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Whether data are numerical or narrative, removing them from their context represents an act of plagiarism
Andrew Gelman, Thomas Basbøll
"The distortion of a text," says Freud in Moses and Monotheism, "is not unlike a murder. The difficulty lies not in the execution of the deed but in doing away with the traces." —James Wood
Much has been written on the ethics of plagiarism. One aspect that has received less notice is plagiarism's role in corrupting our ability to learn from data: We propose that plagiarism is a statistical crime. It involves the hiding of important information regarding the source and context of the copied work in its original form. Such information can dramatically alter the statistical inferences made about the work.
In statistics, throwing away data is a no-no. From a classical perspective, inferences are determined by the sampling process: point estimates, confidence intervals and hypothesis tests all require knowledge of (or assumptions about) the probability distribution of the observed data. In a Bayesian analysis, it is necessary to include in the model all variables that are relevant to the data-collection process. In either case, we are generally led to faulty inferences if we are given data from urn A and told they came from urn B.
A statistical perspective on plagiarism might seem relevant only to cases in which raw data are unceremoniously and secretively transferred from one urn to another. But statistical consequences also result from plagiarism of a very different kind of material: stories. To underestimate the importance of contextual information, even when it does not concern numbers, is dangerous.
Perhaps the most prominent statistician to have repeatedly published material written by others without attribution is Edward Wegman, formerly of the Office of Naval Research and currently a professor at George Mason University. The case is especially interesting because Wegman has a distinguished record of public service and scholarship (he received the Founders Award in 2002 from the American Statistical Association) and because one of the plagiarized documents was part of a report on climate change delivered to the U.S. Congress. The ethical dimensions of this copying seem clear enough: By taking others' work without giving credit—even copying from Wikipedia at one point (see the appendix to this essay)—Wegman and his research team were implicitly claiming expertise on subjects in which they were not experts. Wegman continues to deny having plagiarized, even in the face of direct evidence that several of his publications (on topics ranging from network analysis to color vision) include unattributed material previously published by others.
We shall avoid speculating about the motives for plagiarism here. Generally, however, the ethical dilemma seems to be analogous to the person who robs a store to feed his or her family, or the politician who lies to achieve a larger political goal. In all of these cases, the behavior in question is generally recognized to be unethical, so if the broader context in which the action takes place is deemed ethical, it can only be thus because the unethical action serves some larger, more important goal. In Wegman's case, no such argument about a larger context has been made (perhaps because that would require admitting the ethical violation in the first place).
The Wegman case came to public notice after the Canadian blog Deep Climate found the first few pages of material in the report to be plagiarized from a book by Ray Bradley, one of the authors whose work was attacked in that document. The blog post stirred others to study this and other documents written by Wegman and his students, at which point additional incidents of copying without attribution turned up. In 2011, a related article by Wegman and a collaborator in the journal Computational Science and Data Analysis was formally retracted by the publisher on grounds of plagiarism.
Despite the human and political drama of the Wegman case, it may not appear immediately interesting from the standpoint of statistics. Perhaps counterintuitively, a purely qualitative example reveals why this appearance is wrong.
An anecdote that has been widely circulated in the organization studies literature goes something like this: A group of soldiers are sent out by their leader and get lost in a snowstorm in the Alps. After discovering that one of their number has a map, they regain their confidence, wait out the storm and return to camp. Only afterward do they realize that the map was not of the Alps but of the Pyrénées.
This story has made the rounds in management circles, often accompanied by the slogan, "When you are lost, any old map will do." It was even retold by noted psychologist Daniel Kahneman at the 2009 Digital Live Design conference as part of an account of the importance of confidence. Kahneman attributed the story to the "famous organizational psychologist Karl Weick." Weick, like Wegman, is an award-winning and highly regarded scholar in his field, and he is the commonly cited source for the anecdote in the organization studies literature. But, as Kahneman noted in his talk, some irregularities in Weick's referencing (or lack thereof) have emerged.
In 2006, one of us (Basbøll), and a Ph.D. student in his department, Henrik Graham, published a paper showing that Weick had simply transcribed the story from a poem by Miroslav Holub that had been published in 1977 in the Times Literary Supplement. The text has minor changes but is nearly identical to Holub's—without the line breaks, of course. (See the appendix.) In his earliest uses of the anecdote, Weick provided no reference to Holub whatsoever, despite the fact that his account was a nearly verbatim reproduction of the poem. In later versions, he mentioned Holub's poem but continued to represent the story as his own prose, without enclosing it in quotation marks.
Importantly, Weick also began to alter Holub's framing of the story. Like Holub, he invoked Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, the Nobel Prize–winning physiologist, as the original source of the story (though he did not clearly cite Holub as the source for this source). Holub described the anecdote as a "story from the war," whereas Weick repeatedly called it "an incident that happened during military maneuvers in Switzerland." With this phrasing, not only did he conceal the nature of his evidence from his readers (it is a poem with a unique author, not a story recounted aloud or included in some unspecified report), he also exaggerated the veracity of the account (and gave the war story an implausible Swiss setting, perhaps by associating the mention of the Alps with Switzerland).
The article set off a back-and-forth of publications. The journal that published Basbøll and Graham's 2006 article, ephemera, printed a response from Weick in the same issue. In it, he dismissed the charge. In 2010, Basbøll published a response to Weick, along with further examples of plagiarism, which Weick again dismissed. In 2012 Basbøll published a rhetorical analysis of the exchanges so far.
Weick claimed that by the time he realized the anecdote had relevance to his work, he had forgotten where he first encountered it, and that he "reconstructed the story as best [he] could." It seems unlikely that a scholar would add to his own writing a nearly word-for-word copy of a text whose citation he did not have—and this in the era before computer copy-and-paste. Beyond this, Weick's reaction when the news came out also gives us reason to doubt his account. Instead of being embarrassed and bending over backward to add a clear, apologetic citation in subsequent appearances of the material, he seemed all too eager to explain the event away.
Gelman had never heard of any of the people involved in these incidents before Basbøll drew his attention to the case of plagiarism. What brought us together was a shared frustration with an especially slippery aspect of the case, and others like it: the denial or avoidance of the topic by colleagues of the offenders. Weick is influential in his field, known for his counterintuitive management advice. Often, when people who attain such stature misbehave, others find it hard to believe or don't want to hear about it. The assumption, perhaps, is that any misbehavior was for the greater good.
In the wake of the paper's publication in ephemera, Basbøll and Graham were mocked by organizational strategy professors Teppo Felin and Omar Lizardo (the latter referred to them as "what's his name and watchumacallit") on the orgtheory blog. When Basbøll tried to mention Weick's plagiarism on the online correspondence site of the Journal of Management Studies, he was rejected on the grounds that Weick might sue the journal. And the American Statistical Society, which presented its Founders Award to Wegman in 2002, has not to our knowledge commented publicly on the issue.
Learning that part of a corpus of work is plagiarized can degrade one's trust in the rest of the work. This is not just a moral or psychological argument of the sort that one might legitimately use against a scientist known to have fabricated or misrepresented data, such as Diederik Stapel or Marc Hauser—if the guy cheated with data in one place, you can't trust his other statements either. Indeed, Basbøll found that the first four pages of one of Weick's most widely cited books, Sensemaking in Organizations (1995), reproduce the work of several other scholars without adequate attribution. The book also includes an instance of the Holub plagiarism.
But we are saying something more: If Weick represented a story recounted in a poem as if it were a historical event, that casts doubt on his rules of evidence. It's not that an unsourced anecdote has more authority than a published poem. Rather, obscuring the source makes the story free-floating, immune from any detail-based examination. Meanwhile, Weick's reputation as an original thinker is threatened if it turns out that he was appropriating others' ideas while concealing his debt to them. In a 2004 article in the journal Organization Studies, Weick explains his reputation in terms of the "hidden connections" that exist between his own work and that of his precursors. Acknowledging one's precursors is good, but it's better when their names are given and their work recognized as their own.
Similarly, if Wegman, a nonexpert in network analysis, plagiarizes a description of the field (and, as the blogger known as Deep Climate noted, in the process introduces a typo that wrecks one of the mathematical expressions), that casts doubt on any empirical studies he performs using network analysis. Ultimately, such analyses must be evaluated on their own terms—but without the nudge toward acceptance that might come from the knowledge that they were performed by an eminent statistician. In the Weick case, the copier was getting credit for an interesting story, as well as credit for Holub's writing style—indeed, for certain very specific turns of phrase. In addition, by obscuring the source, he became more free to alter its meaning in different tellings.
Some organization theorists, such as Barbara Czarniawska, have argued that the truth or falsity of the original story has no bearing on the reception of Weick's theory. But we disagree. We believe, for example, that Weick's argument would not have been so well received if he had presented the material as the poem it was rather than calling it "an incident that happened during military maneuvers in Switzerland." In a sense, the vaguer attribution, by placing the story in the category of folklore, gives it an implication of broader significance—in the same way it can be disappointing to learn that a purported folk ballad was in fact the product of a forgotten songwriter.
To see more clearly how plagiarism is a crime against statistics, we need to examine how it helps to decouple the story from the source. In Weick's case, this distancing allowed him to convey a message that was virtually the opposite of the story's original meaning. Weick first told the story in 1982 when, five years after the appearance of Holub's poem, Robert Swieringa and he published an article in the Journal of Accounting Research including a nearly word-for-word transcription of the poem text, but not using quotation marks or acknowledging Holub at all. In a 1987 essay, Weick added a "twist" to the story that had resulted from a conversation with Robert Engel, a Wall Street executive. Engel, he relates, suggested the possibility that the leader who was out with the troops might have known that the map was false and still used it effectively. Weick concurs with Engel and expounds on the implications as follows:
What is interesting about Engel's twist to the story is that he has described the basic situation that most leaders face. Followers are often lost and even the leader is not sure where to go. All the leader knows is that the plan or the map he has in front of him is not sufficient by itself to get them out. What he has to do, when faced with this situation, is instill some confidence in people, get them moving in some general direction, and be sure they look closely at what actually happens, so that they learn where they were and get some better idea of where they are and where they want to be.
He goes on to suggest that the key in this kind of situation is to "get people moving." But in Holub's poem—Weick's primary source material—the soldiers' recounting stands in direct opposition to this interpretation: They say that the map "calmed us down" and that they "pitched camp, lasted out the snowstorm."
Making speculations about what might have happened differently in a situation is not an invalid strategy in all settings; it's just a nonempirical one. In this case the line between fact and supposition was blurred so badly that no such distinction could be made. But facts exist that can be adduced to determine whether Engel's supposition was correct. Assuming that any such event actually occurred, then his notion about what happened is either right or wrong. As it turns out, versions of the story that predate Holub's poem appear in reports given by medical researchers Oscar Hechter and Bernard Pullman at scientific symposia in the early 1970s. These versions suggest that the anecdote as told by Szent-Gyorgyi had the troops' immediate leader thinking it was a map of the Alps, too. Those versions rule out Engel's interpretation.
That interpretation may, of course, be more appealing to Wall Street executives. Given the evolution of modern finance since the mid-1980s, the fact that they appear to have thought that "any old map will do" is somewhat disturbing. But Engel's idea was generated in a problematic context, one in which Weick had, in effect, taken ownership of the story and arrogated for himself the right to alter it at will. The act of plagiarism was the first step in a process that unmoored the story from its sources and removed its evidential value.
Returning to the statistical language of probability and likelihood, to falsify the provenance of a story is to imply an incorrect likelihood function and thus to lose inferential validity. (Statistically speaking, systematically excluding data without revealing the exclusion is a misspecification of the model.) As one of us (Basbøll) eventually showed, any telling of the story is a selection from several possible versions of it. By not sourcing it properly, Weick hides the opportunism of his sampling and sets Engel up to propose a convenient (for top management) "truth" about corporate strategy. This is not to say that, had Weick cited Holub appropriately, he would not have ultimately used it to draw lessons about leadership, even ones that executives would find useful. But if he had done so, he would have had to justify his argument, rather than merely retell the story in his own way to suit his purposes.
Scholars in fields ranging from psychology to history to computer science have recognized that stories are part of how people understand the world. As statisticians, we can consider reasoning from stories as a form of approximate inference. From this perspective, statistical principles should provide some approximate guidance about the potential biases and precision of such inferences. One key principle is not to throw away information and, if discarding data is for some reason necessary, to describe as clearly as possible the mechanism by which the relevant information was excluded. Plagiarism violates both these rules and, as such, is a violation of statistical ethics, beyond any other considerations of moral behavior.
Parts of this essay are adapted from Gelman's blog, Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science, at http://andrewgelman.com.
You can find this online at http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/num2/to-throw-away-data-plagiarism-as-a-statistical-crime/3
© 2016 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society


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Madison Beer On Getting Justin Bieber To Notice You!
"The Way" and "Baby I" may sound totally different from every other song on the radio today, but they were influenced by pop diva Mariah Carey's early hits. In the '90s, Mariah's incredible vocal range made jaws drop. Today, Ariana has the same effect!
Download now: "Dreamlover" by Mariah Carey
Remember when Lady Gaga first hit the scene and made headlines every time she went outside because she was always wearing something crazy? That was totally Madonna in the '80s. Madonna never rocked a meat-dress, but she pushed the envelope similarly to the "Applause" singer. Plus, both are known for their legendary dance tracks!
Download now: "Material Girl" by Madonna
10 Justin Biebers Who Aren't Justin Bieber

subset: commoncrawl


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Mountain Street Dance
|Arts & Entertainment
|Main Street in front of the Courthouse
|215 N. Main St. Waynesville
|Jamie Cogdill
|Jul 26, 2013
Dances are held Friday evenings, 6:30 – 9:00 pm, in front of the historic Haywood County Courthouse. The Main Street area, immediately in front of the courthouse, is closed to traffic and parking at 5:00 pm. Instead of the usual cars' attendees will find a stage, bleachers, and asphalt covered with a thick dusting of corn meal to create a dance area. Bring a lawn chair or blanket, limited bleacher seating is available. Bring your dancin' shoes but please leave pets at home as they are not allowed by Town ordinance. Light refreshments are available at the venue for purchase and downtown restaurants are open for dinner. Lively instructions are given by master of ceremonies and dance caller, Joe Sam Queen, who throughout the evening teaches audience members some basic square dancing in the traditional Appalachian style. Each night features a bluegrass band, performances by a local clogging team, and intermission entertainment by The Trantham Family.
July 26 Performers
Stuart Brothers Band
Carolina Country Cloggers


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Design Flat near University of Arts - Glasshouse 2
Size40 m²
Floor No.2
- Kitchen
- Washer/dryer
- Internet/WiFi
- Towels
Accommodation summary
|glasshouse yard, EC1A 4JN London, United Kingdom
|Property type
|Property ID
|Acceptance rate
|< 50%
|Response time
|A few hours
|Calendar updated
|3 weeks ago
This loft style Apartment boasts a double bed with night lamps as well as a dressing or make up table. Interesting design features such as the light up wall as well as interesting artwork on the walls leading up the apartment.
The dining suite has a table with seating for 2 although an additional chair can be provided. There is also a large wall mounted flat screen TV, with Freeview. Large windows incorporated into most of the main apartment wall let in the gorgeous summer sunlight.
Apart from providing a complete set of kitchenware, the kitchen is also fully equipped with: electric hob, microwave oven, refrigerator, kettle, toaster and all the crockery and all the cooking utensils you will need for your stay. There is also a washing machine and ironing equipment in this apartment.
The fully tiles lime and white bathroom has a large epower shower, WC, Wash hand basin, and large heated towel rail as well as a mirrored medicine cabinet.
Once in London, don't miss the Tower of London, Chelsea, Camden, the British Museum, the National Gallery, Bond Street, Hyde Park, the Serpentine, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, St. Paul's Church or Tate Britain and Tate Modern. It's all incredibly close with London's great transport system.
House rulesWe are a family friendly block of 4 apartments. Be respectful to the neighbors and other tenants especially when it comes to noise levels after 11 pm
No Parties
No Smoking
No Pets
No extra number of guests
If you find anything wrong with the apartment please report it immediately, via email or telephone.
Any breach of conditions can mean you loose your deposit
Check out is at 11am
Check in is at 3pm
|Weekly rate for up to 3 guests
|Monthly rate for up to 3 guests
|Price for > 3 guests
|$ 45 AU per guest/night extra
|Maximum nights
|1 month
|Check-in after
|Check-in before
|On arrangement
|Check-out before
|Cancellation Policy
Reviews for this host's other properties
Very nice apartment with ample space for five people.
Good location, in a quiet neighborhood, a 5-10 minute walk from the subway station, and relatively close to the center.
The only drawback to the bathroom was in really bad shape.
Rigtig dejlig lejlighed med fin plads til 5 personer.
God beliggenhed, i roligt kvarter, 5-10 minutters gang fra undergrundsstation, og forholdsvis tæt på centrum.
Eneste minus at badeværelset var i virkelig dårlig forfatning.
Great apartment for 6. Exactly what we needed and very comfy sofa bed in the lounge (and huge!). John was really helpful and friendly. Fantastic location in quiet Farringdon.
We had a great time in that flat. Everything was clean and John was very aim to afford us a nice holiday. We recommend this flat to everybody.
Thanks for everything.
Nathalie + Family
The appartment was really nice and well located. We slept well as it is in a small one way street and the tesco is right on the corner which is really useful!
The only thing was the bathroom which didn't look really clean and would need to be refreshed...Also, the tap kept flowing. I contacted John to make him know and the maintenance guy was supposed to come and fix it...But il looked like he never came.
Although the apartment does not correspond to reality with photographs of the promotion, this is not really the issue. The worst thing is that during our stay we saw several cockroaches in the kitchen and that is very unpleasant.
Aunque el apartamento no se corresponde en la realidad con las fotografias de la promoción, este no es realmente el problema. Lo peor es que durante nuestra estancia hemos visto varias cucarachas por la cocina y eso es muy desagradable.
This apartment is great! Very well located, but the best thing is that this super clean! Both alartamento as the bathroom. No carpet! And can tell they care every detail to make you feel at ease, like dvd's, dryer, stove ... to wine glasses! Really spectacular, 100% recommended, if I return to London I have no doubt there again!
Este apartamento esta genial! Muy bien ubicado,pero lo mejor es que esta super limpio! Tanto el alartamento como el baño. Sin moqueta!! Y se nota que estan cuidados todos los detalles para hacerte sentir a gusto,como dvd's,secador,estufa...hasta copas de vino! Espectacular de verdad,100% recomendable, si vuelvo a londres no tengo duda de volver ahi!
A gold choice visit London. Near to tube, train. In a 10 minutos walk you get Saint Paul's. Cozy an Well equiped apartment
I arranged my booking with Marsha from Green Tree. Not only was she extremely helpful and always responded to every email really quickly, she also found ways to make it as easy on us as possible in terms of checking in early and assisting with tips and information.
The Red Room apartment was bright and clean! The location is perfect, since you can access the exciting spots of London by foot easily. I would definitely return here or to any other Green Tree apartment! Excellent value for money!
The apartment was great! Very clean, nice and warm during winter, top location in the center of London. The check-in and check-out worked very smoothly, also during late hours. You're gonna receive very detailed instructions to access the place. I can definitely recommend it!
4 days in London very agréables.Prenez bus with a subscription Oyster 4 L per day on foot. Everywhere you go.
4 jours à Londres très agréables.Prenez le bus avec un abonnement Oyster à 4 L par jour le pied . Vous allez partout .
- Quality assured accommodation
- Every host is verified by telephone
- Secure payment via SSL encryption


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Missouri Rx Plan
Welcome to the Missouri Rx Plan (MORx) website. MORx is Missouri's State Pharmacy Assistance Program. MORx was created by the 93rd General Assembly to provide prescription drug assistance to Missourians in need by coordinating benefits with Medicare's (Part D) Prescription Drug Program. Read about the benefits of MORx…
Enrollment is free and open year-round. Learn how you can enroll in MORx.
Clinical Services Programs


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Two of most beautiful people in FS, they look so smitten:D, while that publishing was rather unfortunate. I remember an episode during Nice. I read a post somewhere that one of French commentators explicitly expressed his frustration with T Verner and the other guy mentioned that he and Natalie are a thing, and then suddenly this guy was all "Oh my god, look at his superb skating!" I was so ROFL.
French commentators say a lot of unnecessary things. For example, the time they were laughing at Johnny Weir and calling him gay (I think at Vancouver olympics?)
Re Nathalie's pictures, she does put a lot of pictures of off-ice stuff on P/B's Facebook page, including ones of her and Tomas - but I don't believe these came from there, and they were probably not intended for that kind of distribution.
The new issue of International Figure Skating magazine has some wonderful articles and photos about both Worlds skaters and some pro skaters (Lambiel and Browning). There's a lovely photo of Joubert, who I agree is quite fine-looking. We skate fans are lucky ducks.


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- About RIC
- Academics
- Admissions
- Alumni & Donors
- Athletics & Recreation
Campus Life
- Library
- Performing & Fine Arts
Eligibility to Use Health Services
You are eligible to use Health Services if:
- You are a current student registered for classes at Rhode Island College (full or part-time; resident or commuter; undergraduate or graduate).
- You have recently graduated and have no other primary care provider. You may continue to use Health Services until the expiration date of the school insurance policy (January 15 for December graduates and August 15 for May graduates).
- You are participating in the Athletic Program at Rhode Island College and require medical clearance before the start of the semester.
Page last updated: Sep. 10, 2013


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Harberts, Olmos and Gomez Named USC Student-Athletes of the Week
Jan. 28, 2013
LOS ANGELES - Cassie Harberts of women's basketball, Giuliana Olmos of women's tennis and Emilio Gomez of men's tennis were named USC Student-Athletes of the Week on Monday, Jan. 28 for the week of Jan. 21-27.
Women's Basketball: USC junior Cassie Harberts carried the Trojans through a home split this weekend. She had a double-double by halftime against ASU, with 19 points and 10 rebounds at halftime, compared to 20 points and 12 rebounds as a team by ASU. She would finish the game with a game-high 24 points and 14 rebounds. Two days later, Harberts was again at the top of the list with 26 points in USC's win over Arizona. She also had three blocks in the victory.
Women's Tennis: Playing in her first season of action as a Trojan, Giuliana Olmos ripped through her opponents at the ITA Kick-Off Weekend as teams rode out rainy mornings to get competition complete this weekend at Marks Stadium. Olmos had a near-shutout with a 6-1, 6-0 victory in her No. 3 singles match to help USC power up for a 6-0 sweep of Akron. She was a part of the doubles clincher in the next day's match vs. UC Irvine, teaming up with Danielle Lao for the first time this year for an 8-1 win that put USC up 1-0 in the match against the Anteaters. She'd later record yet another second-set shutout in her singles match vs. UCI, putting the Trojans up 3-0 with her 6-3, 6-0 victory again from the No. 3 position.
Men's Tennis: Emilio Gomez held down the No. 1 singles position with precision this weekend as USC made a winning run as host of the ITA Kick-Off Weekend. Gomez won in straight sets in both his singles matches, lifting USC to 3-0 leads against both San Diego State and Fresno State. He was similarly strong in the doubles realm, teaming up with Eric Johnson in the ITA Kick-Off final for an 8-1 victory that sparked USC's winning run in the match to qualify the Trojans for the ITA National Team Indoor Championships next month.


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They are a very nice pistol. For me I love the new colt agent dao double action pistol.
Hornady and Gold dot ammo is all I use.To me they are the best.Hornady has Wins 2011 USPSA Area 3 Championship. This is why I use there ammo. What I like to see in my ammo.


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Town Square
House built on a sand foundation
Original post made by Tom Cushing, Danville, on Aug 31, 2012
Thus it was said of Abraham Lincoln that he was a "filthy story-teller, despot, liar, thief, braggart, buffoon, usurper, monster, ignoramus, old scoundrel, perjurer, robber, swindler, tyrant, field-butcher [and] land-pirate" and that an opponent "has all the characteristics of a dog, except loyalty" (per Sam Houston). The electorate is accustomed to some level of hyperbole in the political rhetoric regularly served-up to it.
That said, we inhabit an internet era of relatively easy fact-checking. While contemporary debates are rather more focused and sometimes less personal, candidates do risk credibility when they lie about the issues in ways that are too-easily detected. There is also the risk of alienating a country saturated with ads underwritten without limit by partisans outside the campaigns. The candidates may be tarred with those zealous SuperPAC brushes.
So it is that the GOP may have made ironically appropriate choices of a beach town for their convention, and "we built it" as their theme. In the words of that old Caribbean spiritual: house built on a sand foundation will not stand (oh no). They have built a series of claims so untethered to any foundation in fact that even reliably right-wing Fox News opined that the major job creation effect of the Party's work would be to create legions of fact-checkers to keep pace with the campaign's whoppers.
The reliably liberal, but picky when it comes to those "facts" things, New York Times (people have been fired for making stuff up -- no word where they found their next work, but I have my suspicions) was similarly incensed; the grey lady pointed to the following untruthienesses in the Ryan speech alone:
Item: Mr. Obama's policies closed an auto plant in Mr. Ryan's hometown. In fact, the plant was closed by GM in 2008; Obama's policies did resurrect the US auto industry.
Item: Mr. Obama ignored the Simpson Bowles deficit reduction committee's recommendations. In fact, Mr. Ryan served on that committee and his own opposition to its findings doomed it in the House.
Item: Mr. Obama funneled $716B out of Medicare. In fact, Mr. Ryan's shadow budget did the same, and his voucher system would clearly foist further out-of-pocket costs onto seniors.
Item: Mr. Obama's policies are to blame for the downgrading of America's credit rating. In fact, it was the House-led GOP of Mr. Ryan that held the debt-ceiling increase "hostage" (their words), which directly led the S&P to lower the US rating on the basis of its demonstrably dysfunctional government.
Item: when he paused to carefully compliment Mr. Romney's tenure as Massachusetts Governor (sidestepping the delicate matter of ObRomneyCare), Ryan claimed it was done without raising taxes. In fact, it was done by closing loopholes, which has the very same revenue impact: collections went up. When folks complain about their taxes going up, it's not the rate, it's the payment.
And while we're on the subject of ObRomneyCare, it is not "government-controlled health care," as Mr. Ryan claimed, but fundamentally a baseline requirement that everyone acquire coverage from private sector insurers. That's something like how the government "controls auto liability insurance" by requiring everyone to have it. (This is controversial?)
Finally, the whole "we built it" theme intended to contrast their Party's direction with that of their socialist, reg-spewing, freedom-killing, pseudo-American opponent doesn't stand up to much scrutiny, either. It was a sentence fragment lifted from a paragraph to the effect that we are all in this together -- that we share resources, like education, the rule of law and infrastructure, to create and sustain conditions that promote each other's success. That point should also be non-controversial, but it's worth the reminder to anyone prone to the GOP's brand of hubris.
In order to win in November, the GOP will have to attract and hold the Great Moderate Middle. This convention's showplace content, however, was directed at the Fearfully Credulous Faithful who are already in the Party's sway. Worse for them, they have founded their campaign on sand that can be readily swept away when the debate is not with an empty chair.
Comments (33)
a resident of Danville
on Aug 31, 2012 at 11:34 am
Are you a paid blogger by the DNC? You do not even pretend to be a fair minded, neutral, open minded "journalist". All you write is straight off the Democrats play book. Zero credibility, and very pompous. Gosh, it must be nice to have all the answers in life, and not need to actually listen to another point of view, and see if maybe you can actually learn something.
By the way, the "great moderate middle" of the United States has nothing in common with a liberal old white guy living in the bay area. Go spend some time with folks living in places like Elkhart, Indiana, and other simiilar true "moderate middle" towns, and listen to their views. Going to church and faith in God is important to them, although your party would like to label them as "religious right extremist". Not having enough money to send their children to neighboring state colleges, when illegal aliens actually pay less than they do, bothers them(but under President Obama's "dream act", that is a good thing) Working two jobs and living within their means, while welfare moms's children are wearing $150 Air Jordan basketball shoes frustrates them. Those are issues that the "great moderate middle" thinks about, and I know, because I grew up and was raised, and spend a lot of time, in that community.
It is hard to learn when you think you have all the answers. It is really hard to learn when you refuse to listen to someone who has a different perspective and different life experiences than you. But you do not seem to have any desire to learn and be open minded. All you do is write attacks on the Republican party.
You are not doing a service to anyone by simply writing hate pieces, constantly ripping the Republican party. You are simply causing more resentment, more dissent, and less trust, between Americans.
a resident of another community
on Aug 31, 2012 at 1:29 pm
Being working middle class, an independent voter, and of an objective nature, I would like to see a strong healthy GOP and a strong healthy DEM party. Especially if both support and serve the plurality of American people. Whatever Tom's political views, his "reporting" of what occured at the RNC Convention, specifically Paul Ryan's speech was simply opined in the National and unbiased press and accurate. It's easy to check the facts and if that is consdiered a "ripping" of the GOP, then it is deserved. The effect or effectiveness of Ryan's speech (or anyone elses) is seriously undermined by hypocrisy. Not sure how you could create less trust than that. Although not mentioned, Clint Eastwood's improv was strange and an embarassment that I'm sure the RNC wishes it could have avoided. The Romneys speeches and some others, touched some high notes, but were largely devoid of substantive policy initiatives to differentiate from Obama, or Bush for that matter. You may not like where we are, but what's the plan for changing it. That was not well expressed. We'll see what comes next, but if this is the GOP product, it seems to be suffering a lack of quality and the strong taint of misrepresentation.
a resident of Danville
on Aug 31, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Underdog: "whatever Tom's political views"...Have you ever read one single blog where Tom ever points out misreprestations by Democrats? If you claim to be a true moderate and independent, but can't even admit that Tom's views are 100% in line with Democrats play book on every issue and never gives credit to a single Republican idea, than you are hardly being honest or objective.
a resident of Alamo
on Aug 31, 2012 at 3:51 pm
Dan Ville, you are making an ad hominem argument against the writer rather than addressing what he wrote. If what he wrote is wrong, say why. Otherwise, spare us the personal attacks.
a resident of Danville
on Aug 31, 2012 at 5:01 pm
Agree. Tom accurately reported several instances of misrepresentations by Ryan. It's a shame when a party has to resort to lies and distortions, smugly delivered, rather than to tell us what they would do differently.
Apparently, Ryan's budget plan would increase the deficit even more than what it is now, because it would cut taxes (revenue) more than it would cut spending. How does that help?
a resident of San Ramon
on Sep 1, 2012 at 8:27 am
I'm using Safari on a Mac. Is anyone else getting strange characters in Tom's posting?
a resident of Danville
on Sep 1, 2012 at 9:57 am
I think Vile Dan is representing his ideology faithfully. Truth is optional; all that matter is following and repeating what the right wing propagandists say. Anyone who fails to adhere to the dictates of Limbaugh, Hannity at al. must be attacked. It doesn't matter what they say; after all, reality is what the right wing propaganda machine says it is.
And of course, anyone who points out that a Republican is lying when he makes false accusations a Democrat is a bad person, "causing less trust" between Americans. "Balance" means that right wing lies should be treated the same as objective truth.
Why couldn't Ryan detail his actual, specific proposals instead of spinning a patently misleading story about a factory that was shut down during the Bush Administration, blaming it (somehow) on Obama? Why didn't he defend his own decision to vote against the debt reduction commission's work instead of claiming that Obama ignored the report that Ryan himself rejected? It was a bizarre exercise in turning history on its head. He didn't have to bring those things up if he didn't want to; but having done so, he should not have lied about them.
I've respected conservatives and been willing to vote for (some) Republicans for most of my life. After all, reasonable people can reasonably disagree about a lot of things. I've lost that respect. Until the Republican party can rid itself of the "reality is what we say it is," anti-science, radical fringe that has taken control of the party, the GOP will represent a threat to the future of the nation. I don't trust the Republican party anymore. It's not because of what Tom Cushing wrote, it's because I saw the same thing he saw, heard the same thing he heard, and I'm reading the same comments he's reading: attacking the guy who points out that the Emperor has no clothes, defending lies told in a nationwide broadcast.
Raymond: I'm getting that, too. Windows 7 with Chrome and Firefox both.
a resident of San Ramon
on Sep 1, 2012 at 10:23 am
Notwithstanding the political content, Tom needs to look at the Text Encoding that he uses when saving his stuff. I'm no expert but I think he needs to use Unicode (UTF-8) when he saves his document. (This is a WAG on my part.)
a resident of Alamo
on Sep 1, 2012 at 10:27 am
Hi all:
Weirdest thing about the odd punctuation effects is that I only get them sometimes. I've tried posting with various versions of MSWord; next week I'll try converting the whole thing to .txt before I upload it, and see if that helps.
I just Have to add an entry from my I-Wish-I'd-Coined-That-One Department: after Mr. Romney looked-right-at-us and claimed that the Republicans tried to work with the President [calling Sen. McConnell], somebody blamed the GOP's memory loss on "Romneysia."
And per a FB friend who suffers through my prose regularly, if the Dems are smart (and no, 'Dan', I'm not privy to their plans), they will be verry accurate, and verry specific in their statements at Their gathering in Charlotte. I think she's right -- stay tuned!
a resident of Danville
on Sep 1, 2012 at 10:32 am
I look forward to Tom, and Huh? and Dave immediately writing on this blog about all the misrepresentations and inconsistencies and false statements that will occur during the Democrats convention. You all claim to be so independent and not simply party advocates, and that the truth is your primary concern. Let's see how many blogs and comments you make when the Democrats make misrepresentations. Let's see how truly independent and fact checkers you really are. Truth is we all know we will not hear a peep from any of you.
a resident of Alamo
on Sep 1, 2012 at 10:46 am
Aw, Dan -- what the hell else am I going to write about next week, if not the Dem Convention? Maybe my beloved A's instead, who treated the Red Sawx wicked-bad last evening (20-2, in case you follow ESPN and so might not have heard), or the Michigan Wolverines, if they rise up and smite the wicked Red Tide.
But you might not like those posts, either. BTW, if you really think the Republicans' policies have in-mind to benefit that struggling family in the Midwest (where I grew up and went to school), then either they are better propagandists than I give them credit for being, or you are their stooge.
a resident of Diablo
on Sep 1, 2012 at 1:00 pm
Tom: Calling me a "stooge"? Typical for you, when you resort to name calling. Let me educate you about Indiana, where I grew up, in a true great middle class part of the US. Places like Elkhart, Indiana, will decide the next election. Places where people worship God, not Barbara Boxer.
The governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, used same blueprint to turn around Indiana, that Governor Romney wants to use. Governor Daniels turned a $600 million deficit into a $370 surplus, by passing laws that made Indiana pro-business, by cutting government waste and bureaucracy, with 8 years of no tax increases. CNBC named Indiana the most improved state in US for business. He turned the state economy around, by being pro-business, and unlike Obama, he championed successful businesses and people that created jobs.
The true middle class state realized how these same policies that Government Romney will use helped create jobs and turned the economy around, by electing Governor Daniels to a second term with the largest number of votes ever for a public office in state history.
You see Tom, true middle class people from the Midwest are a lot smarter than you and your liberal friends give them credit, and it is their votes that will send Governor Romney to Washington.
a resident of Danville
on Sep 2, 2012 at 5:42 pm
This is Tom's 50th article for the Danville Express. In all of those articles, can any of you find a single instance where he has been critical of the Obama administration? Just one instance? Anyone?
And in all those articles, how many times has Tom been critical of the GOP? I'm guessing pretty much all of them.
Wouldn't it be great if the Danville Express hired writers who were a little less tunnel visioned?
If you are looking for a good discussion of the deceptions of both the Romney and Obama campaigns, there are many websites that do a fair job.
Weekly Standard's view is that the NY Times and other articles critical of Ryan fail to cite a single fact that Ryan misstated or lie that he told.
Web Link
Mother Jones's view is that while Ryan may not have lied, his speech failed to provide context for his criticism of Barack Obama, which was misleading. Of course, Obama has NEVER been misleading. No sir.
Web Link
And Tom, – "™s "€™s "â™s €™s "™s "™s â€!!!! Ha HA HA!!!!
a resident of Alamo
on Sep 3, 2012 at 8:37 am
Well, it wouldn't be the weekend without another 'shoot the messenger' comment from ol' spc. Aim needs work, though. I'm pretty sure if you reread my stuff you'll see I've been critical of Obama on topics like drone policy, giving-up too much when he bargains with Insurgents (by which I mean the House) and not building/taking his case to the people directly. There. Feel better?
But that's really beside the point, as these Raucous Caucus columns are not ever intended to be straight news: they are Opinion Pieces. As such, they contain my opinions. It should not be particularly surprising that they come from a consistent viewpoint. My hope is that they generate discussion -- heated is fine -- but On.The.Topic. Much of the commentary here just isn't, which is a lost opportunity but also part/parcel of a Board on which commenters don't have to put their names behind their statements.
Spc, Since it's been clear for several months that you want your very own Blog, here's how easy it is: go to the top, click "Post a Topic," call the category anything you want, and fire away! Pretty sure you can still use your acronym, even. That's also a Much better solution than calling for my head -- or at least my keyboard, as others have done.
And Dan -- you don't like being labeled? Good -- me neither. Howsabout we both avoid that in the future? Your comment about Daniels was interesting and thought-provoking -- why do you think he was not able to gain traction for a Presidential run?
a resident of Danville
on Sep 3, 2012 at 10:57 am
Governor Daniels was approached by Purdue University, one of the top educational public colleges in the US, to become President of University when his term of Govenor ends in January. Purdue is the alma mater of Neil Armstrong, a real American hero, as well as over 25% of all astronauts. Ironically, it was Obama who cut NASA program, because NASA employees have traditionally been Republicans. Purdue is also a real middle class fiscal conservative school, which is a great fit for Mr.Daniels.
a resident of another community
on Sep 3, 2012 at 11:24 am
Ah Purdue, The Harvard of west central Indiana. Go Broilermakers!
Prediction: Irish 31-Broilers 14.
a resident of Danville
on Sep 4, 2012 at 10:40 am
"...it was Obama who cut NASA program, because NASA employees have traditionally been Republicans" Actually, the only time the NASA budget was bigger than under the current administration was four out of the eight Clinton years - and that's adjusted for inflation, too. (And yes, you can look that up, too.)
Ah, but those are just "facts", and we all know, mere "facts" are unimportant to the right wing when you're blaming Obama for everything that you feel is wrong with the world.
a resident of Danville
on Sep 4, 2012 at 10:42 am
** Left out: "in the past 30 years." The NASA budget was much bigger in the 60's, during the Apollo program.
a resident of Danville
on Sep 4, 2012 at 1:12 pm
Dn Ville also forgot to mention that much of the improvement Indiana's ecomony, which is heavily dependent on the transportation sector, during the past three years is due to the auto industry being saved and now prospering. Hmmmm, whom might we have to thank for that?
a resident of Danville
on Sep 4, 2012 at 5:09 pm
Sorry "Dave", but Obama had absolutely nothing to do with the success Governor Daniels has had in Indiana. Governor Daniels was named in 2008 by CNBC for making Indiana the most improved state in the U.S. for business, for Governor Daniels term between 2004 and 2008. Obama was not even President yet in 2008 when Governor Daniels received this award.
By the way, it was Governor Daniels legislation that limited frivilous product liability lawsuits against manufacturers that helped create jobs and success for businesses and employees in the Hoosier state. Eli Lilly, and Caterpiller, are two of the largest employers in the state of Indiana, and they were able to hire more people, create more good paying jobs, without spending all their money fighting frivilous lawsuits.
Ironically, despite the thousands of pages in Obamacare, there is absolutely nothing in his manifesto that deals with limiting frivilous medical malpractice claims. Of course, because the largest campaign contributor to the Democrats is the trial lawyers, i.e. ambulance chasers of America. The John Edwards of your party have no interest in limiting frivilous lawsuits, that is their bread and butter. Defensive medicine, due to fears of lawsuits, really adds to the costs of healthcare, but Obama does not want to discuss that, as it would upset his ambulance chasing donors.
a resident of Alamo
on Sep 4, 2012 at 9:00 pm
Making a state the most "improved for business" is not equivalent to, nor does it assure, an improved economy.
a resident of San Ramon
on Sep 5, 2012 at 3:47 pm
Oh Tom, how do you and your Repub Dad get along these days? What school did you attend to get so far off track?
First, it's very unfair to lump/judge ALL REPUBs alike, like it would be wrong to assume you could be as bad as extreme leftists. I'm more pro-choice than not. I'm a strong fiscal conservative. I'm for common-sense domestic energy development & North American energy that could make us INDEPENDENT...like Ms Pelosi only 'talked' about, but blocked with every vote.
My mechanical engineer son has been UNemployed by a shuttered company, under Obama. I don't like that my grandkids are discriminated against in school...it seems the duty of this generation to do without, with the mistaken belief that makes all the minority groups better, faster...over EastBay born who aren't given same preferences.
But FIRST and foremost, I am angered that every DEM politican is owned by debt causing PUBLIC unions who are breaking cities, counties, and states throughout America. It is all so deep now, I can't see how to save 'the taxpaying people' from the stranglehold. We are hostage to their demands. Which is why FDR said it would be wrong for American people to ever have PUBLIC employee unions, threatening taxpayers. Sadly, Obama is also owned by unions..
Iso LOVED SoCarolina Repub GOV. Nikki Haley's speech at the R convention. She had to 'fight' the Obama admin for BOEING tobe 'allowed'to build their new plane in So Caroling, a right-to-work state. She won the fight, Boeing built their private, non-union plane!! Home factory in Seattle, didn't lose anything...they ADDED 2,OOO NEW EMPLOYEES...EVERYBODY WON!!! Obama would have driven them OUT of the country, and then complained about companies outsourcing. Her speech (Indian immigrant) is worth seeing, as is the speech of New Mexico Repub GOV Martinez..her immigrant Mexican parents started as Dems, she learned she believed in Repub priNciples, and became GOVENOR! SHE'S A GREAT speaker !
US has the HIGHEST in the WORLD corp tax rate, so overseas companies are sitting on Trillions in our new world that could come back
if Obama would work with them. That would help our economy and JOBS !
Tom, now back to your invalid sterotyping. I never, never listen to Limbaugh. He's a blowhard, and more extreme than I am. I listen to ALL networks,including c-span and pbs regularly, but check in on msnbc least. I must hear and see lips move myself or read author's names on my several publications, before I form my opinions. I don't know if you're married or not, but it's rare to find a thinking person who agrees 100% with another thinking person. Some less thoughtful, just go along.
Lies. First nobody, and I mean nobody, can match the lies from the snide & scowling mouth of Stephanie Cutter. 2nd would be a tie of lies among chairman Debbie W., Rev Sharpton, Axlerod, and Gates.
Re Ryan I know that Obama said with Obama money the plant would be in buisness for 100 years!!
Ryan thought stronger fixes were needed in Simpson & Bowles.
The 'HealthCareACT' is not about 'care', it is about getting 'insurance' for the inner-city uninsured...funded by taking away my SR.Advantage portion of individual medicare, for which I pay EXTRA over and above my individual medicare, plus my personal insurance. The $716 Trillion transfer, also comes from paying doctors less, until nobody wants to BE a doctor. Taxpayers will make up the shortages. Getting insurance is one thing, FINDING a doctor to get medical CARE is quite something else in our tomorrows!
Being a junkie, I saw Obama's 'you didn't build it' slandering small business in one of his 'faction' groups (different words for different factions). I'm a big c-span watcher, so I always get the full lead-in 'context'. He's defends with 'well, everybody gets streets, public services, busride to school, etc.etc. Well, Obama, that is right...but,some people charge ahead, work around the clock and create a sucessful business, and some don't !!..Well, When success happens, THEY built it ! Don't try to diminish success!!!
Now back to watching the Dem convention on c-span. I KNOW WHY I'm a Republican. I want what is best for Americans. Watching this show, of individual 'groups', wanting for themselves, not America.
I believe in individual Americans and America, not groups. Group-think is not good for the whole of America...it by nature, group-think sets up 'sides'...not the good of ALL.
Sad so many will be voting, altho not citizens.
a resident of San Ramon
on Sep 5, 2012 at 4:37 pm
I surely hope the "unbiased" journalists and pundits have their fact checking process in place for the Democratic Convention this evening. It was missing last night. OH wait - that's not possible with 98% of the journalists in this country registering as democrats. So grateful for FOX TV during times such as these.
a resident of San Ramon
on Sep 5, 2012 at 10:56 pm
actually, David Gergen, carly Fiorino, tom Forman, piers Morgan, and anderson Cooper all did a great job of hammering that blabbie Debbie W. over the platform changes, which had been discussed yesterday. They all sort of mocked Debbie and Pelosi attitudes today, with 'move on, move on, next' like Debbie and Pelosi were denying the problem, they absolutely would not answer the platform change back questions.
Yesterday, the platform changes from last year's copy had removed the word 'God' from where it had been, and removed Jerusalam as capital of Israel. 'oh, those were minor overlooks, all taken care of, nothing to talk about...all fixed.' blah, blah, Well, Anderson and Piers, at diff times said, 'but, last week, you said Romney was responsible for anything the committe put in or out of the platform, SO shouldn't Obama be questioned on the single words God and Jerusalam being removed with no other words changed...pretty intentional, and then put back in TODAY ! SO? isn't Obama also responsible...either candidates are responsible for writing of platforms or not..."all taken care of, nothing to discuss" over and over. Usually I watch on c-span, so I see the real thing without translation and talk-overs...but glad I caught those scenes.
a resident of Alamo
on Sep 6, 2012 at 7:01 am
The now-infamous Janesville auto plant closed on April 23, 2009.
That was after Candidate Obama stood at the site and said that under his Presidency it would remain open.
Facts are facts.
a resident of Alamo
on Sep 6, 2012 at 8:49 am
Dear Real: my Dad died a few years ago, peacefully after a long illness -- secure, I think, in the knowledge that he had raised two sons to think for themselves, and that one of them had presented him with the Perfect Grand-daughter.
We were close; I think about him every day. He, like you (I suspect, based on your lengthy epistle above), was a good 20th Century Republican. His thoughts, however, were rather better organized and his approach was forever based on principle -- lacking that angry ad hominem element, and the misplaced disdain and condescension.
We agreed on many things, and when we disagreed we did so with respect. Needless to say, the GOP and the world are both very different now from the world and party he understood.
Ann: if Fox News is your window on the world, well, good luck to you.
And Diane: the clear import of the Ryan speech was Obama's policies killed the plant. If it was locked in April, it had to be announced under the WARN Act in February; Mr. Obama took office in January. In 'fact,' GM made the decision to close it in 2008. It was in bad enough shape that GM Still hasn't reopened it, even in the renaissance of the US auto industry.
Hopefully that'll change as conditions continue to improve, but even that happy outcome won't alter the deceptive nature of Mr. Ryan's claim. He made that bed, and he continues to lie in it.
a resident of Danville
on Sep 6, 2012 at 9:26 am
Tom: So, any "misrepresentations" by the Democrats at their convention that you feel the need to bring to the attention of the American voters? I saw that even the liberal media had to point out all the "misrepresentations" made by Mrs.Obama about "good jobs" allegedly being created, which they even pointed out was not accurate.
I am also not surprised that the Democratic delegates loudly voted against having any mention of God in their platform. Funny, people were so quick to rip Governor Romney for anything in the Republican platform they did not like, claiming as candidate, he was responsible for everything in the platform. Well, doesn't that mean Mr.Obama is responsible for voting against God? Actions also speak louder than words. Even the liberal press pointed out that Governor Romney is in church every sunday, and reported that Mr. Obama showed up at his alleged church two weeks ago, the first time he had attended since Easter! He knows the media is watching, and he only shows up at his alleged church 3-4 times the entire year? I bet his attendance was a lot better when he was going to see that extreme minister in Chicago, Pastor Wright, who has conveniently not been shown during this convention.
You are right, Tom, about the great middle class deciding this election. Obama and the Democrats voting down God will not go over very well in Elkhart, Indiana, or the rest of the real midwest. There is a clear difference in this election, and the great middle class voters will vote in favor of God, and against Obama.
a resident of Danville
on Sep 6, 2012 at 9:42 am
Ryan's point was that Candidate Obama made a false promise while campaigning at that plant in 2008, that if they voted for Obama that somehow Obama could keep the plant open.
Obama said in 2008, "I believe that if our government is there to support you, this plant will be here for another 100 years."
That's the real deception. Obama made campaign promises he couldn't possibly keep.
Ryan didn't lie.
Here's exactly what Ryan said:
My home state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it—especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory. A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that G.M. plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said, "I believe that if our government is there to support you, this plant will be here for another 100 years."
That's what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that's how it is in so many towns where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.
a resident of Danville
on Sep 6, 2012 at 12:38 pm
Thanks, spcwt, for posting the actual quote from Ryan, regarding the closing of the Janesville plant. People can form their own conclusions as to whether it is "fair" to link the closure to Obama's policies. But I don't see any lies in Ryan's actual statement.
As a side comment, from knowing some folks who worked at the Janesville plant, my impression is that it wsas primarily engaged in light trucks (e.g. pick-up trucks, and possibly SUV's based on similar platforms). As such, recent trends toward more high-mileage vehicles may have had as much to do with the demise of Janesville as any other factor.
Stepping back a bit, there's little point to engaging in a pissing-contest about statements made in campaign speeches. This election is bigger than that, representing a fundamental clash of philosophy, on several levels. But if I had to pick a common denominator, it is about the fundamental clash between the collective and the individual. If you fundamentally want to make your own way as an individual, for better or worse, then your philosophy is more aligned with Republicans. If you fundamentally want to be part of a group or collective of some kind, for better or worse, then your philosophy is more aligned with Democrats. Unfortunately for Republicans, more and more Americans are now receiving some form of govt. assistance, or have some other form of dependency on government. The "lure of the collective" has never been stronger. One fairly small indicator of this is that the numbers of people receiving "food stamps" (actually in the form of plastic) has doubled during the past 3.5 years. It might be argued that some of this increase is due to the economy being that much worse now, then at the start of Obama's term. (Although that doesn't reflect well on Obama, either.) But a large part of the reason is that the eligibility for food stamps has been expanded. More dependency translates to more Democratic voters. It's no accident that you now see TV ads focused on getting more people to sign up for food stamps (in the guise of "reaching out" to eligible people).
The only thing that helps Republicans is that most people still want to feel like they're doing things on their own. That, and the fact that the trend toward greater collectivism inevitably drives all of us to the lowest common denominator. Thankfully, there are still large numbers of people who are not content to be "just another brick in the wall" (to quote Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, somewhat out of context...).
a resident of Danville
on Sep 6, 2012 at 3:57 pm
"The now-infamous Janesville auto plant closed on April 23, 2009.
That was after Candidate Obama stood at the site and said that under his Presidency it would remain open.
Facts are facts."
The closure was announced in July, 2008, the last GM vehicle rolled off the line in December, 2008. A few dozen workers remained for another six months doing mop up work needed to mothball the factory (which was shuttered, but kept available to reopen.) Those are the actual facts.
But I'm glad to see that the right wing propaganda machine is roaring ahead full steam.
"So grateful for FOX TV during times such as these." So glad to see you're able to protect yourself from any facts which don't fit the narrative spoon-fed to you by the corporate propagandists. Wouldn't it be uncomfortable to have to deal with the truth? Fortunately Fox "News" is there to spare you that agony.
a resident of Danville
on Sep 11, 2012 at 11:50 pm
Dan Ville -
Courts dismiss most frivolous lawsuits already. So-called "tort reform" has very little to do with economic growth.
And with Indiana's unemployment rate hovering around the national average, one would hardly point to Indiana as a success story -- especially compared with Silicon Valley, which is leading the nation in job growth, despite California's strong consumer protection laws.
a resident of Danville
on Sep 15, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Tom - Interesting way to "honor" your late father. Some egos just can't ignore missing an opportunity to educate the rest of us.
Comparing your late father's good character while insulting "Reals" political opinions as NOT being "based in principle" as you say - well, that's not condescending is it?!
Your father sounded like a very decent and admirable man with "clear 20th century" Republican views. What are the clear 20th century Democrat views? Your party seems as fractured and divided as you infer about The Republican views.
Maybe you missed a few of the important lessons growing up; treating people with respect whether they have your political views or not. I'm sorry but you don't sound like you're lacking that "angry ad hominem element and the misplaced disdain and condescension."
As to your comment to me about needing "luck" in how I view my world politically; I don't need any luck. I simply stated that I was grateful for FOX TV. They balance out the rest of the obvious media bias when all the TV stations and pundits are telling us all what we saw and heard on TV. It would be astonishing to listen to these convention speeches without any news reviews at all - anywhere. Gosh, we could actually make up our own opinions without the "news" people grasping for adjectives and explanations of what we saw for ourselves.
I didn't feel like boring anyone else on this website earlier with a long-winded diatribe on the views I have about the current media environment. BUT, I'll bite...
I read several newspapers, local and the Wall Street Journal. I watch CNN, (Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, etc.) and I try to stomach MSNBC for as long as I can during the week. For me at this current time when I have so little of it, listening to experts in the financial fields is central to making sense of our US economy. I do enjoy Fox News, Lou Dobbs, Neil Cavuto, and I happen to agree with every single word Laura Ingram has ever spoken. We are cut from the same cloth. I listen to NPR (which I enjoy very much), Mark Levin (constitutional law expert) and Huckabee. Googling helps me in researching more than one source on a subject as well. I compare the news coverage constantly (being the news junkie that I am), and there has never been a greater time, the public needed more balance from the liberal views of the media. So Tom, thanks, but I don't need any luck in how I form my personal opinions.
Not sure if any of the democrats admire the thinking process coming from the writers of The Rolling Stone or Mother Jones, but these are the people who actually might need some luck seeing clarity in their social and political views - especially if the writers are in their 50's. Lots of anti-establishment views still clinging to their "guns" so to speak.
The elite journalists today are just every day politicians. They are sheep. There is no independence between the liberal democratic leadership in the country and the 98% liberal media. The propaganda that comes from these large corporations (Time Warner - NBC,ABC,CBS etc.) are at the helm of decision making when it comes to what is reported and how...Not only do they manufacture the news, they withhold information which is as bad as flat out lying when a journalist chooses this road.
They allow democrat politicians to lie without holding them accountable for the lies they speak. They don't press the issues with facts or questions when interviewing democrats.
All anyone has to do is watch closely and objectively in how and what they ask Republicans being interviewed. Just watch closely. It's obvious to most rational and reasonable people in the difference in how they treat the two political parties.
Watching Tom Brokaw squirm when Hannity (yes on FOX) asked him a question that he didn't want to answer was priceless during the DNC two weeks ago. They can only be so creative when their answers are obviously biased with a personal political opinion and agenda.
Can anyone admit to seeing or hearing a lone journalist covering the White House, EVER, EVER press Obama or his spokes people with tough, follow-up questions about anything he has ever done or said to the American people?! It is a total joke in how they handle the childish Obama with "kid gloves" when asking him soft-ball questions that lead to nowhere...that's IF he ever decides to talk with the press. During his 17 vacations in the past three and a half years, (it's so fun burning up that gasoline and money flying) Obama is not exactly available to speak with the nation about silly national and international issues.
Sadly this past week the microphones were left on during the set-up time period prior to the press interviewing Mitt Romney. It was business as usual for several "journalists" as they colluded to how they could ambush the candidate collectively; each supporting one another with the type of questions they could hammer him with.
THAT is why FOX and other media options are welcomed and watched by so many millions of Americans who are hungry for the truth and the facts. SO...As far as television goes, yes, I am one of millions who is GRATEFUL for Fox TV.
a resident of Alamo
on Sep 16, 2012 at 11:32 am
Hi Ann:
I wished you good luck, and still do, because my opinion is that Fox is so over-the-top in its right-wing orientation that it's nearly impossible to have a reasonable discussion of actual issues with someone who can't see that to be the case.
Your reply post tends to confirm that impression. The entire first five paras are a scornful attack on me, which is okay -- unless you don't agree that the Republican approach is fraught with, indeed Based On, such Anger and Fear. You are its perfect example. Go ahead and vent your frustration, but please at least understand about the futility of shooting the messenger -- demonizing me as a prodigal son just isn't the same thing as disagreeing with my opinions.
Now, about 20th century Republicanism: I think Ike was its icon -- you might want to reread his farewell address that I posted as one of these early missives. It's here as edited, with a link to the unabridged version: Web Link
To me (and my late Dad), Ike stood for such things as fiscal moderation: he ran small deficits 5 of 8 years (netting-out negative) and enacted a federal stimulus in 1958-9 to address a mild recession; civil rights, as he sent troops to Little Rock to help desegregate its schools; deep concern for the dangerous influence of the Military-Industrial Complex (his term), and government investments in infrastructure, such as the Interstate highway system; standing up to clear threats (then the USSR); and expressing a foreign policy as follows:
"America knows that this world, ever growing smaller, must be a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength."
In my view, the base of the GOP has moved so far to the Right that Ike would not/could not be its nominee. Romney's is a Goldwater candidacy, and, I believe, the dwindling moderate wing will need to re-find its voice, or leave as I did.
Finally, you've undoubtedly watched Meet the Press the past two weeks -- kindly compare the kid-gloves with which moderator David Gregory went after Mr. Romney, with his aggressive treatment of Ambassador Susan Rice today (and his attempt to get PM Netanyahu to endorse Mr. Romney, which he appropriately refused to do), and Then tell me about your 98%. Rice did fine, I think, but to suggest that Gregory and others are in the tank for The President is just so much more hyperbole.
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2017 guide to summer camps
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|GTA V Latest News | #GTAV | #GTAOnline
2005 The Leak 2 - Coming Summer 2005
GTA: San Andreas - Community News | @ 02:21 PM MDT | By Neil
GTANet (who claim to "trust" the "pirate") have posted some very low quality (well, it wouldn't be piracy if people could afford cameras now, would it?) images of a PC monitor allegedy running San Andreas PC.
We'll have to wait and see whether the images are real and we're expecting a "please don't download it" type statement from Rockstar soon too.
It appears that the information released is false. Sorry for the confusion!
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Much of the heart and soul of historic Boston — the gorgeous 1840 townhouses of Louisburg Square, the North End's colonial-era churches, the tree-lined avenues and brownstones of the Back Bay — is in danger of sinking into the marshy ooze on which it was built over the centuries. It appears that Governor Deval Patrick doesn't grasp the scope of the threat or the need for the state to treat it as the environmental danger that it is.
While his administration's agencies are actively doing their part in the short term, working with the city to mitigate the most immediate problems, Patrick wants to bar the state government from long-term efforts to keep the city's structures standing. In particular, he has filed a bill to excuse his Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) from regulating development on groundwater-dependant lands.
And Tom Menino, while admirably marshaling city agencies for the task over the past two years, seems more concerned with protecting his political control over development than in forging a long-term solution.
Often recognized as an issue for Back Bay homeowners, groundwater depletion poses a much wider danger. H. H. Richardson's Trinity Church, which defines Copley Square, is at risk. So are majestic Brahmin homes on the water-facing side of Beacon Hill; quaint residences of the South End reclaimed in recent years from encroaching urban decay; tightly packed Chinatown homes and shops behind the Beach Street paifang gate; gentrified apartments above tiny eateries on cobblestoned North End streets; and Fort Point warehouses reborn as artists' lofts.
If this is not an environmental issue that should be of concern to the state, nothing is. Groundwater is to Boston what levees are to New Orleans; at risk are the homes of thousands of residents, along with the very structures that make Boston the "Hub of the Universe," a preferred destination of tourists, students, and workers.
Thousands of Boston's buildings, built on fill that turned harbor and swamp into usable land, are in danger of collapse. They are supported on wood pilings that keep the structures above the water that still lurks beneath the surface. And, while it may seem counterintuitive, the wood now depends on that very water: when the groundwater levels drop, it exposes the pilings, which dry out, rot, crack, and eventually collapse.
Rainwater and melting snow should constantly replenish the groundwater. But for decades, we humans have prevented these natural sources of water from getting below ground: we've paved over the soil and pumped water away to prevent flooding or to allow for construction, and have let the groundwater leak into pipes and underground structures. And we keep on doing it.
The stakes are enormous, and we are already seeing the consequences. One Back Bay family had to climb out a window after their house shifted due to rotted pilings, says Jerome Smith, chief of staff to City Councilor Michael Ross. Others have had to evacuate houses deemed unsafe. Some have spent a quarter-million dollars or more to install new steel-and-concrete underpinning to keep their homes standing.
"We depend on the groundwater for our entire neighborhood," says Jackie Yessian, chair of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay.
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Story highlights
- A replica of the doomed ship will sail in 2016, says Blue Star Line Chairman Clive Palmer
- Titanic II set to follow the ill-fated original's planned route from England to New York
- Palmer vows Titanic II will be the safest cruise ship in the world when it sets sail
"You don't back a horse called Striding Snail, you don't name your boat Titanic II."
Sound advice from a 1996 Beautiful South tune, "Little Blue."
One man, however, seems hellbent on ignoring such plain folk wisdom in an audacious pursuit to rewrite history.
At a Tuesday press event in New York, Australian billionaire Clive Palmer, chairman of Blue Star Line shipping company, unveiled blueprints for his company's planned Titanic II. It's an exact replica of the haunted 1912 cruise liner that ... well, you've seen the movie.
Palmer claims Titanic II will be the safest cruise ship in the world when it sets sail in 2016 from Southampton, England, bound for New York, following the ill-fated Titanic's original planned route.
The press event, held at New York's Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, was part of an ongoing campaign to promote the Titanic II launch. Blue Star held a Titanic II Gala Dinner at the Venetian in Macau this month to drum up interest among wealthy Chinese.
As reported last year, Palmer has commissioned a Chinese shipyard to build the replica.
The mining magnate won't say exactly how much money he's sunk into the project, but he doesn't appear worried about those who might be leery about boarding such a dubiously named vessel. Palmer says he's received offers of up to $1 million for passage on the ship's maiden voyage.
We assume that's not for steerage.
No word yet on deck chair arrangements.
What do you think of Blue Star Line using the name of the sunken Titanic? Would you sail aboard the Titanic II if given the chance? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.


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Mila Kunis Gossip
Mila Kunis gossip, latest news, photos, and video.
Cowboy couple belly-cupping
Frazer Harrison/ Kevin Winter/ Getty
Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher were at the Stagecoach Country Music Festival this weekend. They publicly displayed their affection for each other. And at one point, he stood behind her and put his arms around her. Definitely not as egregious as when it happens on a red carpet posing for photographs. Full Story
Pregnant Jupiter's first carpet
Wenn, Fitzroy Barrett/ Splash
I can never tell when someone is early pregnant. If I didn't know that Mila Kunis was pregnant, I'd never think she was pregnant seeing her here with Channing Tatum at CinemaCon yesterday to promote Jupiter Ascending, due out July 18th. I've not seen any soundbites coming out of the appearance about her future motherhood, have you? Send to me if you have. Full Story
Mila Kunis is pregnant for Ashton Kutcher
FameFlynet, Headlinephoto/ Splash
My friend Lorella and I were at an event once, talking to someone we'd just met about Jude Law getting people pregnant. The woman, who had sort of like a gangster accent, kept saying, "She got pregnant for Jude Law. Pregnant for Jude Law". And Lo and I kept cracking up over the expression, "pregnant for" someone. Full Story
Courtside is so private
London Ent / Splash News
Yesterday we learned that Mila Kunis will be guest-starring on Two And A Half Men. Maria wrote about it late in the afternoon – click here for a refresher. As she pointed out, it's not like Mila needs the work. And it's not like she would do it if she weren't engaged to the star of the show, Ashton Kutcher. Full Story
Two and a Half Morons
VM /CPR /Javiles /FAMEFLYNET PICTURES
I can't take credit for this title – Roseanne came up with it first. Did you know Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher are engaged? Of course you do, because she wore her ring to the Grove and both PEOPLE and Gossip Cop have confirmed with "inside sources" (the most official way to unofficially confirm something). Full Story
Mila's engagement ring
This shouldn't be a surprise. In fact, we've been expecting it for a while. Ever since Ashton Kutcher's divorce from Demi Moore went through, there's either been an engagement watch or a pregnancy watch. So, now, it's official. Mila Kunis is wearing a huge ring. Full Story
Lainey's Worst Dressed at the Globes: Mila Kunis
FameFlynet, Jason Merritt/ FREDERIC J. BROWN/ Getty Images
Spectacular is a word Duana once used to describe Mila Kunis. Her attitude, her wit, her Mila. Mila means a total package. An irresistible package. She's one of ours. Was…? I don't recognise this person on this carpet. What is this dress? Gucci, fine. But what is it? What is this ridiculous collar? It's eating her. Full Story
This look means nothing
London Entertainment/ Splash
An example of how Photo Assumption can be so misleading…even if we wish so hard it was otherwise. Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher were at the Laker game the other day. There's a shot where she appears to be side-eyeing him. Of course she's not side-eyeing him. They kissed for the kiss camera. Full Story
Mila & Ashton's love on social media
Ashton Kutcher has over 15 million followers on Twitter. And he shared with them a photo of him kissing his girlfriend. You can't see their faces clearly but you know and I know it's Mila Kunis and they're in love and they may or may not be having a baby and they may or may not be getting married and Demi Moore may have sold Full Story
Jupiter's accent
Photopress PR/ Splash
A teaser trailer for the Wachowskis' upcoming Jupiter Ascending was released yesterday. The film stars Mila Kunis as Jupiter, a janitor who, really, should be the Queen. The bad people don't want Cinderella Jupiter to come into her power so Channing Tatum arrives with his eyeliner to look after her. Full Story
First a bridesmaid…
Mila Kunis was part of her brother's wedding the other day. The bridesmaid dresses were blush pink and strapless. Definitely not something she'd wear on a red carpet…but it wasn't about her. And I feel like Mila's the kind of girl who knows when it's not about her. Full Story


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WASHINGTON (AP) — Organizers insist the Faith and Freedom Coalition's recent conference was not focused on politics.
But last week's gathering of religious conservatives offers an example of the murky rules and lax enforcement surrounding the expanding network of nonprofit groups working to influence politics even as Congress probes the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups.
The political overtones of the conference were striking.
It was called the "Road to Majority" conference, a reference to winning control of Congress. Some of the biggest names in the Republican Party offered plans to strengthen the GOP. Breakout sessions included tips on harnessing technology to win elections.
Organizers say they're not violating laws barring groups like theirs, classified as "social welfare" organizations under the tax code, from direct or indirect political campaign activities.


text:
This test measures the level of the enzyme amylase in your urine.
About 40 percent of the amylase in your body is made by your pancreas, and the rest comes from your salivary glands. This test is used to find out whether you have pancreatitis or another pancreas-related disorder. If you have a pancreatic disorder, your amylase levels are typically higher than normal.
You may need this test if your health care provider suspects that your pancreas isn't working as it should.
Symptoms of pancreatitis or another pancreatic disorder include:
Abdominal or back pain
Loss of appetite
If you have been diagnosed with pancreatitis, your health care provider may order this test to monitor your disease or how well treatment is working.
Your health care provider may also order a blood test to check your amylase levels. He or she may also check your levels of lipase, another enzyme from the pancreas that may rise if you have pancreatitis. Amylase and lipase levels are often tested simultaneously.
You may also need an ultrasound, CT scan, or MRI scan to help your doctor diagnose pancreatitis.
Many things may affect your lab test results. These include the method each lab uses to do the test. Even if your test results are different from the normal value, you may not have a problem. To learn what the results mean for you, talk with your health care provider.
Higher than normal levels of amylase might mean a disorder other than pancreatitis. It's important to discuss this possibility with your doctor.
This test requires a urine sample usually collected over either a two- or 24-hour period. Your health care provider will tell you how to collect the sample.
This test poses no known risks.
If you have high cholesterol or high triglycerides in addition to a pancreatic disorder, your test results might be lower than expected.
A urine sample contaminated with other bodily fluids, especially saliva, can affect your test results. Saliva contains a level of amylase 700 times higher than that of urine.
You don't need to prepare for this test.


text: Hello, My name is Thom. Hello to everyone here. My son hooked up a new battery in his 1990 Chevy Astro van backwards and smoke rolled from under the hood. He said it seemed to come from the top area of the engine. After hooking the battery up correctly, the engine will turn over, however, it will not start. I do not smell any gas at all while cranking the engine. However, there is fire to the plugs. Checked the fuses. The ECM-B fuse was blown, changed that one out. However, that didn't change the situation. Any help here would be appreciated.


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UTSA supervisors
UTSA supervisors complete six-week program to hone management skills
By Tim Brownlee
Assistant Director of Public Affairs
(Nov. 5, 2005)--Twenty-five UTSA staff members were the most recent group to complete the "Introduction to Management, Supervisory Series" course offered through the Office of Training and Development.
Today's headlines
- La Prensa Foundation is newest member of UTSA Lone Star Society
- UTSA alumna Jordan Kaufmann wins $50K for new stent-graft start-up
- UTSA begins new way-finding sign installation this summer at Main Campus
- USA Today: UTSA long jumper Tyler Williamson rescues three-year-old boy
Article tools
The supervisors completed a six-week program covering the basic skills all supervisors need to be successful. The course is offered each spring and fall semester.
Gary Grimes, UTSA training coordinator, is pictured in a gray suit, kneeling on one knee.
For more information about training and development classes, contact Grimes at (210) 458-4883 or visit the Training and Development Web site.
The supervisors who completed the training course are:
Seth Asbury
Richard Baldez
Kathleen Ceresoli
Darcy Del Bosque
Betty Doerr
Clifton Fletcher
Belia Garcia
Ernest Gil
Rebecca Luther
Patricia Morehead
Denni McCarter
Erika Pena
Shashi Pinheiro
Ramon Rios
Michele Rench
Lori Reyes
Diana Rodriguez
Ruby Rodriguez
Lloyd Swartz
Billy Simmons
Alicia Valenzuela
Maria Villarreal
Mana Wajarakorn
Manuel Zuniga


text:
Last week, the Syfy Channel cancelled Alphas and the superhero series joined two of my other favorite series that were cancelled on cliffhangers.
The show ended the season with only one member of the Alphas team, Gary, certain of survival. Antagonist Stanton Parish had unleashed a weapon in Grand Central Station designed to kill normal humans and further enhance the abilities of Alphas or awaken latent abilities in those who possessed them.
Gary seems forever fated to wander among the bodies/survivors in Grand Central.
He has good company in never-resolved-land. Continue Reading "No Third Season for Alphas" »


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Team Pro Men
Name: Dino Marcan
Nationality : Croatia
Birth date : 12.2.1991.
Best ranking ATP : 289
Racket and string you play with: …T-fight, black code 1.24
At what age did you begin to play tennis ? 4 years..
Did you have a weakness as a kid that you worked hard to improve? ..It was my serve
How important was/is your family in your career?
They play very important role
What other sports did you practice and why did you decide to concentrate fully on tennis?
.I was very good at football and volleyball but I never practiced anything but tennis
What's your favorite tournament / why ?
Umag, its close to my home town and I always feel good and play well there
Best win /memory ?
Beating Bollelli in Umag in front of home crowd, or winning doubles at Junior Roland Garros
Worst loss/ ashamed of ?
Any of last 5 finals of futures which happened in a row
Nothing is better than ?
Achieving your long term goals...or eating a Croatian lamb..
Top 3 reason to wake up every morning?
Enjoy life
Make yourself usefull
Any advice for other players to progress in Tennis?
don't play tennis if you don't love it, it's a loooooong road
Your powersong in your ipod before entering the court ?
My temper needs relax music not powermusic
What was the most important piece of advice you received along the way?
Goran Prpic told me, when you don't know anymore what to do, just work your legs and watch the ball
How was the feeling of playing your first (Junior) Grand Slam ?
I was very nervous about going after the escort to the court but it went well, it was very nice and encouraging experience
What's your favorite quotation ?
It's the will of the man, ain't the skill
Favorite food :
Mom's lasagne
Favorite citation / quotation :
Unus obviam sulum (alone against everybody)
I could not play tennis without :
My family, sponsors, friends.
If you could turn pro in another sport which would it be and why ?
Football: team work and easy money
You've got 2 weeks and a private jet, where do we go ?
Top 3 reasons to wake-up every morning ?
To see family, to achieve new goals, to have fun!
How long does it take to get ready in the morning ?
Not too long, i get up quickly
How do you relax ?
With afternoon nap
Best shopping place ?
Hugo Boss
Its equipments


text:
By the way Matt, like Roanoke said, glad to see you back. I hope all went well with the wedding, and I wish the best for you guys! I know you are still a youngen, but don't burn yourself out with those 2 jobs!
NOT a paycut as per spotrac.com. http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/new-york-giants/david-baas/
His cap hit will be $8+ mil including $3.475 mil guaranteed cap hit each year for 2014 and 2015. Safe to say with this restructure, he'll be on the roster for 2014 as well.
Last edited by BigBlueAllDay; 03-07-2013 at 05:26 PM.
Nice for this year, could suck for the computer years.
Great to hear all of these players are restructuring!
It's not easy finding good centers in NFL, Bass does a fine job "when he is not hurting with some kind of ailment"


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VIDEO: Longwood Opera goes Broadway
What exactly is the opera experience? "There's this completely wrong stereotype about opera," says Roxanna Myhrum of the Boston Opera Collaborative . "You think of an overweight Valkyrie woman who is highly affluent and cultured and in this bubble of existence."
That image of the proverbial Valkyrie who warbles bullishly in an unrecognizable language about love, death, and scandal (18th century-style) is probably the most common perception of what to expect at an opera. But whether or not opera deserves this reputation, or has simply grown beyond it after centuries of re-interpretations and experimentation, it is simply untrue.
"If you consider opera in an historical context, it probably has always been more multi-media than most of the other performing arts," says John Whittlesey, the artistic director of Intermezzo . "Opera is the combination of the musical (aural), dramatic (visual), and emotional sensations that makes it such an evolved and connective form of communication."
"This is one of the only art forms that contains other art forms," says Scott Brumit, co-founder and director of Longwood Opera, created in the 1980s with the intention of giving young singers their first meaty roles before they flee the city for larger markets. "Music, movement, acting, dancing, costuming, painting. It uses instruments. It is now using video. Pretty much any art form you can think of, there's an opportunity in opera to use it."
"Opera was the original multi-media experience," says Judith McMichael, director of marketing and business partnerships at the Boston Lyric Opera. "It's a 350-year-old art form that includes singing, huge orchestras, acting, staging, sometimes dancing, [and] terrific lighting. It can be a total immersion experience. It is a total immersion experience."
The BLO is attempting to capitalize on today's obsession with multi-media among young people, who spend their lives clicking, re-clicking...and re-clicking on YouTube clips and podcasts, by working to garner young audience members. Their BRAVO program is designed to attract young professionals in their 20s and 30s to the opera by offering discounted tickets, access to hot opening night after parties, and, as is true of a few upcoming events, access to a private bar in the Shubert Theatre, where the BLO primarily performs. They've nailed it. Who loves to booze more than young professionals?
However, that multi-media component can work against opera just as much as it works for it, says Brumit. "With the advancement of technology, we have begun to notice an interesting development in that people have forgotten what a live performance is," he says. "You can turn on your TV and watch anything you would ever want to find, including opera, and you'd never have to leave your house. We're seeing a number of generations who are missing the whole concept of live performance. And yet, because of technology like YouTube, more young people are being exposed to opera, which is piquing more interest."
Audio Samples from Longwood Opera's 2007 production of Die Fledermaus
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text: Hey guys, I have a 2001 Silvy that keeps tripping the CEL every time I fill up. It's a problem with the fuel canister purge valve. I have been using my code reader to reset the light, but now the reader wont power on or self test when plugged into the port. I tried the reader in other vehicles and it seems to work fine, so I'm thinking it may be the port itself. I have checked for loose wiring and such. Anyone have any insights on this? Thanks in advance for any help!


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Discussion in 'The Coffee Shop ~ Chit Chat' started by Kady, Jan 3, 2013.
OMG, Some people...
I don't know which is worse ... the fact that the wife's almost dense enough to collapse into a black hole ... or the fact that the husband had so little respect for his wife that he posted a video that belittles her. I suppose when you reach her level you just don't notice when someone does a d-bag manuver like that. Still, kinda inconsiderate. But funny!
Oh, he probably explained it to her later and she probably realized how dumb it was... Doesn't seem like she would take offense to it, or even realize the difference. haha
Some peoples kids, i know when i first started watching it when he said it, around the time she started "Thinking" i knew what it was. She just needed to think about the question, because he gave her the answer in the question. Just needed to listen to the question more.
The thing is that he explained 80 MILES PER HOUR, and said PER HOUR, she argued with him because of her logic of "all cars tires spin differently, I mean trucks are heavier",
[MENTION=51590]Pikey[/MENTION] Well ya all of them are like that but usually if it is completely stock shouldnt it be set to go exactically the speed that the speedometer says, even if its heavier.
lol, I understand that! That was her logic not mine! Watch the video again. The video reminds me of a time that I was at school and sitting outside during break. I was listening to some kid try to impress a girl about how fast his car is. He was talking about how he goes flying down a certain stretch of freeway at high speeds. She looked at him and said "wow, so like how many seconds does it take to go under each over pass, I mean they must fly by"! I just listened as he said, "Oh, like 4 seconds between overpasses". I could not contain it and busted out laughing. They both looked at me. I said "Those overpasses are one mile apart on that part of the freeway. So, doing 60 mph it would be 1 minute between them, doing 120mph would be 30 seconds between them, 240mph would take 15 seconds, So you are saying that you drive over 240mph?" The kid just looked and me and the girl started laughing at him and walked away. I did not see them talking to each other the rest of the semester.
People get used to hearing things like "per" and they don't know what it means. It means "for each". For example, "per cent" (or percent, or %) just means "for each 100" as cent means 100. So 50% = 50 percent = 50 for each 100. That's why you can have 200% (200 for each 100).
Yeah, not sure why the original copy of this video reached nearly 10-million views on YouTube. I just guess it's funny that people are able to watch an otherwise private event in the life of some young couple.
It only means that in some contexts, not all. It can also mean 'by means of'. Examples:
'Per our previous discussion, ..."
"Ship it per express mail."
I add this because one never knows if that blonde (or someone of her mental caliber) is reading this and requires full coverage of the word! :happy:
Ha. I know all i think is that she failed math class. And that she needs to go take math again. Also the blondeness helps with her not knowing it right away, and not even knowing it at the end of it.
Separate names with a comma.