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Published: Sun, 20 Aug 2017 00:00:00 -0400
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Thu, 25 May 2017 16:45:00 -0400
(image) A California farmer wheat farmer faces up to $35 million in fines for violating federal wetlands regulations. But it's unclear whether the law in question was supposed to apply to him, and the rules themselves represent a decades-long effort to "make everything a wetland," essentially depriving individuals of due process protections for alleged crimes against the environment.
The farmer in question is John Duarte, who runs Duarte Nursery near Modesto. In 2012 he purchased 450 acres of land, planning to grow wheat on it. Duarte knew the property contained swales and wetlands, which are considered "waters of the United States" and therefore fall under the purview of the Clean Water Act. But the act includes exemptions for "established (ongoing) farming...activites," including plowing. So he thought that he was in the clear, legally speaking. He also hired a consultant to map out where the wetlands were, so as to avoid places where he might cause harm.
One of Duarte's lawyers told the Redding Record Searchlight that his client did plow some of the wetlands, but the attorney insists that there was no significant damage and that the plowing went no deeper than 7 inches. The government disagrees, claiming that Duarte used a ripper that dug 10 inches into the soil. Either way, the authorities argue that the Clean Water Act's exemption didn't apply to Duarte because his land had not been farmed for at least 20 years; therefore, the government concluded, he was bringing new land into production.
Duarte was able to grow the wheat, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the California Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board ordered him not to harvest it, telling him he'd need a permit to work the land.
"The case is the first time that we're aware of that says you need to get a permit to plow to grow crops," attorney Anthony Francois of the Pacific Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm which has helped told the Record Searchlight. "How do you impose a multimillion penalty on someone for thinking the law says what it says?"
Duarte sued California and the Army Corps of Engineers for violating his due process rights, since they sent their cease-and-desist order without a hearing. The government then countersued over the alleged Clean Water Act violation. Last June, District Judge Kimberly Mueller issued a summary judgement in favor of the Army Corps of Engineers, finding that Duarte's due process rights had not been violated, that the cease-and-desist letter was not an "enforcement action," and that the Clean Water Act's exemption didn't apply. The case now goes to a penalty trial; the prosecution is asking for a fines totalling nearly $35 million.
Critics of the Obama administration often pointed to the case as an example of regulatory overreach. With a new president's deregulatory rhetoric in the air, Duarte's attorneys hope to work out a better deal. They met with the Justice Department earlier this month to discuss the prospect of a settlement.
Thu, 25 May 2017 15:30:00 -0400
(image) Why is housing in the coastal enclaves so damned expensive? The median rent for a two-bedroom apartment in New York City is now running at $4,260 a month; in San Francisco, the figure is $4,600. The national average, by contrast, is about $1,300. What gives?
Blame zoning. The Wharton Residential Land Use Regulatory Index reports that land use restrictions in New York, San Francisco, and San Jose are among the tightest in the country.
You don't have to live in New York, San Francisco, or San Jose to feel the effects. A new study by economists Chang-Tai Hsieh of the University of Chicago and Enrico Moretti of Stanford measured increases in the total factor productivity—that is, the efficiency with which inputs like labor and technology are combined to yield outputs—in 220 cities from 1964 to 2009. They concluded that onerous land use restrictions in high-productivity cities have huge spillover effects on the rest of the U.S. economy.
In a nutshell, artifically high housing costs keep workers from moving from low-productivity areas to high-productivity cities, thus depressing wages and economic growth. Those workers don't just get stuck in low-wage regions: Because they're stuck, job competition drives down the local wages even more. Meanwhile, most of the extra output produced in New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, and other overregulated regions are poured into housing costs rather than invested in more productive assets. In that way, highly restrictive zoning depresses economic growth and GDP.
"In the 1960s, developers found it easy to do business in much of the country," the Harvard economist Edward Glaeser noted in 2014. "In the past 25 years, construction has come to face enormous challenges from any local opposition. In some areas it feels as if every neighbor has veto rights over every project."
If land use regulations in New York and the Bay Area were set equal to the median U.S. city, those area's average wages would be 25 percent lower, but reduced housing costs would have more than made up for that. Furthermore, the researchers calculate, GDP would be 8.9 percent higher (as of 2009), translating into an addtional $8,775 in average wages for all American workers.
Still, it could have been worse. In the period studied by Hsieh and Moretti, Southern cities tended to eschew highly restrictive land use regulations. As a result, they have much lower housing costs and were responsible for about 33 percent U.S. aggregate GDP growth. If the big Southern cities had adopted the median U.S. level of residential zoning, the economists calculate, the change would have reduced GDP growth by 25 percent.
Thu, 15 Dec 2016 12:15:00 -0500The last time I was in India, it was a familiar scene. The rickshaws rumbling through busy bazaars. Shoppers haggling over everything from gemstones to silk sarees. Pilgrims prostrating their way to salvation. Authentic street food, enhanced by locally-sourced infectious pathogens. This time around, I knew the country had changed. I wanted to see the effects of thirteen years of market reform and hypergrowth since my last visit. So I summoned an Uber (already something new) and headed 15 miles south of my Delhi hotel. As the crumbling roads of the capital city opened up into a 32-lane expressway, the old India I thought I knew, gave way to the future. I'd arrived in the city of Gurgaon. It's hard to imagine, but twenty-five years ago, there was nothing here. No high-rises. No kitschy shopping malls with Vegas-like trompe l'oeil ceilings. No 27-hole Jack Nicklaus signature golf courses. Stretching back to medieval times, Gurgaon was nothing more than a plot of rocky soil with a small marketplace. Until six years ago, it didn't even have a municipal government. So what happened? When Delhi banned private real estate development in the 1950s, Kushal Pal Singh began buying land south of the city limits. His company, Delhi Land and Finance, offered cash and equity stakes to farmers in Gurgaon. Many of these cowherds became instant crorepatis—millionaires, in the local lingo—while KP Singh would become the fifth richest man in India by the turn of the century. The state of Haryana eased land use restrictions, making it easy for developers to use their land as they saw fit. But once land was converted from farmland to commercial use, it was still classified as rural. That's how Gurgaon ended up as a city without a city government. Haryana also allowed women to work past 6pm—a bold policy decision in a socially conservative country. Without flexible labor laws, India would never have been able to develop its famous call center industry, where phone operators must work through the night in order to match times around the world. Maruti was the first to arrive with an auto manufacturing plant in the 1980s. As India stepped back from socialism in the 90s, foreign investment bypassed Delhi, and poured into Gurgaon. When General Electric set up shop, hundreds of multinationals followed. Soon Gurgaon was generating middle class jobs by the hundreds of thousands. Today, it boasts an absurd 30 percent annual GDP growth and the third highest per-capital income in India. Over time, other developers have entered the market, competing with DLF, and diluting its share of Gurgaon. But DLF remains the dominant provider of roads, sewage systems, security, and India's only private fire department. While Gurgaon isn't exactly crime free—the crime rate is on par with Phoenix, Arizona—it doesn't lack for protection. 35,000 private security guards keep a watchful eye on the city, compared with 3,000 public officers. Gurgaon's services and cleanliness are like nothing else I've seen in the country. India's only privately run metro system is fast, modern, and efficient. Employees compulsively sweep floors that already look spotless. It's unclear if Gurgaon's metro turns a profit. But as it increases the value of land owned by DLF and others, it may have already accomplished its mission. I'd like to tell you that Gurgaon has solved all of India's problems. But even here, in the beating heart of hypergrowth, the worst of Old India stubbornly refuses to die. Sixteen percent of Gurgaon's population lives in slums. If that seems like a lot to you, the shocker is that it's less than the average Indian city. There are 150 million fewer poor people in India since my last visit. That's half of the population of the United States, lifted out of the slums. India's achievements over the past decade are awe-inspiring. But as my own country turns its back on the same global markets that transformed a rocky patch of farmland into a metropolis of two million souls, I can only hope that Gurgaon has many[...]
Sat, 29 Oct 2016 17:45:00 -0400Why did the jury in the trial of seven occupiers on trial for actions connected to the occupation earlier this year of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge acquit them? Because of the specifics of what they were charged with. And what they were charged with is likely because of a federal desire to maximize the potential time they'd spend in prison. Pace the hundreds of angry progressive in my social networking world in a bloody sad rage over the fact these folk didn't spend more time in jail than they already have in the process of trial, the mere act of being on federal property after closing hours, that is, the mere fact of the occupation itself, is not what they were charged with. The specific charges, as noted here Thursday, were "conspiring to impede federal employees through intimidation, threat or force. Four had additional charges of having guns in a federal facility, and two were charged with theft of government property." A juror spoke via email to Oregon Live about how that decision on the Feds' part, one almost certainly motivated by a desire to get potentially more prison time, messed them up: "It should be known that all 12 jurors felt that this verdict was a statement regarding the various failures of the prosecution to prove 'conspiracy' in the count itself – and not any form of affirmation of the defense's various beliefs, actions or aspirations,'' Juror 4 wrote Friday in a lengthy email to The Oregonian/OregonLive.... Juror 4 noted the panel couldn't simply rely on the defendants' "defining actions'' [that is, the occupation per se] to convict.... "But we were not asked to judge on bullets and hurt feelings, rather to decide if any agreement was made with an illegal object in mind,'' the [juror] wrote. "It seemed this basic, high standard of proof was lost upon the prosecution throughout.''.... Defense lawyers urged jurors in closing arguments not to mix-up the "effect'' of the occupation – which undoubtedly kept federal employees from doing their jobs - from the "intent'' of the occupiers... "Inference, while possibly compelling, proved to be insulting or inadequate to 12 diversely situated people as a means to convict,'' the juror wrote. "The air of triumphalism that the prosecution brought was not lost on any of us, nor was it warranted given their burden of proof.''... It seems this juror has some of the same type of friends on social networking as I do: [the juror] said he is "baffled'' by what he described as observers' "flippant sentiments'' in the wake of the jury's acquittals. "Don't they know that 'not guilty' does not mean innocent?'' he wrote. "It was not lost on us that our verdict(s) might inspire future actions that are regrettable, but that sort of thinking was not permitted when considering the charges before us.''.... The smoking gun point proving the prosecutors tripped themselves up with their desire for vengeance on the occupiers: ... many of the jurors questioned the judge about why the federal government chose the "conspiracy charge.'' He said he learned that a potential alternate charge, such as criminal trespass, wouldn't have brought as significant a penalty. The charge of conspiring to impede federal employees from carrying out their official work through intimidation, threat or force brings a maximum sentence of six years in prison. Federal criminal trespass is at worst a misdemeanor, which generally has a maximum possible prison penalty of a year. The structure of the charges meant that if the conspiracy part wasn't proven, the specific gun charge also fell. The juror's final word: "We all queried about alternative charges that could stick and were amazed that this 'conspiracy' charge seemed the best possible option."[...]
Thu, 27 Oct 2016 20:35:00 -0400An Oregon jury today acquitted seven people being tried for their roles in the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge earlier this year. All seven were facing charges for conspiring to impede federal employees through intimidation, threat or force. Four had additional charges of having guns in a federal facility, and two were charged with theft of government property. Among the acquitted were two sons of Cliven Bundy, famous for his role in an armed standoff with federal agents in Nevada over disputes on grazing fees the Bureau of Land Management insisted he owed. (Bundy himself was arrested in February over that 2014 incident, and a trial is ahead.) The defendants were: Ammon and Ryan Bundy, Jeff Banta, Shawna Cox, David Fry, Kenneth Medenbach, and Neil Wampler. Seattle Times summed up the background of the case: In closing arguments that stretched out over two days, prosecutors stressed that the defendants were not being put on trial for their beliefs, and had an absolute right to protest federal government actions. But they argued that the defendants' actions stepped over the line into a criminal conspiracy to occupy the refuge and — through the use of armed guards and other acts of intimidation — keep federal employees away from their offices south of Burns. Bundy, in testimony on his own behalf, called the takeover a "hard stand" against the return to prison of two Oregon ranchers, Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son Steven Hammond, after a federal judge ruled that they had not served long enough sentences on arson charges. The takeover ended peacefully as the last four occupiers surrendered on Feb. 11, but before that, on Jan. 26, LaVoy Finicum, a folksy, articulate rancher who had emerged as a spokesman for the movement, was shot to death by law-enforcement officials. Among others arrested in connection with the case, 11 pled guilty earlier and others face their own trials ahead in February. More details on the earlier guilty pleas from Oregon Live. Oregon Live's report from today, mostly written before re-deliberation in the case began this morning. Oregon Public Broadcasting, which has been covering the case extensively, summed up the arguments: The government relied heavily on testimony from law enforcement, including Harney County Sheriff David Ward, as well as dozens of FBI agents who responded to the occupation or processed evidence at the Malheur refuge after the occupation ended. "At the end of the day, there is an element of common sense that demonstrates the guilt of these defendants," Assistant U.S. Attorney Ethan Knight said during his closing arguments during the trial. "These defendants took over a wildlife refuge and it wasn't theirs." ....the defense sought to make its case about a political protest – one about protesting the federal government's ownership and management of public lands. "The people have to insist that the government is not our master; they are our servants," Ryan Bundy said during his closing statement to the jury. Some interesting elements of the trial as it unfolded: • A juror was replaced by an alternate and deliberations began from scratch this week, after a juror sent a note to the judge asking: "Can a juror, a former employee of the Bureau of Land Management, who opens their remarks in deliberations by stating 'I am very biased' be considered an impartial judge in this case?" • One of the defense lawyers was tased and arrested in court today, according to the Seattle Times: Ammon Bundy's attorney Marcus Mumford argued his client should be released from confinement while U.S. District Court Judge Anna Brown said he must be returned to the custody of federal marshals since he still faced charges in Nevada. Mumford's protests in the Portland courtroom grew louder and louder until he was finally tackled and tased by marshals, according to Cox and another member of the defense's legal team. The judge ordered the courtroom cleared. • The feds had [...]
Tue, 10 May 2016 16:31:00 -0400The highly respected Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has just issued The State of the World's Plants 2016 in which its researchers estimate that perhaps one-fifth of the world's 391,000 vascular plant species may be at risk of extinction. The chief reason plant species are threatened is human activity, specifically land use changes such as farming, raising livestock, logging, and land development. The Kew findings rely heavily on research published last year, "Green Plants in the Red," in PLoS One by a team of mostly British researchers associated with the Natural History Museum and Kew Gardens. According to the journal metrics that article received no media coverage, which may be why the results are being updated and republished in the splashy report. To try to estimate how many plants are threatened with extinction, the researchers took a random sample consisting of some 7,000 plant species and then checked to see how they are faring using data from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN constructs and maintains various databases called Red Lists aiming to monitor the conservation status of species populations. The PLoS One study reported, "More than 20% of plant species assessed are threatened with extinction, and the habitat with the most threatened species is overwhelmingly tropical rain forest, where the greatest threat to plants is anthropogenic habitat conversion, for arable and livestock agriculture, and harvesting of natural resources." The study also calculated that "arable farming affects 60% of threatened species, while livestock farming affects 47%, logging affects 38%, targeted harvesting affects 25% and fires (natural or man-made) also affect 25% of threatened species." In addition, the PLoS One study estimated that with 79% of threatened plant species are found in forests, followed by 19% of threatened species in shrubland, 13% in rocky outcrops, 10% in savanna and also 10% in grassland percentages do not sum to 100% as some species occur in more than one habitat). The fewest threatened species were found in deserts and wetlands, largely because those areas are least suited for agriculture. So that's the bad news. But the good news is peak farmland and plantation forestry. As I report in my chapter on extinction in my book The End of Doom: Considering that agriculture is the most expansive and intensive way in which people transform natural landscapes, the really good news is that the amount of land globally devoted to food production may be falling as population growth slows and agricultural productivity increases. "We believe that projecting conservative values for population, affluence, consumers, and technology shows humanity peaking in the use of farmland," conclude Jesse Ausubel, the director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University, and his colleagues in their 2013 article "Peak Farmland and the Prospect for Land Sparing." They add, "Global arable land and permanent crops spanned 1,371 million hectares in 1961 and 1,533 million hectares in 2009, and we project a return to 1,385 million hectares in 2060." As a result of these trends, humanity will likely restore at least 146 million hectares, an area two and a half times that of France or the size of ten Iowas, and possibly much more land. "Another 50 years from now, the Green Revolution may be recalled not only for the global diffusion of high-yield cultivation practices for many crops, but as the herald of peak farmland and the restoration of vast acreages of Nature," write the researchers. "Now we are confident that we stand on the peak of cropland use, gazing at a wide expanse of land that will be spared for Nature." Also in The End of Doom I note: Resources for the Future analyst Roger Sedjo estimates that most of the world's wood products could be derived from tree plantations occupying about 7 percent of the world's curr[...]
Sat, 30 Apr 2016 15:00:00 -0400
New York City's Landmarks Preservation Act was intended to protect about three or four "historic districts"—Brooklyn Heights, Greenwich Village, etc.—preservationist James Van Derpool told the New York City Council in 1964. That's all "anyone had seriously considered."
The Landmarks Act was passed the following year thanks in part to Van Derpool's testimony. A half-century later the city has protected 138 historic districts. Nearly a third of the structures in Manhattan have been landmarked. As I argued in a Reason TV video published last year, entire swaths of New York City may as well be encased in a life-sized historical diorama. Out-of-control landmarking is undermining the process of creative (image) destruction that made New York, well, New York.
This month, the Landmarks Commission designated a giant Pepsi-Cola sign on the Queens waterfront (which was in no danger of being torn down for what it's worth), and it voted to extend the Park Slope Historic District to include an additional 292 buildings.
What justifies these two designations? Landmarks Commission Chairwoman Meenakshi Srinivasan was left straining. She lauded the Pepsi sign for "its prominent siting" and "frequent appearances in pop culture." The Park Slope blocks are part of an area, Srinivasan explained, that "owes its cohesiveness to its tree-lined streets, predominant residential character, and its high level of architectural integrity."
If "prominent siting," "tree-lined streets," "residential character," and "architectural integrity" are grounds for landmarking, what's to stop the Commission from declaring every square inch of the Big Apple too precious to ever change?
Click below to watch "How New York City's Landmarks Preservation Act Bulldozed the Future:"
src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Gc07OPPzo9Q" frameborder="0" height="340" width="560">
Sat, 30 Apr 2016 10:30:00 -0400In The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (2000), Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto argued that the underlying cause of Third-World poverty is weak property rights. Citizens of poor countries can't securely develop plots of land or put them up as collateral because they don't have clear legal titles. In a world "where ownership of most assets is difficult to trace and validate and is governed by no legally recognizable set of rules," de Soto wrote, "most assets, in short, are dead capital." De Soto is now part of a new initiative to use the "blockchain," the technology that undergirds the digital currency Bitcoin, to solve the dead capital problem. The San Francisco-based Bitcoin company BitFury announced last week that it was working with de Soto and the Republic of Georgia on a project to use blockchain technology to build a new land registry, as Forbes first reported. "By building a blockchain-based property registry," one Georgian government official said in a statement, the country "can lead the world in changing the way land titling is done and pave the way to additional prosperity for all." A "blockchain" is essentially an online database with attributes that make it well-suited to protecting the integrity of land registries. The first thing that sets blockchains apart from other databases is that anyone with a computer and an internet connection can download a complete copy. And the information contained in the file is constantly updated through the internet (roughly every 10 minutes in the case of the Bitcoin blockchain). This means the most up-to-date information is always publicly accessible. And the government has no power to tamper with or delete the information stored on a blockchain because the data can only be altered by using secret passwords dispersed among users. Yet uploading actual land titles to a blockchain is impractical because these distributed databases aren't designed to hold very much information. So companies in this space are devising elegant ways to anchor large data sets to the blockchain in ways that piggyback on its security and immutability, even when the specific information itself is stored elsewhere. BitFury isn't the first company to work in this space. The Austin, Texas-based company technology company Factom has been in talks since 2015 with the government of Honduras to use blockchain technology to build a secure land registry in that country. Currently, Honduras stores its title records in a room at the bottom of "dusty stairs" in a "nasty old government building," Factom CEO Peter Kirby said in an interview last year with Reason. Until recently, the room had no door. "Anybody could go in, pull down a book, open up the spine, and replace a title record with a new title record," Kirby said. Some government bureaucrats have altered the records to assign themselves beachfront property. The Honduran government did at one point attempt to digitize its land records, but the database it built was unuseable. A tamper-proof land-titling system, says Kirby, will lead poor countries to build "all of the infrastructure we take for granted in the developed world." For more on blockchain technology, click below to watch a recent Reason TV video on Ethereum, a new blockchain platform that's well-suited for land registries and many many other types of applications: src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H6bGuKN3m6E" frameborder="0" height="340" width="560">[...]
Thu, 07 Jan 2016 00:15:00 -0500A key to understanding the political world lies in realizing that the words terrorism and terrorist are inherently political terms. This has been clear in international affairs, but we now see this in domestic matters, specifically the case involving ranchers Dwight and Steve Hammond and the takeover of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service building in Harney County, Oregon. The Hammonds have been imprisoned under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, an ostentatiously get-tough bill —passed after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building—favored by congressional Republicans and signed by triangulating Democratic President Bill Clinton, who was seeking reelection that year and whose wife, the hawkish Hillary Clinton, is seeking the presidency today. Among other things, the Act limits habeas corpus relief in federal courts for those claiming to have been unlawfully imprisoned. The words terrorism and terrorist are also used to describe the people now occupying the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in sympathy with the Hammonds. CNN reports that "progressive" opponents of the occupiers refer to them as "YallQaeda" and "vanilla ISIS." Some urge government violence against them. Is this description fair? One can answer this question regardless of what one thinks of the Hammonds and the occupiers. If terrorism has any reasonable referent, it is the use of violence against noncombatants for a political purpose. The point is to terrorize by killing or injuring noncombatants, or destroying their property, in an effort to effect change. Nowhere do we see such violence in either the Hammonds' case or the occupation of the government building. The actions that brought criminal charges against the Hammonds consisted in setting two fires on their own land in 2001 and 2006, the first to destroy invasive vegetation, the second ostensibly to protect against a wildfire on adjacent land controlled by the central government. On both occasions the fires unintentionally spread to the government-controlled land. The Hammonds put out the first fire; the second fire reportedly endangered government firefighters, whom the Hammonds knew were in the vicinity. Even if we grant the worst allegations—that the Hammonds wrongfully declined to inform the government that it would be setting the fires and that one fire was allegedly set to cover up poaching—the actions look nothing like terrorism. No one was intentionally threatened, and no one was injured or killed. So why were the cases prosecuted under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years? Even if we make the dubious concession that the Act was a good-faith attempt to fight bona fide terrorism, what does it have to do with the Hammonds? As for the occupiers of the government building, who now call themselves Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, again, where's the terrorism? Yes, some occupiers are armed. But the building was unoccupied when they entered it, and no one was threatened, much less harmed or killed. It's reported that roads around the building are open. The news media come and go at will. In neither case was anyone terrorized. To be sure, the occupiers have a political objective, to pressure the central government into giving up control of its massive land holdings. Terrorism, however, requires a particular kind of violence along with a political motive. Critics describe the occupiers as white supremacists. I don't know if they are, although John Ritzheimer, a spokesman for the occupiers, is an anti-Muslim activist. But regardless, their conduct in Burns, Oregon, does not constitute ter[...]
Mon, 04 Jan 2016 18:09:00 -0500
The standoff in Oregon has already prompted a lot of silly culture-war commentary, and disappointingly scant analysis of the precipitating legal conflicts (though this historical overview of standoffs is useful). I shall attempt to address both issues tonight on MSNBC's All in with Chris Hayes at 8:40ish p.m. Tune in, and heckle me on Twitter!
Mon, 04 Jan 2016 16:50:00 -0500Various Republican candidates are calling for a peaceful resolution to the armed occupation of a remote federal outpost in Oregon's Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Sen. Rand Paul had this to say, according to The Washington Post: "I'm sympathetic to the idea that the large collection of federal lands ought to be turned back to the states and the people, but I think the best way to bring about change is through politics," Paul told the Washington Post in an interview. "That's why I entered the electoral arena. I don't support any violence or suggestion of violence toward changing policy." Sen. Ted Cruz called on the protesters to "stand down peaceably." Sen. Marco Rubio urged them to "follow the law." The White House maintains the standoff is a matter for local authorities, and has urged caution. Given that no one's life is currently threatened by the antics of the Bundy family, this restrained approach seems especially wise. It's a shame, then, that so many left-leaning commentators—having branded the ranchers as a bunch of terrorists intent on committing imminent violence—seem dismissive, or at least dissatisfied, with this wait-and-see approach. The Daily Beast's Sally Kohn has accused the federal government of encouraging right-wing militias by failing to crackdown on them with extreme prejudice. Kohn claims that authorities should have thrown the book at Cliven Bundy and his supporters after the previous standoff. "Talk about being 'soft on terrorism'," she writes: What's even more disturbing, perhaps, is that nothing has changed in terms of the federal government's hyper-passive response to such flagrant acts of menacing and threats of domestic terrorism. The Department of Justice did, wisely, revive the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee—recognizing the need to defend against and prevent the very real and comparable threat posed, for instance, by mostly white anti-government zealots and not just Muslim radicals. Yet the FBI said it was seeking a "peaceful" end to the standoff, and there are reportedly no signs of law enforcement being anywhere near the building. So maybe it's not even a "standoff" if the federal government is standing down. Of course there's a strategic case to be made for a cautious approach on the part of the federal government that doesn't escalate violence nor feed a cult of martyrdom within the anti-government extremist movement as happened after Ruby Ridge and Waco. That would seem jarring enough juxtaposed with the violent over-policing of black Americans and conservative calls for blanket scrutiny against all Muslims. But in the face of the very direct connection between the Bundy conflict and the Oregon standoff, and the SPLC's evidence that the government's non-response simply gave anti-government extremists more power, the government now seems naïve about right-wing extremism at best and encouraging at worst. Since Kohn references the "violent over-policing of black Americans and conservative calls for blanket scrutiny against all Muslims," one might expect her to better understand why relentlessly demonizing misunderstood groups and exaggerating the threat they pose is a bad thing. I suspect she can't see beyond her own partisan lens: the left-leaning protesters she respects and agrees with are innocent victims, the right-leaning protesters she despises are a threat to the republic. It's important to note that this is the same kind of paranoia about "the other" that animates Donald Trump and his supporters. The calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. and the calls to crack down on right-wing militias aren't so different from one another, even though they come from distinct ideological groups with almost no overlap. I would s[...]
Sun, 19 Apr 2015 09:33:00 -0400In all the hoopla surrounding the 50th anniversary of New York's Landmarks Preservation Act—Mayor Robert F. Wagner signed the legislation exactly a half century ago today—you'll see plenty of photos of the old Penn Station taken around the time of its 1910 opening. These images depict the grand, light-filled main hall modeled after the Baths of Caracalla and the spectacular iron-and-glass train shed in its pristine state. Another series of photos shows the station being taken apart in the 1960s. In this set of images, the station looks like an ancient Roman palace; it's as if the cranes pulling it apart are destroying the very bedrock of Western civilization. "Seven-year-olds gasp...[when] we show them the old Penn Station," Tara Kelly, the executive director of Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, told the New York Times at an event last week celebrating the law's half-centennial. Penn Station's destruction in the mid-1960s was a call to arms for the landmarks movement, leading directly to the passage of the 1965 law. Preservationists trot out these photos capable of leaving second graders breathless to remind us of why we need a government-appointed commission to save our historic buildings from cold market logic. But this narrative is as one-sided as those photos. Profit-driven developers left to their own devices value wonderful old buildings as much as the general public they serve, but the old Penn Station was a deeply flawed structure. It emphasized form over function, so it was never a particularly good train station. And New Yorkers didn't care for it very much—when it was still around, at least. It's easy to revere the dead. What you won't see are pictures of Penn Station as it looked in its final years, when the entire building was smothered in inches of grime and its cracked windows were patched over with sheets of metal. There were "color ads…like blasphemous utterances in the marbled halls…automobiles revolved on turntables; [and] shops and stands…added in jazzy cacophony," The New York Times architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable recalled in a 1966 article. So what? Grand Central Terminal was once falling apart and then it was lovingly restored in 2007. Couldn't Penn Station also have been returned to its original grandeur? Perhaps, but there would have been no way to defray the cost of its upkeep because unlike its east side counterpart, Penn Station wasn't built to neatly integrate retail space into its corridors. And its high glass windows made it unusually expensive to clean and maintain. The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) company, which built and operated the station, declared bankruptcy in 1968, so if the building had survived, maintaining it would have likely fallen either to the city or the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). In the early 1970s, the MTA struggled to finance basic maintenance costs and upgrades. (Remember what the MTA-run subways looked like in the 70s and 80s?) By the time of PRR's bankruptcy, New York City's government was on the precipice of its own fiscal crisis. Penn Station could have continued deteriorating for another forty years, right up through the city's economic resurgence in the late-1990s. Charles McKim's grand design was impractical for other reasons as well. The Times' Huxtable, who wrote that the station's passing "confirms the demise of an age of opulent elegance," also acknowledged that "[f]unctionally, [it] was considerably less noble." She wrote: "The complexity and ambiguity of its train levels and entrances and exits were a constant frustration...a better expression of ancient Rome than of 20th-century America." It's a "hard truth" that "New Yorkers had never come to really love Penn Station," wrote Jill Jonnes in her 2007 hi[...]
Thu, 16 Apr 2015 13:28:00 -0400Once upon a time New York City's builders blithely turned spectacular monuments into dust. Henry James complained about Manhattan's "restless renewals," but in the old days nostalgia was for writers and poets. Developers were preoccupied with building the future. This ethos of creative destruction allowed New York to become the world's preeminent city. And then on April 19, 1965, which is fifty years ago this Sunday, Mayor Robert F. Wagner signed the Landmarks Preservation Act. The law made it illegal to destroy any structure that the city's planning elite deem too important not to save. Today almost a third of the buildings in Manhattan, and more than 33,000 structures citywide, may as well be encased in a life-sized historical diorama. To illustrate the damage done by this law, let's imagine that the Landmarks Act had been passed not in 1965, but in 1865, when the spire of Trinity Church still towered over Lower Manhattan. Modern New York wouldn't exist. Consider Henry Hardenbergh's original Waldorf-Astoria, which was an architectural masterpiece and Manhattan's leading luxury hotel. If the Landmarks Commission had been around in the Jazz Age, surely it would have protected this great structure — and then it never could have been torn down to build the Empire State Building, which occupies the exact same spot. If the landmarks commission had been around to save architect Stanford White's majestic Madison Square Garden, the second of four structures with that name, Cass Gilbert's New York Life Insurance Building couldn't have replaced it. Forget about the hustle of Midtown Manhattan—this entire block would still be home to Columbia University's pre-1897 campus. The old London Terrace wouldn't have cleared a path for the new London Terrace, instead of the Woolworth Building, Philip Hone's luxurious townhouse would still stand in the building's footprint, right next to the old American Hotel, and we might still have this old Madison Square Presbyterian Church instead of the celebrated Met Life Tower. The landmarks commission not only protects individual buildings, but also 114 districts, meaning entire neighborhoods are essentially frozen in time. Manhattan's Upper West Side became a landmark district in 1990, but what if it had earned that distinction in 1890, to preserve its Gilded Age character? These hulking apartment buildings never would have replaced the distinguished brownstones and mansions that once occupied these blocks. The district certainly would have been expanded one block west to include the Apthorp House, which quartered General Washington among other colonial bigwigs and would still stand right here near 90th Street and Columbus Avenue. Before landmarking, sure there were plenty of great buildings replaced by plain Jane skyscrapers, but that's also part of how cities grow and evolve. For example, would New York really be better off if Temple Emanu-el still stood right off Times Square? In 1847, native New Yorker Washington Irving reflected with nostalgia on growing up in a city that was "a mere corner" of what it had become, and that corner "all changed, pulled to pieces." This 50th anniversary of the landmarks preservation act is an opportunity to mourn the opposite: all the invisible buildings that will never exist because of a misguided law. What if an earlier generation had outlawed the rise of skyscrapers and spread of asphalt pavement? Washington Irving would still feel right at home. --- Video written and produced by Jim Epstein. 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Scroll down for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason TV'[...]
Thu, 19 Feb 2015 14:49:00 -0500
(image) Which of America's metropolitan regions has the least sprawl? Thomas Laidley, a sociologist at New York University, has just published a paper in the Urban Affairs Review that draws on satellite and Census data to create a sprawl index. By his calculations, our most sprawling city is Columbia, South Carolina. The least? Los Angeles.
This flies in the face of every cliché about L.A. But it makes sense, and it is consistent with past research. "Although Los Angeles is often popularly associated with sprawl because of its pollution and traffic," Laidley writes, "its sheer lack of very low-density development places it atop all U.S. metro areas."
This fits my anecdotal experience as a former Angeleno. Indeed, if you live near your workplace in Los Angeles, as I did from early 1999 through early 2002, even the city's fabled traffic isn't the problem you might expect. My apartment was within walking distance of a supermarket, and I often didn't bother to use my car when I bought groceries. I was also just a few blocks from several restaurants, movie theaters, and other places to socialize. And my brief drive to the office didn't require me to get on the highway. Of course I sometimes had to cross the city to cover a story, attend an event, or visit a friend, and that could mean congestion. But I lived in a compact and walkable neighborhood with all the basic urban amenities, precisely the sort of place that the anti-sprawl warriors ought to like.
It's an interesting study, at any rate, and you can read it yourself here. And if you want to know what other cities are especially sprawly or not, here are the top and bottom 10 metropolitan statistical areas:
[Via Curbed.]
Addendum: Some readers are taking issue with Laidley's sprawl metrics, which is fair enough; he himself discusses several alternative methodologies, under the very appropriate header "Measuring a Nebulous Concept." If you look at different metro regions' population-weighted density—the measurement that @hamilt0n has been pushing to me over on Twitter—then the New York area becomes the #1 densest urban zone while the L.A. region falls to #3. And there are other approaches.
My take: There is no single, universally agreed-upon definition of "sprawl," let alone a single, universally agreed-upon way to measure it. Laidley is contributing to a conversation, not ending it. But by any reasonable approach, the metropolitan area centered around Los Angeles is not the sprawlopolis of popular legend. Quite the opposite.
Thu, 15 Jan 2015 15:08:00 -0500
Over at Yale Environment 360, Rona Kobell (*) writes about efforts to build—and rebuild—on ecologically precarious barrier islands. You should read the whole article, but the passage that's most likely to interest Reason readers is this one:
(image) Historically, residents of barrier islands have not always looked to the government for millions of dollars in salvation efforts when the sea encroached. Often, they simply left. When Hog Island, on the Virginia Coast, eroded to the point where it was uninhabitable in the 1930s, residents barged their houses to the nearby towns of Willis Wharf and Oyster. Similar tales have repeated themselves in Texas and Louisiana, where barrier islands were popular refuges for pirates but often not considered fit for long-term structures.
But in the mid-20th century, planners and developers began to view the nation's barrier islands as resort towns in the making—a steady source of tourism dollars, property tax revenue, and construction jobs. Federal and state governments spent big on bridges, dunes, beach replenishment, and public piers to encourage settlement. Government-backed flood insurance encouraged that process, as did the federal government assuming the role of rebuilder-in-chief, said Rob Young, a geologist who directs the program for the study of developed shorelines at Western Carolina University.
"Why do we rebuild on barrier islands?" asked Young. "Because the people who are doing the rebuilding are making a sound economic decision." The owners may rebuild the home, he said, but "the rest of us are putting back all the infrastructure. We're raising the road. We're putting back the beach. The rest of us are assuming all of the risks."
Development in these areas wouldn't necessarily cease altogether without those subsidies, but it would certainly take a different, lighter path. But when the government's greener elements try to rein in those unsustainable projects, they generally do this not by spending less but by spending more, blocking builders both through regulation and through land acquisition. The result is basically a contest between two interest groups to see which can play the political game more capably. (That said, conservationists have also acquired a lot of this land privately. Kobell notes, for example, that the Houston Audubon Society now owns more than 2,000 acres of the 11,689-acre Bolivar Peninsula.)
The full piece covers the science as well as the economics of barrier-island development. To read the whole thing, go here.
(* Full disclosure: She is my spouse.)


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Download Ludic Draw PRO apk 1.0.1 free for Android smartphone
Posted by George Dascalu in Media & Video | Dec. 2, 2012 | 0 Comments
Apk file size: 506.0 KB
Drawing was never so easy with the new Ludic Draw app;
Enjoy the high performance and features from the professional drawing apps combined with the beautiful and highly user friendly interface designed by the very best and awarded by users and critics as one of the best drawing app on the market.
You can draw basically anything with it, using:
- stunning effects that enhance your drawing experience,
- over 1000,000+ colors,
- the ability to choose the background how ever you like from a color, choosing an image from the device, to taking a photo with the camera,
- more than 15 unique and very beautiful styles.
Combine all that and everybody can create their unique drawing in a couple of seconds, save it and show it to friends and family;
It is highly optimized for mobile devices as well as tablets, tested over dozens of devices and polished to guarantee user satisfaction.
Save your drawing and share it on the Ludic Draw Facebook page , or Twitter:
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At Naeo Mobile LTD, customer satisfaction is important to us. If you have any difficulties with the app or want a refung, please contact us at [email protected] ;
George Dascalu part of our Media & Video and have average installs from 10 to 50. Last Update Dec. 2, 2012. Google play rating is 100.0. Current verison is 1.0.1. Actual size 506.0 KB.

subset: commoncrawl


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There's been no shortage of celebrity outcry over the George Zimmerman acquittal Saturday. Stars such as Kim Kardashian, Diddy, Jordin Sparks, John Cusack, and James Van Der Beek have released statements condemning Florida's "Stand Your Ground" Law, that was the major reason a Florida jury declared George Zimmerman innocent of murdering Trayvon Martin. Stevie Wonder is the first celebrity to take action, however, as the singer officially announced to a crowd last night that he will boycott any future performances in the state of Florida until Florida policy makers reform or eliminate the state's "Stand Your Ground" Law.
"I decided today that until the 'Stand Your Ground' law is abolished in Florida, I will never perform there again," Stevie Wonder told fans last night in Quebec City. Stevie Wonder further added, "As a matter of fact, wherever I find that law exists, I will not perform in that state or in that part of the world."
Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law came to public awareness after it was successfully used as a defense by George Zimmerman to refute claims that he murdered Trayvon Martin without justification. Florida prosecutors were unable to discredit Zimmeran's claims that he shot Martin in self-defense, and the jury found Zimmerman innocent of all charges.
Public figures commonly speak out of controversial issues, but rarely take actions to back up the things they claim. Stevie Wonder deserves credit for placing his strong social views ahead of his economic goals. Stevie Wonder is actively sacrificing any money he might make playing shows in Florida in the name of supporting what he believes in.
It is unknown if Stevie Wonder's boycott of Florida will lead to more celebrities taking actions in support of their social views. Like it or not, celebrities do hold power in influencing their fans regarding social and political issues. If more celebrities take similar steps as Stevie Wonder to punish Florida for the "Stand Your Ground" law, it's possible the law could be changed or removed sooner than it would have before.


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Model: 5035/5045
Introducing the Branick USA Made 5035 Manual Tire Spreader! This manual tire spreader features an all steel construction for a longer life, a compact footprint which minimizes the space required, a sawtooth hook adjustment, and a solid 4 point base that can be bolted to the floor for added stability. Available with either manual or gas spring assisted spread arms. Order yours today!
• USA quality made product
• Sawtooth hook adjustment
• Fit bead diameters up to 20"
• Easily and quickly adjustable
• RMA compliant goosneck light
• All steel construction for long life
• Entry level to air powered options
• Compact footprint minimizes required space
• Solid 4 point base that can be bolted to the floor
• Spread arms available as either manual or gas spring assist
• Zinc plated rollers only available for the gas spring assist model
• Working height: 36.25"
• Bead diameter: up to 20"
• Spread arm operation: hand
• Overall dims: 22" W x 15" D x 45" L
• Spread arm type: manual or gas spring assist
• Shipping weight: 78 lbs.
Free shipping only applies to products that are marked "free shipping" or "ships free" in the title. Freight ship items have a predetermined max amount that can be spent under our free shipping policy. In the event you reside in an unusually high cost shipping zip code we may alert you that a shipping surcharge may be necessary.
Click OK to view our full shipping policy. Clicking cancel will keep you on the current page.


text: For sale is a really nice 1972 Ford Mustang. Its a hard to find Convertible. All original 351 Cleveland, automatic transmisson. It has Magnum 500 wheels and Everything works. There is some slight body rust. The interior was redone in 2010 and the shifter is new. It also has power steering, power brakes and air conditioing. WE FINANCE/DELIVER AND SHIP WORLDWIDE


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Sarah Palin would not be an effective president say six in ten Americans. Seventy-five percent of Democrats, 40 percent of Republicans, and 63 percent of independents all agreed that Sarah Palin would not be an effective president. Twenty-six percent overall did think she could navigate the Oval Office, including 47 percent of Republicans, 12 percent of Democrats, and 21 percent of independents.
Check out the rest of the "60 Minutes"/Vanity Fair Poll.
This poll was conducted at the CBS News interviewing facility among a random sample of 847 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone August 3-5, 2010. Phone numbers were dialed from random digit dial samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher.


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Roasted Red Pepper Dip
Recipe by Ms B.
This is almost an instant dip. It takes longer to gather the ingredients than it does to prepare. It is awesome with fresh veggies.
Top Review by SarasotaCook
Quick and easy dip. Very nice. Served with blanched baby new potatoes, cauliflower, veggies, some crackers, pita, etc. It was very good.
I did add a little sour cream to the dip for a little extra punch; but, I tried it before adding it and it was just as good.
That was just my change, but not necessary. Good as is. Nice simple dip. Great to snack or for a party.
See Discussion:5 Reviews
Ingredients Nutrition
- 1 (12 ounce) jar roasted red peppers, drained
- 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1 clove chopped garlic
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
- 6 whole basil leaves
- 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
Directions See How It's Made
- Combine all ingredients in a small food processor.
- Blend until smooth.
- Serve with broccoli florets, baby carrots, apsparagus spears, bell-pepper spears, or breadsticks.


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Citation Edit
Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, Radio Frequency Identification (POST PN 225) (July 1, 2004) (full-text).
Overview Edit
This note provides an overview of RFID technology, its current and prospective uses, and outlines the factors limiting its uptake. It then discusses measures being taken to address growing concerns over privacy.


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Question: Brighton Manufacturing is considering three capital investment proposals At this
Brighton Manufacturing is considering three capital investment proposals. At this time, Brighton only has funds available to pursue one of the three investments.
Which investment should Brighton pursue at this time? Why?
View Solution:
Which investment should Brighton pursue at this time? Why?
View Solution:
Answer to relevant QuestionsMontano Manufacturing is considering the following capital investment proposals. Montano's requirement criteria include a maximum payback period of five years and a required rate of return of 12.5%. Determine if each ...Crowell Company is considering two capital investments. Both investments have an initial cost of $ 6,000,000 and total net cash inflows of $ 10,000,000 over 10 years. Crowell requires a 12% rate of return on this type of ...Dominic Hunter, a second- year business student at the University of Utah, will graduate in two years with an accounting major and a Spanish minor. Hunter is trying to decide where to work this summer. He has two choices: ...If a company experienced a loss on disposal of long-term assets, how would this be reported in the operating activities section of the statement of cash flows when using the indirect method? Why?One Way Cellular accountants have assembled the following data for the year ended September 30, 2014:Prepare the operating activities section using the indirect method for One Way Cellular's statement of cash flows for ...
Post your question


text: DO you think its this Airave?? I just installed it? the time as Im writing this is 11:05 pm, in NYC, NY. HOwever, WHen I press automatic update on my phone, it updates to the correct time, and then in a few seconds reverts to 2 hours BACK, and goes to AM. Im looking out my window right now, and I SWEAR the sun is not out. EVen my phone says the moon is in out!! ANybody hear of a fix? (PS, my phone is rooted, but this is the first time Im seeing this... Its my alarm clock!) D:


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The Scarlet Letter
I really enjoyed the lusty tale of dirty dirty from this great book.
The Great Gatsby, perhaps the first preppy novel?Added 8 Years Ago from Amazon.com
Another book that looks into the complex party life of Paris Hilton. Follow the scandals of Paris' life and all of her red carpet opportunities.Tags: books, hollywood, Paris Hilton, entertainment, Socialite, scandalsAdded 9 Years Ago from Amazon.com


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Is still very difficult for me to know.
I met a guy, days later we started to have sex and I though that maybe he was not very serious about me but is confusing me because sometimes he treats me like a girlfriend. He text me every day calling me cheesy names, sometimes I spend the night in his house and we actually have dates.
Yesterday he went out into the storm just because I said I needed something from the store.
But most of our dates is just sex so I am a little confused. I really really like him.
Most Helpful Guy
If you really really like him, it means that somehow, you get something out of this relationship. Please, don't say he is "using" you, even if it's for sex. He is obviously not disrespecting you. He gets sex, you get something else in return. It's a transaction where everybody gets what he wants. If your needs are different, then it would be a good idea to define what you two are. Saying you are getting used is like saying he's a crook or a scumbag and that is disrespectful towards him. By the way, no women are getting used. If they don't like the "deal", they can always get out of it. They are no "victims". If women didn't give it, it would be rape.
Now talk to him and ask him about his expectations about your couple and define yours.00|00|0
Most Helpful Girl
Try this!
Every time he trys to jump you try not to give in, if he starts to get annoyed, upset etc you will have your answer
But he could be acting so maybe do it for a while, he's gotta break at some point00|00|0


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Sony's PlayStation 4 has been announced earlier this year, but what about the sequel to Xbox 360. The battle of home console will further get murkier once Microsoft announces Xbox 720 this April. A lot has been said about 'Durango' a.k.a Xbox 720. From epic leaks to Kinect 2 alleged images making its way to internet, it almost confirms the very existence of Xbox 720. Few days ago, it was revealed that Xbox 720 would stop gamers to use second hand games.
Now a fresh rumor suggests console's "Always On, Always Connected "nature. VGleaks has managed to get few snapshots of Durango XDX kit. Earlier also, the same source provided some concrete details about next-gen Xbox 360. As per report, Xbox 720 will use same x64 architecture; sounds familiar to current -gen Xbox 360. The console will use Blu-Ray disks, new high -fidelity Kinect sensor, 7.1 digital output mechanism, HDMI, and much sorted game controller. The above mentioned hardware specifications were bound to be included. Interestingly, the next-gen Xbox 360 could block used games all together.
"Durango consoles would have a Blu-Ray disk drive. Disk media will be used for distribution but during game play, games will not use content from the optical disk. An installation system is being designed that will allow gamers to begin playing while game is being installed on the hard drive rather than waiting until installation is complete"
This could mean that Microsoft will likely to implement some sort of Anti-used game programme. Surely, the Xbox 720 would be a beast, but stopping gamers to use second hand games could prove disastrous for hardware retailers including Game4u among others. Before the announcement of PlayStation 4, it was speculated that the console could stop gamers to use second hand games. Immediately, after the announcement of PS4, Sony clarified that PS4 can play used games.
Microsoft's Xbox 720 will be based on x64 architecture coupled with 8GB DDR3 RAM, 8 cores CPU clocks at 1.6GHz , 50GB 6X Blu-Ray Disk Drive , at least 500GB or even 1TB hard drive , Gigabit Ethernet , Wi-Fi/Wi-Fi Direct, and USB 3.0. It is further said that the new console will arrive in sleek form factor. Going by the above mentioned hardware specs, it is clearly said that these upcoming next-gen consoles would rather be called as simplified PCs.


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Status: Closed
Know more about this business than we do? Cool! Please submit any corrections or missing details you may have.Help us make it right
Discover the love at Zales: The Diamond Store. We have over 600 stores nationwide and also maintain a 24/7 online presence at zales.com. So wherever you are, whenever it is, you can find that something special for that someone special.
Shop Zales - America's diamond store since 1924 - for the best fine jewelry selection of rings, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and watches.DIAMONDSWATCHES
Be the first NJ.com user to add photos or videos of Zales
Staff was very nice and quick to address issues. I would definitely return!
Brenna is misinformed. This store is amazing re: repairs and very quick to return it too!
Zales Jewelers is located at Willowbrook Mall Wayne Twp, Paterson, NJ. This location is in the Downtown Paterson neighborhood. This business specializes in Jewelers.
Zales Jewelers can be found at Willowbrook Mall 1707. The following is offered: Jewelry Retailers. The entry is present with us since Sep 9, 2010 and was last updated on Nov 14, 2013. In Paramus there are 61 other Jewelry Retailers. An overview can be found here.


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Faywood (GNIS FID: 507982) is a populated place located in Woodford County at latitude 38.103 and longitude -84.642.
The elevation of Faywood is 817 feet. Faywood appears on the Versailles U.S. Geological Survey Map. Woodford County is in the Eastern Time Zone (UTC -5 hours).
Woodford County: Cities & Towns | ZIP Codes | Features (airports, churches, hospitals, etc.)
BIG Map |
Driving Directions |
Data Source - USGS GNIS FID: 507982
BOUNDARY MAPS: Versailles Division | Woodford County
Midway, KY
(4.1 miles NW)
Versailles, KY (6 miles SW)
Georgetown, KY (8.7 miles NNE)
Lexington-Fayette, KY (10.6 miles ESE)
Stamping Ground, KY
(11.9 miles NNW)
Frankfort, KY (14.3 miles WNW)
Lawrenceburg, KY (14.6 miles WSW)
Zion Hill, KY
(1.4 miles N)
Elk Chester, KY (2.4 miles SSE)
Paynes Depot, KY (2.7 miles NNE)
Davistown, KY (2.7 miles NNW)
Yarnallton, KY
(3.1 miles E)
Wallace, KY (3.1 miles WNW)
Pisgah, KY (3.4 miles SSW)


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Entries in 'Nintendo' (336)
Switch games taste deliberately horrendous
Is this the best bit of Switch functionality of the lot? We reckon it might be.
Switch returns to Friend Code system, but alternatives are coming
There was a collective groan from the internet yesterday when the Switch's day one update brought with it one unpopular bit of Nintendo functionality.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild is one of the all-time highest rated games
Nintendo Switch's launch line-up may be a little thin, but there is most certainly a jewel in its crown.
SuperData predicts 5m Nintendo Switch sales by year end
The Nintendo Switch will sell around 5m units by the end of the year.
Nintendo reveals extensive indie support for Nintendo Switch
The noises in the run up to launch from some indies may have been negative, but Nintendo has named a massive selection of indie games on the way to its ...
Margin Makers: Guide to Nintendo Switch merchandise and accessories
The Nintendo Switch is ready to take retail by storm, with the help of a wealth of accessories and tie-in items.
TV mode will not be universally supported on Switch
It appears that Switch's portable and TV cross-functionality will not be supported universally by all titles.
Switch press packs include personal messages from Nintendo bosses
The Nintendo Switch is now just one week away, and this week the press have been getting hands-on with the console.
Nintendo UK boss talks: "Switch can help expand gaming population"
Nintendo is once again looking to reach beyond the core gaming markets with an innovative new console. However, this time it's doing so by drawing on all its experience to ...
Nintendo digital purchases still face key restriction
Platform holder Nintendo may have improved upon certain aspects of its online infrastructure for Switch, but one crucial limitation will remain in place.
Nintendo forced to defend Zelda: Breath of the Wild's Season Pass
Zelda: Breath of the Wild will be the first game in the series to offer a Season Pass – a fact that has seen Nintendo come in for some criticism.
Dragon Quest Heroes download is too large for Switch's internal storage
Nintendo Switch owners who intend to buy their games digitally will most definitely want to invest in some additional storage.
Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+ will miss Switch launch
Nintendo's already thin launch line-up for the Switch has trimmed back a tiny bit further.
Leaked Switch console was stolen, Nintendo reveals
A Switch console that made it out into the wild far ahead of the machine's official launch on March 3rd was stolen from a retailer.
Nintendo finally ditches digital purchase hardware lock
One of the most contentious oddities from Nintendo's online console network is being ditched for the upcoming launch of the Switch.
Fire Emblem Heroes made $5m in its first five days
Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima has given some insight into the company's new mobile business.
Nintendo has sold 1.5m NES Classics
We now have an idea of how well Nintendo's much sought-after NES Classic Mini has performed.
Wii U reaches 13.56m units, 3DS hardware up 9.7% year-on-year
Nintendo's latest financial report, for the nine months ending December 2016, show the firm's net sales dipping, while its profits soar.
REPORT: Super Mario Run hits 78m downloads
Nintendo released its financial report for the nine months ending December 2016 earlier today, and confirmed that Super Mario Run has been downloaded over 40m times in just four days ...
Nintendo Switch pre-orders already account for 80% of the console's shipment in Japan
Data firm Media Create has revealed pre-order figures for the Nintendo Switch in Japan, so players who haven't secured Nintendo's new console yet should do it quickly if they want ...
LEGO Worlds is coming to the Nintendo Switch
The list of confirmed Switch games is getting bigger, as Traveller's Tale has announced that LEGO Worlds will be releasing on Nintendo's new console.
Nintendo Switch UI revealed, along with previously unannounced indie titles
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth publisher Nicalis has tweeted a picture giving us a sneak peek of the Switch's user interface as well as some previously unannounced indie games coming ...
Super Mario Run coming to Android in March
After launching on iOS on December 15th, Super Mario Run will be trotting onto Android devices this March. Nintendo confirmed the news via Twitter (below) earlier today.
Nintendo hints at another Switch Zelda game after Breath of the Wild
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild hasn't even launched yet, but franchise producer Eiji Aonuma is already teasing a new instalment in the series for the Nintendo Switch.
Pachter: Nintendo Switch price is 'problematic' and launch line-up is 'underwhelming'
Video games analyst Michael Pachter echoes the industry's reaction to the Nintendo Switch, with concerns regarding its price point and launch line-up.


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President Trump's Advisory Commission on Election Integrity wants voter information from states, but some — including Arizona — have been hesitant.
DPS Detective Discovers Non-US Citizenship, Resigns
The Department of Public Safety said one of its detectives, Tucson-based Carmen Figueroa, has resigned, after it was learned she had been brought into the country illegally by her family when she was very young. Bart Graves is a DPS spokesman.
"State law is that you cannot serve as a peace officer if you are not a U.S citizen, and she was not a U.S. citizen," Graves said.
Graves said it is a sad turn of events, since Figueroa was an exemplary officer who had been with the department for nearly 10 years. He said he doubts Figueroa will be deported but that the DPS is working with the state department to determine whether any charges will be filed against her.


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CHINA'S STOCK MARKET SURE LOOKS LIKE A BUBBLE China's housing bubble is starting to pop, so, right on cue, its stock bubble is starting to re-inflate.


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Irked by police inaction, traders of the Mechhua fruit market on Saturday gheraoed the Jorasanko police station demanding immediate arrest of the culprits involved in the murder of Haji Taj Mohammed, former president of the fruit market, on Wednesday night.
The police are simply sitting idle. Not a single person named in the FIR has been arrested even three days after the murder, alleged traders who took the lawmen by surprise with their sudden siege around 12.30 pm. The gherao was lifted after officials from the Lalbazar headquarters intervened.
Later, a delegation led by Calcutta Fruit Merchants Association general secretary Iftakhar Alam met deputy commissioner of police, central, Zulfiquar Hasan. We informed him (Hasan) about the deteriorating law and order situation in Mechhua, said Alam.
Four youths had forced their way into Tajs office on Ballav Das Road and pumped several bullets into him last Wednesday. Personal vendetta cannot be ruled out as a motive behind the killing either, as the youths also stabbed the dead Taj Mohammed several times before fleeing, said a senior officer of Jorasanko police station.
Aggrieved fruit merchants of Mechhua bazaar wrote to the commissioner of police asking for his intervention to speed up the probe. The culprits who tried to kill Taj in March 1999 are roaming freely too. We are afraid that those involved in criminal activities inside the market will take this opportunity to unleash a reign of terror, the merchants said.
The police, meanwhile, picked up several persons for interrogation during the day. We hope to achieve a breakthrough in the next few days, Hasan said.


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The following commentary comes from an independent investor or market observer as part of TheStreet's guest contributor program, which is separate from the company's news coverage. NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- China continues to be one of the world's most complicated investment destinations. On one hand it is a financial house of cards with a bigger housing bubble than the U.S. and on the other hand it is on its way to dominating the world economic order (if it doesn't already). What we do know with certainty is that since the peak in the S&P 500 in 2007 the Shanghai Composite is down 60% and the Hang Seng Index is down 30% while the U.S. is down only 20%. Year to date in 2011, both markets are down 20% versus a flat year for the S&P 500. After such a long period of underperforming it is reasonable to wonder whether China might be due to outperform again. If so, there are certain sectors to consider and certain sectors to avoid. Clearly the Chinese financials carry the greatest risk. If concerns about too much lending play out as some believe then the banks would be take the full brunt of those consequences.
In considering China I would be more interested in areas where demand remains healthy and one such sector is energy and one way to capture the sector in China is the Global X China Energy ETF ( CHIE). Over the last year as Shanghai and Hong went down 20%, CHIE went down 15%. Demand for oil has been increasing slowly and steadily in China; seven years ago per capita consumption was slightly more than one barrel and now it is around two barrels and this slow trend should continue as more Chinese move to urban settings and access more of a middle class lifestyle that among other things includes a car. The economy will have its ups and downs but the aspirational demand won't. CHIE is heaviest is Chinese oil majors like Sinopec (SNP), Petrochina ( PTR) and CNOOC ( CEO). Also featured in the fund are coal companies like China Shenhua Energy (CSUAY). Those four account for 40% of the fund. The biggest drawback to the fund's composition is the 10% weighting to solar stocks. The largest solar stock in the fund is GCL Poly Energy Holdings which is down 23% on the year but amazingly is down 60% from its May high.