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Robot Employment Survival 101
Fear not the rise of the machines? That appears to be the advice given by MIT economist David H. Autor in a paper he recently presented at the Kansas City Fed's symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Responding to a significant uptick in economists' concern over the effects of automation on employment, including the "stunning" results of a poll suggesting "that a plurality of mainstream economists has accepted—at least tentatively—the proposition that a decade of technological advancement has made the median worker no better off, and possibly worse off," Autor suggests that it will be a lot harder to automate us all away than many journalists and expert commentators have indicated.
Autor argues that "Polanyi's paradox," whereby "We can know more than we can tell…" saves us from the threat of total automation dislocation, because there will always be jobs that rely on a variety of particularly human skills and tasks, skills and tasks that we can't entirely explain to ourselves, much less to a computer. As the philosopher Michael Polanyi himself put it, "The skill of a driver cannot be replaced by a thorough schooling in the theory of the motorcar; the knowledge I have of my own body differs altogether from the knowledge of its physiology."
While jobs consisting almost entirely of routine tasks, i.e. those easily codified into rules that can then be automated, have been and will continue to be replaced by machine labor, then, there is according to Autor a natural buffer to keep many people employed (if not necessarily well paid). In fact, Autor sees a significant opportunity for computer-enhanced human labor, for "tasks that cannot be substituted by computerization are generally complemented by it." The construction worker, in his example, has to manage too many variables in a fluid environment to be automated away. However, he can be given a backhoe to replace his shovel, enhancing the productivity of his labor while making backhoe-trained workers more valuable than the merely shovel-ready.
This is a blue-collar example of "skill-biased technical change," more traditionally described by Autor's fellow MIT professors (and techno-employment pessimists) Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee:
Technologies like robotics, numerically controlled machines, computerized inventory control, and automatic transcription have been substituting for routine tasks, displacing those workers. Meanwhile other technologies like data visualization, analytics, high-speed communications, and rapid prototyping have augmented the contributions of more abstract and data-driven reasoning, increasing the value of those jobs.
Brynjolfsson and McAfee discuss in their book a polarization of the employment market, where high-skill abstract-task intensive jobs are increasingly well compensated, and well complemented by machine labor. Low-skill Polanyi paradox jobs, like janitorial work and home health care, are also insulated from being automated away, but as Autor describes it, they are too well-insulated to even benefit from automation complementing their labor. Because their jobs require only the minimal amount of human reasoning that any competent adult can provide, their wages are depressed by the large supply of interchangeable labor. Middle-skill jobs, however, are nearly wiped out in Brynjolfsson and McAfee's analysis.
Here, too, Autor finds some reason for more optimism. Read More…
Eric Holder Puts Corporate Dope on the Table
Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the latest in a series of massive, multi-billion-dollar settlements extracted from Wall Street's largest banks as punishment for their role in the subprime mortgage bubble and bust that played a role in collapsing the economy in 2008. Charlotte-based Bank of America, paying for the sins of its own lenders as well as those of investment firm Merrill Lynch and subprime specialist Countrywide (both of which it acquired during the 2008 crisis), will be paying a record $16.65 billion settlement, including an also-record $9.65 billion in cash. This follows last month's Citigroup settlement of $7 billion (including a then-record $4 billion in cash), and last fall's $13 billion JPMorgan Chase settlement.
The numbers are truly eye-popping, and the repeated use of "record" has a nice, satisfying ring to it. But, just before the latest BoA settlement was announced, William Cohen denounced the entire exercise as "fine theater with the obvious caveat that nothing even remotely close to justice had been served." Far from being impressed by the sums involved, Cohen sees the settlements as hush money, paid by Wall Street executives eager to keep the details of their worst behaviors out of the public eye.
The American people are deprived of knowing precisely how bad things got inside these banks in the years leading up to the financial crisis, and the banks, knowing they will be saved the humiliation caused by the public airing of a trove of emails and documents, will no doubt soon be repeating their callous and indifferent behavior.
Instead of the truth, we get from the Justice Department a heavily negotiated and sanitized "statement of facts" about what supposedly went wrong. In the case of JPMorgan, the statement of facts was 21 pages but contained little of substance beyond the fact that an unidentified whistle-blower at the bank tried to alert her superiors to her belief that shoddy mortgages were being packaged and sold as securities. Her warnings went unheeded and the mortgages were packaged and sold all the same.
JPMorgan's CEO and famed finance guru Jamie Dimon reportedly made a personal call in the lead-up to a federal lawsuit being filed in order to bump his settlement offer by, ultimately, $10 billion dollars, hoping "the meeting would avert the lawsuit, which threatened to spotlight the bank's questionable mortgage practices before the financial crisis." The $13 billion was, the Times reported, half of one year's annual profits for the bank.
Indeed, the Times followed up yesterday to show how even Bank of America was getting off lighter than the numbers might make it seem at first blush. "At issue is how much of the cost of the $7 billion in 'soft dollars,' or help for borrowers, the bank will bear under the settlement," the Times said, as writing down principal on loans may have already been factored into BoA's plans, or they may not even own the loans anymore, having sold them off in the infamous mortgage-backed securities. The investors who bought the bad bonds "note that the government promotes the settlements as punishment for dumping faulty loans on investors, but it devises deals that saddle investors with some of the costs."
And in a rather perverse function of intersecting laws,
The actual pain to the bank could also be significantly reduced by tax deductions. Tax analysts, for instance, estimate that Bank of America could derive $1.6 billion of tax savings on the $4.63 billion of payments to the states and some federal agencies under the settlement. Shares of Bank of America jumped 4 percent on Thursday, suggesting investors believe that the bank could take the settlement in stride.
Moreover, the Justice Department and states began to get creative in their negotiations with BoA, Read More…
Will the Panopticon Save Us From the Police?
Since the shooting of Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer over a week ago, the idea of arming police with personal body cameras to record their on-duty actions has gained fresh currency.
German Lopez at Vox wrote, "If police officers were required to wear body cameras, questions about their conduct — like the ones that have arisen in the wake of the Michael Brown shooting — could be avoided." Derek Thompson at The Atlantic noted, "Although military technology has arguably given law enforcement an unreasonable amount of power, there is another piece of technology that could help restrain the militarization of America's police in the future: a camera." And Nick Gillespie of Reason insisted that "While there is no simple fix to race relations in any part of American life, there is an obvious way to reduce violent law enforcement confrontations while also building trust in cops: Police should be required to use wearable cameras and record their interactions with citizens."
The idea is to attach small, portable cameras to police officers' collars or sunglasses that can then provide objective evidence to be called upon to settle any disputes or complaints about misconduct. The California city of Rialto has been conducting a rigorous and increasingly high-profile police body camera experiment over the past couple years, and has found results to exceed what expectations even their staunchest advocates could likely have had. As the New York Times reported a year ago,
In the first year after the cameras were introduced here in February 2012, the number of complaints filed against officers fell by 88 percent compared with the previous 12 months. Use of force by officers fell by almost 60 percent over the same period.
Officers had been randomly assigned cameras and instructed to turn them on for any encounter with civilians. The Times continued, "Officers used force 25 times, down from 61 over the previous 12 months. And those wearing cameras accounted for 8 of those incidents." The Rialto police chief William A. Farrar observed, "When you put a camera on a police officer, they tend to behave a little better, follow the rules a little better … And if a citizen knows the officer is wearing a camera, chances are the citizen will behave a little better."
Yet even setting aside the natural privacy concerns raised by strapping recording devices to every patrol officer circumambulating their city's streets, it is worth raising a smaller, subtler, but nevertheless potentially significant concern: the increasingly intermediated cop. One only has to glance in the window of a local patrol car to see the sprawling array of screens, keyboards, and communication devices designed to link the officer to all the information they could need. The problem being, of course, that the most important information the common cop needs still can't be pulled up within his car: the knowledge gained from building relationships with those in the community he patrols.
That relationship-building is a core component of a police officer's mission, and may be almost entirely divorced from the work he can get done on his car's mounted notebook computer. It also requires a certain amount of discretion, getting to know a neighborhood's warts as well as its virtues. The conversations that give an officer an accurate picture of the seedy but not destructive side of his citizens' lives could very well be more difficult or awkward should the policeman's sunglasses be rolling film.
Mark Steyn, in addressing the more expressly dangerous and frightening distortion of the police seen in the militarization of the Ferguson PD, gave some interesting and relevant history:
To camouflage oneself in the jungles of suburban America, one should be clothed in Dunkin' Donuts and Taco Bell packaging. A soldier wears green camo in Vietnam to blend in. A policeman wears green camo in Ferguson to stand out – to let you guys know: We're here, we're severe, get used to it.
This is not a small thing. The point about 'the thin blue line' is that it's blue for a reason. As I wrote a couple of months ago:
'The police' is a phenomenon of the modern world. It would be wholly alien, for example, to America's Founders. In the sense we use the term today, it dates back no further than Sir Robert Peel's founding of the Metropolitan Police in 1829. Because Londoners associated the concept with French-style political policing and state control, they were very resistant to the idea of a domestic soldiery keeping them in line. So Peel dressed his policemen in blue instead of infantry red, and instead of guns they had wooden truncheons."
So, when the police are dressed like combat troops, it's not a fashion faux pas, it's a fundamental misunderstanding of who they are.
When the police are moving around dressed as Google Glassholes, might they also be living a misunderstanding? Body cameras may ultimately be necessary to protect us from the police, and the police from themselves. But the Benthamite logic that keeps our present-day peace will be fundamentally different from that governing the polis-protectors of Sir Robert Peel.
Hawks Call for Cuts to Israel Military Aid
As Israel ramps up its ground invasion and bombing campaign against Gaza, one might think that the Jewish state's fiercest defenders here in the United States would be resolutely holding the line against any suggestion of reducing support to the IDF. Instead, Eli Lake reported this morning, many of Israel's most prominent hawkish supporters are increasingly open to the idea of reducing or eliminating the billions of dollars in military aid that the United States provides Israel every year.
They have not changed their feathers, to be sure, but rather see a phase-out of aid to be in Israel's best interests as they understand them. Noah Pollak, who runs the Emergency Committee on Israel, said, "The experience of the Obama years has sharpened the perception among pro-Israel Americans that aid can cut against Israel by giving presidents with bad ideas more leverage than they would otherwise have."
Elliott Abrams, the former George W. Bush deputy national security adviser and "leading pro-Israel writer and policy analyst" told Lake, "My view is over time it would be healthy for the relationship if the aid diminished. Israel should be less dependent on American financial assistance and should become the kind of ally that we have in Australia, Canada or the United Kingdom, an intimate military relationship and alliance, but no military aid."
A consistent theme in these arguments is a desire for Israel to gain greater independence in recognition of its changed position from decades ago. David Wurmser, a former Cheney aide who helped author the 1996 "Clean Break" memo that also called for terminating U.S. aid, "said the idea at the time was for Israel to graduate from being a 'tenuous project' to a 'real country.'" Naftali Bennett, the right-wing Israeli Minister of the Economy, said last year that "U.S. military aid is roughly 1 percent of Israel's economy. I think, generally, we need to free ourselves from it. We have to do it responsibly … but our situation today is very different from what it was 20 and 30 years ago.'"
Abrams noted that Israel's booming economy (its GDP has doubled since 2000) and recent discovery of significant natural gas reserves has led to talk of a sovereign wealth fund for the country to invest its surplus moneys in, "but I do not believe a country that has a sovereign wealth fund can be an aid recipient."
In many ways, these pro-Israel hawks echo the sentiments of skeptics of U.S. policy towards Israel, including University of Chicago professor John J. Mearsheimer, who wrote in TAC in 2009 that "Both countries would be much better off if the Obama administration treated Israel the way it treats other democracies, such as Britain, France, Germany, and India." There are obvious limits to that overlap, as Abrams worries that, "Were there a reduction now, it would be attributed to administration hostility to Israel and be seen as a weakening of U.S. support," and so doesn't want to see a reduction in aid until a more friendly administration is in place.
But the desire for Israel to take a more independent, self-sufficient place among the nations seems to be shared by hawks and doves alike, and is at the least worth keeping an eye on.
Labor Union Brings Community Bookstore to Heel
Sex isn't the only thing that will get New York City's liberals hot and bothered.
Chris Doelib is an independent bookseller who owns a bookstore in the Morningside Heights neighborhood next to Columbia University. As the New York Times detailed in Sunday's paper, Doelib self-identifies as "an extremely progressive liberal," who "hung photographs of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. above the cash registers … threw open his doors to local authors, provided a home for the Queer Book Club and created a weekly story time program for children (in English, Spanish and Mandarin)." Thus to many in the neighborhood, "he is a lanky warrior for the written word, celebrated for creating and sustaining an intellectual haven in the neighborhood for nearly two decades."
Or he was, rather, until Doelib resisted attempts to unionize his store by firing several employees involved in the effort (saying they were management employees who illicitly voted in the union election).
Within a week, the Times reports,
…[m]ost of Mr. Doeblin's remaining employees went on strike, picketing his two stores with the help of the union and its giant inflatable rats, and urging neighborhood residents to join in a boycott. The news spread on Twitter, in the local news media and on community email lists. Sales plunged.
The union in question, the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, brought giant inflatable rats to their picket lines as they rallied a neighborhood against an independent community book store that had supported so many of its cherished causes over the years. The Times story then contrasts an expected lengthy, drawn-out battle between management and labor with what was in actuality a clean and speedy resolution.
As it tells the story, "something happened as Mr. Doeblin watched his staff protest, as he was peppered with questions while walking to work and as he fielded hundreds of emails and phone calls at his stores." It wasn't that he feared for the solvency of his business, or was frightened at the scale of opposition pouring out of the community he had served for so many years. Instead, Doeblin "started to wonder where he had gone wrong." After some perfunctory self-examination, he "agreed to rehire the four fired supervisors, provided that they agreed to give up their titles and return to hourly status for now. He gave a severance package to the fifth person he had let go and has agreed to recognize the union." All this within a day of the giant inflatable rats being deployed outside his store.
As James Poulos articulated in his "Conservative Case for Unions," "unions wind up being the only way industrial workers can bargain effectively with the massive corporations that employ them. Unions exist because, without them, the path is opened wide to crony collaboration between big government and big business." Given the enormous scales at which billion-dollar companies and trillion-dollar governments operate, unions can serve a vital organizing role in connecting wage-labor workers at similarly large scales.
An independent community bookstore staffed largely by Columbia University students, however, is the furthest thing imaginable from the circumstances that legitimate union activity. Here, the hand of organized labor was brought in to signal noncompliance with one of the tenets of contemporary liberal norms, so that the offender might be brought back around. And so he was.
The Conservatism of New Urbanism
Responding to Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry's contention that the American left is intellectually exhausted, Noah Smith argues that one place liberals are stirring up new, progressive thinking is "the New Urbanists, which include prominent figures such as Richard Florida and a whole host of organizations working behind the scenes to transform American cities." As Smith explains,
In the decades since World War II, the U.S. has seen relentless suburban sprawl, white flight and concentrations of poverty in inner cities. New Urbanism is looking to change all that, by encouraging walkable neighborhoods, adaptive redevelopment and less reliance on cars. Urban planning may sound like small potatoes, but it probably has more relevance to our daily lives than most federal government programs.
Urban planning can indeed have more relevance to our daily lives than most federal government programs (though urban planning is influenced by several federal government programs, it must be said). It determines the shape of our communities, and the patterns of our movement. Winston Churchill's famous line that we shape our buildings, and thereafter they shape us may hold doubly true for our neighborhoods. And that is why New Urbanism is such an important conservative movement.
As Andres Duany, a founder of New Urbanism, explains in his book Suburban Nation, "The traditional neighborhood was the fundamental form of European settlement on this continent through the Second World War, from St. Augustine to Seattle. It continues to be the dominant pattern of habitation outside the United States, as it has been throughout recorded history," whereas
Suburban sprawl, now the standard North American pattern of growth, ignores historical precedent and human experience. It is an invention, conceived by architects, engineers, and planners, and promoted by developers in the great sweeping aside of the old that occurred after the Second World War. Unlike the traditional neighborhood model, which evolved organically as a response to human needs, suburban sprawl is an idealized artificial system.
No less a conservative icon than Heritage Foundation and Moral Majority founder Paul Weyrich joined TAC's William S. Lind and Duany to present a report, "Conservatives and the New Urbanism," in which they wrote,
On the face of it, it is hard to see why conservatives should oppose offering traditionally-designed cities, towns and neighborhoods as alternatives to post-war "sprawl" suburbs. As conservatives, we are supposed to prefer traditional designs over modern innovations in most things (and we do). We hope to demonstrate traditional designs for the places we live, work and shop encourage traditional culture and morals. This should not surprise us. Edmund Burke told us more than two hundred years ago that traditional societies are organic wholes. If you (literally) disintegrate a society's physical setting, as sprawl has done, you tend to disintegrate its culture as well.
It is true that the overwhelming majority of New Urbanists are liberal. It should also be noted and acknowledged that, as Smith says, "Good ideas are good ideas, and identifying them with one team or the other just invites gridlock and polarization — which, as you may have noticed, we have plenty of these days." But once we set Richard Florida's "creative class" pablum to the side, it becomes apparent that when it comes to New Urbanism, progressives are designing better than they know.
Update: TAC will have much more coverage of conservatism, New Urbanism, and cities, starting next week, in a project funded by the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. Stay tuned.
Can Main Street Poach Talent From Wall Street?
James Fallows of The Atlantic has been touring the United States with his wife, stopping in small and mid-size cities to try and get a picture of what is actually working in American politics. He says they've found it in the nation's mayors, who are exercising a strong hand of leadership to bring the best insights of urban planning and town development to their constituents, and revitalizing even economically stricken towns like former textile stalwart Greenville, South Carolina.
He recently got a response from a small-city Midwestern mayor currently on military duty in Afghanistan, who told him that "There has been lots of good buzz and coverage lately about cities and mayors, but a story still waiting to be told is the quality of people coming to work for them." The young mayor went on to postulate that "The kind of people who might have gone to NASA in the 1960s, Wall Street in the 1980s, or Silicon Valley in the late 1990s are now, I think, more likely than ever to work in municipal government," because it is increasingly becoming a place where people of talent and industry can get things done:
In recruiting talented professionals, we have been able to punch above the weight of a small city like ours, drawing people with international careers in architecture, government, consulting, and engineering to work for five-figure salaries in a small Midwestern city willing to try new things.
Is this a side-effect of federal dysfunction, that public-minded young professionals are far less attracted to the Hill as a place to make their mark and now look to the local level instead? Or something to do with the economy? I don't know, but I think there is something to this untold story of the kinds of people newly drawn to local civic work.
I'd like to see some hard numbers before jumping all the way on the small city optimism bandwagon, but as Fallows remarks, "We have not yet been to his city, but what he says resembles what we have heard elsewhere," where many of the people they encountered were driven by "the chance to make a difference, and be part of a success" (emphasis original).
I wonder, too, how much the utopian shine of Silicon Valley's start-up culture might start to wear thin on practically minded people of talent, and how far Wall Street's quantitative gymnastics might fall from the sort of meaningful work that can drive late nights for a purpose past the paycheck. Town renewal can be every bit as intellectually stimulating as credit-default swaps and big firm lawyering, with bookcases of accumulated zoning codes in need of a dramatic revamp customized to the needs of each place. That's not even to mention the tremendous creativity and human capital needed to cultivate established interests while courting new businesses with, as Fallows puts it, "a conception of the town—people think we're hicks, but we know we've developed something great—that depends on a series of specific achievements."
So even if small cities and large towns can't end up poaching quantitative whiz-kids from Wall Street, or steal blistering coders from Palo Alto, they may actually be able to do one better: attract great town managers.
Hobby Lobby Has Won, But Have We?
Hobby Lobby has won. The big box craft store's lawsuit challenging the contraceptive mandate regulation issued by the Department of Health and Human Services in its implementation of Obamacare had become seen as high-stakes test case determining the future balance between the religious liberty of conservative Christians and the mandates of sexual modernity. When the case was first heard back in March, Patrick Deneen weighed in here at TAC with a decidedly unorthodox argument. To Deneen, Christians relying on a big box retailer to represent them against a secular leviathan signaled "the culminating absurdity of what Polanyi called the 'utopia' of our modern economic disembedding":
The dominant narrative—religious liberty against state-mandated contraception—altogether ignores the economic nature of the case, and the deeper connections between the economy in which Hobby Lobby successfully and eagerly engages and a society that embraces contraception, abortion, sterilization, and, altogether, infertility. Largely ignored is the fact Hobby Lobby is a significant player in a global economy that has separated markets from morality. Even as it is a Christian-themed brand, it operates in a decisively "secular" economic world. …
Hobby Lobby—like every chain store of its kind—participates in an economy that is no longer "religious" or even "moral." That is, it participates in an economy that arose based on the rejection of the subordination of markets embedded within, and subject to, social and moral structures. This "Great Transformation" was detailed and described with great acuity by Karl Polanyi in his masterful 1944 book of that title. … As he succinctly described this "transformation," previous economic arrangements in which markets were "embedded" within moral and social structures, practices, and customs were replaced by ones in which markets were liberated from those contexts, and shorn of controlling moral and religious norms and ends. …
How delicious he would doubtless find the irony of a "religious corporation" seeking to push back against the State's understanding of humans as radically autonomous, individuated, biologically sterile, and even hostile to their offspring. For that "religious corporation" operates in an economic system in which it has been wholly disembedded from a pervasive moral and religious context. Its "religion" is no less individuated and "disembedded" than the conception of the self being advanced by the State. …
I hope Hobby Lobby wins its case. But we should not deceive ourselves for a minute that what we are seeing is the contestation between a religious corporation and a secular State. We are seeing, rather, the culminating absurdity of what Polanyi called the "utopia" of our modern economic disembedding—the absurdity of a chain store representing the voice of religion in the defense of life amid an economy and polity that values turning people and nature into things. Our entire economy is an education in how to be "pro-choice." What it most certainly is not in any way, shape or form, is about helping us to understand our true condition as embedded human beings.
Scott Galupo responded to distinguish his position as "a counterweight to the despair of both moral traditionalists like Deneen and Dreher and market purists-slash-declinists like Kevin Williamson." On the Hobby Lobby case in particular, he invoked Yuval Levin and Garry Wills to contrast the Obama administration's drive from a more appropriately modest accommodation:
Here, Levin calls to mind Garry Wills's distinction between the progressive-liberal "order of justice" and the "order of convenience." To sum up a complex essay, Wills believed it should not be the aim of the state to dispense "raw justice" (Chesterton's phrase), but rather to facilitate convenience (in the John Calhoun sense of the word—to "convene" or "concur" or bring about social peace). …
A proper order of convenience would be able to accommodate Hobby Lobby's religious objections. On this matter and others, the Obama administration seeks an order of justice. I hope, in this case, that it loses.
Micah Mattix demurred from definitively judging Hobby Lobby's particular moral merits, but criticized Deneen's sweeping judgment against modern markets: Read More…
Americans Aren't Politically Polarized—They're Sorted
Two weeks ago, the Pew Research Center released a sprawling report on the relative politics of Americans, spawning a cottage industry of interpretative articles and posts sorting out just what "Political Polarization in the American Public" says about political polarization in the American public. The problem is, well, it doesn't say much about it at all. As Stanford political scientist Morris Fiorina expertly explains at the Washington Post's Monkey Cage, Pew didn't measure polarization, that is to say, political extremes. Rather, they measured ideological consistency, according to a 10-question scale of their own construction:
Pew constructed a scale whereby respondents were scored -1 for a "liberal" response, and +1 for a conservative response, then all the scores were added up to obtain the political consistency scale. A perfectly consistent conservative would score a 10, a perfectly consistent liberal, a -10. Thus, as Fiorina notes, "people in the middle of the Pew distributions are not necessarily centrists." A "middle" score of 0 would be obtained by a mix of answers, none of which have their intensity or extremity measured, and so would indicate heterodoxy, not moderation. I suspect few TAC readers (or writers), for instance, would score perfect 10′s.
To see what this means in practice, look at the following graphic, frequently reproduced in the coverage of the Pew Report:
Understandably, many see the separation between the two sides, and assume that Americans are moving further apart on issues. What the graphic actually shows, however, is that Americans are becoming more ideologically consistent with their co-partisans. Republicans are becoming more consistently Republican, and Democrats more consistently Democratic. As Fiorina describes,
Prior to the 1980s the Republican Party had a significant liberal wing and the Democrats a significant conservative wing. … Today partisanship, ideology and issue positions go together in a way they did not in the mid-20th century. Issues and ideology used to cross-cut the partisan distribution, now they reinforce it. … The net result is parties that are much more internally homogeneous than was the case a generation ago.
While some may breathe a brief sigh of relief that Americans, on average, generally occupy the same middle ground as they did a generation ago, these sorting changes may in fact be much more politically pernicious than mere extremism. As Noah Millman has discussed periodically, the decline of the pro-life Democrat and the pro-choice Republican has not necessarily been beneficial for either political cause. Instead, it binds the fortunes of abortion policy to nearly every other political issue, so that abortion policy is dependent on the political state of economics, or foreign policy debates. And with less heterogeneity within the parties, there is less reason for politicians to try to cross party lines in the first place: there's no one waiting for them on the other side.
As the report notes, most Americans are not very ideologically consistent, and heterogeneity is still widespread. But because of the partisan sorting of the past decades, Fiorina says, "The unsorted and inconsistent middle still exists, but it has no home in either party."
Tech Can't Escape Geography After All
Are conservatives doomed to forever miss out on the booming innovations of the tech sector? That's the question Alexis Madrigal asks at The Atlantic in response to an admittedly startling survey result from Pew that only 4 percent of consistent conservatives (by their counting) would ideally like to live in the city, compared to 46 percent of consistent liberals. The Pew report is very interesting in its own right, and I hope to engage it at length next week, but Madrigal's projection of a "new digital divide" between urban, tech-savvy liberals and rural, disconnected conservatives merits consideration on its own, for how simply it explodes one of Silicon Valley's favorite myths about itself.
The networks comprising the World Wide Web have frequently been ascribed the power to "destroy geography" by connecting people and knowledge from across the world in a democratic marketplace of ideas. Enthusiasts of online education gush about the potential of Massively Open Online Courses to put a master teacher in every living room across the country, so that a Montanan farmer's boy can learn artificial intelligence from the same Stanford professor as a student sitting in Palo Alto. Telecommuting enthusiasts see the potential of working from home to connect skilled workers with employers across the country without any painful dislocations. The democratic meritocracy of the tech industry, it is said, will allow good ideas to bubble to the top wherever they may originate. Why, then, are the biggest tech companies all coming out of a handful of major cities?
And as Madrigal notes, "It's not just that the latest round of hot companies are deciding to headquarter in cities like New York and San Francisco; it's also that many of these companies make sense, for the most part, only in urban environments." Uber, the ride-sharing app recently valued at around $18 billion, relies on dense concentrations of people that can be served taxi replacements at sufficient volume to keep its drivers engaged and available. It also relies on people not already having their own car with them, a particular feature of cities. Madrigal also notes that one of the seemingly science fiction technologies most likely to become a reality, self-driving cars, "require detailed, expensive, and regularly updated maps to operate. For that reason, those vehicles will almost certainly deploy in cities first, and maybe only in places where enough people drive to make the investment in mapping the area worth it." It is unlikely that any near-term future will see charismatic Baptist preachers in the rural South urging their parishioners to "let Google take the wheel."
As George Packer noted in the New Yorker last year, and Ellen Cush explored expertly in "The Bacon-Wrapped Economy," the tech industry is great at solving the problems of 23-year-olds in San Francisco, because it is largely composed of 23-year-olds in San Francisco. While there are genuine breakthroughs occurring in distributed finance in developing economies brought about by the advent of cell phones in rural villages, most of the tech industry is not concerned with getting Togolese farmers the best price for their yams, or making small towns more livable. Read More…


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Just two weeks after competing in a 5k run as a part of the Blenhim Triathalon, Pippa Middleton was back pounding the pavement this weekend.
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[quote:The Guy:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIzMTgwX0QxMUY4N0Y1] [quote:beachcruiser68:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIzMTE4X0UwNkI0OEU=] [quote:The Guy:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIzMDQ4XzcyQjMyQUZD] [quote:beachcruiser68:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIyOTkwXzdFQUI4MDY5] [quote:The Guy:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIyODQ0X0NEQUE1MDBB] [quote:beachcruiser68:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIyNzg3X0YzNEEwOTgx] [quote:The Guy:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIyNTIzX0Q0Q0YxN0M=] [quote:beachcruiser68:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIyMzk4XzdERTc4RDhE] [quote:The Guy:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIyMzE4X0I1M0UwNzg1] [quote:beachcruiser68:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIyMzA1X0QyOTQ0QTc5] [quote:The Guy:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIyMjY5XzhDQkFDQkUz] [quote:beachcruiser68:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIyMjM5X0YxQ0QzRkE2] [quote:The Guy:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIyMTc1XzlFNTEwOEQw] [quote:beachcruiser68:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIyMTU5X0E1RDEyNjc5] [quote:The Guy:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIyMTA1X0QxMTA5RTE3] [quote:beachcruiser68:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIyMDYxXzgxRTU5N0JG] [quote:The Guy:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIxOTI1X0ZGODAwMkMz] [quote:beachcruiser68:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIxODQ5X0ExQUU4MzU5] [quote:The Guy:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIxNzQyXzNEMjAxREVD] [quote:beachcruiser68:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIxNTgzX0U1MTZCNjE4] [quote:The Guy:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODIxNDM0Xzk5NDQ5MDQ3] [quote:beachcruiser68:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODE5MDA3X0FFN0Q2OERE] [quote:The Guy:MV8yMDEyNTkwXzMzODE4OTcyXzI2M0I1NjdG] Most black Americans are about 30% white, so you can't judge by looks. [/quote] Source? [/quote] "Earlier, cruder studies, done before direct genetic testing was feasible, suggested that African-Americans were 25 or even 30 percent white. Shriver's project is not complete, but with data from 25 sites already in, he is coming up with 17-18 percent white ancestry among African-Americans. That's the equivalent of 106 of those 128 of your ancestors from seven generations ago having been Africans and 22 Europeans. According to Shriver, only about 10 percent of African-Americans are over 50 percent white" http://www.isteve.com/2002_How_White_Are_Blacks.htm That's the highest number suggested by studies, but it's true. That's why black Americans look different from Africans. [/quote] Cool propaganda piece... What is the true history of the 'white' species? Where do they originate from? [/quote] Uh, the same as the "black" species? We're all the same species, otherwise we wouldn't be able to interbreed and produce fertile offspring. [/quote] The black species doesn't burn in the sun like the white species, why is that? [/quote] You're still incorrectly using the word "species." However, to answer your question, yes, they do; it just takes longer. White people living at high latitudes don't suffer from vitamin D deficiency, do they? Human populations in isolation adapt to their environment, just like any other creature. [/quote] Can you explain the NATURAL hair differences between the two species... You know the kinky upward spiral curl vs the downward straight hair [/quote] Not really, no. But you're only naming two extremes. Most people are somewhere between the two. Genetically, it looks like the original humans had "peppercorn" hair, like the !Kung and San people. Everything we have now is genetic drift from that, but doesn't seem to give any particular advantage. Edit: BTW, we're not different species. We can interbreed. On that you can trust me. :-) [/quote] What 'color' is the original species? ReEdit: You're not a good teacher yet, so no, I don't trust you :-) [/quote] Light brown. [/quote] Do the 'light browns' have a name? Place of origin? [/quote] Humans. Eden. [/quote] Sounds a lil too 'christianity' for my taste... Care to try again? [/quote] Well, since even Christians admit that we don't know where Eden was, we'll just say Earth. [/quote] Ok, so all black/ Africans are from Africa, and the 'original species' is from earth? Teacher, do you have source? Personally, I like to fact check these kinda things before accepting it as truth... [/quote] You, my friend, seem to be impervious to logic. As I have already pointed out, all humans are able to interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Therefore, all humans are the same species. Therefore, all humans have the same origin. Therefore, the original humans would look like all of our current races mixed together. [/quote] Soooo you don't have an answer or proof for ANY of the questions I asked? [/quote] What is there for me to prove? The definition of the word "species," or the fact that all human races can interbreed? [/quote] You FAIL at teaching and learning. You're a troll pretending to have 'knowledge'...typical of your species. [/quote] Yeah, that's pretty much what I figured when you kept using the word "species." You're a racist trying to justify it. You're not the first, and you won't be the last. As I said, out conversation wasn't for your benefit, but for whoever else might be reading. You can justify your inability to cope with what I've shown you any way you wish. Others have read our conversation, and learned. Thank you. [/quote] The white american species make the best slaves, they obey much more readily and behave as clones of one master mind much more likely to believe the propaganda presented to them very easy to control. Yea... [/quote] Yeah, that's pretty much what I figured when you kept using the word "species." You're a racist trying to justify it. You're not the first, and you're not the last. As I said, our conversation wasn't for your benefit, but for whoever else might be reading. [/quote]
Original Message
He looks to be 100% Negro, to me at least.
What say you?
I don't believe this mysterious "Sidney Ann Dunham" (Sidney ?) was his birth mother, and his father was certainly not that chubby little Luo tribesman, Obama Senior.
His real dad was probably that Frank Marshall Davis Commie-Perv, or Malcolm X. I believe it was X, as they look so very similar.
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Full Question: Severe changes in food triggers, what was fine is now causing migraine with auras. No Explanation for so many changes, had a... Read more »
If you walk into a typical movie theatre, the first thing that assails your nostrils is the smell of buttered popcorn. Then you see the... Read more »
Next Easter, I will have lived with type 1 diabetes for 40 years. And for 37 of those 40 years, I never embraced another person living... Read more »
Walking out my front door, I catch a whiff of a sweet fragrance. The smell, courtesy of my blooming hackberry tree, is distinctive, a... Read more »
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Reviewed Sunny's Hot Chicken Wings
Feb 4, 2013 in Food Network Community Toolbox on FoodNetwork.com
"From a guest...."restaurant quality"...I brined these over night and they were some of the most tender, crispiest wings, most delicious I have ever made. I might make things again with a little less butter though. No need to look for another recipe. You have found the best.""


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The vote on SOPA has been delayed until early next year, which may give online petitioners opposed to the act time to gather more signatures–they have 29,000 and counting. And it may give the RIAA and several studios time to explain a wee little problem they have: Someone/s at the RIAA has downloaded sixty full episodes of Dexter, according to a program which logged the BitTorrent activity of some 50 million users.
Late Night FDL: Pirates and Hypocrites Have Some 'Splainin' to Do |
By: Lisa Derrick Tuesday December 20, 2011 8:00 pm |


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Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire (Paperback)
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A penniless émigré who made a fortune and became one of the great philanthropists of the twentieth century, George Soros has led a remarkable life. This biography brings forth his story in unprecedented depth, from his childhood as a Jew in occupied Budapest during World War II to his conquests on Wall Street and the establishment of his philanthropic Open Society foundations. Soros offers exclusive glimpses at an often misunderstood man, revealing a shy character whose own struggle to escape the Nazis left him with the adamant belief that people of the world are entitled to live without the fear of oppression.
Enigmatic, contradictory, and inspiring, George Soros is one of the most intriguing and globally influential men of our time. In this accomplished biography, written with Soros's cooperation, Michael T. Kaufman fully illuminates the man, his motivations, and his legacy.
About the Author
Michael T. Kaufman spent close to forty years at The New York Times as a reporter, foreign correspondent, columnist, and editor. He has won the George Polk Award for foreign reporting and has received a Guggenheim Fellowship. This is his sixth book. Born in Paris, he lives in Manhattan with his wife.
Praise for Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire…
"A fascinating account of one of the great men of our times." –The New York Times Book Review
"Masterly . . . [Kaufman] is a likable and intelligent narrator who writes with both insight and compassion." –The Washington Post Book World
"A flinty-eyed exposition of a brilliant capitalist, devoted provocateur, and accidental humanitarian. You come away believing it is possible to be a really rich man and a really good man after all." –The New York Times
"Kaufman excels at dissecting and explaining Soros's psychological makeup." –Salon
"Kaufman's biography of Soros meets a higher truth standard than most . . . A compelling narrative notable for its candor and breadth." –The Plain Dealer
"What's memorable about Kaufman's biography is its exploration of Soros as a man who satisfied his contemplative side not by making money but by finding visionary ways to spend it." –Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"The enthralling story of an extraordinary individual. . . . Rewarding reading on several levels–as an adventure story, as food for serious philosophical speculation, and as a peek into the world of high financial wheeling and dealing." –Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"Surprisingly even-handed. . . . A thoughtful analysis on the complex intersection of wealth and compassion."–Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Engaging. . . .To call Soros complex is an understatement. . . . Clearly written and thoroughly researched." –San José Mercury News
"A fascinating book about an exceedingly complicated and competitive man." –The Jewish Advocate


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Feel Like Going Home (Music)
Wed Oct 27th 2010 7.00am–10.00am
R=listener request. N=music new at the station. L=local music. Your purchases using the Buy it! links
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7:02am | The Go-Betweens "No Reason to Cry" from Oceans Apart (Yep Roc 2005)Buy it! |
7:05am | Leonard Cohen "In My Secret Life" from Live In London CD ALBUM (Columbia 2009)Buy it! |
7:10am | Elizabeth & The Catapult "You & Me" from The Other Side of Zero (Verve Forecast 2010) N Buy it! |
7:16am | Cotton Jones "Somehow To Keep It Going" from Tall Hours In The Glowstream (Suicide Squeeze 2010) N Buy it! |
7:22am | Blitzen Trapper "Evening Star" from Destroyer of the Void CD ALBUM (Sub Pop 2010)Buy it! |
7:27am | Dylan LeBlanc "LOW" from Pauper's Field (Rough Trade 2010)Buy it! |
7:31am | Them "Could You Would You" from Them Again (Polygram 1966) —Van Morrison and bassist Alan Henderson, and probably Jimmy PageBuy it! |
7:35am | Barrence Whitfield and Tom Russell "Cleaning Windows" from Hillbilly Voodoo (Stony Plain Music 1993)Buy it! |
7:38am | Pretty Little Empire "Let's Say I Do" from Reasons and Rooms (Bellevue Box 2010) N L —Sat 11/27 Pretty Little Empire CD Release Party, Art Majors, Bo and the Locomotive – FirebirdBuy it! |
7:41am | JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" (Vampisoul 2009) —Performing at Beat N Soul on Saturday November 6: beatnsoul.comBuy it! |
7:50am | Richard Thompson "A Brother Slips Away" from Dream Attic (Shout Factory www.shoutfactory.com 2010) N Buy it! |
7:55am | Camera Obscura "James" from My Maudlin Career MP3/FILE ALBUM (4AD 2009)Buy it! |
8:02am | The Jenny Kavanaugh Band "Out on the Road" from Be Alright - EP (self 2010) N LBuy it! |
8:06am | Glenna Bell "Honky Tonk Man" from perfectly legal (Glenna Bell 2010) N —the classic theme song from the Clint Eastwood movie, with John EvansBuy it! |
8:11am | Belle and Sebastian "The Ghost of Rockschool" from Write About Love (Matador 2010) N Buy it! |
8:15am | Depedro "What Goes On" from Nubes de Papel (Nat Geo 2010) N —the VU song, as interepreted by Jairo Zavala along with CalexicoBuy it! |
8:20am | Wye Oak "Take It In" from The Knot (Merge 2009) —at the Old Rock House with TheodoreBuy it! |
8:27am | Elvis Costello "Five Small Words" from National Ransom (Hear Music 2010) N Buy it! |
8:32am | Band of Heathens "L.A. County Blues" from One Foot In the Ether (BOH www.bohrecords.com 2009) —at Off Broadway with Deer Tick on 10/31Buy it! |
8:36am | Jonny Burke "Ship Comes In" from Long Haul EP (self 2010) —backed up by Band of HeathensBuy it! |
8:40am | Merle Haggard "I Take a Lot of Pride In What I Am" from Hag - The Best of Merle Haggard (CAPITOL NASHVILLE 2006)Buy it! |
8:43am | Ray Price "My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You" from Ray Price - 16 Biggest Hits (Columbia Nashville 1999)Buy it! |
8:50am | George Jones "The Window Up Above" from George Jones: All-Time Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 CD COMP (Epic/Nashville 1987)Buy it! |
8:53am | Caleb Stine "I Wasn't Built For a Life Like This" (self released 2010) N Buy it! |
8:56am | Johnny Flynn "Lost and Found" from Been Listening (Transgressive 2010) N Buy it! |
9:01am | Elizabeth McQueen "Laziest Girl In Town" from The Laziest Girl In Town (Freedom 2010) N Buy it! |
9:07am | Mark Eitzel "Gentle On My Mind" from Music for Courage and Confidence (New West www.newwestrecords.com 2008) R Buy it! |
9:11am | The Byrds "Chimes of Freedom" from Mr. Tambourine Man (Columbia 1965) —One of the very greatest of rock debuts -- in mono!Buy it! |
9:16am | Bob Dylan "Cold Irons Bound" from Time Out of Mind CD ALBUM (Columbia 1997)Buy it! |
9:25am | Rocky Votolato "Red River" from True Devotion (Barsuk 2010) —Tues 11/9 Rocky Votolato w/Ha Ha Tonka – Off BroadwayBuy it! |
9:28am | The Fleshtones "I've Gotta Change My Life" from I've Gotta Change My Life - Single (IRS CATALOG 2009) —Sat 11/6 Beat 'n' Soul The Nevermores, Mondo Topless, The Sights, JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound, The FleshtonesBuy it! |
9:33am | Frontier Ruckus "Silverfishes" from Deadmalls & Nightfalls CD ALBUM (Ramseur 2010) —Tues 11/2 Frontier Ruckus and Brent Amaker & the Rodeo – Off BroadwayBuy it! |
9:39am | Sean Flinn and the Royal We "Write Me a Novel" (self released 2010) N Buy it! |
9:46am | Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers "No Reason to Cry" from Mojo VINYL ALBUM (Reprise 2010)Buy it! |
9:48am | Mavis Staples "Wrote a Song for Everyone" from You Are Not Alone (Anti www.anti.com 2010)Buy it! |
9:53am | The Sheepdogs "I Don't Know" from Learn and Burn (self released 2010) N —from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, CABuy it! |
Like everything else, times are approximate. Spinitron and this station are not liable for errors or omissions.


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From its opening chords, which make you think you've wandered into a movie theater by mistake, to its fake unhappy ending, "Chess," a musical in which people are pawns of international politics, is a show without a game plan.
It has pleasant music by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus of ABBA. Theoretically, the show has lyrics by Tim Rice, but they're not really lyrics - they're more like rhythmically arranged bits of information that sometimes rhyme.
The album "Chess" produced a hit song, "One Night in Bangkok," two years ago. Nowadays, songs have to be made into movies or videos or something. Since you stand to make a good deal of money enshrining a song in a show, Richard Nelson was hired to write a script.
The score dictated certain plot requirements; the growing book necessitated new songs. So the whole thing has sprawled like something written by two committees not in very close touch.
The plot about American and Soviet chess stars whose careers reflect the ideologies of their native countries is as sexy as a book about John Foster Dulles' favorite hymns. The characters are cliches, and not even appropriate ones. The American, for example, is arrogant the way our tennis stars are. (Chess wizzes tend to be weird, rather than cocky.)
Everything hinges on a Hungarian girl who fled her country in 1956. She leaves the nasty American for the forlorn Soviet; as she changes loyalty, the plot gets increasingly irritating.
Neither of the love stories is emotionally involving. So, to give the show some oomph, one of the committees must have decided to create an unhappy ending. It seems arbitrary, just another way to jerk the audience around.
Granted the synthetic nature of the material, the cast is quite heroic. As the obnoxious American, Philip Casnoff has a particularly tough job. But he makes the character surprisingly sympathetic, even in a tiresome song about his unhappy childhood.
David Carroll, as the Soviet, has better music, though he must deliver it in a Russian accent; that he does it so well is a great tribute to his talent. Interestingly, the only moment of emotional impact comes near the end, when these opponents embrace.
Judy Kuhn is enormously appealing as the Hungarian girl. Marcia Mitzman does well as the Soviet's abandoned wife (don't ask too many questions), and one of the show's best moments is a duet for the two women. Dennis Parlato is strong as smarmy American; Harry Goz is charming as a KGB man.
Visually "Chess" is drab. There is a technological fascination to Robin Wagner's constantly moving slabs, a kind of moving sculpture that gives the show a cinematic fluidity. Wagner used a similar idea for the original "Dreamgirls," but that as least had a high-tech sheen. This is dreary. The only visual relief is the tacky evocation of Bangkok nightlife for the hit song, plus a pointless "industrial" number with a lot of product logos.
The show is shrilly overamplified, as if one of the committees admits to the emptiness of most of the songs and realized they might work better if they were really loud. Trevor Nunn seems to have used a similar approach in directing the book. It seems pathetic that a distinguished British director should now devote himself to such meaningless projects.
This lingering question raised by "Chess" is why anyone imagined international politics was something to sing about?
One thing is certain. Tim Rice's "Chess" is a whole new game in New York from what it was in London. It is not so much two different productions of the same show as two different shows. Almost two different types of show.
The "Chess" which opened at the Imperial Theater last night could be called a political love story - honest, simplistic, sentimental, but, despite all its frantic efforts to the contrary, a little banal.
The original "Chess," with its high-tech video screens and a hydraulic stage, even its complex opening dance tableau, was a more ambitious attempt to symbolize life and politics as a chess game, following the example of Ninette de Valois' celebrated ballet "Checkmate."
As can happen with ambition, that earlier, more cerebral version was markedly less successful than this more modestly scaled Broadway offshoot. But success can be comparative, and whether this frantic, over-amplified musical will make up in human feeling what it has abandoned in sheer technological pizzazz, will be for Broadway audiences to decide.
The London show, like Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Starlight Express," triumphantly survived very mixed notices and varied words of mouths. Whether this humanized "Chess" can withstand the same fate - if such befalls - may be less certain.
The music by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus - part of the Swedish pop group Abba - proves noisy but not especially appealing or original. It could be characterized as Andrew Lloyd Webber without the tunes, which is not the best of news.
In fairness, there are some numbers that gingerly approach melody, and a couple of them, "One Night in Bangkok" and "I Know Him So Well," have already become well known. Yet the final impression of the score is of pretentious eclecticism caught uneasily between rock and the hard place of old-time theater music.
Yet the real danger to "Chess" comes ironically from its real merit - which is Tim Rice's original idea to produce a Broadway musical somewhat on the lines of "Evita," with a theme and story at least as substantial as an opera.
The attempt is made to show real people in serious situations, and even, in a crude fashion, to draw some kind of sloganeering political message from it all.
However, the fact that it clearly is more seriously inclined than even, say, "The King and I," invites audiences and critics to apply more stringent standards of taste and credibility to something that is, after all, still a pop entertainment and not a work of art.
For this New York staging, Rice has brought in the playwright Richard Nelson to provide a new book, restricting his own literary efforts to the complex and often cleverly limber lyrics.
Nelson, a glitteringly literate American playwright probably more popular in Britain than at home, has developed more fully the story of chess, love and power politics.
The hero and anti-hero - the two chess players locked in the spotlight of a world championship - are the unbelievably nobel Russian, Anatoly (David Carroll), and the unbelievably ugly American, Freddie (Philip Casnoff), a brat who would make John McEnroe seem like Emily Post.
Freddie's chess second is Florence (Judy Kuhn), a refugee from the 1956 Hungarian revolution (which we now witness, in passing, in a new noisy, smoky prologue), who was once Freddie's lover. Now she falls in love with Anatoly, who is inspired to defect and seek political asylum.
In an unlikely second act twist, the action moves from Bangkok to Budapest, where the chess championship continues - now with new American Anatoly pitted against old American Freddie. The very possibility, even in these days of glasnost, of a Soviet defector being permitted almost instantly to play chess in an Eastern bloc country sounds tenuous.
However - once there, the Russians put pressure on Anatoly to return to the Soviet Union. And, for reasons never quite clear to me, the KGB is helped in this effort by the CIA, who apparently wish to rack up brownie points with their Soviet counterparts.
This tortured love quartet - the Russians send Anatoly's wife, Svetlana (Marcia Mitzman), to Budapest to increase the pressure - are surprisingly convincing, and Anatoly's doubts, fears and difficulties on his defection are precisely those encountered by every defector I have ever known.
Trevor Nunn's staging is dazzling in its speed, and sense of a travelling stage pitted with acid-etched vignettes of action. For the chameleon setting Robin Wagner has devised revolving towers of the type he used in "Dreamgirls," and Nunn uses them magnificently. The stage becomes a kaleidoscope of drama and swirling movement, but the scenery is not the only outstanding performer of the evening.
Casnoff, bitter and rancid as the Yankee brat, and Carroll, truculent and skeptical as the hero of the Soviet Union, are both remarkably fine, as are the touching Miss Mitzman and veteran Harry Goz as the sinuously bluff KGB factotum.
But best of all is the terrific, full-voiced, intensely focused Miss Kuhn - remembered from her Cosette in "Les Miserables" - as the Hungarian sparrow crushed by the fall of an iron curtain. She tears at the heart, rather more effectively, indeed, than does the musical itself. But both are still definitely worth seeing, even if for the latter you need earplugs.
Anyone who associates the game of chess with quiet contemplation is in for a jolt at ''Chess,'' the new musical that does for board games what another Trevor Nunn production, ''Starlight Express,'' did for the roller derby. For over three hours, the characters onstage at the Imperial yell at one another to rock music. The show is a suite of temper tantrums, all amplified to a piercing pitch that would not be out of place in a musical about one of chess's somewhat noisier fellow sports, like stock-car racing.
Many of the fights pertain to the evening's ostensible story, an extended struggle between a Soviet chess master, Anatoly (David Carroll), and an American challenger, Freddie (Philip Casnoff), for the world championship. Freddie is an ugly American, John McEnroe-style, who will throw a drink in a reporter's face or upend a chess board if he doesn't get his way. When Freddie is tired of fighting with Anatoly, he brawls with his chess second and former lover, Florence (Judy Kuhn), or with his C.I.A. keeper (Dennis Parlato), who then argues with his K.G.B. counterpart (Harry Goz). As the action moves from Bangkok to Budapest at the start of Act II, even the neutral arbiter of the chess match (Paul Harman) jumps fully into the fray. In an unintelligible but ineffably loony solo, the official starts barking indiscriminately at anyone who will listen, including one poor lady who wishes only to collect her luggage at the airport.
If contentiousness were drama, ''Chess'' would be at least as riveting as ''The Bickersons.'' That the evening has the theatrical consistency of quicksand - and the drab color scheme to match - can be attributed to the fact that the show's book, by the American playwright Richard Nelson, and lyrics, by Andrew Lloyd Webber's former and cleverest collaborator, Tim Rice, are about nothing except the authors' own pompous pretensions. ''Chess'' tells us over and over again that all the world is a chess game, that all the men and women are merely pawns, that everything from global conflicts to love to detente is subject to the same strategies and moves. ''They see chess as a war/playing with pawns just like Poland,'' sings Freddie of the Russians. So what else is new?
The metaphor could grab an audience only if Mr. Nelson and Mr. Rice dramatized it in specific, compelling terms. They haven't. Their tale of international intrigue, with its nefarious spies and headline-making defection, is incoherent and jerry-built, John le Carre boiled down to a sketchy paragraph. Even more ridiculous (and windier) is the parallel love story - which sends Florence, a Hungarian refugee to the United States, ricocheting arbitrarily between the American and the Soviet players as if she had no self-respect or political convictions. By the time the love triangle turns into a rectangle, with the sudden addition of Anatoly's estranged but impossibly noble wife (Marcia Mitzman), ''Chess'' starts to resemble Chinese checkers.
Rather than condescend to throwing the audience a bone of genuinely romantic or melodramatic entertainment - or even providing a tense chess game - the authors pass the time pontificating about politics in sweeping generalities reminiscent of Mr. Rice's ''Evita.'' The show's mindless point of view, carefully fashioned to avoid offending any paying customer and therefore bereft of bite, has it that the Soviet and American Governments are equally duplicitous in pursuit of nearly identical goals, no matter what the changes in Administrations or the fate of glasnost.
The sole time ''Chess'' takes a strong stand on anything, and tries (without success) to muster a sense of humor, is in an early song mocking companies that merchandise and exploit chess with cheesy products. But the musical's moral stance proves hypocritical minutes later, when, for no reasons other than to plug a catchy song (''One Night in Bangkok'') and give the production its one iota of dancing, ''Chess'' takes us on an exploitative tour of Bangkok's sleazy flesh palaces. As choreographed by Lynne Taylor-Corbett, the number looks like a hermaphroditic burlesque of the ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' ballet in ''The King and I.''
The studied ideological neutrality of the script is matched by the music - composed in a sometimes tuneful but always characterless smorgasbord of mainstream pop styles by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus of the Swedish rock combine Abba. Robin Wagner's set, fussily lighted by David Hersey, has even less personality. It is colorless - a presumably Kafkaesque configuration of oppressive, mobile towers in cinder-block gray. Though Mr. Wagner has given the Broadway ''Chess'' a different design than he did in London, where the production was initiated by Michael Bennett and completed by Mr. Nunn, one still finds the ghost of the Bennett-Wagner partnership on ''Dreamgirls'' in the towers at the Imperial.
For all the redesigning, rewriting and recasting that have followed the West End premiere, it's amazing how little success Mr. Nunn has had in levitating ''Chess.'' He doesn't seem to be injecting passion into a play so much as adding a branch store to an international conglomerate. His main achievements have been to add running time, to remove the glitzy video and hydraulic special effects and to tack on a prologue, replete with smoke and tattered flags, that makes the 1956 Hungarian revolution look like the Parisian barricades sequences of his far superior ''Miserables.'' His work is so mechanical here that he can't even whip up feeling in a shamelessly sentimental reunion between the heroine and a man she believes is her long-lost father - in spite of putting the man in a wheelchair and having him lead his daughter in a Hungarian lullaby.
The casting is also quixotic, with either broad or inept performances in every supporting role. The leads, all powerful singers, are much better. The most impressive acting comes from Mr. Carroll's Anatoly, who brings real fire to a generic patriotic anthem that ends Act I and who also evinces a sweetness reminiscent of the Russian created by Robin Williams in ''Moscow on the Hudson.'' Mr. Casnoff does everything humanly possible to bring shading to the spoiled, one-note American, even while shrieking a last-minute aria in which Freddie demands that we forgive his obnoxious arrogance because he comes from a broken home.
The largest role by far belongs to Ms. Kuhn. This talented but misused young actress spends almost the entire second act belting out unmotivated and often self-contradictory songs of love, defiance and moral indignation, sobbing unconvincingly through most of them. While Ms. Kuhn may acquire the magic necessary to carry a big musical some day, she needs more experience - and more help from everyone, from the authors to the costume designer - to do so. But her efforts are not entirely in vain. Watching Ms. Kuhn's brave struggles against impossible odds, we do at last find some substance to the musical's metaphorical equation of chess and war. War is hell, and, for this trapped performer and the audience, ''Chess'' sometimes comes remarkably close.


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Product DescriptionThis Action Crash Fuel Tank is compatible with Ford F150s with model years '97 and '98. Fuel Tanks are used for storing gasoline that the car's engine requires to function appropriately. Your car's Fuel Tank is a sealed metal tank that contains your vehicle's fuel supply until it is supplied to the engine. Although Fuel Tanks are created to be significantly resistant to most elements, they can suffer degeneration due to rust, car accident and exposure to destructive elements. The Fuel Tank is a reservoir for gasoline generally situated at the underside of a car. Ford F150s from the years 1997 and 1998 are compatible with this part. Different cars and trucks may not be compatible, and this component is not intended to be used in those cars or trucks. |
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Part arrived quickly and in good shape. Good price for a good product. Thanks!


text: IMG_2236 By liteonline June 13, 2014 9:38 PM Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Category: Share on Facebook Share on Twitter More Leave a comment Send to a friend! Print this page Pin it! Reddit This! Share on Tumblr! More From 107.9 LITE FM Secrets: Do You Always Tell Your Significant Other? I Did It Even Though I Thought I Shouldn't Doritos Super Bowl Commercial Contest Teacher Earns A+ Best of the Web


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Doing some policy research? Need some background materials? You've come to the right place.
Note: Documents in the library are organized by issue area — and PDFs require Adobe Reader (free download/upgrade available).
The following results are from a survey given to 500 Connecticut voters in response to paid sick days.
Except in a few localities, employers are not required by law to provide paid sick days for workers. But most Americans believe that paid sick days should be a worker's right guaranteed by the government.
Like many across the nation, Philadelphia's working families are struggling harder than ever to make ends meet. For workers without paid sick days, a bad case of the flu or a child's fever can mean the loss of a much-needed paycheck or even a job.
A bill in the New York City Council guaranteeing workers the right to earn paid sick leave is closely modeled on a law enacted by San Francisco in 2007.
We, the undersigned organizations, express our strong support for an appropriation of $23 million for the State Paid Leave Fund within the U.S. Department of Labor. Grants made from this fund will assist states in planning, startup and outreach activities related to paid family and medical leave programs.
Too many working parents are left to struggle on their own when a new child arrives or a family member is taken ill because they do not have the security of job-protected, paid time away from work. It is time for Congress to take action to support working families!
More than 12 million Latino workers - nearly 60 percent of the Latino workforce - don't have a single paid sick day to use to recover from common illnesses.
Más que 12 millones de trabajadores latinos - casi el 60 por ciento de la fuerza laboral latina - no tienen días pagados por enfermedad para recuperarse de enfermedades comunes.
Every day, millions of workers in the United States are forced to jeopardize their wages and their jobs when they become sick or need to care for a sick child or loved one. For women, the inability to earn paid sick days can have particularly devastating consequences.
Every day, millions of U.S. workers face an impossible choice when they are sick: stay home and risk their economic security or go to work and risk their health and the public's health.
Children inevitably get sick – and they get better faster when their parents care for them. Unfortunately, tens of millions of workers in the United States are not able to earn paid days to care for a sick child.
Millions of working people provide care for family members who are elderly, have disabilities or are chronically ill. Many of these family caregivers are struggling to manage both their caregiving responsibilities and the jobs they need to support their families, and they receive little help from their employers or public policies.
More than 12 million Latino workers – nearly 60 percent of the Latino workforce – don't have a single paid sick day to use to recover from common illnesses. Many more don't have paid sick days to care for a sick child.
No one should face the impossible choice of caring for their health or keeping their paycheck or job. But more than 40 million private sector workers – 40 percent of the workforce – must make this decision every time illness strikes because they don't have access to earned paid sick days.
Grandparents are the glue that holds many families together - yet our workplace laws don't honor their critical role.
2013 is the 20th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) – the first and only national law that enables workers to care for themselves and their loved ones without jeopardizing their jobs or economic security.
The birth or adoption of a child should be the most joyous of occasions. But for millions of Americans, this happy time is marred by impossible choices between caring for their new children and keeping their families financially secure.
We all want what's best for our kids. Both parents and educators know firsthand the importance of keeping children healthy, and access to paid sick days for parents can make a real difference.
No worker should have to lose income or risk being fired for taking time off to recover from illness or care for a sick loved one, especially at a time when families' finances are stretched and jobs can be hard to find. Yet nearly 44 million workers in the United States are not able to earn paid sick days, and African American workers are less likely to have access to this critical labor standard.
Items 141 - 159 of 159 | Previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |


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The staff, food, accomadation and situation were excellent. We were on the 2nd floor which boasted a superb view of Douglas bay (stairs would be hard to climb for the elderly and disabled, especially with your lugage). Our room (number 12) was spacious, modern and clean with a wall mounted tv. Some lovely thoughtfull extras were also a bonus. I would definately stay here again if visiting Douglas. Would recommend as this hotel offered true value for money. - Anonymous
The Location,the friendly staff. - John
The food and service - Exceptional. - Anonymous


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Lawton Cab Driver Shot by 2 Passengers
LAWTON, Okla. (AP) — Police in Lawton are investigating after a cab driver was shot by two of his passengers.
Lawton police Captain Craig Akard says the cab driver was shot in the neck late Wednesday after picking up two juvenile passengers.
Akard says the cab driver was shot as he was gathering change for the two passengers. He says the two males jumped from the taxi and ran away after shooting the driver.
Police say the driver's injuries aren't life-threatening and he was able to drive himself to a hospital.
Authorities say no money was taken from the driver and they aren't sure why the passengers opened fire.
No arrests have been made.


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Work To Begin Soon On Public Safety Building
Lt. Mark Munari says if all goes as planned the new facility should be ready by the end of 2015.
Cheyenne Neighberhood Night Out Tonight
Each block party will be unique and may feature vastly different food and entertainment.
Cheyenne Water And Sewer Projects For Week Of July 7
Work on these water and sewer projects may have an impact on motorists in Cheyenne for the week of July 7, according to Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities spokesman Clint Bassett
Lube Shop Not Accepting Waste Oil
In the interim, waste oil will be accepted on special collection dates at the Solid Waste Transfer Station at 220 N. College Drive.
Finance Committee To Consider Hotel Parking, Elevated Walkway
Both the parking spaces and the walkway are part of a plan to address parking for guests at a planned Hilton Hotel in downtown Cheyenne.
Licenses Required For Cheyenne Frontier Days Vendors
Applicants need to file their application with the City Clerk's office no later than July 14.
Rudloff Urges Renewal Of Lodging Tax
Darren Rudloff says it's important to remember that local residents don't pay the tax unless they stay in a lodging facility.
Emergency Outdoor Warning Test Friday
The Cheyenne/Laramie County Emergency Management Agency will be testing the Outdoor Warning Siren system on Friday
Cheyenne Police Targeting Drunk Drivers, Fireworks Violations
Most fireworks other than sparklers are illegal within the city limits of Cheyenne, under the penalty of a $200 fine.
City Announces Holiday Trash Pickup Schedule
Sanitation Director Dennis Pino says trash, recycle and compost containers should be ready for pickup by 6:30 a.m. Saturday.
Cheyenne Police Arrest Attempted Homicide Suspect
Officer Dan Long says Stephen Rucker Jr. was arrested in the 3900 block of East 12th Street on Friday.
Superday Performer Blends Magic and Comedy
Dewayne Hill is promising people who see his show on Saturday a good time, adding that he likes to interact with children and families besides performing magic/comedy.


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Color Blindness Center - Grand Junction, COGrand Junction Ophthalmologist Doctors for Color BlindnessType of Physician: Ophthalmologist What is a Ophthalmologist? A certification by the Board of Ophthalmology. Practitioners provide comprehensive eye and vision care. They are trained to diagnose, monitor, and medically or surgically treat all eyelid and orbital problems affecting the eye and visual pathways and to diagnose, monitor and treat all eye and visual disorders. They often prescribe vision services (glasses and contact lenses) as well as serve as a consultant to doctors and other professionals. Specialty: Ophthalmology Common Name: Eye Doctor Ophthalmologist Doctors in Grand Junction *Western Rockies Eye Center Grey Eyecare Grey Eyecare Western Rockies Eye Center Rottman Eyecare Hoffman Eye Care Fairmount Eye Care Retina Center Of Western CO Grand Valley Lasik & Cataract Retina Center Of Western CO Colorado West Ophthalmlgy Asscs Colorado West Ophthalmlgy Asscs Colorado West Ophthalmlgy Asscs Colorado West Ophthalmlgy Asscs Colorado West Ophthalmlgy Asscs Eye Center Of The Rockies Grand Junction, ColoradoColor BlindnessIntroduction to Color BlindnessWhen we see different colors, we are perceiving differences in the light that is reaching our eyes. The way we see different colors is something like the way we hear different sounds as being "low" or ... Other Related Color Blindness ArticlesEmergency Contact for Grand Junction
Nearby Grand Junction Hospitals *Community Hospital Grand Junction VA Medical Ctr St Mary's Hospital Family Health West Family Health West Hospital *Provider Directory Terms of Use: The WebMD 'Provider Directory' is provided by WebMD for use by the general public as a quick reference of information about Providers. The Provider Directory is not intended as a tool for verifying the credentials, qualifications, or abilities of any Provider contained therein. Inclusion in the Provider Directory does not imply recommendation or endorsement nor does omission in the Provider Directory imply WebMD disapproval. |


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New International Reader's Version (NIRV) | New International Version (NIV) |
3 Then Moses went up to God. The LORD called out to him from the mountain. He said, "Here is what I want you to say to my people, who came from Jacob's family. Tell the Israelites, | 3 Then Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain and said, "This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: |
Holy Bible, New International Reader's Version® Copyright © 1995, 1996, 1998 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide. (New International Reader's Version Bible Online) | Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide. (New International Version Bible Online) |


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Select () or exclude () categories to narrow your recipe search.
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"HOLY COW these are some yummy beans. They have an awesome flavor and I will be making these all the time. I cooked them for almost an hour and a half in my pressure cooker. It made them very soft and almost like refried beans. I did add some bround cumin and chilli powder. Also added 2 TBSP molasses. Turned out awesomely!!! Thanks for the r..."
"OMGosh. these are simply fantastic. I made them for dinner today and I don't have any left. Vert tasty and very easy.Thanks for posting!!!"
"made this for dinner last night. It was simply wonderful. tasted just like i remembered. Will use on some shrimp tonight!!"
"I used this recipe for my family's gingerbread houses for Christmas. It was so easy to make and silky smooth. It was also very easy to work with and dries beautifully. Will be using from now on."
"Like this needs another rating! This was simply fantastic. I love all the dumplings you get with this recipe, and they taste fabulous. I have never tried seasoning my dumplings before. This will be a monthly rotation from now on. Thanks for the recipe."
"If I could give it 10 stars I would. This is a terrific recipe for wheat bread. It is so moist and has that sweet taste that is missing from so many wheat breads. It is not over powering at all though, it is perfect. I use it for toast, sandwiches, and just plain bread slices with butter for dinner. I will be making this weekly from now on. ..."


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Stayed for 2 nights at the Kusatsu Hotel after travelling up from Tokyo - quite a long train ride followed by service bus and shuttle bus rides. We were so pleased to have left one suitcase at Tokyo! We were met by incredibly friendly staff and even with the language problems they ensured we where comfortably settled - even though... More
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Applicant Tracking System
Evolution of VMS: It's All About Choices - 4/05/2005
because different clients use different VMS programs. We have also heard that many VMS programs are not properly integrated into applicant tracking systems, thus diluting the promise of a good, quick match Relevance: 2%News - 3/09/2007
of staffing services "have a specific discussion about recordkeeping practices so that both parties understand what records must be retained, and by whom." There's also the issue of online applicant tracking Relevance: 3%Applicant tracking systems' accuracy questioned - 12/15/2006
Online applicant tracking systems may not be accurate, said Don Firth, founder of AllRetailJobs.com and JobsinLogistics.com. ... Online applicant tracking systems (ATS) may not be accurate, said Don Firth, founder of AllRetailJobs.com and JobsinLogistics.com. A recent study by AllRetailJobs.com found that five in six job ... research publications / research / other articles / applicant tracking systems accuracy questioned ... Applicant tracking systems' accuracy questioned Relevance: 100%Look Ahead to 2007 - 5/15/2007
excited about 2007," he says. "We continue to see a strong growth trend." Additionally, Workway hopes to establish an applicant tracking system that will help the company continue to manage growth Relevance: 2%Changes are the Hallmark of Ten Years in Staffing - 12/27/2005
, VMS software and corporate applicant tracking systems all merge together under the umbrella of HCM software, with the top 3 to 5 firms controlling 80% of the market," he predicts. "HCM is the wave Relevance: 1%Recruiter sets up healthcare exchange - 4/24/2003
,200 per year and offers a money-back guarantee. Wilson said another benefit of Subcontract.com is that it works with Mainstream Staffing's applicant tracking system. Other networks require members Relevance: 4%Supplier Focus -- Drug and Background Screening - 10/17/2006
: "More companies are looking to streamline their entire program workflow by integrating all applicant tracking systems (ATS) or human resources management systems (HRMS) with their background screening Relevance: 3%Internet Applicants One Year Later - 10/26/2007
contractors are deciding that the risk of an OFCCP audit is small enough that they're not worrying about every detail of the rule. Other contractors have set up their own applicant tracking systems and have Relevance: 3%Front Office Software Trends, SI Review June 2009 - 5/22/2009
and salesforce visibility fully integrated with their applicant tracking system, without paying for Salesforce licenses separately. "Configurability is also a huge component of our value proposition Relevance: 2%Front Office Software - Part 2 - 3/07/2006
as applicant tracking systems (ATS) we have verified that each of the vendors we listed has at least one active staffing company client. So, which vendor is the best? Mary Lynn Seaby, founder and principal Relevance: 2%There are not any research articles published in this topic at this time


text: any takers? I downloaded this book a few weeks ago, its only 14 days so it's not a long term plan but a great way to boost your weightloss before the 4th of july. Per the book you could lose up to 25 lbs in two weeks but honestly I'm sure that may be the case for the super obese but probably not for me. Anyway, if anyone would like to join me I could use the support. I'll keep a thread going for my progress.


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Alright, follow me on this one. Pushover is an app for Android that allows web apps, scripts, and a ton of other fancy developer things to plug in to your notification shade on your phone or tablet. Ifttt (short for 'If This, Then That') is a web app that lets you script actions that will be performed when predetermined conditions like new emails, new dropbox files, new RSS feed posts, etc., are met.
If you've been waiting for a sale to grab a new Android-powered phone, RadioShack is looking to give you the chance to get just about any phone you could want for $50 off. Customers buying a device for upgrade or new two-year agreement can save $50 when they spend $99.99 or more. The deal will run from now until Saturday, July 28th in stores, and until "the end of August" in RadioShack's online store.
UPDATE: Many readers are reporting that the Nexus 7 is now on backorder from OfficeMax and that the coupon may not work any more. That being said, the website still indicates that the tablet will ship in 1 to 3 days. Let us know if you have any luck getting the discount.
There's no doubt that Google's Nexus 7 has been exceedingly hard to find since its launch. From nebulous shipping schedules to stock problems at brick and mortar stores, customers everywhere have had a hard time getting their hands on the device.
After Apple's recent success in filing a preliminary injunction against Samsung Galaxy Nexus sales in the US, the device vanished from the Play Store. Shortly after that, the 9th Circuit Court temporarily lifted the ban the Galaxy Nexus briefly appeared for sale again with a note that the device would "ship soon" (1-2 weeks).
Just moments ago, however, order was restored to the universe (or at least the US) – the Galaxy Nexus is now "In Stock" and can be ordered for delivery between 3 and 5 business days.
T-Mobile customers excited to get hold of Samsung's latest flagship may have noticed by now that the carrier's base price (for a 16GB device) is $279.99 – yes, that's $80 above every other carrier's price for the 16GB model. Luckily, both Wirefly and Letstalk have lopped that extra $80 off and are now offering the SIII for just $199.99 for new accounts and upgrades. Of course, both retailers are offering Samsung's Galaxy SIII in both its Marble White and Pebble Blue versions.
Update 7/7/12: The deal is back, this time at Daily Steals Last Call.
With sales expected to tip over 10 million units next month, and release dates being pushed back (or split) because of "overwhelming demand," Samsung's Galaxy SIII may just be the most sought-after Android device to date. Those still looking to grab the unlocked GSM version of the device are in luck today – DailySteals.com is offering the device for $599.99, a significant discount over the phone's normal retail price.
If a mid-range LTE phone on Verizon Wireless is on your to-buy list, then you've likely considered the new Droid Incredible 4G LTE. Its somewhat of a low-end One variant, but keeps that slick red and black color scheme of the Incredible line. While the display and resolution are clearly the weakest link in this device, everything else under the hood is sure to zoom along nicely:
- 4-inch super LCD qHD display
- 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ S4 processor
- 8 megapixel rear-facing camera with autofocus, LED flash, BSI, f/2.2 and 28 mm lens
- Front-facing camera for video chatting with friends and family
- Mobile Hotspot capable to share 4G LTE connection with up to 10 Wi-Fi-enabled devices
- Support for up to 32 GB microSD™ memory card
- 1,700 mAh lithium ion removable battery
- Sense 4.0 on top of ICS
You could walk into a Verizon store and pick one of these up right now for $150.
Costco, promising to take customers "beyond the warehouse walls with the ease of [their] smartphone," released an official Costco Wholesale app to the Play Store recently.
The app, created by one of the most popular (and largest) wholesalers in America, allows users to do much of what they could do in a physical Costco location, or shopping online – users can shop Costco.com's "unique, expanded" collection, locate the nearest Costco location, grab online and in-store coupons, refill prescriptions, read "The Costco Connection," choose business or home delivery options, and take note of what you need to buy with a handy built-in notepad.
If you've been waiting on the opportune moment to grab some new games for your mobile, now may be the time to jump on that: EA just dropped the prices of both Mass Effect: Infiltrator and NBA Jam down to $0.99. Previously, those games would've set you back $7 and $5, respectively; that's a pretty decent savings!
We're not really sure what the reason is, or why these two games were singled out, but we're also not going to question a good thing.
Amazon has just lowered the price of the RAZR MAXX to a staggeringly-low $99 for new customers (it's $199 for upgrades). Check it out here. This is by far the lowest price we've seen on this device (previous low was $149), so if you were waiting for it on the cheap, now's the time to grab it.