fundraiser.
The inspector informed the ladies they could continue baking pies [for sale] at home if each paid a $35 dollar fee for him to come round to her home and certify her kitchen as state-compliant.
Mark Steyn tells the story in After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. He also tells this one:
Seven-year-old Julie Murphy was selling lemonade in Portland, Oregon, when two officers demanded to see her "temporary restaurant license" which would have cost her $120. When she failed to produce it, they threatend her with a $500 fine, and also made her cry.
And this one:
For their morning customers the Collins family had been putting a coffee pot and doughnuts on the counter of their hardware store for fifteen years…
But in California that's an illegal act. The permit mullahs told Randy Collins that he needed to install stainless steel sinks with hot and cold water and a prep kitchen to handle the doughnuts.
Mr Collins was submissive.
"We want to be in compliance with the law" [he said].
"Why?" Mark Steyn asks.
When the law says it's illegal for a storekeeper to offer his customer a cup of coffee, you should be proud to be in non-compliance. Otherwise, what the hell did you guys bother holding a revolution for? …
This is the reality of small business in America today. You don't make the rules, you don't get to vote for people who make the rules. But you have to work harder, pay more taxes, buy more permits, fill in more paperwork, contribute to the growth of an ever less favorable business environment, and prostrate yourself before the Commissar of Community Services – all for the privilege of taking home less and less money.
Mark Steyn calls it tyranny. It is.
Another example from a different source:
When California's elected officials come back from their month-long recess they face a mountain of proposed legislation (almost 900 bills are lined up and waiting), including a new law (SB432) that would require hotels to eliminate flat sheets. Not having fitted sheets on hotel beds would now be a crime in California. This is not a joke.
California, the state trying to deal with a massive $26 BILLION dollar debt, is considering a law that some hospitality industry experts claim would add an estimated $15 to $30 million dollars in costs to an already hurting hotel industry. The low-end estimate of fifteen million is the projected cost to purchase new fitted sheets for the 550,000hotel beds in the state. Of course the hospitality industry is claiming that these added costs will hurt their business and put jobs at risk.
The fitted-sheet bill is the brainchild of State Senator Kevin De Leon (a Democrat from Los Angeles), whose mother suffered back pains while working as a hotel maid. Kevin has been quoted as saying this was "an issue close to my heart." It is also a bill that has the support of Big Labor. …
We are now going to make it a crime in California not to use a fitted sheet? Really?
The desirability or undesirability of something is not a good reason to legislate for or against it. There should be no more laws than are frugally necessary (administered as rigorously as possible). To make thousands of petty laws that are easy to break through ignorance, incapacity, or bewilderment is to bring the law into contempt.
It's debatable whether there should be any regulatory laws whatsoever. They are inevitably oppressive. They establish a niggling, nagging, tyranny-of-interference.
Tyranny American-style.
It is communitarian, a sneaky form of collectivization. It is job-killing, impoverishing. Enlarging the reach and power of the state, it is dictatorial.
And it is Obama's preferred method of government. He is using the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to implement his dictatorial will. The EPA is continually churning out thousands of regulations to complicate and hamper work in agriculture, animal farming, industry, construction … everything. With this Stasi-like agency, he by-passes Congress.
The only good point made by Jon Huntsman in a recent debate among GOP candidates for the presidency, was that the EPA must be abolished.
Russians blamed for Stuxnet, flee Iran 3
Which high-tech country might Iran turn to for help in ridding itself of the Stuxnet computer worm that is incapacitating its industrial-military complex? (See our posts A virus that might save us all, September 25, 2010, and Sound the trumpet, September 29, 2010.)
Germany? Siemens provided the systems that are under attack, but apparently will not or cannot come to the rescue.
Russia? Russians were employed to install the Siemens systems. But not only have they been unable to destroy the worm, they are now being accused of planting it, and are fleeing Iran as fast as they can.
Some of them say they hope to return when the trouble has blown over – which rather strongly indicates they were not responsible for causing it.
Here's the latest Stuxnet-chaos news:
Dozens of Russian nuclear engineers, technicians and contractors are hurriedly departing Iran for home since local intelligence authorities began rounding up their compatriots as suspects of planting the Stuxnet malworm into their nuclear program.
Among them are the Russian personnel who built Iran's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr which Tehran admits has been damaged by the virus.
One of the Russian nuclear staffers, questioned in Moscow Sunday, Oct. 3 by Western sources, confirmed that many of his Russian colleagues had decided to leave with their families after team members were detained for questioning at the beginning of last week. He refused to give his name because he and his colleagues intend to return to Iran if the trouble blows over and the detainees are quickly released after questioning.
Last Saturday, October 2, the Iranian Intelligence Minister, Heidar Moslehi, "announced that nuclear spies had been captured", accused of sending "electronic worms through the internet". [Which is not how the attack was initiated according to more credible sources – JB.]
This was the first high-level Iranian admission that the Stuxnet virus had been planted by foreign elements to sabotage their entire nuclear program – and not just the Bushehr reactor. The comprehensive scale of the damage is attested to by the detention of Russian nuclear experts also at Natanz, Isfahan and Tehran. …
"Hundreds of Russian scientists, engineers and technicians were responsible for installing the Siemens control systems in Iran's nuclear complex and other facilities which proved most vulnerable to the cyber attack", and as they were "the only foreigners with access to these heavily guarded plants", they are prime suspects.
If it was not the Russians who worked this most inventive and effective form of sabotage ever contrived (and we don't believe it was), those who did can now enjoy, as an extra cause for celebration, the discomfiture of the Russians. The real saboteurs, we guess, are laughing out of sheer Schadenfreude. And while we're well aware that Stuxnet could ultimately be a threat to ourselves – to friend as well as foe just as nuclear weapons are – for the present we're reasonably happy that this humiliating blow has been struck at the insufferable Iranian regime.
In fact, we confess, we are laughing too, and hope our readers feel like joining in.
How the world really works 1
The free market is the engine of our civilization. It works. Works best if it is not interfered with by government. Works as a spontaneous system of co-operation and division of labor.
On which subject, here is part of a splendid short essay by Jonah Goldberg. He writes:
No one in the world knows how to make the newspaper you are holding (and, if you're reading this on your phone, computer, iPad or Kindle, no one knows how to make those things either).
Even the best editor in the world has no clue how to make a printing press or the ink, or how to operate a communications satellite.
This is hardly a new insight. In 1958, Leonard Read wrote one of the most famous essays in the history of libertarianism, "I, Pencil." It begins, "I am a lead pencil — the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write." It is one of the most simple objects in human civilization. And yet, "not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me."
The pencil tells the story of its own creation. The wood comes from Oregon, or perhaps California. The lead, which is really graphite, is mined in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The eraser, which is not rubber but something called "factice" is "made by reacting rape-seed oil from the Dutch East Indies with sulfur chloride."
To make a long story short, the simple act of collecting and combining the ingredients of a pencil involves the cooperation of thousands of experts in dozens of fields, from engineering and mining to chemistry and commodity trading. I suppose it's possible for someone to master all of the knowledge and expertise to make a pencil all by themselves, but why would they?
The lessons one can draw from this fact are humbling. For starters, any healthy civilization, never mind any healthy economy, involves unfathomably vast amounts of harmonious cooperation. …
These days there's a lot of buzz about something called "cloud computing." In brief, this is a new way of organizing computer technology so that most of the data storage and number crunching doesn't actually take place in your own computer. Rather, everyone plugs into the computational equivalent of the electrical grid.
Do a Nexis search and you'll find hundreds of articles insisting that this is a "revolutionary" advance in information organization. And in one sense, that's obviously true. But in another this is simply an acceleration of how civilization has always worked. The information stored in an encyclopedia or textbook is a form of cloud computing. So is the expertise stored in your weatherman's head. So are the intangible but no less real lessons accumulated over generations of trial and error and contained in everything from the alphabet to the U.S. Constitution …
More relevant, the modern market economy is the greatest communal enterprise ever undertaken in the history of humanity. Friedrich Hayek did the heavy lifting on this point over half a century ago in his essay "The Use of Knowledge in Society." The efficient pricing of markets allows millions of independent actors to decide for themselves how to allocate resources. According to Hayek, no central planner or bureaucrat could ever have enough knowledge to consistently and successfully guide all of those economic actions in a more efficient manner. …
According to progressives, the financial crisis discredited "market fundamentalism" and created a burning need for a more cooperative society where "we're all in it together." It's an ancient argument, with many noble intentions behind it. But it rests on a misunderstanding of one simple, astounding, irrefutable fact. The market economy is cooperative, and more successfully so than any alternative system ever conceived of, never mind put into practice. Admittedly it doesn't feel that way, which is why everyone wants to find a better replacement for it. But they never will, for the same reason no one can make a pencil.
Find Leonard Read's classic essay I, Pencil here, either to refresh your memory and enjoy it anew, or to learn its lesson for the first time. It is essential to the proper education of every generation.
Man said, "let there be light" 0
Christianity brought a thousand years of darkness down on Europe. Historically it proved to be one of the three cruelest creeds ever to afflict poor suffering mankind (the other two being Islam and Socialism in all its ruinous forms.)
The best thing that ever happened to the human race was the Enlightenment.
Joel Mokyr, professor of Economics and History at Northwestern University, has an article in City Journal which reminds us what it did for us all.
Here are parts of it:
The most hardy and irreversible effect of the Enlightenment [is]: it made us rich. It is by now a cliché to note how much better twenty-first-century people live than even the kings of three centuries back. In thousands of large and small things, material life today is immeasurably better than ever before. … And without sounding too cocky about how progressive history is, or too triumphalist about Western culture as the crowning achievement of human development, I would like to suggest that what generated all this prosperity was the growth of certain ideas in the century after the British Glorious Revolution of 1688. …
The writers and thinkers whose work we call the Enlightenment were a motley crew of philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, physicians, and other intellectuals. They differed on many topics, but most of them agreed that improvement of the human condition was both possible and desirable. This sounds trite to us, but it is worth pointing out that in 1700, few people on this planet had much reason to believe that their lives would ever get better. For most, life was not much less short, brutish, and nasty than it had been 1,000 years earlier. The vicious religious wars that Europe had suffered for many decades had not improved things, and though there had been a few advances — the wider availability of books, for instance … — their impact on the overall quality of life remained marginal. An average Briton born in 1700 could expect to live about 35 years, spending his days doing hard physical work and his nights in a cold, crowded, vermin-ridden home.
Against this grim backdrop, Enlightenment philosophers developed a belief in the capability of what they called "useful knowledge" to advance the state of humanity. The most influential proponent of this belief was the earlier English philosopher Francis Bacon, who had emphasized that knowledge of the physical environment was the key to material progress: "We cannot command Nature except by obeying her," he wrote in 1620 in his New Organon. The agenda of what we would call "research and development" began to expand from the researcher's interest alone … to include the hope that one day his knowledge could be put to good use. In 1671, one of the most eminent scientists of the age, Robert Boyle, wrote that "there is scarce any considerable physical truth, which is not, as it were, teeming with profitable inventions, and may not by human skill and industry, be made the fruitful mother of divers things useful." The idea spread to other nations. …
To bring about the progress that they envisioned—to solve pragmatic problems of industry, agriculture, medicine, and navigation—European scientists realized that they needed to accumulate a solid body of knowledge and that this required, above all, reliable communications. They churned out encyclopedias, compendiums, dictionaries, and technical volumes—the search engines of their day—in which useful knowledge was organized, cataloged, classified, and made as available as possible. One of these tomes was Diderot's Encyclopédie, perhaps the Enlightenment document par excellence. The age of Enlightenment was also the age of the "Republic of Science," a transnational, informal community in which European scientists relied on an epistolary network to read, critique, translate, and sometimes plagiarize one another's ideas and work. …
The idea of material progress through the expansion of useful knowledge — what historians today call the Baconian program — slowly took root. The Royal Society, founded in London in 1660, was explicitly based on Bacon's ideas. Its purpose, it claimed, was "to improve the knowledge of naturall things, and all useful Arts, Manufactures, Mechanick practises, Engines, and Inventions by Experiments." But the movement experienced a veritable spurt during the eighteenth century, when private organizations were established throughout Britain to build bridges between those who knew things and those who made things. …
More and more manufacturers sought the advice of scientists and mathematicians …
The Baconian program proved unusually successful in Britain, and hence it led the world in industrial innovation. There were many reasons for this, not the least of them England's union with Scotland in 1707. … The Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow were the Scottish Enlightenment's versions of Harvard and MIT: rivals up to a point, but cooperating in generating the useful knowledge underlying new technology. They employed some of the greatest minds of the time—above all, Adam Smith. The philosopher David Hume, a friend of Smith's, was twice denied a tenured professorship on account of his heterodox [ie atheist] beliefs. In an earlier age, he might have been in trouble with the law; but in enlightened Scotland, he lived a peaceful life as a librarian and civil servant. Another Scot and friend of Smith's, Adam Ferguson, introduced the concept of civil society. Scotland did not just produce philosophers, either; it also exported to England many of its most talented engineers and chemists, above all James Watt. …
Optimism continued to abound about the potential of useful knowledge to improve the world. In 1780, one of the greatest figures of the Enlightenment, Benjamin Franklin, wrote in a letter that "the rapid progress true Science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon. It is impossible to imagine the Height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the Power of Man over Matter…"
The age of Enlightenment, of course, was also the age of Newton, whose discoveries made it possible to understand the movement of heavenly bodies. …
Advances in medicine proved similarly sporadic. Enlightened physicians were passionate about progress. How could they not be? Twenty out of every 100 babies perished in their first year; many young and talented women and men died prematurely of dreaded disease; adult life was often a sequence of disfiguring and debilitating sicknesses. "I see no reason to doubt that, by taking advantage of various and continual accessions as they accrue to science, the same power will be acquired over living, as it is at present exercised over some inanimate bodies," wrote Thomas Beddoes, a learned English medic, in 1793. And there was at least one major success story in his lifetime: Edward Jenner's discovery of the smallpox vaccine three years later. …
The Enlightenment's contributions to long-term economic growth were not merely scientific, moreover. Many economists … have begun to see Enlightenment economic and political ideas as central to the process. … The idea that trade normally benefits both sides led to the growth of free trade after 1815 and was central to the establishment of free-trade areas in Europe and elsewhere after 1950. That understanding grew out of the Enlightenment and the thinking of such intellectual giants as Smith and Hume.
Even more important was the Enlightenment notion of freedom of expression. In our age, we think of technological change as natural and obvious; indeed, we consider its absence a source of concern. Not so in the past: inventors were seen as disrespectful, rebelling against the existing order, threatening the stability of the regime and the Church, and jeopardizing employment. In the eighteenth century, this notion slowly began to give way to tolerance, to the belief that those with odd notions should be allowed to subject them to a market test. Many novel ideas were experimented with, especially in medicine, in which new ways to fight disease were constantly being proposed and tried … Words like "heretic" to describe innovators began to disappear. …
The Enlightenment, sadly, did not end barbarism and violence. But it did end poverty in much of the world that embraced it. Once the dust settled after the upheavals and violence of the French Revolution, Europe entered a century of economic growth (known as the pax Britannica) punctuated by a few relatively short and local wars. By 1914, countries that had experienced some kind of Enlightenment had become rich and industrialized, while those that had not, or that had resisted it successfully (such as Spain and Russia), remained behind. The "club" of rich countries formed the core of the industrialized world for most of the twentieth century. …
As unlikely as it may seem, then, a fairly small community of intellectuals in a small corner of eighteenth-century Europe changed world history. Not only did they agree on the desirability of progress; they wrote a detailed program of how to implement it and then, astoundingly, carried it through. Today, we enjoy material comforts, access to information and entertainment, better health, seeing practically all our children reach adulthood (even if we elect to have fewer of them), and a reasonable expectation of many years in leisurely and economically secure retirement. … Without the Enlightenment, they would not have happened.
As David Hume did, so also Baruch Spinoza (not mentioned by Mokyr, but hugely important to his theme) unlocked the chains of religion – Christianity, Judaism, and belief in the supernatural generally – that bound mankind in superstitious dread, for those who let them.
The ideas of freedom and tolerance that inspired, and are enshrined in, the Constitution of the United States are essentially Enlightenment ideas.
Now, countering the real progress that the Enlightenment launched, socialist "progressivism" is threatening freedom, the gift of the Enlightenment out of which all others proceed.
And even more threatening is the ideology of Islam: a darkness never penetrated by the Enlightenment.
Will we let either or both succeed in bringing back the darkness?
The new-found riches of Afghanistan 0
The discovery in Afghanistan of vast deposits of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, niobium, and lithium — used in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys – must change any prognostications made for that benighted country.
At last there's something there that the world wants other than opium. Afghanistan will surely become richer, and may even be dragged into the 21st century. But will it be less strife-torn, or more?
How will it change American plans to withdraw troops? How will China act? How will Russia? How will Pakistan (part of the find being on its border)? How will India?
American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistan's mineral wealth, which could upset the United States, given its heavy investment in the region. After winning the bid for its Aynak copper mine in Logar Province, China clearly wants more, American officials said.
And who among the Afghans will profit most from it?
Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country.
The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Just last year, Afghanistan's minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine. …
Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul and provincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts.
Russians did the original prospecting that revealed the deposits, but the Soviets withdrew before they had time to assess their size, let alone exploit them. Americans found the Russian documentation and looked further.
In 2004, American geologists, sent to Afghanistan as part of a broader reconstruction effort, stumbled across an intriguing series of old charts and data at the library of the Afghan Geological Survey in Kabul that hinted at major mineral deposits in the country. They soon learned that the data had been collected by Soviet mining experts during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, but cast aside when the Soviets withdrew in 1989.
During the chaos of the 1990s, when Afghanistan was mired in civil war and later ruled by the Taliban, a small group of Afghan geologists protected the charts by taking them home, and returned them to the Geological Survey's library only after the American invasion and the ouster of the Taliban in 2001.
Armed with the old Russian charts, the United States Geological Survey began a series of aerial surveys of Afghanistan's mineral resources in 2006, using advanced gravity and magnetic measuring equipment attached to an old Navy Orion P-3 aircraft that flew over about 70 percent of the country.
The data from those flights was so promising that in 2007, the geologists returned for an even more sophisticated study, using an old British bomber equipped with instruments that offered a three-dimensional profile of mineral deposits below the earth's surface. It was the most comprehensive geologic survey of Afghanistan ever conducted. …
But the results gathered dust for two more years, ignored by officials in both the American and Afghan governments. In 2009, a Pentagon task force that had created business development programs in Iraq was transferred to Afghanistan, and came upon the geological data. Until then, no one besides the geologists had bothered to look at the information — and no one had sought to translate the technical data to measure the potential economic value of the mineral deposits.
Soon, the Pentagon business development task force brought in teams of American mining experts to validate the survey's findings …
Read it all – it's a dramatic story.
Though probably not an introduction to a period of peace and co-operation.


text:
Wed, Jul 04, 2007
The US Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) announced Tuesday the Dominican Republic
complies with international safety standards set by the
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), following a
reassessment of the country's civil aviation authority on
April 27, 2007.
The Dominican Republic's safety rating was raised from
Category 2 to Category 1. A Category 1 rating means the
country's civil aviation authority complies with ICAO
standards. A Category 2 rating means a country either lacks laws or
regulations necessary to oversee air carriers in accordance with
minimum international standards, or that its civil aviation
authority — equivalent to the FAA for aviation safety matters
— is deficient in one or more areas, such as technical
expertise, trained personnel, recordkeeping or inspection
As part of the FAA's International Aviation Safety
Assessment (IASA) program, the agency assesses the civil aviation
authorities of all countries with air carriers that operate or
might be authorized to fly to the United States and makes that
information available to the public. The assessments determine
whether or not foreign civil aviation authorities are meeting ICAO
safety standards, not FAA regulations.
With the IASA Category 1 rating, Dominican carriers could apply
to operate their own aircraft to the United States, which they
currently do not. Countries with air carriers that fly to the
United States must adhere to the safety standards of ICAO, the
United Nations' technical agency for aviation that
establishes international standards and recommended practices for
aircraft operations and maintenance.
Aero-TV: Redbird's Roger Sharp -- Pushing The Aero-Educational Envelope
Airborne 12.17.14: Evergreen Woes, Foolish Pilot Tricks, No 757 Replacement -- Yet
Airborne 12.15.14: A380 Future, More USA Today Disappointments, Jetman FORMATION!
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
With only 90 square feet of living space, this Brooklyn based artist has turned his small living quarters into an artistic apartment. Doing something a bit unorthodox, the man covered all of the walls within his apartment in ping pong balls.
Utilizing over 25,000 grey and white ping pong balls, the walls have been transformed into an almost pixelated screen covering the entire living space. The decor set the man back about $100 per square feet, and took almost 2 weeks to complete.


text:
The Ugliest Thing
video and audio works, 2012
A failed sculpture is demolished by the artist on a journey within a California landscape only to be recreated through a montage that futilely attempts to undo its destruction.Film, Fine Arts, Performing Arts2013
3 minutes, HDV, 2012
An iconic metaphor destabilized. An animated sketch.Animation, Computer Animation, Motion Graphics2013
The Casts, 2012, 6:30 minutes
Three shirtless bearded men attempt to describe a series of cast objects in their hands. Relying only on their sense of touch and peripheral vision metaphors flow as fluid as the water that acts as backdrop to both their circularly framed images and the floating objects in question.
Infra-Colour, 2012, pedestals and plaster casts, wooden box, and styrofoam, dimensions variable though this installation is 85x95x47."
Installation of a series of casts derived from styrofoam found in the boxes of technological devices.Film, Fine Arts, Sculpting2013
Navel Mining
3:30 minutes, 2011
A scene inspired by the medical experiments reported during alien abductions; a paralyzed body trapped in a shifting, vibrating, otherworldly field.Computer Animation, Film, Pattern Design2013
Tactility Dreamcatcher, 2011
foam padding, contact paper, glitter, vinyl, beads, feathers, & synthetic hairFine Arts, Pattern Design, Textile Design2013
10:30 minutes, 2011, originally in 1080i HDVideo.
Beginning with a written description of Mike Kuchar's film of the same name scrolled over images, which counter the text, Fragments explores the fracture of attention. Disjointed architectural ruins, neoclassical embellishments, sculptural remains, and foam detritus are infused with sounds of ubiquitous technologies that permeate the everyday as the video builds into a song of temporality and permanence. Fragments is as much a meditation on the ruins of ancient civilizations as it is homage to telephones and tourist slide shows.
Film, Fine Arts, Sound Design2013
Noise Print Sculptures for BAHA (Bone Anchored Hearing Aids),
digital prints on arches paper, 2007-2010
Attempting to make practical windscreens for my implant, mini sculptures ensued. These prototypes became documented and resulted in the modeling of the idea in the form of a series of digital prints.Digital Photography, Fine Arts, Sculpting2013
Gift Perception
documentation of three-channel synchronized video installation, 2010
9:30 minute loop
A "re-weaving" of documentation of two sets of scientific tests, one visual and the other audible, which seeks to measure perceptions in various virtual environments. Through the processing of sound and image, the work holistically attempts to reintegrate the fractured isolation of perceptions framed as independent variables. Time and space are reoriented in the shuffle to create a visceral experience that undermines the original purpose of the tests. The work is intended to be viewed at slightly above human scale.Film, Fine Arts, Sound Design2013
mixed media video sculpture, 2010
two-channel asynchronous wall installation, two 3-minute video loops of Korean acrobats jumping in the air from pouncing on an unseen seesaw, 65 x 106 x 10." Due to the lack of synchronization the acrobats actions fall in and out of rhythm with each others' actions over an expanded period of time.Film, Fine Arts, Sculpting2013
mixed media video sculpture, 2010, 72x48x40"
An homage to the analog airwaves, two-channels play altered images of static (in the top an occasional image of a static head rotates) while the lower television delivers a static signal with low volume static sound.Computer Animation, Fine Arts, Sculpting2013
All That Glitters...
mixed media video sculpture, 2010, 15-minute loop of a performer dressed as a gold digger pick-axing a bed.
The subject is keyed into images of gold mines and overlayed with the streaking, abstracted lights of a large city.Film, Fine Arts, Sculpting2013
Mono Solo
4.5' x 5.5' x 10' sound sculpture, 2008
Based on furniture designs from the 19th century constructed to aid the hard of hearing, this sculpture plays a mono signal of a collection of classic rock guitar solos out of its sound horn.
Fine Arts, Sculpting, Sound Design2013
Understanding Human Behavior
wicker base, foam, vinyl, foam carpet, books, plastic spoon & fork, 2009Fine Arts, Sculpting2013
Every (Movie, Sound, Image, Text) on my cell phone
8 minute video, 2008
A collection of material shot, sent, and received expunged from a cell phone becomes a reflection on the everyday as it is experienced through the lens of this seemingly indispensable technology.Film, Fine Arts2013
Other Turbans, 12:40 minute video, 2007
The artist as post-operative subject discovers a sound art piece by Max Neuhaus in Times Square while being mistaken for a terrorist. A field of high-tension wires completes the contemplative excursions needed to help him adjust to his new implant that will eventually help him hear. The third piece in a trilogy of single-channel works on hearing loss.Film, Fine Arts2013
Radiolarian, 2007, mixed media sculpture with live radio, 10' x 5' x 7.5'
An installation that begins with a speculation. If low frequency radio waves transmitted by the earth's atmosphere have touched upon the ocean to shape the one-celled organisms called Radiolarian what are the invisible radio waves of classic rock stations forming? Inspired by the stereophiles notion of the "sweet spot," Radiolarian contextualizes this question through an inviting construct that challenges the viewer participate in a sculpture for radio.Fine Arts, Sculpting, Sound Design2013
The Knocking, 2001/07
15 minutes video
A man eats dinner and plays solitaire as images of Eastern Europe revolve around him to the sounds of an audio effects record. Footage shot throughout Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic at the end of the twentieth century echo with ghosts of the past as old and new architectures are simultaneously (re)constructed. The "master narrator" counts the illusion of order as the main character slips in and out of drag.Film, Fine Arts, Sound Design2013
Enclosure Strain Collapse, 2007
a synchronized 2-channel re-edit of the 3-channel video from the earlier work/installation Ceilings Without Walls for Monkeytown in Brooklyn, NY.
Ceilings Without Walls, 1996, 3-channel installation at The Kitchenette, New YorkComputer Animation, Exhibition Design, Fine Arts2013
Fischinger and Linstrom, 2007, 9.5" x 25" x 65" (documentation with details)
A portrait piece of Oscar Fischinger and Christopher Linstrom, MD. The former an early 20th century filmmaker dedicated to visualizing the abstract qualities of sound and the latter being a contemporary (ENT) ear, nose, throat doctor attempting to visualize sounds perception via scientific methodologies.Computer Animation, Fine Arts, Sculpting2013
Sensorial Principia, 2006, a documentation of an installation at Rooftop Media in Brooklyn, NY, original projection was a 15-minute loop in HD video.
The site-specific installation celebrates the specialization of knowledge through the rubbing of an iconic pinnacle of scientific achievement, Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, against the artistic ambivalence of the human body. The work questions the access points, as well as the goals of the producers and distributors of human knowledge.Architecture, Fine Arts, Street Art2013
Free to Be You and Me, 4:20 minutes, 2006
Four of the original children on the merry-go-round in the opening sequence of Marlo Thomas's star-studded television special of the same name rephrase the catchy opening theme song. An internet mogul, an independent filmmaker, a temp computer specialist, and an orthodontist reiterate the songs nostalgic promise of freedom couched within a technologically mediated environment.Film, Fine Arts, Performing Arts2013
Dial Tone,
performance by Andrew Shipin, 8 minutes, 2006
A speculative retelling of the invention of dial tone and the personal mini-fan unfolds into an interview where the inventor strikes back. Small dreamy excerpts of the laboratory where it all took place bookends this unsettling tale.Cinematography, Film, Performing Arts2013
Strange Fruit Sound, 2005, 9"x8"x8,"sculpture with 18-minute loop, video, sound, mixed media.
An architectural fragment holds a display that loops a DVD that quietly moves through oscillation tones and frequencies. On the loop architectural fragments and fruit are arranged around the body of a nude male on a table. Occasionally these elements are plugged into analog oscillators that effect both the frequency being generated and the "still life" presented.Film, Fine Arts, Sound Design2013
Monograph in Stereo, 2004/5, 17:20 minutes, video.
Monograph in Stereo employs documentary and experimental strategies to convey a struggle with congenital and operational hearing loss and tinnitus, a continual ringing in the ear; a phantom auditory perception. The work also stems from research upon the interdependency of the senses with an emphasis on the balance ascertained from binaural hearing and stereoscopic vision and the imbalance caused by their uneven degradation. Images move amongst poetic reverberations of landscapes, interiors and audiological exam rooms. The second video in a trilogy of single-channel works on hearing loss.Cinematography, Film, Sound Design2013
The State I'm In, 2002, installation and production stills from Monograph in Stereo, wood and foam bedding, dimensions vary
A room is half covered in egg crate foam material and half bare. A singular window breaks the bare side's scarcity and wood paneling covers the floor. In the room's center, a rectangular foam and wood structure sits interrupted by its own concavity.Architecture, Fine Arts, Set Design2013
Summer of Tympanoplasty, 2003, documentation of an installation at Artsite in Wellsville, NY, 2-channel mixed media sculpture with one random script DVD with audio. Traveled to Pacific Switchboard in Portland, OR.
Documentary and experimental strategies are blurred within a sculptural installation to convey an autobiographical struggle with otology and an interest in synesthesia, the neurological condition where a subject confuses one sense for another, i.e. hearing architecture. While the title of the work is directly related to the my own recovery from a procedure to heal a hole in my eardrum (tympanoplasty), the installation's content envelopes an array of concerns stemming from the recognition that in the case of a sense altering physiological event one is reminded of reality's extreme subjectivity. The sound, a series of various frequencies punctuated by silence, is the expression of an internal noise, tinnitus, a phantom auditory perception. The condition is a constant ringing in one's head connected to no external correspondence and often the result of trauma to the auditory nerves and/or an effect of gradual hearing loss. In Summer of Tympanoplasty, both sculptural and media elements are used as a way to convey the complexities and connections between acoustic and spatial comprehension.Film, Fine Arts, Sculpting2013
1/2 right, 2002, color video, 8 minutes.
The electronically processed images and sounds of a hearing exam articulate the subject's struggle with genetic and operational hearing loss and his ability and inability to discern white noise, tones and words.
Film, Fine Arts, Sound Design2013
Openings, 1999
MFA Thesis exhibitionArchitecture, Fine Arts, Sculpting2013
Escape Artist, 1998, performance still, performed at UCSD, UCLA, UCB galleries as part of a traveling circus themed exhibition titled Circus Momentous. LED, box and rope light controller are on the ground.
A live slow motion escape ensues after members of the audience bind me onto a chair with red PVC coated wire, rope lights, locks, and red tape. LED slowly loops a string of the following words: "Art takes Time . . . . Time is Money . . . Escape . . . . Artist . . . . Escape . . . . Artist . . . Time takes Art . . .Money is Time . . . . Escape . . . . Escape . . . . Escape . . . ."
Masochistic Clowney, 1998, performance stills bookend a still of sculptural props in the show Circus Momentous. Wood, metal and used plastic balls.
A heavy metal clown instigates the audience over the course of the evening until he is locked in a wooden and metal structure unleasing insults at the audience and dares them to hit him with plastic balls. Often the audience was so inspired to hit me with anything and I threw balls back at them.
Fine Arts, Performing Arts, Sculpting2013
Emergency Exits, 1997/98, 2 stills of an installation at The Marcuse Gallery in San Diego, CA with internet component, computer, video projector, speakers, red PVC coated wire, wood, plastic, fish line, rope lights and controllers, various hardware, dimensions vary. Installation traveled to The Kitchen in New York.
Viewers navigate by joystick through a web site projected from a black box. Constructed by the digital altercation of airplane emergency procedure manuals, the site reconstitutes their original design through captioning the innocuous characters with the titles of immediate family members. Certain passages lead the participants away from the domestic struggle for survival revealing a subtext of roles played between two male lovers playing the balancing act of airplane in their underwear.
Fine Arts, Interaction Design, Sculpting2013
Aviatrix, 1997/98, stills of an installation at WRO 97, Media Arts Biennale in Wroclaw, Poland. installation for the internet with computer & monitor, two video monitors, one VHS deck, slide projector, wood, sheetrock, duct tape, and green bulbs, dimensions vary.
An installation with the internet at its tail end, two side monitors play audio and video at its wings. A series of slides are projected at the front of the structure looping a barnstormer falling and rising on the wing of a plane. The video is processed archival newsreel footage of barnstormers and female aviatrixes.Film, Fine Arts, Sculpting2013
Aviator, 1997, 8 minutes, video. Distributed by The Kitchen, New York, NY.
Two men play the balancing act of airplane in their underwear as they
soar through images of newsreel footage "masculating" the history of
flight. The rhythm of their actions unfolds a relationship charted by
memory and suspension.
Film, Fine Arts2013
Please do not reproduce without the expressed written consent of Darrin Martin.


text:
Coming Soon…
Alberta Pianofest 2013 Faculty
Robert Shannon
July 7 – 12
Pianist Robert Shannon has presented solo recitals, ensemble concerts, and master classes throughout the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia. In recent seasons he has appeared in Beijing, London, Paris, Glasgow, Rome, Stuttgart, New York, San Francisco, Columbia (South America) and Taiwan. His repertoire ranges from Bach to Adams, and he has been especially noted for his recordings of Ives' complete works for violin and piano, and works by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Crumb, available on Bridge Records.
He is Professor of Piano at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Director of the Division of Keyboard Studies, and Director and Founder of the Cooper Competition at Oberlin, which in cooperation with the Cleveland Orchestra has become one of the most important youth competitions in the world.
Mr. Shannon earned a bachelor of music degree in piano performance at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and a bachelor of arts degree in music from Oberlin's College of Arts and Sciences, although his original intention was to major in East Asian studies. He earned a master's degree in piano performance at the Juilliard School. He has studied with Jack Radunsky, Ania Dorfmann, Dorothy Taubmann, and Vladimir Ashkenazy. He often performs duo recital with his wife, Oberlin faculty colleague, Haewon Song.
Stéphane Lemelin
July 11 – 15
Pianist Stéphane Lemelin is well-known to audiences throughout Canada and regularly performs in the United States, Europe and Asia as soloist and chamber musician.
His repertory is vast, with a predilection for the German Classical and Romantic literature and a particular affinity for French music, as evidenced by his more than twenty recordings, which include works by Fauré, Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Poulenc and Roussel. Moreover, Stéphane Lemelin is director of the French music series "Découvertes 1890-1939" on the Atma Classique label, dedicated to the rediscovery of neglected early twentieth-century French repertoire and for which he has recorded works by Samazeuilh, Ropartz, Migot, Dupont, Dubois, Rhené-Bâton, Rosenthal, Alder, Lekeu and others.
A prize-winner of the Robert Casadesus International Competition in Cleveland, he has received many national and international awards and grants, notably from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada.
Stéphane Lemelin studied with Yvonne Hubert in Montreal, Karl-Ulrich Schnabel in New York, and Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory. He received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Yale University, where he studied with Boris Berman and Claude Frank. He taught at the University of Alberta for more than ten years, and since 2001 has been on the faculty of the School of Music of the University of Ottawa. He served as Director of the School of Music from 2007 to 2012. A dedicated pedagogue, he has been invited to give master classes around the world. Stéphane Lemelin was a member of Trio Hochelaga from 2003 to 2012 and is the founder and Artistic Director of the Prince Edward County Music Festival.
Ursula Oppens
July 16 – 20
Pianist Ursula Oppens has long been recognized as the leading champion of contemporary American piano music. In addition her original and perceptive readings of other music, old and new, have earned her a place among the elect of today's performing musicians. Ms. Oppens recently captured a Grammy Award nomination—her fourth to date—for the 2011 recording "Winging It: Piano Music of John Corigliano" on Cedille Records.
Ms. Oppens has performed with virtually all of the world's major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, and the orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Milwaukee. Abroad, she has appeared with the Berlin Symphony, the Scottish BBC, and the London Philharmonic Orchestras. An avid chamber musician, Ms. Oppens has collaborated with the Arditti, Juilliard, Pacifica, and Rosetti quartets.
Ursula Oppens is a Distinguished Professor of Music at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center in New York.
Jason Cutmore
July 6 – 21
Pianist Jason Cutmore has performed piano recitals and collaborative concerts throughout North America, Europe and India, and is regularly invited to offer guest lectures, master classes, and to adjudicate across Canada and the USA. Mr. Cutmore made his Chicago recital debut in the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts in 2005 with an all-Liszt programme which was broadcast live on WFMT radio, and shown on Chicago Cable TV 25. Since then he has returned twice to the Hess series, and has performed in Canada's Elora, Music Niagara, and Colours of Music festivals, and in concert series in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Calgary and elsewhere throughout North America. Mr. Cutmore's collaboration with narrator (and former CBC radio personality) Rick Phillips, in works for solo piano and narrator by composers such as Debussy, Roussel, Poulenc, Prokofiev, Saint-Saens and others, in live concert performances for children, reflects his desire to expose young people to the beauty of classical music, and his dedication to music education.
Currently based in a New York City suburb, Mr. Cutmore is originally from Edmonton, Canada, and serves as the Executive and Artistic Director of Alberta Pianofest. http://www.jasoncutmore.com


text:
Drug and weapon charges laid after raid on Walpole IslandCrime, Lambton County, St. Clair, Walpole Island — By JD Booth on April 18, 2011 at 1:38 pm
Seven people, including four men and three women, are facing various drug and weapons charges after a raid on Altiman Road residence on Walpole Island at about 4:15 this morning.
Lambton OPP say two rifles, a shotgun, an assortment of ammunition and drugs with an estimated street value of nearly $50,000 were seized.
Police say the drug included 9,400 tablets of suspected Ecstasy, a small quantity of suspected marihuana and suspected oxycodone.
Names of the accused have not yet been released.
Tags: drug bust, Lambton OPP, walpole island, weapons bust
Tags: drug bust, Lambton OPP, walpole island, weapons bust
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text:
Deserts and Beyond
Deserts and beyond...places in and around the southern California deserts and beyond. Photo taken at Canyon Lake, in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona, December 2011. A few minutes later, after the sun disappeared, these cliffs were their normal color. They were only golden for a short time and I'm glad we were able to view them in their glory.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Park fence~Friday's Fences~020813
Posted by desertsandbeyond at 5:19 PM
4 comments:
- Leave It To Davis said...
The fence looks pretty new....or very well taken care of!
- February 7, 2013 at 7:01 PM
- Liz Needle said...
That's a very sturdy looking fence. My type of fence - plain, simple and efficient.
- February 7, 2013 at 10:25 PM
- Tanya Breese said...
i haven't been there in a very long time!
- February 8, 2013 at 5:51 AM
- Jan n Jer said...
Nice sturdy fence...should last a long time.
- February 8, 2013 at 6:26 AM
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The Joyous Festivities and the Marvelous Foods of Easter Sweep Every Greek into their embrace. Every Family Roasts a whole Lamb or Goat, Stews a Joint of the meat, or Simmers Mageiritsa Soup (Page 176). The Baking that has been going on for days now manifests as sumptuous treats: Sweet Koulouria Rings, Powdered Sugar Cookies, Cheese Pies, and the most essential, the Easter Bread. Called Lambropsomi or Tsoureki, the bread varies slightly in shape and flavoring from region to region, but It is Always Rich, Sweet, and, most important, decorated with eggs dyed red. The Crust is honey brown, the crumb airy and a rich ocher. The Pieces waft their piney, Mastic aroma. No wonder family members hover until the bread is broken and, with it, make Communion with both their faith and one another.
1. Pour ¾ cup of the milk into a bowl. Add the yeast, 1 tablespoon of the sugar, and 1 cup of the flour and stir to mix. Set aside in a warm place until lightly spongy all the way through, 30 minutes.
2. Sift the remaining sugar, 5 cups of the flour, and the salt into a large mixing bowl. Add the mahlepi, mastic, and butter and briefly mix with your fingers. Make a well in the center and pour in the beaten eggs, yeast mixture, and remaining ¾ cup milk. Knead with your hands until you can gather the mixture into a ball, 1 to 2 minutes.
3. Dust a work surface with some of the remaining 1½ cups flour. Transfer the dough to the floured surface and knead, dusting the surface with flour as needed, until the dough is smooth and elastic and no longer sticky, 10 minutes.
4. Lightly coat the dough ball with oil and place it in a clean bowl. Cover the bowl with a cloth and set it aside in a warm place to rise until the dough has doubled in bulk, about 2 hours.
5. Punch down the dough and transfer it to a lightly floured surface. Knead the dough again for 1 minute, then divide it in half. Cover the two portions with a cloth and let them rest until puffed up again, 20 minutes.
6. Divide one of the portions of dough into thirds. With your hands, roll each third to form a rope about 20 inches long. When you have three ropes, braid them together. Pinch the ends together, tuck them under the braid and place the braid on a lightly oiled baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining portion. Set the braids aside, covered, in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
7. When you are ready to bake the bread, preheat the oven to 350°F.
8. Brush each braid with the egg wash. Press 2 or 3 red eggs into each braid and sprinkle the almonds over the top. Bake until very golden on the top and sides, 40 to 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and let rest on the baking sheets for 30 minutes. Slice and serve while still warm, or cool completely and wrap in plastic wrap. The bread will keep at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Some cooks also add about 1 tablespoon coarsely grated orange zest to the dough.
If you're one who loves warm bread, you can slice the loaf right after it comes out of the oven; the texture will be more spongy and cakelike than bread like.
Workers sort and grade newly harvested mastic tears on Hios.
As much as the lamb, eggs are an emblem of the Greek Easter. To Greeks, spring eggs denote sudden wealth, the fertility of the coming summer, abundance, and above all else, joy. Announcing Christ's resurrection in a splendid splash of color, the eggs for the Easter bread are dyed red. In earlier days this was done in water tinted scarlet from beets, the first spring vegetable, or, where it was available, reddish wood. Now cooks generally use commercial packets of dye. The dyeing begins on Holy Thursday, before the solemnity of Good Friday wraps the week in black. Indeed, Holy Thursday is sometimes called Kokkinopefti, "the day red falls," to symbolize Christ's blood.
1. Place the water in a saucepan just large enough to hold the eggs in one layer and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the vinegar and red food coloring. Reduce the heat to just below the boiling point, and gently, one at a time, add as many eggs as will fit in one layer. Cook for 15 minutes, adjusting the heat so the liquid simmers without boiling. Then remove the pan from the heat and set the eggs aside to cool in the liquid for at least 40 minutes.
2. Lift the eggs out of the liquid and pat them dry on paper towels.
3. Grease your hands with olive oil and rub the eggs to make them glossy. Use right away or store in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Mastic is generally sold in crystals. These reduce to a powder when lightly ground with a mortar and pestle or with a mallet. Both mastic and mahlepi can be purchased from any Greek specialty food store, from mail-order catalogs, or on the Internet. For a description of mastic, see page 143. For a description of mahlepi, see page 505.
If necessary, 1½ tablespoons vanilla extract can be substituted for the mastic, and the mahlepi can be omitted but the flavor of the bread will not be traditional.The color of the eggshell affects the depth of color when the eggs are dyed. Brown eggs turn out a denser red; white eggs turn out more luminescent.
Egg Beating
In addition to decorating the Easter loaf, in Greece eggs make up part of the toys bestowed upon children and part of the games played on Easter day. With the leftovers from the bread dough, women shape small bread dolls (for girls) and snakes or other animals (for boys) and place a red egg as the head of the figure. Village children have few toys, and these bread toys delight them.
Red eggs are given in baskets and are hidden for the children to find. And both children and adults play a special game with uncooked eggs on Easter day: With egg in hand, they greet each other and hit their eggs point to point while saying "Christ is risen." One person gets hands, if not clothes, splattered—to much laughter—while the one with the stronger egg goes on to test it on another Easter reveler.
Nutritional information is for each loaf, using 4 red eggs, and does not include olive oil for greasing your hands to make the red eggs.
Nutrients per serving (% daily value)
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text: Description Facilities Map The Premier Hotel King David welcomes you to East London which is the gateway to South Africa's Sunshine and Wild Coasts. We are in close proximity to the airport, excellent beaches, shopping and business districts making this is the hotel for business and leisure travellers alike. Premier Hotel King David offers 80 rooms ranging from deluxe to luxurious executive suites. All rooms have en-suite bathrooms, select DStv bouquet, telephones, tea and coffee-making facilities and safes. To ensure a truly remarkable and comfortable stay, Premier Hotel King David offers services such as on-site parking, transport and shuttle services, concierge facilities, room service, 24-hour reception, laundry, ironing and valet service, WiFi, and a business centre. The Mtombo Restaurant offers guests a comprehensive á la carte menu or buffet option in an Africa-themed atmosphere. Our acclaimed chefs and friendly restaurant staff will attend to all your culinary needs. For a family friendly, warm and welcoming experience, whether it is a breakfast, lunch or dinner, visit the Mtombo Restaurant. Type: HotelSleeps: 160 Check-in: 02:00 PM Check-out: 11:00 AM Reviews: 0 Airport Shuttle ServiceParking AvailableLaundry Facilities*Satellite TV*Wi-FiCredit Card FacilitiesRestaurantOn-site ParkingLanguages SpokenEnglishXhosa (isiXhosa)Afrikaans* Please enquire for further details. Toggle Street View * We rely on Google's mapping service, and the location information supplied to us to show street view images. Please use street view as a guide only as we cannot guarantee its accuracy.


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Stephen Kinney
The Rev. Stephen Kinney
Adjunct Faculty
Stephen Kinney is an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Texas and currently serves as the director of The Front Porch Project, which is a mission of All Saints' Episcopal Church in Austin. After serving as youth minister, chaplain, and rector in schools and parishes in Houston, New York City, and Fredericksburg, he earned a PhD in Educational Psychology with a focus on dialogical relationships (dissertation: Sustaining Marriage in a Post-Traditional, Postmodern World).
B.A., University of Texas; M.Div., Seminary of the Southwest; M.A., Ph.D., University of Texas


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© Four Seasons Resort
Guests who need to avoid the paparazzi and others looking for a secluded getaway will find it at the Four Seasons Carmelo in Uruguay. Located in a bucolic countryside dotted with pine and eucalyptus trees on the shore of the Rio de la Plata, the Four Seasons offers pampering, personalized service, and the attention to detail that has become their signature. Personalized service starts from the moment guests are pickup in a Mercedes Benz or vintage car at the ferry landing in the historic city of Colonia. The Four Seasons is a one–hour drive from the historic city of Colonia, which is one hour by fast ferry from Buenos Aires. Those in a hurry can rely on a 20–minute plane transfer from Aeroparque Airport in Buenos Aires to the small airport in Carmelo, only 10 minutes from the hotel.
The Four Season Carmelo is a wonderful balance of global décor and architectural styles with Balinese accents. Beyond the large intricate, hand–carved door imported from Bali is a four–level main lobby with a soaring granite fireplace and four large wrought iron chandeliers. During sit–down sign–in it is hard to stay focused while trying to take in the property's unique artifacts that include Foo Dogs.
Surrounded by eucalyptus and pine trees, accommodations include bi–level suites and bungalows featuring private gardens. The bungalows have an exterior shower. Fruit–flavored iced tea, apples, and a bowl with nuts and dried fruits await each guest's arrival. Four–poster Lapacho beds can be found in the bi–level suites while the bungalows offer a hand–carved bed. Cozy banquettes and mesh bed drapes create a romantic setting. Accommodations, especially the bi–level ones are so comfy that should the weather turn cool, which it can, spending time curled up with a good book on a banquette is no hardship.
The Pura Restaurant, with seating around a still pool dotted with floating candles, features an &asado,& the traditional Uruguayan slanted grill. Ask about the Uruguayan items on the menu and the waiter will share information about the country's culinary history. For a more intimate dining experience choose a corner tables with batik privacy curtains. The Mandara Restaurant features Italian cuisine in a setting that continues the world fusion theme with a blend of aspects of Morocco and Bali. In the lobby lounge a wide selection of libations, including Cana Mojitos made with the local &fire water,& can be enjoyed while gazing at the Rio de la Plata. Mid afternoon is teatime in the Shiva Lounge under a splashy painted ceiling and surrounded by unique art pieces. Private dinner with guitar music in the Gazebo is not to be missed. The rustic Estancia is the setting for barbecues, while dining in the room or on the patio is easy to arrange.
The double–cascade heated infinity pool is the centerpiece in the daytime, with cushioned lounge chairs and attendants in waiting. Activities include biking, canoeing, horseback riding, polo tournaments at the resort's own polo court, tennis, fishing, and visits to the cities of Carmelo and historic Colonia. The 18–hole golf course here is considered one of the best in Latin America, complete with a driving range, a large outdoor, and a pro shop providing golf equipment sales and rental. A kids' club with daily activities makes it a family destination but many &little ones& and teenagers may find there is not enough to keep them occupied. The onsite casino is more intimate than lively.
The spa provides the expected Four Seasons pampering, in a setting where glass walls face the forest. Trickling water, candles, and subdued lighting create an ambiance of ultimate tranquility.
For a romantic escapade or a pampered getaway, this is a good choice. Even guests who are not trying to get away from prying eyes will feel that they are as important as those who are &in hiding.& There is none of the razzle–dazzle associated with Punta del Este–come here for a getaway with no distractions. This hotel is less extensive than some other Four Seasons locations, but few will leave disappointed.


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Forget about breaking your back shoveling snow, just sit back and pull out the remote control. Video
Buffalo Bills make me wanna SHOUT
The Buffalo Bills are a professional football team based in Buffalo, New York. They are members of the East Division of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The Bills are the only team to win four consecutive conference championships, and are the only NFL team to play in four consecutive


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main index
A 1975 film set in London in the 1920s. Lord Southmere steals the "Lotus X" formula from China on microfilm, then hides it in a dinosaur skeleton in the Natural History Museum. He then loses his memory, and can't remember exactly where he hid it, so a group of nannies try to find it before the Chinese can reclaim it.This is one of the horde of live action adventure/comedy films that Disney was apt to make in the sixties and seventies (Others include Race to Witch Mountain, Condorman, Follow Me Boys, and a whole slew of films starring a young Kurt Russell.)
This film contains examples of:


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Horse racing meets wine tasting as the Sunshine Millions California Cup hosts the California Wine Festival on Saturday, January 25th. Sample food and fine wine from the following California vineyards:
- Zaca Mesa Winery & Vineyards
- Layer Cake
- Garnet Vineyards
- Clos Pegase
- Cartlidge & Browne
- Crimson Wine Group
- Cline
- Toad Hollow Vineyards
- Steelhead Vineyards
- Smashberry
- J Vineyards & Winery
- Laetitia Vineyard & Winery
The VIP Package for $120 will get you: Club House admission, the daily racing program, unlimited wine samplings, a commemorative acrylic wine glass, food samplings, a fast track pass to bypass the lines, a voucher for 1 entree from one of the Club House contemporary eateries, and a Sunshine Millions California Wine Festival t-shirt. The General Admission package, for $50, includes a general admission ticket, the daily racing program, twelve wine samplings, a commemorative acrylic wine glass, and food samplings. Tickets are available here.
For more info, go to the Santa Anita Park events page: http://www.santaanita.com/events
The Details:
Saturday, January 25, 2014
12:00 PM (Show time)
Santa Anita Park
285 W Huntington Drive
Arcadia, CA 91007
Tickets on sale at sap.ticketmob.com
More info at http://www.santaanita.com/events
Region: San Gabriel Valley
Neighborhood: Arcadia
Features: Wine
Price Range: $50/$120
Cuisine Type: Wine


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The North Face Venture Jacket for Women was awarded with recognition for eco-conscious construction by editors of Backpacker Magazine. This waterproof, breathable outer layer is made from environmentally friendly membrane to protect you from rain during every season. To maximize air flow, the Venture Jacket features underarm vents. Additional protection is given with the adjustable hood with draw cord and Velcro storm flap closure.
Women's | Men's | Boy's | Girl's | Infants
Thank You to Outdoor USA Magazine for selecting Denali as one of the 2014 Top 100 Outdoor Retailers! Denali is part of the Trailblazer family and has store locations in New Haven, CT and Wakefield, RI. DenaliOutdoor.com offers you top outdoor brands like The North Face, Patagonia, Merrell Footwear, UGG Australia, Marmot, New Balance, Asics, Nike and more plus free shipping on orders over $50!
Questions? Call 866.451.3795 ext. 1 (Weekdays 8:30am - 4pm EST) or firstname.lastname@example.com
Find us on Google+ | Denali Outdoor is Upfront


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MILR/MBA Dual Degree Program
The dual degree MILR/MBA program from ILR and Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management offers a unique opportunity. Alumni and current students agree that obtaining a joint MILR/MBA from these two highly respected programs at Cornell offers an incredible edge in today's fast changing workplace. The MILR/MBA program will
- increase your career options
- develop management and technical skills
- increase your earning power
A joint MILR/MBA degree from Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) and Johnson places you in the center of the 21st century workplace.
Students must apply to and be accepted in both the MILR and MBA programs. The dual degree requires a total of 75 credit hours in two and a half years: 2 semesters in ILR and 3 semesters at Johnson.
What People are Saying about the ILR School's MILR Program
"In my opinion, if you are certain that you want a career in HRM, a MS in HRM from a top school such as Cornell is the best way to go. This top tier school has excellent placement rates and good salaries for graduates." (taken from the SHRM Web site)
— Steve Thomas, Southwest Missouri State University
"I think you will find it easier to get an HR job with an M.S. [or MILR] -- particularly if you get a degree from one of the top five programs (Cornell, Univ. of Wisconsin, Univ. of Illinois, Univ. of Minn. and Michigan State Univ.)…" (taken from the SHRM Web site)
— Mark J. Keppler, California State University- Fresno
"As a graduate of Cornell's Masters in Industrial and Labor Relations (MILR), I have some insight that might be helpful. The main difference between MBA with a HR concentration and a Masters of Science in HR Mgmt. or a Masters in Labor Relations (which in today's world can be almost totally HR-based and not traditional mgmt.-union focused) is this: an MBA has a ton of general business courses and only a few HR ones. The MILR has a ton of HR courses and a few general business ones. Employers go to both schools, but I think the national recruited MILR schools are limited (Cornell, Minnesota, Michigan State, Illinois are the ones I ran across)." (taken from the SHRM Web site)
— Gary Garber, Vice President, Human Resources, Avaya Government Solutions
MILR Requirements
Students must complete the 6 MILR Core courses (18 Credit hours) at the ILR School including Collective Bargaining, Labor and Employment Law, Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences, Organizational Behavior, Labor Economics, and Human Resource Management.
- ILRLR 5000 Collective Bargaining - A comprehensive introduction to the industrial relations system of the United States. Includes the negotiation, scope, and day-to-day administration of contracts, union and employer bargaining structures, implications of industrial relations issues for U.S. competitiveness and public policy, industrial conflict, and U.S. - industrial relations in an international and comparative perspective.
- ILRLR 5010 Labor and Employment Law - A survey and analysis of the law governing labor relations and employee rights in the workplace. The first half of the course examines the legal framework in which collective bargaining takes place, including union organizational campaigns, negotiations for and enforcement of collective bargaining agreements, and the use of economic pressure. The second half of the course surveys additional issues of rights in employment, including such topics as employment discrimination, the developing law of "unjust dismissal," and union democracy. Also serves as an introduction to judicial and administrative systems.
- ILRST 5110 Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences - A second course in statistics that emphasizes applications to the social sciences. Topics include: simple linear regression; multiple linear regression (theory, model building, and model diagnostics); and the analysis of variance. Computer packages are used extensively.
- ILROB 5200 Organizational Behavior - Survey of concepts, theories, and research from the fields of organizational and social psychology as these relate to the behavior of individuals and groups in organizations. Job attitudes, motivation, performance, leadership and power, group formation, perception, and organizational climate. A preliminary course for advanced work in organizational behavior.
- ILRLE 5400 Labor Economics - A course in labor market economics for prospective managers in the corporate, union, and governmental sectors. The course begins with demand and supply in labor markets, presenting the tools of decision analysis for workers and firms. It then goes on to consider various topics for managers including deciding on the optimal mix of capital and labor to employ, attracting and retaining talent, pay and productivity, hiring and training investments, and pensions and retirement. The final section of the course covers other important labor market issues including unemployment, discrimination, poverty and inequality, and analysis of public policies.
- ILRHR 5600 Human Resource Management - A survey course covering the major areas of the management of human behavior in work organizations. Consideration is given to aspects of strategic human resource management such as staffing, training and development, performance management, compensation, and employee relations. Emphasis is on exploring these issues from both strategic and tactical levels to increase organizational effectiveness.
MILR Elective Requirement
12 elective credit hours that may be taken in any course approved by the candidate's advisor at the ILR school.
MBA Requirements
Johnson core courses are taken from seven key areas: Financial Accounting, Statistics for Management, Microeconomics for Management, Marketing Management, Managing and Leading in Organizations, Strategy, Managerial Finance and Managing Operations.
- 20 credit hours of core MBA courses
- 25 credit hours of elective MBA courses
Visit Johnson's website for more information regarding the MBA application process and degree requirements.
In summary, a candidate for the MILR/MBA Dual Degrees must successfully complete:
- 18 credit hours of MILR Core Courses (6 courses)
- 20 credit hours of core MBA courses
- 25 credit hours of elective MBA courses
- 12 credit hours of elective MILR courses
for a total of 75 credit hours.
Are you ready to take the next step?Apply Now
If you still have questions, make sure you read our Frequently Asked Questions or get in touch with one of our advisors. When you're ready, take the next step and start your application procedure.