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Manufacturing in the U.S. unexpectedly contracted in November, reflecting weaker business demand, slower exports and disruptions from superstorm Sandy.
The Institute for Supply Management's factory index decreased to 49.5 last month, the lowest since July 2009, from 51.7 in October, the Tempe, Arizona-based group said today. Economists projected the index would ease to 51.4, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey. A reading of 50 marks the dividing line between expansion and contraction.
Less corporate investment in equipment as U.S. lawmakers debate the nation's budget, weaker orders from overseas and disturbances related to the biggest Atlantic storm in history are converging to slow manufacturing. The data highlight an industry that's contributing less to the economy than it had early in the expansion that began in 2009.
"Manufacturing has slowed down," Joshua Dennerlein, an economist at Bank of America Corp. in New York, said before the report. "Manufacturers have to prepare for demand down the road, and they're not actually sure what it's going to be."
Estimates for the ISM index from the 83 economists surveyed ranged from 49 to 53.5. The gauge averaged 55.2 in 2011 and 57.3 a year earlier.
Other reports today showed euro-area manufacturing kept contracting in November while factory output rose in China and Russia, underscoring the divergence of the global economic recovery.
Manufacturing output in the 17-nation euro area shrank for a 16th month, with a gauge of manufacturing rising to 46.2 from 45.4 in October. In China the Purchasing Managers' Index climbed 50.6 and in Russia it expanded for a 14th month.
Orders Drop
The ISM's index of U.S. new orders dropped to a three-month low of 50.3 in November from 54.2. The production increased to 53.7 last month from 52.4 in October. The gauge of export orders dropped to 47 from 48. The employment index decreased to 48.4, the lowest since September 2009, from 52.1 the prior month.
The index of prices paid dropped to 52.5 last month from 55. A measure of supplier deliveries increased to 50.3 from 49.6.
The measure of orders waiting to be filled was little changed at 41 after 41.5. The inventory index decreased to 45 from 50, while a gauge of customer stockpiles slumped to 42.5 from 49.
Other regional manufacturing reports showed weakness last month, much of it in areas hit by Sandy. Factory activity in the New York-area contracted in November for the fourth consecutive month as the storm knocked out electrical power and limited activity, disrupting about 70 percent of businesses that were surveyed by the Federal Reserve. Output in the Philadelphia-area shrank for the sixth time in seven months.
Copyright 2014 Bloomberg. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright 2014 Bloomberg. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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With the MDNA tour opening in the U.S, Madonna wants fans to understand her live show, so she decided to explain it to them in her own words via her website.
The Material Girl posted a letter August 27 explaining her use of guns and Nazi imagery on her recent European tour writing, "My show is a journey. The journey of a soul from darkness to light."
She says her show is part "cinematic musical theatre. Part spectacle and sometimes intimate performance art." Her use of guns throughout the tour, she explained, was just part of the show and not an endorsement of gun use.
"It's true there is a lot of violence in the beginning of the show and sometimes the use of fake guns, but they are used as metaphors," she wrote. "I do not condone violence or use of guns."
By using the controversial imagery, Madonna hopes to put a stop to intolerant cultures and societies that use guns and hate speech as a means of strength. She wants to show that overcoming the evil in this world cannot be done with guns and violence, but with love.
"We cannot allow our anger or bitterness to swallow us up," she wrote. "We come to understand that there is an innate and pure love inside us all and we have to find a way to tap into it."
During Madonna's show, she often portrays herself as both good and evil, but she explains that she is always playing a part and never herself.
"It's very important to me as an artist that my show not be taken out of context," she writes. "It must be watched with an open heart from beginning to end. I am sure if it is viewed this way, the viewer will walk away feeling inspired, invigorated and will want to make the world a better place."
Fans in Australia have been waiting twenty years for Madonna to tour Down Under, but they will unfortunately have to wait a little longer. The singer announced she would be canceling her dates there so that she could spend more time with her kids.
In an audio message she uploaded to YouTube, she explains she is "really and truly sorry to have disappointed" fans, but her kids come first.
"I have two scales I have to weigh in front of me, my job as a singer and entertainer and my job as a mother," she explained.
Madonna continued by saying she would be an "irresponsible parent" if she didn't choose to spend that time with her kids, who need her more than her fans.
She ends the message by telling her Aussie fans she loves them and hopes to get there very soon.
"Please forgive me and know when I come to Australia I will have made the wait worth your while," she said. "And I will put on the greatest show on earth."
Madonna is already revealing some of the surprises planned for her U.S. tour, which kicks off tonight in Philadelphia, PA, including appearances from Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.
–Shannon Carlin, CBS Local

subset: commoncrawl


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Rush Limbaugh has officially lifted the operational pause in Operation Chaos:
Operation Chaos is back at full speed, and we have no change in direction, orders from headquarters remain exactly what they are: You are to go out and sustain the Democrat primary season by virtue of voting for Hillary Clinton. Nothing has changed, ladies and gentlemen, nothing whatsoever.
Now is not the time to go weak in the knees. Trust your Commander-in-Chief!


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I was like a child in a candy store. Except this candy store was full of stories, not chocolate.
Last weekend, I went with a friend to the Southern Kentucky Book Festival in Bowling Green. My attendance at this festival is an annual trip I look forward to for months.
Hundreds of authors gather at the fair to talk with their readers, sign autographs and have panel discussions about their books and writing.
We're going to find out why so many teenagers are reading the Twilight saga.
At Sunday's meeting of the CKNJ Bookmarks reading group, we discussed our last book choice, a set of two novellas, "Dinner With a Perfect Stranger" and "A Day With a Perfect Stranger." The books were an easy read, first-person accounts of two young skeptics who encounter Jesus, and his answers to their most challenging and most personal life questions.
Some of us liked the books, and others didn't.
As a reporter, I sometimes write stories that seem to stay with me and tug at my emotions, whether it's about someone dying in a car crash, a fire that left a family homeless or someone accused of hurting an innocent child. One such story that recently tugged at me was about child abuse. It gave statistics that show that the number of reported child abuse cases last year was higher - much higher - than in 2007.
When simply looking at a single photograph causes an instantaneous reaction, either physical or emotional, you know it's not simply a good photo, it's a great one.
Sitting there in the small alcove, in the midst of a museum full of strangers, I both laughed and cried. I gasped and I winced.
I spent nearly an entire day immersed in history last week. And I enjoyed every moment.
I suppose I should mention that history ranks only slightly above math on my list of interesting things in life ... and math is dead last.
The nation's preeminent business organization recently released a study showing that the high costs of the American health care system puts American businesses at a significant disadvantage.
The Business Roundtable, which represents some of the country's biggest corporations, found that for every $100 the U.S. spends on health care, our main competitor countries - the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, France, and German - only spend about 63 cents.
In the last four months, 2.6 million jobs have disappeared from the American economy. About half the people who had those jobs also lost their health insurance.
But a job loss doesn't have to mean a loss of insurance coverage, too. A provision in the recently passed economic stimulus bill makes health insurance significantly more affordable for the involuntarily unemployed. The federal government will now subsidize premiums for insurance plans purchased under the terms of a law called "COBRA."
You know, sometimes I feel guilty calling what I do work. Sure, there are times when I feel like I'm not being paid enough. But there are also times when I have to stop and ask myself, "Am I really getting paid for this?"
After a week of vacation, I returned to work last week with the dreaded prospect of two evening assignments.
Why is it that the older we get, the more we cherish our youth?
It's not that I want to be young again ... heavens no. I've just begun to cherish those memories of years past, which really don't seem quite as old as they really are.
A couple of months ago, I found a friend from 30 years ago on Facebook and, just Monday, I joined an alumni group from the junior/senior high school I attended at Subic Bay Naval Base in the Philippines. My family lived there for two years in the 70s before my dad retired from the Navy and we moved to Campbellsville.
"I'm just a bill.
Yes, I'm only a bill.
And I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill.
Well, it's a long, long journey to the capital city.
It's a long, long wait while I'm sitting in committee.
But I know I'll be a law some day.
At least I hope and pray that I will.
But today I am still just a bill."
—School House Rock!
I didn't really pay much attention to politics until I realized that the decisions politicians make actually do impact me.
President Barack Obama has said repeatedly that he wants "ideas that work." In spite of this, leading Democrats are working hard on plans for health care reform that will fail.
These plans, pushed by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and others, seek to extend coverage to everyone by mandating the purchase of private insurance, with perhaps an option to buy into a public plan. They would ease this purchase through an "insurance exchange," while subsidizing premiums for those with low incomes.
Copyright © 2018
The Central Kentucky News-Journal is your source for local news, sports, events, and information in Campbellsville, KY and the surrounding area.


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BELMAR, N.J. (AP) — Environmentalists are trying to dissuade a Jersey shore town from using tropical rain forest wood to rebuild a boardwalk destroyed by Superstorm Sandy.
Belmar awarded a $6.6 million contract this week to a company to provide ipe (EE'-pay) wood for the project. Plans to resume use of that species of tropical hardwood on the Ocean City boardwalk in 2007 touched off a furor that led to the city canceling its order and paying nearly $1 million in damages to a lumber company.
Mayor Matthew Doherty says Belmar will only use ipe if it is harvested from a sustainable source. But environmentalists say there is no such thing as sustainable logging in the Amazon or other endangered rain forests.
Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, wrote to Doherty on Friday to urge Belmar not to use ipe.
"As a community that has suffered catastrophic impacts from storm surge and sea level rise, Belmar should be concerned about the impacts of global climate change and the impacts from severe weather," Tittel wrote. "Clear-cutting rainforests in the Amazon should not be promoted by a community as environmentally conscience as Belmar. There is no sustainable way to harvest ipe."
Ipe has proven popular with coastal communities who use it in their boardwalks. It looks good, lasts for decades and can support the weight of a police car or fire engine, not to mention thousands of people.
But the trend is upsetting environmentalists, who favor boardwalks made with synthetic materials or wood from trees that didn't grow in endangered areas. They fear that in the rush to rebuild damaged boardwalks — and there are many along the Jersey shore — towns will cast environmental concerns aside.
"We never learn, do we?" asked Georgina Shanley, a leader of Friends of the Rainforest, an Ocean City group that helped undo that southern New Jersey community's plan to use ipe for boardwalk reconstruction five years ago. The town ordered $1.2 million worth of wood that was advertised to be certified as having been harvested responsibly, but then canceled the order amid a furor from environmentalists around the world. It had to pay nearly $1 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the lumber company that cut the wood and had begun shipping it to New Jersey.
New York City has decreed that all new boardwalks will be made of something other than wood, preferably concrete.
Belmar's old boardwalk was made from synthetic materials.
It hopes to have a new walkway in place by May 1.


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Cruelty free footwear
Cruelty free fashion - No Bull!
Now there is no need to compromise quality and style when it comes to leading a cruelty free life. Using the world's most advanced micro fibres, Vegan Store has produced a range of products that are breathable, durable and ethical.
The products we manufacture are produced in factories with non-exploitative working practices within the EC. We believe that our products should be cruelty free to nature and humans alike. The use of new micro fibres such as V Tex avoid the pollution of chromium tanning and are also cotton-backed making them 75% biodegradable.
All our materials are tested to be comparable to leather in breathability and durability. We check all components, from the laces to the polishes, to be vegan and cruelty free and are proud to be approved by the Vegan Society.


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First annual summit on Sustainability in Higher Education in Hawai'iUniversity of Hawaiʻi
Director of Sustainability, UH West O'ahu
What: A gathering of campus and community members from across the state who are interested in
creating more sustainable universities in Hawai'i.
Who: Hawai'i colleges and universities and the community
Where: University of Hawai'i West O'ahu Ballroom, Kapolei
When: Thursday, April 11th at 4 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Friday, April 12th at 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.
The First Annual Hawai'i Sustainability in Higher Education Summit will include policy planning and program sharing of sustainability initiatives in the University of Hawai'i's ten-campus system. Participants will develop objectives toward improved environmental stewardship and greater cost-savings through efficient use of resources in areas such as energy, water and waste management, food systems and curriculum. The discussion will also include other higher education colleagues at Hawai'i Pacific University, Brigham Young University--Hawai'i, and Chaminade University.
The two-day conference aims to produce a UH System policy document on sustainability, and provide an opportunity for campuses and the community to share insights and best practices on sustainability.
Guest speakers include Leith Sharp, Chair of the Sustainable Futures Academy and Harvard Sustainability Instructor; Kamuela Enos, Social Enterprise Director at MA'O Organic Farms; Matthew St. Clair, Sustainability Manager at the University of California Office of the President; and UH President M.R.C. Greenwood.
Gold sponsors of this event are Hawai'i Energy, Hawaiian Electric Company and Johnson Controls. The event is also made possible by the efforts of the UH Office of the Vice President for Community Colleges.
About 10 exhibitors will also be on hand with the latest information on sustainability in higher education and posters and presentations will be shared by experts from across the state.


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Like many progressives I had hopes that President Obama could push the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) through Congress. There was no doubt that it would be difficult to get it through a Senate filibuster, but the support of a few moderate Republicans did not seem impossible. Passage seemed close enough that a bit of horse trading and arm-twisting could pull the bill over the line.
In reality, it turned out that it was not close. In spite of the best efforts of the labor movement and its supporters, the bill had nowhere near the votes needed to get through a filibuster. The issue was not just getting the few Republicans that would be needed to end a filibuster; the problem was that many Democrats in the Senate would not go near a bill that would make unionization easier.
In an environment of unrelenting employer hostility to unions, there can be little doubt that there needs to be some change in the rules if workers in the private sector are going to have chance of being able to organize successfully. As it stands, it is standard practice for employers to fire workers who are engaged in an organizing drive.
While such firing is against the law, the penalties are trivial. When it gets around to hearing the case, which could take years, the National Labor Relations Board can order that a worker wrongly fired be rehired. Workers wrongfully fired are also entitled to the difference between the wages that they would have earned on the job from which they were fired, and the wages they actually earned. This is often little or nothing. Imagine being fired from a job at Walmart that paid little more than the minimum wage.
Meanwhile, the firing is great strategy from the employers' standpoint. The troublemakers are gone. The union is shown to be impotent and the rest of the workforce conceals any possible interest in the union in order to avoid the same fate. It doesn't help much if the organizers get rehired a year or two later. Imagine that President Obama got to jail his opponent's campaign workers for the two months prior to the election, but had to release them the month after. That is the roughly the state of union elections in America today.
But EFCA got nowhere and it is not likely to get anywhere any time soon. There was very little public understanding of the issues involved. And one of the key demands, that workers could organize through majority sign-up rather than a secret ballot election (a situation that already exists at the discretion of the employer but not the workers), seemed undemocratic to many people who might have otherwise been sympathetic. If labor is to again be able to organize in the private sector, it clearly needs a new path forward.
This is where Why Labor Organizing Should be a Civil Right by Richard Kahlenberg and Moshe Marvit (Century Foundation) takes off. This book is written from the perspective of two lawyers who recognize the importance of the labor movement to progressive change in the United States over the last 8 decades.
The book's key proposal is that workers who are trying to organize should be given the same sort of legal protection that African Americans or women enjoy against discrimination based on race or gender. This means that workers who are fired would get to sue in real court (not the NLRB) for real damages. As in civil rights cases, they would be entitled to collect attorney's fees from employers if they won their case.
Attorneys' fees are a huge deal, since it means that workers could afford to get lawyers in cases where it otherwise would probably not pay to hire a lawyer. As part of their suit, workers would also have the opportunity to engage in discovery, forcing employers to turn over documents about hiring union-busting consultants and to reveal discussions that might have led workers to exercise their right to seek union representation.
This is the sort of huge rethinking that is needed if labor and progressive politics more generally are going to have a chance to advance in the decades ahead. The current situation of labor is striking because the laws are incredibly tilted against workers in a way that even many progressives do not recognize. If workers violate the law, for example with a wildcat strike or secondary boycott, employees can go to court and get an injunction in hours.
Unlike the situation where employers fire organizers, the penalties for the workers in these cases are hardly a wrist slap. Leaders of the action face imprisonment if they defy an injunction. Any assets of the union can be seized, which could include any strike fund, bank accounts, even office equipment. Imagine if Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of GE, faced jail time every time the company violated a labor law?
If it ever was passed into law, Kahlenberg and Marvit's proposal would likely have substantially more impact on unionization rates than the EFCA, but more importantly the proposal has a greater prospect of gaining the sort of popular support needed for passage. The issues that motivated the EFCA required a knowledge of the specifics of union organizing that few people have. As a result, even people sympathetic to labor often did not support the bill. By contrast, the Kalhlenberg-Marvit proposal is rooted in a rights-based approach that should be more intuitive to the public.
The authors are not naïve in thinking that this reframing will cause a bill to magically sail through Congress and land on the president's desk. Employers will be every bit as forceful in opposing a bill that seeks to give workers this right to sue as they were in opposing ECFA. However, the big difference is that labor and its supporters are far more likely to be able to gain the popular support to overcome this opposition going the civil rights route.
This argument also helps to pull the argument away from a sort of loser liberalism story where the government is reaching over to help labor by letting them go to children's court (the NLRB) because it feels sorry for them. Instead, labor is seeking symmetry in the relationship with management. Employers get to take their grievances to real court; workers should have the same opportunity.
While Kahlenberg and Marvit did not invent the proposal that is the centerpiece of the book, they deserve credit for bringing it back to public attention in a forceful manner at a time when labor and the progressive movement more generally are desperately in need of new directions forward. This is a book worth reading and argument worth taking seriously.


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Families that changed TV
In the beginning there was "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet," white middle-class families reflected an advertising ideal as much as a demographic reality. Over the years, TV dealt more overtly with the ever-changing definition of family.
By Mary McNamara, L.A. Times Television Critic
Copyright © 2018, Orlando Sentinel


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Kohler - 856-H2-7 - Tea-For-Two 55'' Wp Var Spd Pump
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Bollinger Delivers Cutter To USCG
LOCKPORT, La. (AP) — Bollinger Shipyards, Inc. has delivered its fourth, fast response cutter to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Chris Bollinger, executive vice president of new construction, says the vessel is named after Coast Guard Engineman First Class Robert J. Yered, who exhibited gallantry in action while engaged in military operations with an armed hostile force in Vietnam. Yered received a Silver Star for his service.
Bollinger says the 154-foot patrol craft is the fourth vessel in the Coast Guard's Sentinel-class fast response cutter program. It has a flank speed of 28 knots, state of the art command, control, communications and computer technology, and a stern launch system for the vessels 26 foot cutter boat. It was delivered to the agency last week. The vessel is scheduled for commission in Miami in February.


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Penn's 'Into the Wild' Is Beautiful, Stirring, Complex
"…too-muchness is the essence of the story—a hero's gallant, possibly mad and inevitably doomed attempt to channel too much experience and too many ideas through one young life that can't possibly hold it all… Moviegoers will argue the question of whether the young man's quest succeeds or fails: Is he a pilgrim who finds the transcendence he sought, or a wounded bird flying blind on lofty ambitions, or both? There's no arguing, however, that 'Into the Wild' is a new experience, even though some of its countercultural themes and tropes may seem familiar. It's a mainstream movie of ideas that lives in a world of fateful action." READ MORE >
After the Apocalypse
"As they travel the father feeds his son a story, the nearest that he can come to a creed or a reason to keep on going: that he and his son are 'carrying the fire.' …the boy seems to intuit a promise: that life will not always be thus; that it will improve, that beauty and purpose, sunlight and green plenty will return; in short that everything is going to be 'okay,' a word which both characters endlessly repeat to each other, touching it compulsively like a sore place or a missing tooth. They are carrying the fire through a world destroyed by fire, and therefore—a leap of logic or faith that by the time the novel opens has become almost insurmountable for both of them—the boy must struggle on, so that he can be present at, or somehow contribute to, the eventual rebirth of the world." READ MORE >
California Burning
"A strange and enthralling evocation of frontier capitalism and manifest destiny set at the dawn of the 20th century… There's hardly a dull moment. Digs collapse, gushers burst into flame, God metes out punishment and so does man. Revelations overturn the narrative: The last 20 minutes are as shocking in their way as the plague that rains from the sky in Magnolia's finale. By the time the closing words "There Will Be Blood" appear (with a burst of Brahms) inscribed in heavy gothic letters on the screen, Anderson's movie has come to seem an Old Testament story of cosmic comeuppance and filicidal madness—American history glimpsed through the smoke and fire that the lightning left behind." READ MORE >
Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?
"Ms. Jacoby doesn't expect to revolutionize the nation's educational system or cause millions of Americans to switch off 'American Idol' and pick up Schopenhauer. But she would like to start a conversation about why the United States seems particularly vulnerable to such a virulent strain of anti-intellectualism… Avoiding the liberal or conservative label in this particular argument, she prefers to call herself a 'cultural conservationist.'" READ MORE >
Dark Star: Why Amy Winehouse is not just a celebrity train wreck
"…she's a romantic poet of the train wreck… Amy Winehouse is a genuinely troubled soul; the songs on Back to Black chronicle her tumultuous relationship with Fielder-Civil, and 'Rehab' is reportedly something close to reportage, a more or less autobiographical account of her record company's efforts to get her into alcohol-addiction treatment back in 2005. But one wonders if Winehouse would have turned into quite such a mess had it not proved so fruitful for her music… If indeed Sunday night's Grammy triumph is the start of true comeback, this talented singer-songwriter may find herself facing something of an existential career crisis... READ MORE >
Death's Army
"Americans had never endured anything like the losses they suffered between 1861 and 1865 and have experienced nothing like them since." The author writes: "'The work of death was Civil War America's most fundamental and most demanding undertaking.' Her account of how that work was done, much of it gleaned from the letters of those who found themselves forced to do it, is too richly detailed and covers too much ground to be summarized easily. She overlooks nothing — from the unsettling enthusiasm some men showed for killing to the near-universal struggle for an answer to the question posed by the Confederate poet Sidney Lanier: 'How does God have the heart to allow it?'" READ MORE >
Another 'Pro-Life" Movie?
"...after the movie ended I wondered what all the fuss was about... I wonder how much of the adulation of reviewers (and the judges at Cannes) stemmed from what they may have perceived as the 'message' of the movie: i.e., illegal abortions are bad, so legal ones must be good. For me, the movie was a litany of the horrors of any abortion, and as much a 'pro-life' movie as 'Juno,' which I had seen the day before. How can observing a lifeless fetus make one anything but pro-life?" READ MORE >
"Lost," that endless engrossing philosophical mish-mash
Like cramming fistfuls of metaphysical crayons back into their tiny box, the Island on "Lost" can barely contain all the colorful epistemologies in its midst. It is a big stew of Philosophy 101's greatest hits... It's like the Monty Python sketch, "International Philosophy," in which Greek and German philosophers battle it out on the soccer field (Socrates's winning goal is contested by Hegel as not being an "a priori reality"). Back on "Lost" Philosophy Island, the implications are just as absurd: After all, if everything is imbued with meaning, then how meaningful is any one thing? READ MORE >
The Dawkins Confusion
"The God Delusion is full of bluster and bombast, but it really doesn't give even the slightest reason for thinking belief in God mistaken, let alone a 'delusion.' Dawkins seems to have chosen God as his sworn enemy. (Let's hope for Dawkins' sake God doesn't return the compliment.)... You might say… READ MORE >
Wilco frontman takes a more direct lyrical approach on striking new album
"...alienation seemed to be the point on Wilco's overly arch art-rock projects Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born, but on Sky Blue Sky Tweedy reaches out from his solitude in hopes of meeting his listeners—both the woman in the song and the strangers buying his CDs—face-to-face… The album's title track contrasts our… READ MORE >
A Chronicler of Alienated Europeans in a Flimsy New World
"Mr. Antonioni's fashionableness shouldn't distract us from his accomplishment. He was a visionary whose portrayal of the failure of Eros in a hypereroticized climate addressed the modern world and its discontents in a new, intensely poetic cinematic language. Here was depicted for the first time on screen a world in which attention… READ MORE >
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CHICAGO, March 4 (UPI) -- American demographics are changing -- and not just because the baby boom generation is moving into its golden years, says Tom Mirabile, a trend analyst for the International Housewares Association.
With 8,000 boomers turning 65 every day and still directly controlling 41 percent of the spending in the United States, it's easy to see how what was the biggest generation -- 80 million members ages 47 to 67 -- in U.S. history has molded the nation's consumption habits. It turns out though, boomers actually have a hand in more than 60 percent of total spending because 59 percent of their offspring, the 84 million members of generation Y ages 17 to 36, are still spending their parents' money, some because they're still dependents, others victims of the economy.
"The industry is really at a crossroads," Mirabile, senior vice president for global trend and design for Lifetime Brands Inc., said in an interview in advance of his Monday forecast on trends reshaping the $305 billion housewares industry.
An example: "When boomers have a dinner party, we generally get all the prep work done in advance. I recently went to a dinner party given by a much younger friend. To be polite, I asked him if there was anything I could do. He handed me a peeler and a knife and a bag of carrots and asked me to cut them. I really didn't want to do that."
For generation Y the cooking itself is part of the entertainment experience and guests are expected to participate, Mirabile said.
"It's cooking as social action," he said, adding that means sleeker and prettier kitchen gadgets that become conversation pieces. Whereas boomers came of age in a throwaway society where paper plates and plastic silverware were de riguer for get-togethers, generation Y is harking back to a time when the good stuff came out for dinner parties -- even the temporary tableware on display at the International Housewares Show trade show at Chicago's McCormick Place, which runs through Tuesday, showed a design elegance and quality absent a generation earlier.
Several companies offered a theme on the ubiquitous red plastic beer cup. Trudeau, a Canadian firm, displayed a double-walled, insulated, dishwasher safe, red party cup while another company displayed a partially crushed ceramic version.
Along the food prep as entertainment line comes iCoffee, a new brewing system Bruce Burrows touts as "French press without the mess" -- a slogan he said he can't use because very few people know what French press coffee is. The iCoffee looks like a large drip coffeemaker but instead of just heating water and letting it compact the coffee grinds, the appliance injects steam into the beans to make them pop and then swirls them with jets of water, much the same way you would stir the grinds in a French press before you let it steep. The result is a smooth cup of coffee without much of the acid that makes a brew bitter. It is expected to be available in May for $149.99. To go along with the new brewer, Nesco showed a coffee roaster that allows you to roast beans a cup at a time for the freshest, most flavorful cup of java.
Healthier was another theme at the show, from Prepara's herb preservation system (you put the leftover stems and leaves into a vertical plastic container that sits in a base filled with water) the company says will keep the herbs fresh for three weeks, to numerous air and water purification systems to a new wrist band -- the LifeTracking Monitor C200 from Smart Health -- that uses your heart rate, height and weight to measure your activity level (I found I walked more than 19,000 steps the first day of the show and more than 10,000 the second, and used about 300 calories sleeping). The basic monitor is to sell for $59.99, with a Bluetooth version to be available in June for $89.99.
Aquasana will be offering a $100 countertop water filtration system that can produce a half-gallon of water in 30 seconds, removing 99 percent of the chlorine and 97 percent of the chloramines that form when ammonia is added to chlorine-treated water, along with 61 other contaminants, said Derek Mellencamp, Aquasana's vice president of marketing. By contrast, he said, Britta, the most popular pitcher filtration system removes only six.
Kishu has another take on cleaner water. Just drop its charcoal into a quart to half-gallon pitcher of water to absorb the toxins, including heavy metals. Kishu spokeswoman Judith Bershof said the charcoal is good for six months of water filtration and then can be used in the refrigerator to absorb smells for several more. The charcoal comes in a case of 12 for $81.There are also sizes for water bottles and 3-5 gallon pitchers as well as Christmas stockings marketed as "not just a lump of coal."
With concern growing about the health effects BPA -- bisphenol-A -- manufactures have been looking for something to replace polycarbonates. Enter Tritan from Eastman, a new polymer that is more durable, BPA-free and able to survive 3,000 dishwasher cycles.
Robots are also a growing presence. They may not be Rosey, "The Jetsons'" maid, but now they not only vacuum the floors, they'll clean windows and barbecue grills. Ecovacs introduced the Winbot, which uses suction to stick to glass and little rubber tractor treads to crawl around the area to clean off dirt. A special ammonia-free cleaning solution is sprayed on the cleaning pads, which can be thrown into the washing machine for cleaning. Thirty-foot, screw-in extension cords are available for the outdoor cleaning chores.
Grillbot is a cute little device with three wire brushes that scrub the barbecue clean. It was the brainchild of Ethan Woods who when he arrived at his cabin in Upstate New York discovered his grill was a mess and needed a thorough cleaning before he could do anything about dinner. Woods went to his shed and pulled out a power drill and attached a wire brush, and an idea was born.
Like your soda pop but don't want to keep buying all those plastic bottles and cans? Hamilton Beach is introducing the Fizzini to compete with SodaStream's countertop device that makes about 10 litres before the carbonation canister has to be replaced along with a handheld version that will use single-use cartridges.
When it comes to floor-cleaning, the cutest entry was the Footsie Towel from Evri Products -- a towel with what look like open-toed, fabric sandals on each end for gliding over a floor while remaining upright and hands-free -- not to mention the workout for the outer thighs.
And let's not forget Fido. Enchanted Home Pet has a line of dog and cat beds that look like fine furniture -- only smaller.


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by Simon Plant
In this video tutorial, we look at a quick, simple and very flexible way to manipulate colour within an image. We're focusing upon two example photographs to demonstrate the effect.
Watch the Video
Simon Plant
Simon Plant is an award-winning photographer & retoucher with over two decades of experience in the production of people & location photography. Whatever the subject his images share the same unique style and attention to detail from start to finish.These serene moments are created with his personal utilization of colour, light and rich tonal values, together with a personal interaction with his subject. His aim to offer clients creative solutions on time and on budget. Constantly exploring new imaging technologies and developing new techniques, he was one of the first photographers shooting HDR imaging for Automotive CGI Rendering in the U.K and is as experienced behind the computer in post production as he is behind the camera shooting. Shooting for nationally, and internationally known clients, his work is reproduced worldwide. Simon spends his time between home with his wife and three children & on location wherever that may be. When not creating imagery he can be found watching Yeovil Town F.C or his 10yr old son terrorising defenders for Yeovil Town U11′s Team.. !
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Pueblo County, Colorado Genealogy
United States Colorado Pueblo County
Guide to Pueblo County Colorado genealogy. Birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, family history, and military records.
|Pueblo County, Colorado
Location in the state of Colorado
Location of Colorado in the U.S.
|January 9, 1852
|County Seat
| Pueblo County Courthouse
215 W 10th Street
Pueblo, CO 81003
Phone: 719.583.6624
Pueblo County Website
- 1 County Courthouse
- 2 Historical Facts
- 2.1 County Seat
- 2.2 Parent County
- 2.3 Neighboring Counties
- 2.4 Record Loss
- 2.5 Resources
- 2.5.1 Bible Records
- 2.5.2 Biography
- 2.5.3 Business Records and Commerce
- 2.5.4 Cemeteries
- 2.5.5 Census
- 2.5.6 Church Records
- 2.5.7 Court Records
- 2.5.8 Directories
- 2.5.9 Emigration and Immigration
- 2.5.10 Ethnic, Political, or Religious Groups
- 2.5.11 Gazetteers
- 2.5.12 Genealogy
- 2.5.13 History
- 2.5.14 Land and Property
- 2.5.15 Maps
- 2.5.16 Military
- 2.5.17 Naturalization and Citizenship
- 2.5.18 Newspapers
- 2.5.19 Obituaries
- 2.5.20 Periodicals
- 2.5.21 Probate
- 2.5.22 Public Records
- 2.5.23 Repositories
- 2.5.24 Taxation
- 2.5.25 Vital Records
- 2.6 Places
- 3 Web Sites
- 4 References
County Courthouse
County Clerk has marriage records from 1867, military records from 1944 and
land records; City County health Department has birth and death records;
District Court has divorce probate court and naturatlization records [1]
Historical Facts
|Beginning dates for major county records
|*For earlier dates, try... Church | Obituaries | Cemeteries
County Seat
Parent County
- Before 1861 the southern quarter of this modern Colorado county was in New Mexico.
- 9 January 1852 it was created part of Taos County in New Mexico Territory.[3] [4]
- 1 February 1860 it became part of Mora County.[3]
- 28 February 1861 it was transferred to Colorado[5] [6] (1 Nov 1861 Huerfano County).[7]
- 1866 the former New Mexico part was ceeded from Huerfano to Pueblo County.[8]
- Look for pre-1861 records in New Mexico. For further explanation see Taos County.
1861 Pueblo County was created 1 November 1861 as an original county.
Neighboring Counties
Record Loss
Bible Records
Business Records and Commerce
For tips on accessing Pueblo County, Colorado Genealogy census records online, see: Colorado Census.
Church Records
LDS Ward and Branch Records
- Pueblo
Court Records
Emigration and Immigration
Ethnic, Political, or Religious Groups
Local History
Land and Property
Land and property records can place an ancestor in a particular location, provide economic information, and reveal family relationships. Land records include: deeds, abstracts and indexes, mortgages, leases, grants and land patents.
See Colorado Land and Property for additional information about early Colorado land grants.
After land was transferred to private ownership, subsequent transactions were usually recorded at the county courthouse, where current records are also housed.
Naturalization and Citizenship
Additional newspapers abstracts can sometimes be found using search phrases such as Pueblo County, Colorado Genealogy newspapers in online catalogs like:
- WorldCat (For instructions see WorldCat Online Catalog).
- Do a Pueblo County, Colorado Genealogy Place-name search for these and other records in the FamilySearch Catalog (For instructions see FamilySearch Catalog Place-name Search).
Probate records have been kept by the county courts. Colorado probate records include bonds, affidavits, letters, claims, appraisals, fee accounts, minutes, judgments, dockets, calendars, case files, and wills. The Family History Library does not have copies of probate records from Colorado.
You may obtain copies of documents from the clerk's office in the county courthouse.
Public Records
School Records
The Colorado State Archives has the following records available for Pueblo County, Colorado Genealogy in this online database Archives Search. For a full list of online holdings, click here.
1880-1939 Divorce Index
1883-1900 Mine Accidents, Non - fatal
1897-1920 Horseshoers
1936-1942 Civilian Conservation Corps Enrollments
1966-1968 Vietnam Deaths
Pueblo County Probate Cases 1862 - 1961
Family History Centers
FamilySearch Centers are branches of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, and are located all over the world. Their goal is to provide resources for family history research.
Pueblo City-County Library District
100 E Abriendo Ave
Pueblo, CO 81004
Telephone 719-562-5600
Website http://www.pueblolibrary.org/pld_welcome.asp
Pueblo County Historical Society
201 West "B" Street
Pueblo, CO 81003
Telephone 719-543-6772
Website http://www.pueblohistory.org/
Colorado tax records complement land records and can be used as supplements to censuses. There may be gaps of several years in the records. To find tax records in the FamilySearch Catalog, do a Place Search for the county.
Vital Records
Vital Records consist of births, adoptions, marriages, divorces, and deaths recorded on registers, certificates, and documents. A copy or an extract of most original records can be purchased from the Vital Records Section Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment or the County Clerk's office of the county where the event occurred.
For some online statewide indexes, see the FamilySearch Historical Record Collections for Colorado.
Birth records may become public records when 100 years have elapsed after the date of birth. EXCEPTION: The birth record of any individual who is known to be currently alive will remain confidential even if they are 100 years of age or greater. [9]
Death records may become public records when 75 years have elapsed after the date of death. [9]
Web Sites
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Handybook for Genealogists: United States of America, 10th ed. (Draper, Utah: Everton Pub., 2002), 101, Pueblo County, Colorado. At various libraries (WorldCat); FHL Book 973 D27e 2002.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 The Red Book, American State, County, and Town Sources. Edited by Alice Eichholz. (Ancestry, Provo; 3d ed, 2004.) Colorado article by Birdie Monk Holzclaw and Marsha Hoffman Rising. page 94.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 William Thorndale and William Dollarhide, Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses, 1790-1920 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publ., 1987), 52. At various libraries (WorldCat); FHL Book 973 X2th.
- ↑ Brief County Histories (New Mexico) in RootsWeb (accessed 21 June 2012).
- ↑ Wikipedia contributors, "Colorado Territory" in Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopeida at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Territory (accessed 19 June 2012).
- ↑ Adrian B. Ettlinger, AniMap 3.0 : with SiteFinder U.S. place name database (Alamo, Calif.: Gold Bug, 2008), Colorado 1861 map. At various libraries (WorldCat); FHL CD-ROM no. 4903.
- ↑ Handybook, 99, Huerfano County, Colorado.
- ↑ Ettlinger, see the Colorado 1866 map.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Letter from Colorado State Registrar, Dated September 1, 2011. Policy Number 2011- 08. http://www.colorado.gov


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SAO PAULO (AP) — Adidas will stop selling World Cup products that used sex appeal to promote host Brazil, a move that came after a formal complaint from the local government on Tuesday.
Adidas made the announcement just hours after Brazil's tourism board released a statement condemning some T-shirts that were being sold on the company's web site, including one which said "Lookin' to Score," with a woman in bikini in front of the word "Brazil" and an image of the Sugar Loaf mountain in the background.
Another said "I (heart) Brazil," with what appeared to be the image of a thong bikini inside the heart.
Adidas, a main World Cup sponsor and the official ball provider for the tournament that begins in June, said in a statement the products were limited edition T-shirts available only in the United States.
"Adidas always pays close attention to the opinion of its consumers and partners," the company said. "Therefore, it is announcing that these products will not be sold anymore."
The T-shirts were not available on the site on Tuesday shortly after Brazilian media published images of them.
The tourism board said the Brazilian government is "vehemently" against anything that "links Brazil's image to sex appeal," and said officials are working hard to repress "sexual tourism" during the World Cup.
"We want to make it very clear to our main commercial partners in tourism that Brazil does not tolerate this type of crime in its territory," said Flavio Dino, president of the tourism board Embratur.
Shortly after the board released its statement, President Dilma Rousseff tweeted that Brazil is taking seriously the fight against sexual tourism.
"Brazil is happy to welcome the tourists that will arrive for the World Cup, but it is also ready to fight against sexual tourism," she said.
The World Cup, football's showcase event, is being held across 12 cities in Brazil. It is the first time since 1950 that the South American nation is hosting the tournament.
"This campaign goes against what Brazil defends," Dino said of the Adidas T-shirts. "Our effort is to promote Brazil for its natural and cultural attributes. An initiative like this one ignores and disrespects the message the government is trying to get across."
Embratur said it wants to take advantage of the World Cup to showcase Brazil's "diverse culture, hospitality, modernity and natural beauties."
"None of our campaigns will ever use any image or message that uses sexual connotation or promotes this criminal action," the board said in its statement.
As part of a charities-led campaign announced earlier this month in London, videos warning football fans against paying for sex with children at the World Cup will be played on Brazil-bound flights from England.
Associated Press writer Marco Sibaja contributed to this report from Brasilia, Brazil.
Follow Tales Azzoni on Twitter: www.twitter.com/tazzoni


text:
University of Missouri
Home | People | Locations | Program index | Calendar | News | Publications
Continuing education Seminars Courses
MU Extension > calendar
Professional development events
Team Nutrition for Child Care (Session 7 of 7)
Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014, 9 a.m. to noon
Where Families Grow Day Care Center located behind Dillon's grocery store on Battlefield and Kansas ExpresswaySpringfield MO
The director and Staff of "Where Families Grow" day care center will participate in a program supported by University Extension and funded by the State Health Department called MOve Smart. The program is to help day care center staff incorporate more physical activity into children's lives and to work to reduce the childhood obesity problem.
Session topic:
Observation and classroom coaching
In-house training
Class size:
Event full:
Renette Wardlow, email@example.com Extension in Greene Countyphone: 417-881-8909
Add event to your compatible iCalendar such as Microsoft Outlook or Apple iCal.
About | Jobs | Extension councils |
For faculty and staff | For researchers | Giving | Ask an expert | Contact
© 1993
to 2015 Curators of the University
of Missouri, all rights reserved, DMCA
and other copyright information
University of Missouri Extension is an equal opportunity/ADA institution.
University of Missouri Extension
© 1993
to 2015 Curators of the University of Missouri, all rights reserved


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Studio M - SCRAPBOOK by Nuuna Write Books Not Blogs
Beautiful sketchbook with pen holder!
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The Studio M - SCRAPBOOK by Nuuna is a sketchbook with pen holder on the spine and limited edition silk screen print.
Cover: grey paperboard
- Write books not blogs
- I'd rather be at the beach
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- 160 pages
- 120g white premium drawing paper, blank
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- screenprinted cover motif - limited edition
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|Nuuna by Brandbooks
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Stranger Dangers
Why do we care about the Ramsey murder?
John Kinkaid's article, "Little Miss Sunshine," has stirred up a heated debate in the Culturebox Fray. Does the media storm surrounding the murder of JonBenet Ramsey reveal something sinister about American culture, and about us as media consumers?
Many readers reject the central premise of Kincaid's argument—that "we" have any interest in the Ramsey murder at all. Valiantly overcoming their disinterest in the case long enough to read the article, formulate a response, and post it on the Fray, such readers profess helplessness in the face of saturation Ramsey coverage. SeanD has a more empathetic take:
What a strange position Kincaid took, accusing us all of vicarious pedophilia! It seems he's fallen into a trap very familiar to those of us who work with criminal offenders: If you spend all day around people who have done terrible things, you start to think that the world is a terrible place full of terrible people.
It sounds like Mr. Kincaid needs to get out of the office more and chat with a few of us NON-pedophiles. You know, the overwhelming majority of the population, who feel absolutely nothing sexual for Jonbenet or any other inappropriately-dressed child, and can't comprehend why anyone would. [... Otherwise], he'll simply end up writing more articles like this one, which undermine themselves by taking on the very sensational and breathless tone that he claims to be condemning.
CaLawyer doesn't deny an interest in the case but resents the charge that it's an "obsession."
Like many people, I have an interest in this unsolved crime, and like most people, I am no more "obsessed" with this story than I am "obsessed" with other news stories. Methinks writers like Kincaid doth protest too much when he paints a picture of us who are interested in this case as weirdoes who are "obsessed" with the murder of a six-year-old beauty queen. These finger-pointers tip their hand when they use words like "titillating" to describe this horrific case. Like most people, I find nothing titillating about the death of a six year old girl. Maybe Kincaid and his ilk do, and they are projecting their own prurient reasons for their fascination with this case onto us.
As a law student himself, Freditor_G appreciates the lawyerly touch of CaLawyer's factor test explaining the story's appeal.
Not all readers are so quick to refuse responsibility for the eroticization of children. adept42 surmises that a secret longing for children is far more widespread than we may wish to believe:
Think back to your own adolescence. I'll bet that most of you will be able to remember developing an erotic interest in the opposite sex years before you were ready or able to act on that impulse. I don't think anyone would consider it strange or unhealthy for a child to be attracted to someone their own age.
Of course you've moved on but youthful desires never completely die. [...] Pedophilia isn't some kind of ultimate evil -its ultimate childishness. Its adults trying to make themselves happy with the same dreams they've had since they were kids. Its sad and pathetic more than anything else. Now of course a pedophile's crimes are awful and they deserve to be punished. But demonizing them and claiming we have absolutely never felt anything anywhere close to what they feel is a dangerous lie.
theotherme goes even further, arguing that sexual gratification is a unitary urge:
Imagine a spectrum titled "satisfying sexual urges via objects external to us." At both ends of the scale there are socially unacceptable objects. Let's say as you move to the left on the scale you start seeing inanimate objects, such as the crease on that old couch in the basement of a fraternity house. [...] Farther to the right, you start seeing animals, the mentally ill or undeveloped, dead people all the time, and children. In the broad middle of the range we find socially acceptable sexual activity -- sex with consenting adult partners pretty much captures it. [...]
Your very denial of any intention to have sex with children is proof positive that the power of your repressive reflex, far from being the guarantee of your celibacy with regard to children, is rather the precondition of their eroticization: the strength and energy of the "never with children" is a suspect defense mechanism. Of course, we would all love to have sex with kids. They're cute. They have nice skin. They smile winningly. In general, all those creatures who are cute, with nice skin, and who smile winningly (such as pumpkins, pigs named Babe -- we all know the list) act as excellent objects for discharging sexual energy. [...]
The mere fact that there's a *basis* for such-and-such behavior in humans does not lead to the conclusion that it's okay to do it, nor that the true origin of the behavior is in us. Rather, since the overwhelming majority do not use either pumpkins or children for the release of sexual energy -- despite the presence of unexplored tendencies in these directions -- we need to look *elsewhere* for the causal agent producing this behavior in a small subset of the population.
A former student of Kincaid's, hamlineprof struggles to bring the discussion back on topic:
Kincaid deplores the mistreatment of children in this culture, hell the mistreatment of every- and anyone. But, he argues, in a culture which claims to idealize the innocence of children, and raises a ruckus over every perceived threat to such innocents (from the media to strange abductors to you-name-it), why is there such *fascination* with the most extreme forms of mistreatment? Or, if we're so concerned with the mistreated, why aren't there blitzes of media coverage around the everyday abuses of children in poverty--why do we focus on the rarest of rare, and ignore the actual problems facing those we seek to protect? [...] On the one hand we ostensibly want to separate children from pain and abuse and sexuality and various other horrors. On the other hand, we ignore the most widespread and dangerous of such horrors.
MsZilla ventures an explanation for why that is so:
Because stranger danger can be helped. Whereas the other sort of thing really can't be. Because they don't have a simple pat answer to the actual problem, they'll give you a wrong but simple and pat answer to a tiny speck of it and hope that convinces you they have a good reason they have their head that far up their you-guessed-it. That's why they like to focus on it.
The training that is given in school, by child protection advocates and is recommended for parents can be effective when it comes to dealing with strangers. But it's very different when the person has the authority and influence on the child and the time with them to slowly get around that training. And a very small percentage of these crimes are committed by strangers. [...]
No amount of the training or practicing saying "No!" or any of the rest of it is terribly effective against an intelligent predator that is known to the child. And that is an absurdly large percentage of the cases. [...]
I was taught the same things when I was growing up. I practiced saying "No!" and did the little games with the teachers and my Mom. We read the coloring books and went through them and we "talked about it". I agonized to myself every time the subject came up, but I never told. I said the right things so my mother wouldn't worry. I didn't hate him. He was my stepfather. He was the father of my brothers and sisters. He was family. I loved him and I didn't want him to get in trouble. [...]
Do you honestly think your daughters would use those self-defense tactics on you? Say your four-year-old doesn't want to take off the pants she just tromped through a mud-puddle in because they're here favorites and she wants to wear them anyways. You're not gonna let her do that because she'll get mud everywhere and you don't have time to deal with the fuss because you have to go pick your wife up at the airport. So you deal with the situation by taking them off her. She gets scared. Do you in your heart of hearts think she'd fight you dirty enough to stop you? Do you think it's physically possible?
If the training you're talking about is to be at all effective, she would have to. It's all supposed to go off what makes them feel uncomfortable. So her fear because you look all angry and scary is supposed to trigger it. And changing her pants does involve getting your hands somewhere near a danger zone, and that's also supposed to do it. But you're her father. Do you think a few platitudes spouted at her once a year at school and a few pious affirmations by you that you mean she should do this even to you have a chance against that? Use your head.
Join the discussion in the Culturebox Fray. GA …11:25pm PDT
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
George W. Bush's reading of Albert Camus' L'Étranger (The Stranger), combined with Sen. George Allen's public utterance of an apparently French-derived racial slur, represents the rare infusion of francophilia into American politics (by two members of the conservative establishment, no less). A far cry from the days of Freedom Fries, indeed.
TJA speculates that mention of this novel in Talladega Nights, the Will Ferrell NASCAR comedy, might have inspired W.'s choice.
As a matter of diplomacy, Utek1 declares it was "probably unwise for the president to be seen reading a book about a soulless murderer of Arabs":
With Iraq in chaos, the ceasefire in Lebanon hanging by a thread, and the US making noises about invading Iran, the last thing Bush should be doing is throwing gasoline on the fire. But once an oil man, always an oil man.
Fortunately, the easiest way for Bush to make amends is to continue onto Camus' next novel, The Plague. Here, the hero isn't a murderer, but a doctor battling an epidemic of bubonic plague in the Algerian town of Oran. Despite the pestilence afflicting all those around him, the doctor continues to do his small part to relieve their suffering. The image of Bush reading about a Western caregiver providing comfort to Muslims during a bleak moment in their history would be a lot better PR for Bush than to be seen getting tips on how to murder Arabs without remorse.
Contrary to Dickerson, bhardin offers an alternative theory about the quintessential symbolism shared between Meursault (the protagonist in The Stranger) and G.W.:
The most interesting aspect of the novel is why Mersault is put to death. It isn't because he killed Arabs, which was rarely met with the death penalty. Rather it was his lack of compassion and explanation of his motives to the demanding public. Ultimately he was killed because he showed no sadness for the death of his mother. The public viewed him as inhuman. Bush is persecuted like Mersault not because he is a "remorseless killer of Arabs", but because he doesn't engage the public to explain himself. Bill Clinton also killed Arabs (e.g. bombing a "chemical weapons" plant/hospital in the Sudan) during his last year in office. However, he was an excellent communicator of emotions- he felt my pain. Of course, Bill would find more literary parallels with Willy Loman than Mersault.
Mersault is perhaps one of the most complex characters in modern literature, but to the mob that shouted for his death he would have been viewed as a Bush-like moron. Maybe, behind Bush's façade is a deeper, stoic intellectual who connects with a character publicly persecuted for his taciturn nature.
Soltasto, for one, applauds W.'s expansion of his intellectual horizons:
Regardless of his intentions, it will bring sorely needed new ideas to the man's head. I'm no Bush fan, but it is always important to defend any person's right to seek new information and evolve. Everything that penetrates his consciousness is going to affect his decisions in the future. For the next two years those decisions will affect everyone on Earth. Any actions this man takes toward expanding his tiny box of ideas should be applauded.
Thanks to astrotdog for tracking down the possible etymology of macaca:
Macaca ?= Makak = macaque = a french/belgium/dutch epithet for a Arab or black North African; derived from macaque, the old world monkey, once common in North Africa.
Further evidence of this derivation: Allen speaks French and his mother is of Tunisian origin, according to Clown_Nose.
As for Allen, RedStateImpressions criticizes Dickerson's "superficiality" as a journalist and for getting
the relation between Allen's racial attitudes and his "boobery" wrong. First, Allen isn't "racially insensitive"; he's a racist. Allen's as much a racist as Mel Gibson is an anti-semite. The "macaca" comment comes on top of the Confederate flag fascination, the picture of a noose hanging from a tree, and the pro-Confederate proclamations Allen made while governor. We should all be honest enough to take the broad hints that Allen's been giving us.
Dickerson also writes as though being a racist and being a boob are different things. This is not the case with Allen. The "macaca" comment was a pretty standard boob approach to racism. Instead of calling the opposition photographer Sidarth by one of the standard racial epithets for dark-skinned people, Sen. Allen thought that he would use a fancy French term for blacks that no one would recognize. This is almost precisely what it means to be a boob, to think that you're the smartest person in the room even while you're making an idiot of yourself. Sen. Allen thought he was demonstrating his racial superiority to the irritating guy, thought he was entertaining his all-white audience, and thought he was scoring points while he was NOT noticing that Sidarth was holding a camera in his hand and recording the whole blundering soliloguy. What a racist boob!
As little respect as I have for George Bush, it wasn't fair for Dickerson to equate Allen with the President. Whatever his failures as president and "goofy, amiable, towel-snapping qualities," Pres. Bush has too much "message discipline" to be caught making that kind of racist comment on camera even if he feels that way in private (and I don't think he does). Perhaps the worst thing you can say about George Allen is that he is considerably more of a boob than George Bush.
Not that such a thing would stop the Republicans from nominating him.
A profusion of additional commentary can be found in Politics. AC … 5:53pm PDT
Monday, August 14, 2006
In her latest column, "Teen Terror," Dahlia Lithwick ponders the similarities between a teenager and a terrorist. While noting many commonalities—or, perhaps, overlaps—between the two categories, Lithwick believes that, "because teenage boys with grudges are fundamentally different from adult men with liquid explosives, we should resist the lure of using terror laws to prosecute them."
Several readers disagree that American high-schoolers with dreams of mass homicide are different in nature from Islamic terrorists bent on mayhem and destruction. HLS2003 doesn't think Lithwick's case adds up:
The only analysis she does offer contradicts her assertion. After all, what is the difference between Timothy McVeigh and Mohammed Atta, other than one's motivation by Nazi fascism and one's motivation by a form of religious fascism? They were both terrorists and they both wanted to kill a lot of people. And how old do you think many of these terrorists are, Dahlia? Are they all thirty-somethings who have gotten past the pimply stage? Or are many young and impressionable teens just like your alleged victims here?
Another practicing attorney, carolfb, explains the legal doctrine of "terroristic threat":
While modern "terrorism as a political weapon" has changed our use of words, people have been terrorizing other people for millenia. "Terroristic threat" is not a new idea springing from the world-wide-war-on-terror, but an old concept in criminal law. While I would agree the teens you discuss are not "terrorists" as the word is used today, their actions (if proven) do indeed constitute "terroristic threats".
A terroristic threat is any credible threat that terrorizes another. [...] Depending on where you live, there are historical artifacts in these statutes. In Georgia, a terroristic act includes burning a cross or other symbol with the intent to terrorize another or another's household. Depending on the seriousness of the threat, the charge can be a misdemeanor or felony. [...]
My experience with terroristic threats comes primarily from representing women in domestic violence cases. [...] The goal in these crimes is the same goal as international terrorism, writ small. The abuser wants to control "his" woman. She won't challenge him so long as she is afraid of him. Usually VERY afraid of him. [...]
The teens you describe are also seeking to control those around them -- perhaps for different reasons but with the same tool -- terror. I agree that these kids are not international terrorists a la Osama Bin Laden. They are, however, mixed up adolescents who are INTENDING to scare the pants off other folks. That is the whole point of these activities: hurt or kill some folks, TERRORIZE lots more. The criminal code does and should address not only the physical assault, but the "terroristic threat".
Clown_Nose agrees there's a difference between American teenagers and Islamic terrorists but wants to close the gap as quickly as possible:
Why doesn't the United States take advantage of the teen angst like the Islamists do?
It seems to me that we know that suicide is a leading cause of death for teens. Islamists take advantage of this by telling these teens that it is God calling them to kill infidels.
Instead of using psychologists to try (and fail) to fix this defect, why don't we seize the opportunity and send these people over seas to blow up terrorist cells? They are going to die anyway, we might as well get some value out of it. [...] Lets jump on the bandwagon and use some losers too.
Dayenu not only believes we should treat murderous students as terrorists, she's prepared to take out the stateside sponsors who harbor them:
It does seem that one element is missing from this equation. It would probably be a good idea to prosecute and lock up parents who exist in such a moral vacuum that they could watch their kids assemble arsenals and do nothing.
As long as we're talking categorically, FoxyGoth notes that homicidal kids draped in black aren't really Goth.
Several posters write in to help explain the difference between the Columbine shooters and international terrorists. Eigenvector argues for an intuitive approach: "Yeah the line is grey, faintly grey, but don't we have enough definitions of killer so that we don't have to pile on to the latest fad in bloodshed?" Angharad fingers ideology as the relevant factor.
There are also some interesting variants on the theme of blaming society for homegrown child terrorists. Luchese puts the prosecutors of seriously wayward youth into the docket:
Children and adolescents are not adults. They should never even be considered such in a court. But this society has become punitive, vengeful and rigid in its own obsession to achieve "justice" through the courts. Trying American children or adolescents as terrorist is barbaric, abominable and counter productive to what the real issues are; human understanding, compassion and prevention. But when the adults who promulgate this form of retribution it indicates they are still attempting to resolve their own childhood and adolescent anger, fear and depression and have given up. It is therefore projected onto the victim and then it is simple human sacrifice to bring, in the long run, a short term solution.
BenK has a strangely compelling argument for pinning teen terrorism on FDR's New Deal:
My mind turns to ways to solve their basic problem. For instance: get them out of school, into jobs they can be proud of, where they can prove themselves, perhaps attract girls, and relieve themselves of the depression and anxiety that may largely be the fault of FDR's misguided attempts to reduce unemployment by forcing employable young men back into school and out of the work force.
Discussion is off to an excellent start in the Jurisprudence Fray. Come on in and join us. GA …12:00am PDT
Sunday, August 13, 2006
The Dear Prudence Fray has been atwitter this weekend over the curious case of the duplicate letter. In Thursday's column, Prudie responded to a letter from a teacher that had appeared, verbatim, in an earlier column for Salon, by Cary Tennis. Salon's author apparently jumped into the Fray to share some thoughts on the overlap.
As long as you're comparing advisers, Fraywatch is pleased to note the return of the Fray's own shadow Prudence—star poster doodahman. Several years ago, the weekly feature "My Two Cents" was a must-read for followers of Dear Prudence. These newly reminted pennies haven't lost their luster while out of circulation:
Dear Post Graduate Curse:
First year teaching, eh? Hell, lady, you didn't waste much time, huh? MTC needs to put out a disclaimer here. His first foray into actual adult style sex occurred after graduation at the national debate tournament, in the front seat of the car of the coach from another high school. He made it to quarter finals and crossed the plate in the same event.
As a result, MTC considers post-graduation dalliances between teachers and students to be not only acceptable, but A-OK, wink wink, nod nod. In fact, high school forensic teams may have been the very hotbed of sexual activity between students and teachers. doodahman's own coach put the moves on him and other team members more than once, and ultimately ran off with another student a year or two later-- leaving behind a husband and two babies.
So, you're hardly alone. Stop beating yourself up.
A lot of folks will respond with absurd and hyperbolic charges that you're some kind of predator, a pervert, a corrupter of youth. Don't believe a word of it. You are a teacher. What was your little tryst other than teaching? Hell, in this day and age, the kid probably taught you a thing or two. If nothing else, you helped take the steam out of an 18 year old sexual locomotive before it ran over some innocent girl unprepared for the responsibilities of sex. As far as MTC is concerned, you madam, are, if not a saint, surely someone's godsend.
Of course, this is a minority view, and should this affair come to light, it may cause you some professional problems. Fortunately, not legal ones, but problems nonetheless. That'll be the case depending on the maturity of your punky paramour. If he's immature, he'll shoot his mouth off sooner or later and then it's Katie-bar-the-door time. But if he has a degree of maturity that befits somebody qualified to diddle your syllabus, he ought to remain discrete. But, it's a risk you run every time you pick a lover from the junior varsity. Considering that you pulled this the first year on the job, your lust for the boys is something you need to control (as opposed to "stay on top of").
That's for the future, though. For now, don't worry about the past-- you did good girl.
Fans may wish to check out doodahman's other recent entries here , here, and here.
Have you ever thought about trying your own hand as an advice columnist? Well, there's no need to compete with Prudence! Dolph would like to know "how do you conduct a funeral for a man who said that he didn't believe in God?" mtntraveler is trying to decide "should text messages be considered cheating?" If you're of sound mind and bawdy, we could use your advice in the Dear Prudence Fray. GA …12:00am PDT
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Based on Ned Lamont's narrow victory over incumbent Joe Lieberman in Connecticut's senatorial primary, Jacob Weisberg's prediction of the Democratic Party's retreat into 1970s McGovernite leftism on matters of foreign policy (and with it, electoral doom) provoked an unusually strong reaction, both in tone and quantity of posts.
A spate of fraysters reject the analogy with Vietnam-era liberalism. Samphire calls this an oversimplification, while for doodahman, Weisberg's comparison marks an abrupt about-face for a journalist who has spent the last three "years of this war telling us how it ain't nothing like Vietnam."
Rabin dismisses fears of neo-isolationism among Democrats as a straw-man argument, unless Weisberg can identify by name the Democratic politicians who actually fit this label, as "people who want to withdraw from Iraq (Feingold, Lamont, Kerry, etc) are not isolationists. None of these people want a radical change in foreign policy outside of Iraq. They're all pro-Israel, they're all pro-US intervention in some areas, they all take the threat of islamic terrorism seriously. One of the largest reasons used for supporting withdrawal is that American presence in Iraq hurts the WoT and resources could be much better spent elsewhere."
ShanCan similarly demands evidence of this radical left-wing contingent: "By evidence I mean something besides our lack of support for Bush's failed policies in the middle east, and our utter disgust at his exploitation of the fears of ordinary citizens in order to gain support for his policies that do nothing to make us safer (policies which arguably make us less safe) while simultaneously ignoring or blocking activities and policies that might actually improve the security of our nation?"
For his part, ElFool picks apart the false dichotomy in Weisberg's characterization of the Lamont camp: "seeing Iraq as a politicized right-wing response is not mutually exclusive with taking terrorism seriously."
In Byron_Raum's formulation, the "anti-war" label applies in earnest only to a very small pacifist minority that does not include the Lamont faction. Instead, there are really "two war camps":
One is, by far, the most belligerent. It's a war against anyone who happens to look like an Arab or a Muslim. It's run by people who are unable to distinguish between bin Laden, a terrorist religious fanatic, and Saddam Hussein, a secular, anti-religion fascist dictator. Hey, they are all Arabs, right?
These are not exactly neocons themselves, but these are the neocons' "useful idiots." In this camp also fall the pro-Israelis, who as a people suffer from the paranoid delusion that anyone who criticizes them has the ultimate goal of exterminating every Jew. In other words, only an anti-Semite would criticize a Jew.
To some extent, given their history, I can sympathize, but indulging them fully is far too expensive and destructive of other human lives. Eventually, if they are left unfettered, this means the extermination of everyone who is not a Jew, because every Jew is a human being, and therefore imperfect.
Quite obviously, a lot of people do not take this war seriously because it is assinine in the extreme.
We are the "other" war lobby, believing that we need to have a war of extermination with terrorists and fanatics. The difference is that we are extremely specific about who we paint with this brush, realizing that people are all pretty much the same; give someone a chance to live a dignified life in peace, and they will live a dignified life in peace. This means a pansy-like worrying about the sensitivites of Muslims, because we want them to feel that we care about them, and that it's a good idea for them to be moderate. It means respecting their dignities and freedoms, treating them and everyone else with decency, in order to get at the terrorists that hide in their midst. We are not willing to sacrifice our freedoms, the freedoms that our fathers paid for in blood. We believe that a competent Administration would be capable of finding terrorists without needing to pry into everything and having the ability to detain anyone at random.
The bottom line is, our war is much less expensive than theirs, and more importantly, it does not leave the world in ruin and the Constitution in tatters. We support the war on terror. We are just not willing to accept your broad definitions of what a terrorist is.
Metacom criticizes the Beltway establishment's reading of the tea leaves:
What we have in Connecticut is that the more liberal party in a liberal state has decided that it doesn't like the way Lieberman has behaved. This doesn't translate to a national movement. Look at what happened to Cynthia McKinney in Georgia.
She has two things in common with Joe Lieberman, a sense of entitlement, and a primary loss. Other than that, they are quite different. McKinney has been far to the left and an outspoken critic of President Bush's foreign policy.
Lieberman is closer to the center on many issues and he has been a defender and facilitator of Bush's foreign policy.
Yet they both lost. Why? Because politics and political views are local.
If Tuesday says anything about the national mood, it's that incumbents are in trouble.
DeanC offers the opposite diagnosis (from Weisberg) of the election's significance for the country:
similar to what was supposed to happen when we invaded Iraq, Americans across the country have seen an outbreak of democracy in Connecticut and are going to be energized by this act of anti-incumbent, anti-Bush success and be inspired to do the same-- in short, causing a domino effect across the United States.
By contrast, Classicsman diminishes the importance of Connecticut as "after all a very small place, and perhaps the bluest of the blue states. To accept as an axiom that what happened there in a primary hijacked (and maybe hacked as well) by extreme anti-war elements is somehow a harbinger of things to come nationwide is laughably sophomoric."
USARST, rejecting the prediction of doom for the Democrats, blames Lieberman's loss on his "inching his way away from the core democratic party values for some time now":
His membership and high profile stance in the DLC, for example, tell us much about his democratic credentials. To explain and then forecast his defeat as some larger march towards political obscurity for Democrats ignores the fact that Joe was out of touch with his constituents and their views. An increasingly anti-war constituency is understanding that our ability to do much of anything, be it domestic or international, has been sidetracked by the disaster that is Iraq. The reasons for going in were disingenuous and the "plan" for victory is non-existant. It is time for some payback for those that continue to support this nonsense and Joe is most deserving of this for his support for the President on this and other issues.
Chauncy agrees that this election was about more than one issue, including Lieberman's "view toward privatizing social security, supporting corporate interests, and allowing Supreme Court nominees to remain filibuster free." That said, "I also feel that too much credit is being given to the bloggers. In my neighborhood, I don't know of too many people that keep up with the blogs. Rightwing talk radio, yes, blogs no. The blogs still seem to be wonky and insulated to me. Yes they affect discourse, but so do the MSM and radio."
Lamont's candidacy reaks of opportunism more than idealism, from mallardsballad's standpoint:
It doesn't take million dollar consultants to figure out that a very blue state with an established but aloof senator makes an opportune target for those that have the money, a sense of adventure and greedy ambition…
Could it possibly be that the tasty yet empty issue of war be a line used to feed Lamont's own rich boy ambition of being a senator?
…the Senate seat is just a stepping stone for personal ambitions and the issue of war is a big hallow plank used as a convenient shortcut to get through the muddy political bog and to that Senate stepping stone.
The Big Idea Fray is an embarrassment of riches at the moment, generating more intelligent debate than can be summarized in this column. For all of Weisberg's detractors here, it's worth noting that his interpretation of Lieberman's defeat is echoed by Jonah Goldberg's Los Angeles Times op-ed and Thomas B. Edsall's article in The New Republic. AC …4:50pm PDT


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The Kiruna Ministerial Meeting of the Arctic Council – WWF input
Climate change remains the prime driving force in both the development and degradation of the Arctic. Climate change in the Arctic also drives global impacts, such as water level rise, affecting hundreds of millions of people around the world.
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Oil and GasThe risks and potential impacts associated with Arctic offshore oil and gas development are currently largely unknown and what is known shows risks are unacceptably high and unmanageable. WWF believes that without proper regulation of operations, available proven techniques for prevention and response to oil spills and adequate knowledge about Arctic systems there should be no new development of hydrocarbons in the Arctic offshore. This unreadiness to drill was graphically illustrated by Shell's series of mishaps as it attempted to drill off Alaska last year.
The Arctic Council Member Governments have gone some way toward safer development by their agreement on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response for Arctic Waters. WWF is also participating in the efforts being made by the Council to address the prevention of oil spills through the report "Recommended Practices for Arctic Oil Spill Prevention" and its recommendations.
WWF recommendation
- The Arctic Council further advances its work on oil spill prevention by negotiating an international instrument on marine oil spill prevention.
Environmentally Sound Arctic Shipping OperationsAs climate change eats away at Arctic sea ice, increasing numbers of ships use the Arctic Ocean to transport goods and to bring newly accessible Arctic resources to southern markets. More boats travelling Arctic waters pressure the biodiversity and ecosystems of the region, and raise prospects of catastrophic impacts from spills.
There are international agreements, both existing and in negotiation that can help deal with these pressures. But at present, the Arctic states are not acting in a concerted and coordinated fashion to ensure these agreements provide the protection needed, such as a ban on polluting heavy fuel oil in Arctic waters.
WWF recommendation
- The Arctic Council creates a coordinated voice by Arctic states in international agreements to update Arctic-specific shipping measures relevant to safety and environmental protection.


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