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Ravitch: The pitfalls of putting economists in charge of education
This was written by education historian Diane Ravitch on her Bridging Differences blog, which she co-authors with Deborah Meier on the Education Week website. Ravitch and Meier exchange letters about what matters most in education. Ravitch, a research professor at New York University, is the author of the bestselling "The Death and Life of the Great American School System," an important critique of the flaws in the modern school reform movement.
Dear Deborah,
A few weeks ago, Mike Rose [a professor at UCLA] posted a list of his New Year's resolutions. One of them was that we should "make do with fewer economists in education. These practitioners of the dismal science have flocked to education reform, though most know little about teaching and learning." Mike suggested that so few economists were able to give useful advice about the financial and housing markets that we should now be skeptical about expecting them "to change education for the better."
I agree with Mike.
It is astonishing to realize the extent to which education debates are now framed and dominated by economists, not by educators or sociologists or cognitive psychologists or anyone else who actually spends time in classrooms. My bookshelves are chock full of books that analyze the teaching of reading, science, history, and other subjects; books that examine the lives of children; books that discuss the art and craft of teaching; books about the history of educational philosophy and practice; books about how children learn.
Now such considerations seem antique. Now we are in an age of data-based decision-making, where economists rule. They tell us that nothing matters but performance, and performance can be quantified, and those who do the quantification need never enter a classroom or think about how children learn.
So the issue of our day is: How do we measure teacher effectiveness? Most of the studies by economists warn that there is a significant margin of error in "value-added assessment" (VAA) or "value-added modeling" (VAM). The basic idea of VAA is that teacher quality can be measured by the test-score gains of their students. Proponents of VAA see it as the best way to identify teachers who should get merit pay and teachers who should be fired. Critics say that the method is too flawed to use for high-stakes purposes such as these.
Last July, the U.S. Department of Education published a study by Mathematica Policy Research, which estimated that even with three years of data, there was an error rate of 25 percent. A few months ago, I signed onto a statement by a group of testing experts, which cautioned that such strategies were likely to misidentify which teachers were effective and which were ineffective, to promote teaching narrowly to the test, and to cause a narrowing of the curriculum.
None of these cautions has stemmed the tide of rating teachers by student test scores and releasing the ratings. Last year, the Los Angeles Times published an online database that rated 6,000 teachers as to their effectiveness (one of them, elementary school teacher Rigoberto Ruelas, committed suicide a few weeks later). New York City is poised to make a public release of the names and ratings of 12,000 teachers, if the courts give the go-ahead (in the first trial, a judge ruled that the data could be released even if it was inaccurate).
This trend did not just happen. It was encouraged by the Obama administration's Race to the Top, which urged states to develop quantitative measures of teacher effectiveness. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has issued statements endorsing the publication of teachers' names and ratings, although few testing experts agree with this practice.
The bulk of studies warn about the inaccuracy and instability of these measures, but the Gates Foundation recently released a study called "Measures of Effective Teaching" (MET) that supports the use of VAA and VAM. As is customary for the Gates Foundation, it hired an impressive list of economists at institutions across the nation to give the gloss of authority to its work. Among its key findings was this one: "Teachers with high value-added on state tests tend to promote deeper conceptual understanding as well." Ah, said the proponents of measuring teacher quality by the rise and fall of student test scores, this study vindicates these methods and effectively counters all those cautionary warnings.
But now comes a re-analysis of the Gates study by University of California-Berkeley economist Jesse Rothstein, which says that the MET study reached the wrong conclusions and that its data demonstrate that VAA misidentifies which teachers are more effective and is not much better than a coin toss.
Even the claim that teachers whose students get high scores on state tests will also get high scores on tests of "deeper conceptual understanding" is flawed, writes Rothstein. The correlation between the two tests was actually modest: About 29 percent of the teachers in the bottom quintile on the basic skills tests were rated above average on the tests of reasoning and critical thinking; these are the teachers who would be fired if the Gates Foundation had its way.
"Interpreted correctly," writes Rothstein, the analyses in the Gates' report "undermine rather than validate value-added-based approaches to teacher evaluation." Jesse Rothstein is not just any economist; not only has he studied VAA in the past, but he served as senior economist for President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors and chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. So he is well-equipped to take on the entire stable of Gates-funded economists, mano a mano.
For another take on these issues, I recommend a lively blog debate between economist Dan Goldhaber and teacher John Thompson.
Thompson warned Goldhaber that economists should think seriously about the damage their methods will wreak on teachers and children and schools, especially low-income schools, where it is harder to get big test-score gains. In one of Thompson's perceptive comments, he wrote, "If teachers have a one-sixth, one-fifth, or one-third chance per year of being wrongly indicted as ineffective, none will ever have any peace of mind.
Effective teachers with self-respect will flee those schools for lower-poverty schools."
I was reminded of a comment by Rutgers economist Bruce Baker, who asked whether you would buy a car if the salesman assured you that it would explode only once every five times you turned the ignition key.
If we step back a bit, Deborah, don't you think there is a certain kind of madness in thinking that economists who never set foot in a classroom can create a statistical measure to tell us how best to educate children? It seems some will never be satisfied until they have a technical process to override the judgments of those who work in schools and are in daily contact with teachers and children. I don't know of any other nation in the world that is so devoted to this effort to turn education into a statistical problem that can be solved by a computer. It is not likely to end well.
Follow my blog every day by bookmarking washingtonpost.com/answersheet. And for admissions advice, college news and links to campus papers, please check out our Higher Education page at washingtonpost.com/higher-ed Bookmark it!
Valerie Strauss
| January 18, 2011; 2:00 PM ET
Categories: Diane Ravitch, Guest Bloggers, Teacher assessment, Teachers | Tags: diane ravitch, gates foundation, gates-funded project, mike rose, teacher assessment, teacher evaluation, value-added, value-added measures
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Next: The case against NCLB reauthorization
"... a certain kind of madness..."
You've nailed it again, Diane; maybe this is THE nail.
- Surely it is madness when we are
depriving children of a childhood - no
art, music, recess, P.E,, etc.
- Surely it is madness when we ignore
our own common sense, i.e., of course
poverty matters, of course teachers
aren't perfect, and....of course it's
NOT OK for people who know zilch about
children and learning to make the
big policy decisions.
I'm thinking the root word in madness is 'mad' - if everything a big anger issue?
Posted by: PLMichaelsArtist-at-Large | January 18, 2011 3:18 PM | Report abuse
last line should have finished: "- is everything in education a big anger issue?"
Posted by: PLMichaelsArtist-at-Large | January 18, 2011 3:22 PM | Report abuse
Has anyone ever talked about how Arne Duncan put no thought into the way he set up charter schools in Chicago? Like the fact that some charters get 95% funding and some only 75% funding. Or that some charters get wrap arounds services funded by CPS, and others don't?
Posted by: resc | January 18, 2011 5:51 PM | Report abuse
As usual, Ravitch speaks with the force of reason in an increasingly irrational time period in public education. Isn't it ultimately ironic that teachers rated high on their ability to engage students in critical thinking and reasoning scored low on the "Gates" teacher evaluation system? Economists have shown the American public the danger of "pr spin" as pr spin can make anything seem very unlike the reality... think Enron... think mortgage crisis... think Bernie Madoff... Ravitch points out what should be very obvious to all... economists are not experts in childhood development and learning and they should more importantly get their own affairs in order (yes they have made a disaster of our national and world economy)!
Posted by: teachermd | January 18, 2011 6:16 PM | Report abuse
It starts with Carolyn Hoxby's preposterous analysis of school choice. Her dissertation merits discussion for its influence on advocates of school choice and vouchers despite its ludicrous assumptions.
Posted by: Jennifer88 | January 18, 2011 8:46 PM | Report abuse
I would encourage readers of this blog to click on the above hyperlink, "I signed onto a statement" as it is a great eye-opener that explains the inherent problems of value added assessments of teachers.
Posted by: teachermd | January 18, 2011 10:40 PM | Report abuse
I'm glad WaPo picked this up. I don't have as much hope for the "edu pundits" at the major networks, especially NBC, who has ties to Microsoft/Gates.
The corporate takeover of education is not being reported. We should picket these people. These people are censors. The consequences are grave.
Posted by: hukdunshur | January 19, 2011 8:36 AM | Report abuse
Wait, we put corporate economists in charge of banking and health care, and look how well that turned out ...
Posted by: mcstowy | January 19, 2011 1:56 PM | Report abuse
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South African Journal of Science
On-line version ISSN 1996-7489
Print version ISSN 0038-2353
S. Afr. j. sci. vol.110 n.5-6 Pretoria Mar. 2014
Further response to Govinder et al. (2014): Flaws in the equity index
Tom A. Moultrie; Rob E. Dorrington
Centre for Actuarial Research (CARe), University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
Keywords: transformation; demographics; equity profile; Euclidean distance formula; higher education; South Africa
We note the response of Govinder et al.1 to our comments2 on an earlier article of theirs3 on the proposed Equity Index (EI) to measure the transformation of higher education in South Africa. Despite their attempts to allay concerns about the intrinsic weaknesses of the EI, many concerns remain. The purpose of this brief response is not to attempt to re-argue each and every point - we leave most to readers to decide - but to highlight some of the more fundamental issues with which the authors failed to deal adequately.
On the mathematics of the equity index
Govinder et al. claim that the mathematics of the EI is not and has not been shown to be flawed.1 This is simply not true. We have pointed out that the formulation preferred by Govinder et al. is not only mathematically incorrect, but also that it leads to double counting. Apart from this, as pointed out by others4, the underlying logic of using a Euclidean distance as a measure of this sort is both inappropriate and wrong. The authors seem to think that mathematical criticism can be dismissed by simply saying it is not so. And it is this point, above all others, that has not been adequately addressed.
Secondly, the authors' understanding of distance - vide the assertion in their response that 'Els are calculated using the distance formula, mathematically they can indeed be added together or subtracted from each other (as can distances in general)' - is quaint. If one takes Johannesburg as the origin, and one notes that the distance from Johannesburg to Bloemfontein is 400 km, while that from Johannesburg to Durban is 600 km, nothing can be inferred from this information about the distance from Bloemfontein to Durban (650 km). Distances can only be added or subtracted if all relevant points are located on the same straight line passing through the chosen origin. Nonetheless, the authors pursue a red herring by insinuating that we claimed that Table 5 of their paper demonstrated their addition of EIs. On the contrary, we never refer to Table 5, but to Figure 2, which does indeed present the EIs for institutions as being the sum of the respective staffing component EIs. Poor presentation of the data in Figure 2 cannot be attributed to the vagaries of 'greyscale' as the authors suggest. The contradiction between the assertion above that the EIs can be added, and their vigorous (to the point of misrepresenting our argument) defence of their not having added EIs in Table 5 is puzzling.
Thirdly, although as we pointed out, and as was repeated by the authors1, the relative ranking of the higher education institutions (HEIs) does not change when using the correct version of the EI, the authors quietly ignore the point that the range and hence the designation of objective quadrants do change.
Finally, the authors confuse the undoubted utility of being able to decompose the EI by race and sex with mathematical correctness. The fact that on their - mathematically incorrect - version, the EI can be decomposed offers no proof of its mathematical validity, and a 'useful' result is not actually useful if it is premised on flawed logic.
On transformation and legislation
Govinder et al. claim that the EI is 'based on the Constitution' of South Africa. This is trite. The Constitution requires all South Africans to work towards the transformation of our society, with transformation seen as representing the process of change, rather than a defined end-point. We certainly do not contest that transformation is a national imperative or argue that HEIs are exempt from the broader need to transform South African society.
However, labour legislation in South Africa, which also has to be consistent with the Constitution, protects the rights of employed workers. All else being equal, transformation can be expected to be slower in institutions where staff turnover is low. It is not clear whether the authors are proposing raising staff turnover rates (perhaps through making working conditions unpleasant, or perhaps paying people to take on a form of employment that is not counted in the EI) in order to bring about transformation faster. But even if this were the case, the authors seem to have adopted a peculiarly ahistorical stance on the issue of the staffing of South Africa's universities. In our initial comments, we demonstrated (in our Figure 1) that it is likely that much of the poor pace of transformation in South African HEIs might be rooted in South Africa's past. While this is in no way a justification for future lack of transformation, it is naïve to disregard the pernicious legacy of apartheid in terms of who got access to higher education; who got higher degrees; and therefore who is currently qualified to be employed as academic staff at HEIs in South Africa. As we noted, the distribution by race and sex of the South African population aged 25-64 with higher degrees is overwhelmingly skewed towards white South Africans. While this must change, and is changing, it is not helpful during this change to blame the slow pace of demographic change of HEIs on these institutions alone or even on the sector as a whole.
On the data and other aspects of the Equity Index
Govinder et al. suggest that the issue of inclusion of foreigners is a matter that is not yet settled. But as we noted in our Commentary, the germane issue is that the Employment Equity Act defines the classes of employee for transformation purposes more specifically than that currently captured by demographic data in a census or on the HEMIS database.
Apart from this, Govinder et al. have misused the census data, treating those with unstated race in the census as foreigners (which most are not) and those born outside South Africa (with stated race) as being South African. However, until the data collection in the census and the HEMIS data is changed to permit the identification of foreigners (as required by EE legislation), the utility of the EI is highly questionable. In addition, in order to compare El and 'quality', the data on research output (or any other measure of output, such as numbers of graduates) would also have to be equivalently classified, which they are not. Finally, although in society as a whole, foreign-born residents may be comparatively rare, in some HEls they can constitute a significant minority of staff. Any system that rewards not employing foreign academics implicitly would seem to weight a narrow parochialism and nationalism more highly than the transfer or production of knowledge.
ln spite of the length of their rebuttal, readers of this correspondence will note that the authors have largely failed to engage with the major theoretical considerations raised in the commentaries. We re-iterate that the mathematics of their El is incorrect. We, with other commentators, also repeat that demographic transformation is but one of many aspects of transformation. The danger of an index such as this is that those other aspects are sidelined. Our approach would be to be more inclusive - to build a 'dashboard of indicators' of the multiple dimensions of transformation that can be appraised simultaneously, rather than privileging one (supposedly quantifiable) aspect of transformation over those which are less analytically tractable, such as the apparent tension between high research output and being less transformed, or the role of universities in serving the developmental needs of a society at a critical juncture, or the need to balance quality of education against quantity of education, or the need to massify higher education. lt is our view that the El as it currently stands adds little value to the debate on the transformation of higher education in South Africa. Much more careful and rigorous thought is required before such metrics should be applied.
1. Govinder KS, Zondo NP Makgoba MW. Taking the transformation discourse forward: A response to Cloete, Dunne and Moultrie and Dorrington. S Afr J Sci.2014;110(3/4), Art. #a0060, 8 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/ sajs.2014/a0060 [ Links ]
2. Moultrie TA, Dorrington RE. Flaws in the approach and application of the Equity Index: Comments on Govinder et al. (2013). S Afr J Sci. 2014;110(1/2), Art. #a0049, 5 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/sajs.2014/a0049 [ Links ]
3. Govinder KS, Zondo NP, Makgoba MW. A new look at demographic transformation for universities in South Africa. S Afr J Sci. 2013;109(11/12), Art. #2013-0163, 11 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/sajs.2013/20130163 [ Links ]
4. Dunne T. Mathematical errors, smoke and mirrors in pursuit of an illusion: Comments on Govinder et al. (2013). S Afr J Sci. 2014;110(1/2), Art. #a0047, 6 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/sajs.2014/a0047 [ Links ]
Tom Moultrie
Centre for Actuarial Research
University of Cape Town
Private Bag X3, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa

subset: commoncrawl


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Each day, Dustin invites readers into the lives of the Kudlick family, who have welcomed the strip's 23-year-old namesake back into the house after college for "just a little while."
Mind you, the Kudlicks are not a dysfunctional family — rather they are highly functioning with mother (Helen), father (Ed) and daughter (Megan) suddenly living again with devoutly dysfunctional Dustin, who at 23 is unemployed, unmotivated and unable to see any of that as a problem.
An inveterate dreamer, Dustin refuses the prescribed route to success — working his way up. Instead, he insists he will patent an invention…join the PGA Tour…or take his comedy act to television. Until then, he works temporary jobs for a day or two — sometimes a week — and then quits or is fired and the process begins anew. One day, he's a meter maid, taking down soccer mom SUVs. The next day, he is a private detective investigating a cheating spouse: "I have to follow some lady around the golf course…her husband thinks she's moving her ball."
Though Dustin is the star, the stripis what creators Steve Kelley and Jeff Parker call a "sitcomic" that often explores relationships of cast members, even in Dustin's absence. Kelley notes, "Between Dustin's temp jobs, Helen's radio show and Ed's law practice, the strip has plenty of fresh air pouring in. The only thing about Dustin that's predictable is that it's different every day."
Dustin was named "Newspaper Comic Strip of the Year" by the National Cartoonists Society for 2010.
At 23, Dustin Kudlick is a recent college graduate who majored in English because he already spoke the language. Unencumbered with ambition, Dustin's goal is to find a career that yields the greatest pay for the least amount of effort.
As a successful general practice lawyer, the family patriarch sets a high bar. His second job is encouraging Dustin to move onward and upward — but he'd settle for out.
Sunny and self-assured, Helen is Dustin's enabler, forever defending him to his father. An unapologetic shopper, Helen hosts a successful call-in radio show.
Studious and disciplined, Meg is everything her older brother isn't.
The salty owner of TurboTemps, a one-Cajun-woman employment agency, Simone provides Dustin with temporary job assignments and unending criticism.
See what the Royal Membership is all about.


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Long forgotten by the world, the crisis in Somalia is back in the limelight as Somali pirates hijack dozens of ships, thereby threatening shipping routes in the Indian Ocean.
Meanwhile, Islamic insurgents have intensified attacks against a US backed government and now control Somalia's port city of Kismayu. It is feared that renewed fighting will disrupt food supplies to millions of Somalis currently living in camps and ravaged by drought and flooding disasters.
Incidentally, most of the pirate gangs are based in the region of Puntland, controlled by militiamen loyal to Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf. Recently, though, pirate activities have spread to the south of the country as violence rages.
Problems in Somalia worsened in December 2006, when the United States decided to overthrow the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC). By mid 2006, the UIC had succeeded in creating a functional government in Somalia for the first time since clan warfare wrecked the country in 1991.
During the short-lived reign of the UIC, piracy in the Indian Ocean almost ceased but with its overthrow, piracy has grown faster than before.
The United States fears that the UIC will create an Islamic caliphate in East Africa. Ethiopia, which is battling a Somali insurgency in its Ogden province, supported the US and sent troops into Somalia. Kenya, which also has a Somali minority, closed its border and arrested dozens of UIC fighters. US and Ethiopian airstrikes destroyed the Islamic Courts militia, forcing the movement underground and its leaders into exile.
This year, the Islamic Al-Shabaab youth group has intensified attacks against President Yusuf and the Ethiopian Army resulting in heavy losses on all sides. A few Ugandan soldiers in the African Union peacekeeping force have died in the fighting. In August, Al-Shabaab recaptured the southern city of Kismayu. Last Tuesday, Al-Shabaab threatened to shoot down any aircraft landing or taking off from Mogadishu Airport. Private airline operators kept off, further undermining the US backed government.
Between 1960 and the 1980s, Somalia was a theatre for proxy wars between the United States and the Soviet Union. Indeed, the Somali president at the time, General Mohamed Siad Barre, shifted loyalties between the two powers several times. Somalia is attractive to world powers because of its strategic location at the mouth of the Red Sea.
General Barre exploited rivalries between Somali clans to stay in power. By 1990, the countryside was plunged into lawlessness by clan fighting and defections from the Somali Army. General Barre was scorned as, " the Mayor of Mogadishu." In 1991, Mogadishu was no longer safe and Barre fled into exile. He died in Nigeria a few years later.
A United Nations intervention ended in 1993 after the UN and the United States got entangled in the complexities of Somali clan politics. Several UN and US soldiers were killed during the intervention. Meanwhile, warlords fought for control of highways, towns, plantations, airports and sea ports.
In 2004, the Somali Transitional government was formed in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. The transitional government was doomed to fail as it was composed of warlords. President Yusuf himself was a warlord in the self-declared Republic of Puntland, where Somali piracy is centred. Infighting among the warlords prevented the Transitional government from settling in Mogadishu.
Somali warlords are believed be sponsored by multinational companies, regional and international powers eager to influence events in Somalia. The biggest culprits are the Arab world, Libya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and the United States.
Amidst the vacuum, Somali Muslim clerics united under the Union of Islamic Courts. They begin setting up administrative, judicial and security structures in Mogadishu. By 2006, the UIC controlled most of Somalia, except President Yusuf's Puntland and the northern breakaway region of Somaliland.
For the first time in 15 years, the Somali people had a real chance of peace under a stable government with popular legitimacy. Unfortunately, the US war on terror crushed those hopes. The US accused the Islamic Courts government of sheltering terror suspects, and of having an expansionist agenda. Since the overthrow of the Islamic Courts, fighting in Somalia assumed a fresh intensity never seen since 1991.
As long as the Somali crisis was confined to the people of Somalia, the world could continue with business as usual. With Somalis now attacking ships and capturing hundreds of sailors from across the world, this may be the time to talk with the Union of Islamic Courts.
Filed under: Analysis, News | Tagged: abdullahi, ahmed, al shabaab, aweys, barre, clans, courts, dahir, eritrea, ethiopia, government, hassan, indian, insurgency, islamic, kismayu, mogadishu, mohammed, ocean, ogden, piracy, pirates, puntland, shariff, sheikh, siad, somalia, somaliland, states, transitional, union, united, yusuf | Leave a comment »


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City College of San Francisco's (CCSF) Mission Campus has met the community's needs since 1971, today offering more than 300 day, evening, and weekend classes each year. In Fall 2007, the new Mission Campus will celebrate the completion of a two-year renovation and expansion—fulfilling a community's dream.
This permanent home for the Mission Campus will serve as a beacon of opportunity and achievement for all who pass by. The state-of-the-art campus will include an expanded existing campus and a new four-story facility. At the crossroads of Bartlett, Valencia, and 22 Streets, the community's highest values of education, dialog, and diversity will infuse four floors of modern classrooms, computer labs, an auditorium, multi-purpose rooms available to the community, a child care center, and full support services.
...for students [top]
As a student seeking the resources to realize educational and professional dreams, you will find your learning home among a family of teachers, peers, counselors, and neighbors. Strong language skills, citizenship, vocational training, or an AA degree to transfer to a four-year institution are all within your reach. With the highest quality, most affordable, and convenient programs, you can design the life you have always imagined.
...for San Francisco [top]
As a San Francisco resident, you know what this new modern facility means to a historic community thriving with businesses, entrepreneurial start-ups, non-profit organizations, family life, art, and culture. What is good now will become even better and continue to feed the economy and improve San Francisco's quality of life.
... for donors [top]
For every dollar invested in the Mission Campus, you will not only change lives but also strengthen the economy and improve the quality of public life. Through the Mission Campus' programs and services, thousands of skilled professionals will enter the local workforce, bringing new skills, educational credentials, and personal leadership essential to our city's future. Your contribution will help equip this extraordinary building and support its programs, in turn helping more than 8,000 people succeed every year.
City College of San Francisco's new Mission Campus was envisioned by the people who live, work, and raise families here. From a central location, the facility serves its unique community of immigrants, traditional students, older adults, working professionals, and high school students with their diverse and complex needs. The Mission Campus community has created a lasting plan to bring immediate opportunities and a permanent pathway to personal success for thousands of people every year.
Students [top]
Of the over 8,000 students enrolled at the Mission Campus, 68% identify as Hispanic/Latino. Students from a variety of backgrounds seek and receive support through academic, vocational, and service programs that help them on their journey to higher education, employment, career advancement, and life-long learning.
HIGHLIGHTS [top]
General Education: Established as Colegio de la Mission in 1974, local residents will continue to have access to college-level general education courses at the new campus. [top]
Working Adults Degree Program (WADP): Each year, WADP serves approximately 125 students, of which 95% are women and 60% Latino/a. The program provides an accelerated path to an associate degree or transfer to a four-year institution for working professionals balancing careers, families, and academic studies.[top]
Career & Vocational Training: The Mission Campus prepares students for the fields of biotechnology, broadcast electronic media arts, child development, and graphic communications, responding to market demands and the community's ongoing needs. [top]
ESL and Literacy: Students can enroll in more than 80 ESL classes, the Spanish Literacy Program, citizenship classes, and take the citizenship test seven days a week. [top]
Transitional Studies/Adult Basic Education: Each year, the Mission Campus helps 500 students complete their General Education Diploma (GED), increasing their earning capacity and opening pathways for future education. [top]
Older Adults: The Older Adults Program offers more than 80 classes at over 40 city locations for people age 55 and above in the areas of computer training, legal services, health, fitness, fine arts, and the humanities. [top]
Partners: Rooted in the community, the Campus celebrates long alliances with prominent organizations, such as the Mission Hiring Hall, San Francisco Unified School District, and many direct service providers devoted to the neighborhood's continued success.
Support Services: The new facility will be a full-service campus with its own onsite admissions, assessment, financial aid, tutoring, mentoring, and academic and career counseling staff—all of these core services will foster greater opportunity for everyone. [top]


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About Chris
Chris Moreno is a comics artist and creator whose work has appeared in Disney's Toy Story for BOOM! Studios, and the upcoming POP! The Darlings of America from IDW, as well as The Minions of Ka from Arcana, and Paul Jenkins' Sidekick from Image Comics. His creator-owned character, Sanz Pantz: Ninja Platypus appears in the Popgun anthologies from Image. His other comics credits include Alien Inventor, World War Hulk: Frontline, Dracula vs. King Arthur, Monkey in a Wagon vs. Lemur on a Big Wheel, The Last Sin of Mark Grimm, the webcomic Super Frat, and Zenescope's Grimm Fairy Tales. Chris's work has appeared on sketch cards for Inkworks for The Spirit, Shrek the Third, Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem, Hellboy: Sword of Storms, Robots and Family Guy. His art has also been seen in role-playing games for companies like Kenzer & Co., on their Hackmaster game and Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine, and Tony DiGerolamo's Complete Mafia for d20 from Living Room Games.


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Currently 01/25/17 pops up my antivirus and warns the website has a trojan on it. Beware.
Currently 01/25/17 pops up my antivirus and warns the website has a trojan on it. Beware.
I've tested this forum and the Longevity commercial site with two browsers on two different computers and haven't had any AV warnings. What antivirus software are you running?
Units owned Longevity PROmts 200
Force Cut LP80 plasma cutter
Longevity auto dark welding helmet
Atlas 10x36" lathe
Craftsman 5HP 30 Gal compressor
Home made CNC router/plasma/hot wire foam cutting, 3D printing table powered by Longevity Force Cut LP80
Home built aluminum foundry, HF 4x6 bandsaw
Longevity Welding
Toll-Free Support: 1-510-887-7090 / 1-877-566-4462
Business Hours: Monday-Friday 8AM to 4PM
Well I don't know what to say but I am running Kaspersky already and a scan of my machine comes up negative.
no virus alerts for me


text:
Another month in the year of our lord 2009, another million records to choose from for this roundup. At the moment I'm sitting here with 17 tabs open in my browser, all of them records rated 8 or above from this month. Some of the 8s didn't even make it - that's how jam-packed this month has been with shining examples of music and art. Without any further ado, here's the top 10 (+1) from August. Every last one of these records is pure gold, and in The XX and Wild Beasts we have two very fine contenders for album of the year. Already.
Mariachi El Bronx - Mariachi El Bronx
Says Brad Barrett: "Do I like this because it's the fucking Bronx in mariachi disguises and they can do barely any wrong? Am I enchanted by their utter disregard for other people's opinions on what they've made here? Could I be swayed into thinking mariachi is worth investigating? You know what? Who cares? This album is enjoyable, amusing, sensitive, impressive and above all – because we're all in the habit of forgetting this – FUN."
Read the review | Listen on Spotify
Wild Beasts - Two Dancers
Says Rob Webb: "Two Dancers, then, doesn't so much follow up their debut as announce Wild Beasts as one of our genuinely special bands, one that can compete - in terms of both musical and lyrical ingenuity as well as sheer pop nous - with any US act you've seen talked up in the music press this year. Sunset Rubdown! Dirty Projectors! Your records just took one hell of a beating. Of course, it's not really about that, but it is increasingly rare that fans of this sort of envelope-pushing pop can find satisfaction from records produced on these shores. And that's just not cricket."
Read the review | Listen on Spotify
Pissed Jeans - King Of Jeans
Says Phillip Bloomfield: "Korvette has improved his lyrics: he's still able to make you feel stomach-churningly uncomfortable, but he's augmented his bitterness and blunt depravity with the kind of things people can relate to: stress, work, tiredness, futile workplace crushes and age. It's not completely unexpected – Hope For Men displayed similar tendencies – but what's shifted is how well he captures his subject matter. King Of Jeans has set the bar high not just for them, but for anything 'heavy' set to be released this year. And as Korvette bemoans the loss of his hair on closer 'Goodbye (Hair)', so I tend to bemoan the end of this album: "When I say goodbye/I'll say it with a frown". Thing is I can always put it back on; I'm not sure Matt will have the same luxury."
Read the review | Listen on Spotify
Sleeping States - In The Gardens Of The North
Says Sam Lewis: "Markland Starkie, the figurehead behind the Sleeping States moniker, deals in replication, his music full of conspicuous sonic doubles, layered vocals and harmonies and swooping guitar lines. Live, Sleeping States often comprise three guitarists, each individual riff mimicking and complimenting its counterpart's."
Read the review | Listen on Spotify
Six Organs Of Admittance - Luminous Night
Says Him Tall: "This collection of eight songs is his best and most realised work since 2005's School Of The Flower, an album where his unique vision seemed to take a step forward in its application. At times hypnotic and otherworldly, it's a soothing, unsettling and challenging listen. At just 42 minutes and eight tracks long, it's an album of the old school, suited to listening in one sitting. Can you manage that? Chasny is heading further and further out there, deeper into the woods. We're all playing catch up. Long may he run."
Dinosaur Pile-Up - The Most Powerful E.P In The Universe
Says Simon Jay Catling: "It would be harsh to call Dinosaur Pile-Up a straight up pastiche, but the debt they owe to Foo Fighters, Weezer et al is undeniable, and this is a reasonable enough justification for disliking The Most Powerful EP In The Universe!!. But for those of us who fancy a bit of a break from listening to perfect female vocals singing over Korgs and synthesised beats, or who fancy listening to something where you don't have to work out whether you have to understand it as art to enjoy it Dinosaur Pile-Up are it. There is nothing to understand here, no memo to follow, just three chaps who enjoy making a damn good racket and would rather like you to get involved too.
The xx - XX
Says Thom Gibb: "This collection of miniature songs excels. They're not magnificently written, with unspeakably beautiful melodies, and virtuoso instrumental performances, but they have an intangible spook. The XX know when to tense, when to relax. It's instinctive. It could be because they've known each other for years, it could be luck that this combination of four people is somehow tuned to one another and can create something so clear, so fluent. It's pointless speculating about it. It's here and it's almost perfect."
Read the review | Listen on Spotify
Mew - No More Stories
Says James Skinner: "Like Muse, Mew fly in the face of the zeitgeist, cultivating a devoted following all the while. It's one that should be sated (and in an ideal world, expanded) no end by No More Stories. 'Big' in every sense of the word, if it doesn't quite reach the impassioned heights of Kites in terms of sheer spectacle, it certainly comes close; that it sees them tread towards something warmer and intangibly more personal in its outlook more than compensates. Absolutely intoxicating."
Read the review | Listen on Spotify
Mos Def - The Ecstatic
Says Finn-Scott Delany: "Outspoken and even prone to some fairly loony conspiracy theorising, The Ecstatic thankfully does not become such a platform, and is a refined selection of strong tracks, which skilfully tread the balance between tight beats and forthright exclamations. Mos Def's poetic, free flowing verses resist his activist tendencies, and keep the artist and observer, not the sermoniser, in the foreground."
Olafur Arnalds - Found Songs
Says Rory Gibb: "Much has been made of the idea that Iceland's landscape intrinsically 'finds its way' into its native music. If there is any of his country in Arnalds' music, it is felt most keenly in the permeating sense of tranquility and transience. This is music to be listened to on lone train journeys, landscape dashing past the window providing a strangely effective visual counterpoint to the slow, crystalline shadows of 'Allt varð hljótt' and the stately march of 'Lost Song'. Perhaps unexpectedly, given the conditions in which it was conceived, in Found Songs Arnalds has sired his most beautiful and beguiling creature yet."
Nurses - Apple's Acre
Says Paul Brown: "The record is a patchwork of the most gorgeous type of euphoric but bruised pop. The most instantly recognisable thing about Nurses is Chapman's voice, which flits back and forth between a strangled Joanna Newsom and Avey Tare at his most rasping. The swelling and soaring of the vocals regularly lift the songs to emotional highs. They also convey a real vulnerability which is at times at odds with the melodies chirruping away under the surface, most notably so on 'Caterpillar Playground'."


text:
Thrillers and Suspense
November 2017
"I am the perfect husband."
~ from Kaira Rouda's
Best Day Ever
Recent Releases
The Blind
A.F. Brady
Psychological Suspense. Despite her successful career as a psychologist in a Manhattan mental institution, Samantha "Sam" James has some serious personal problems -- namely, she's an alcoholic trapped in an abusive relationship. But it's only when a challenging new patient arrives that her carefully constructed façade starts to crumble; once he's discovered her secrets, there's no closing Pandora's box. With straightforward, crisp writing and a pervasive sense of gloom (the institution is not well-funded),
The Blind
is a fast-paced character study of a woman who's fast losing her way.
The Last Mrs. Parrish
Liv Constantine
Psychological Suspense. Amber Patterson wants one thing: to leave behind her poor, humdrum background and land a wealthy husband, in this case, Jackson Parrish. The fact that there's already a Mrs. Parrish doesn't bother her too much, and in fact she hopes to use Daphne Parrish to get to Jackson. Things don't quite go to plan, and as the narrative shifts from coldly manipulative Amber to Daphne -- who's not as naive as she first appears -- the story heats up. Fans of the villainous characters in
Gone Girl
will want to give this one a try.
White Bodies
Jane Robins
Psychological Suspense. Though Tilda and Callie Farrow are twins, they couldn't be more different -- Tilda is glamorous where Callie is mousy and always in her sister's shadow. Now, though, Callie is increasingly worried about her sister's husband, Felix. Tilda rejects any allegations of abuse, but Callie is not convinced, and soon falls down a rabbit's hole of obsession through an online support group for victims of abuse. Narrated by Callie, this debut opens with Felix's death and, through flashbacks, vividly illuminates the dynamics of sisterhood.
Best Day Ever
Kaira Rouda
Psychological Suspense. From the outside, Paul and Mia Strom have a picture-perfect life, with a strong marriage, successful careers, and handsome sons. But as the couple drives to their Ohio lake house for the weekend, doubts will arise in the minds of the readers -- why isn't Mia feeling well? What's with the tension in the car? And why is Paul being so evasive? Increasingly chilling and with plenty of surprises for a tale that unfolds over only one day,
Best Day Ever
is "darkly funny, scandalous, and utterly satisfying" (
Kirkus Reviews
Domestic Suspense: When Trouble Begins at Home
The Marriage Lie
Kimberly Belle
Psychological Suspense. Will and Iris Griffith have a good life together, which is why Iris is shocked to hear that Will has died in a plane crash en route to Seattle when he's supposed to be in Florida for work. What other secrets had he been keeping from her? Quite a lot, as it turns out. As Iris learns more about the man she married, she moves from grief and disbelief to suspicion and anger. If you like stories in which happy marriages turn out to have been built on a bedrock of lies (Deb Caletti's
He's Gone
, Lisa Unger's
Die For You
, Heather Gudenkauf's
Missing Pieces,
and a whole host of others), don't miss this tense, fast-paced take on a popular theme.
Watch Me Disappear
Janelle Brown
Psychological Suspense. Billie Flanagan has always had an independent streak, leaving her husband and daughter regularly for solo hikes and trips away. But it's been a year since she last disappeared, and most people presume she's dead. However, her teenage daughter, Olive, fervently believes that Billie's still alive, while her husband Jonathan is beginning to think he never knew his wife at all. More focused on family drama than on any actual danger, this is a good choice for readers looking for an emotional take on a damaged marriage.
Summer House with Swimming Pool
Herman Koch
Psychological Suspense. Opening in the aftermath of a wealthy patient's death, this unnerving novel is narrated by a Dutch doctor who caters to celebrities. Looking back on his relationship with the patient, the doctor untangles the events of the previous summer, when their two families had summered together with disastrous consequences. Ethical lapses, the misreading or ignoring of certain situations, and the constant pulse of contempt and desire makes for a compulsive read, with characters that just beg to be disliked.
Pretty Baby
Mary Kubica
Psychological Suspense. Chicago literacy tutor Heidi Wood wants to help the homeless teen mom she's seen on her commute, so she invites Willow and her tiny daughter back to the condo she shares with her family (to her husband's horror). Their arrival leads to a spectacular deterioration of the relationships within the home, all told from the rotating perspectives of Heidi and her husband, as well as flashbacks from Willow herself. This narrative technique ramps up the suspense -- it's clear that something devastating happens, but the details...well, you'll have to read the book to find out. (You can follow it up with
Every Last Lie
, author Mary Kubica's most recent page-turner).
The Secrets She Keeps
Michael Robotham
Psychological Suspense. Agatha stocks shelves at a London grocery store; Meghan is a chic and successful customer. The only thing they have in common is that they're each pregnant, and that shared experience is what leads to an acquaintanceship that seems poised to shatter both of their lives in far-reaching and surprising ways. With "brilliantly rendered characters, reckless tension, and numerous plot twists" (
Publishers Weekly
The Secrets She Keeps
is a must-read for fans of Harriet Lane's
Contact your librarian for more great books!
Delaware County District Library
84 E Winter St
Delaware, OH 43015


text:
of contents
Future plans
Last changes
dicom2 is a free command-line driven program which allows you to convert medical images and DICOM files to various other formats, while optionally performing some rudimentary image processing tasks...
reads DICOM file, or raw data-sets (ACR/NEMA).
converts non-encapsulated (native) syntax to PNG, BMP, TARGA, raw, DICOM (any syntax).
lists DICOM tags in a human-readable form.
allows batch conversion.
extracts multiple-frame files.
renames destination files using user-defined pattern based on DICOM tags.
accumulates set of files into one image (to generate masks).
provides some image processing functions: mask, crop, halve, flip, window.
is small
available for:
|Table of contents
|dicom2 was not designed to handle all DICOM tricks, but I tried to extend its capabilities in some ways. It is (and will remain) freeware, but I would like to keep track of its users: feel free to send me any suggestions, advises or desires, as well as DICOM samples...
|Future plans
enhancements in the way the options will be processed.
New parameter ib added to the -d and --syntax options, allowing use of Implicit Big Endian syntax.
Extended the tolerance regarding very strange (and old) ACR/NEMA 2.0 files.
|Last changes
Version 1.9n, 19 February 2007:
This release fixes a minor bug that would occur when reading a few specific instances of Siemens NM files.
Version 1.9m, 12 February 2007:
This release fixes a few bugs people reported recently. Thank you for your feedback. Binaries are also about 13% smaller (not that they were really big, mind you).
Version 1.9l, 7 March 2005:
Wow, no update in a long time. This new release just fixes some bug people reported in the last few years (fortunately not too many). thank you guys. The only major change is that, at last, the DICOM dictionary file (dicom.din) is not needed anymore, it is bundled within the binary: no need to install it in awkward locations anymore, you can safely remove your old dictionary.
Version 1.9h, 14 Jul. 2000:
I wish I had some time to document the changes and update this site :( Maybe later in 2001. I'm still maintaining this software from time to time, removing bugs and adding some functions.
Version 1.8, 21 Jan. 1998:
PNG format supported (new -p option).
New DICOM2 environment variable to set default options.
New --compression option to control the compression method used by some destination formats.
New --resample option to control the resampling process (to 8 or 16 bits).
New --get=[max][:min][:mean] option to get maximum/minimum/mean pixel values in frame.
New --timer option to time each call to dicom2 (returns elapsed time).
I/Os have been optimized. Expect 30% to 100% speed-up in some cases. Check performance tests.
New parameters [=il|el|eb] added to -d, allowing DICOM conversion to new syntax.
New parameter [=n] added to --halve, allowing to halve many times in a single call.
New parameters [=center:width] added to --win, allowing user-specified windowing arguments.
New optional [y|n] parameters added to --name, --rank, --reverse, --sort.
Option --nowarn has been replaced by option --warn[=y|n], but remains for backward compatibility.
The resampling process has been slightly modified when dealing with monochrome images (no min).
Win 95/NT users: the Borland Redistributable Run Time DLL is no more needed :) (see Download page)
Fixed some very nice bugs and potential memory leaks (and introduced new one :).
Version 1.7, 18 Dec. 1997:
Independent version number added to the DICOM dictionary (displayed at start-up). Update it.
Windows NT support (tested and updated to check dictionary in winnt/ directories).
New accumulating mode --acc=min.
New NT and Linux performance tests using a Pentium II @ 300 mhz, 96 meg RAM.
a small bug preventing Linux version to find the dictionary in some cases.
A minor bug corrupting MONOCHROME1conversion to TARGA has been fixed.
Small changes in the DICOM dictionary. Update it.
Version 1.5, 1 Oct. 1997:
Files have been moved to a new location !
Planar configuration 1 (color-by-plane) is now supported.
Conversion to true DICOM format is now supported. See -d.
New "How to..." section describing how to extract frames from multiple-frame files.
Converting a single frame from a multiple-frame file to DICOM is now supported.
New renaming pattern fields: cur_fr and cur_fr0, related to the current frame number.
A new --step=n option allows the user to process every n-th file only.
--frame option has been enhanced,
allowing the specification of ranges.
Conversion from RGB (color-by-pixel) is now supported, as well as samples/pixel > 1.
Access to a particular frame in a multiple frames file is now allowed. See --frame.
Images stored as a stream of bytes (VR = OB) are now handled correctly.
Sequences Item (VR = SQ) are now stored correctly.
BMP format is now better supported (an alignment bug has been fixed).
TEXT conversion is now performed before any image processing functions.
A VR =DA and VR=TM bug has been fixed.
dicom2 performs a bit faster.


text:
Welcome to the......
Room Rates:
Single - £70.00
Twin/Double - £80.00
Triple - £95.00
Quad - £115.00
The White House is a delightful 15th Century Grade II listed manor house set in one acre of attractive gardens providing a relaxing atmosphere for all.
Having been awarded 4 Yellow Stars by the AA for it's outstanding facilities and service, The White House is also highly recommended by the English Tourist Board.
Having been refurbished by Mike and Linda, The White House offers first class bed and breakfast accommodation in comfortable surroundings.
Accommodation comprises::
A buffet breakfast is available for guests who have early departures and a full cooked breakfast with locally produced sausages and bacon, local free range eggs, fresh fruit salad and homemade preserves all available for those guests who have a more leisurely start to the day, both served in the comfortable surroundings at The White House.
An evening meal is available at our nearby pub, The Lion and Lamb, which is also owned by Mike and Linda (www.lionandlamb.co.uk), and is just a 2-minute drive away where food is served all day until 10.00pm. To assist you during your stay with us, The White House offers, subject to availability, free transportation to the Lion and Lamb.
Being located close to Stansted Airport (1.5 miles, but not on the flight path), The White House is the perfect venue for travellers going to and from the airport. There is ample parking at a cost of £5.00 per day.
Taxi transfers to the airport or elsewhere can be arranged through the very reliable 24x7 Limited (telephone =44 (0) 1279 661111. The fare to Stansted Airport from The White House is approximately £9.00.
The White House is conveniently situated for easy access to East Anglia's many attractions including Hatfield Forest National Trust, Duxford Imperial War Museum, Cambridge and Newmarket Races as well as the City of London by road or rail.
All cancellations must be made within at least 48 hours or we will have to make a full charge for the room to your credit card.
*The White House have a strict non smoking policy and anyone not abiding to this will be charged £50.00 to their credit card to cover cleaning costs.
Member of Johansen's Small Hotels and Country Houses
Lion & Lamb Location Contact Us Testimonials Useful Links Terms & Conditions
Designed & Hosted By www.jabbusiness.co.uk
Copyright © 2005 The White House.
All rights reserved.
Revised: Wednesday December 10, 2014.


text:
Paris Hilton collaborates with Lil Wayne
Socialite PARIS HILTON has achieved a dream collaboration with LIL WAYNE after the hip-hop star recorded a rap for her latest music project.
The hotel heiress released her self-titled debut album in 2006 and is now hoping to make a return to the music industry with a new record.
Hilton previously touted Lil Wayne as her ideal studio partner, and even asked him about a possible collaboration when she was tapped to interview him for a U.S. magazine last year (11).
It now looks as if the star's dream has come true - Lil Wayne has contributed a rap to Hilton's new track and filmed an appearance in the video.
During the song, reportedly titled Last Night (I Wanna Bang You), the Lollipop hitmaker raps raunchy lyrics with a reference to Hilton's famous sex tape, One Night in Paris.
He raps, "Last night I had fun with her/ I got 99 problems, not one with her/ Excuse my French, but f**k the cameras/ I wanna spend a night in Paris."


text:
Airlines pad flight schedules to boost on-time records
A USA TODAY analysis uncovers new problems for passengers as major airlines strive to improve their performance records.
After decades of suffering through countless delayed flights, airline passengers are facing a new twist: Record numbers of airplanes are arriving early.
But that's not as good as it sounds.
One in five domestic flights on major airlines got to the arrival gate 15 minutes or more ahead of schedule in 2012, a USA TODAY analysis of U.S. Department of Transportation records shows. That's the highest early-arrival rate since the DOT began tracking arrival times in 1987, according to the analysis of tens of millions of DOT flight records.
ALSO ONLINE: Delta led airlines in on-time arrivals in 2012
FLIGHT TRACKER: Is your flight on time?
Last year, for the first time, more flights arrived early than were late, canceled or diverted to an unplanned destination, the analysis shows.
Early flights: 1,213,842.
Problem flights: 1,106,539.
"It's completely unexpected," Stefan Gluck of Miami said of the six flights he took this year, all early arrivals. "Last year, it seemed every flight was delayed."
The trend has helped airlines boast of improved performance to a flying public irked by rising airfares and crowded airplanes. "It's hard to see why this is not great news," said John Heimlich, chief economist at Airlines for America, the trade group for major U.S. airlines.
Early arrivals certainly gratify passengers such as Gluck, who had time to meet friends for dinner after his recent flight from Phoenix to Miami got in a half-hour ahead of schedule.
But their ubiquity points to problems. Early arrivals partly result from increased efficiency, but also from airlines adapting to an inefficient system by padding flight schedules and cramming more people on airplanes.
The average scheduled flight time was longer last year on 93% of domestic routes than it was in 1995. And flights were more crowded than ever in 2012.
Scheduled flight times measure how a trip from departure gate to arrival gate — not just how long a plane is in the air. The steady expansion of the times means that an "early" flight often takes longer than it once took.
The average flight from Boston's Logan airport to New York's LaGuardia took one hour in 1995. In 2012, it took 75 minutes.
Yet the Logan-to-LaGuardia early-arrival rate soared to 38% last year from just 2% in 1995 as Delta and US Airways added nearly 20 minutes to the schedule.
With the early arrival rate now exceeding 30% on more than 700 routes, and reaching as high as 65% on a few routes, some question whether airlines have padded schedules too much and are starting to cost themselves money and aggravate at least some passengers.
Early arrivals can increase airline costs when they lead to airplanes sitting idle at airports and a flight crew being paid for more time than a flight actually takes.
Flights from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport to Los Angeles International — one of the busiest U.S. routes — are now scheduled to take 27 minutes longer on average than in 1988. Yet last year, nearly half of the 11,700 JFK-to-LAX flights arrived early, one of the highest rates.
That added up to 2,700 hours that planes sat idle when they potentially could have been flying.
"Early gate arrival just means that aircraft and crew are being utilized potentially less than they could be, and that means higher costs," said Massachusetts Institute of Technology aeronautics professor Peter Belobaba. A 2010 study sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration estimated that "schedule buffers" cost airlines $3.7 billion in 2007 — nearly as much as the cost of actual delays to airlines, the study found.
The cost has likely increased since 2007, as major airlines added time to flight schedules on 60% of domestic routes, USA TODAY found. Schedules have been padded even as the number of commercial flights has fallen by about 10% and the early-arrival rate grew from 12% to 20%.
William McCurry, a business consultant from Princeton, N.J., gets annoyed when so much extra time has been added to a schedule that he has to take a later connecting flight than he might if schedules were tighter.
"Where the downside comes is if you're trying to make a connection. You're saying, if they were honest with the arrival time, I could make this earlier connection. But because they've got the fluff time, I have to wait two or three hours for a later connection," McCurry said.
As airlines have expanded flight schedules, Barry Maher, a speaker and trainer from Corona, Calif., has seen them shrink connection times from nearly an hour to as little as 30 minutes, in effect assuming that planes will arrive early and give transferring passengers more time than a schedule indicates. But when flights arrive on time at large airports, Maher has had to dash through terminals and, on a recent transfer at Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport, had to wave down a transport cart to make his connecting flight "as the door was closing."
"Often you find yourself with these ridiculously short connections," Maher said.
Idle time drives some fliers batty
Some schedule padding has been necessary to accommodate the growing amount of time airplanes spend on tarmacs, runways and in the air, where bad weather often creates congestion. The average flight spent 13% more time last year than in 1995 waiting to take off and to park at a gate on arrival — a source of endless annoyance to many passengers.
"Sometimes we wait longer (on the arriving tarmac) than the extra time we had to spare, because the aircraft occupying our gate is late closing out," said Marcelo Almeida of Coppell, Texas. "I find myself nowadays hoping we don't land more than 10 minutes early, because I know we'll sit on the ground before we can proceed to the gate."
And some padding reflects industry caution, especially in recent years as the DOT, responding to passenger frustration over extreme delays, has stepped up its authority to fine airlines for delays.
READ MORE: Fewer passengers stuck on tarmacs last year
RELATED: DOT fines United Airlines $130,000 for tarmac delay
Airlines regularly scrutinize flight schedules for possible tweaks such as shifting a departure time by a few minutes. They're slower to change the amount of time allotted for a flight, and may need months or years to understand why a flight consistently arrives early or late. It could be a flawed schedule. It could be aberrant weather.
"We don't want to overreact one way or the other very quickly," said Steve Hozdulick, Southwest Airlines' senior director of operational performance. Southwest added time to many flight schedules in the fall of 2011 anticipating bad weather but then "saw one of the best winters we've had on record in 2011-12."
Weather has been worse this winter, and Southwest is not planning major schedule changes, he said.
Airlines are especially reluctant to tighten schedules on new routes, which they are increasingly flying as they move away from short routes that are best served by smaller planes to longer routes that draw more passengers and are more profitable.
Alaska Airlines began a daily flight from Seattle to Kansas City in mid-March. By late August, the flight had arrived at least 15 minutes early 57% of the time. Yet on Aug. 26, the airline added five minutes to the 31/2-hour flight time. Since then, the flight has been early 77% of the time.
Dan Audette, Alaska's manager of operations research and analysis, is in no rush to tighten the schedule because the route is so new to the airline. "It takes 18 months to start to be confident about trends," Audette said. To fully understand weather on a route requires three years, he said.
Audette also said that as Alaska and other airlines are using individual airplanes on more flights per day, they need to build a greater margin of error into schedules. "We don't know if a third flight on a plane (in one day) is going to be good or bad. So if something down the line does happen, we're able to have that cushion to help recover," he said.
Congress, the DOT and passenger advocates have pressed airlines to reduce flight delays and stop chronically late flights. A policy that took effect in 2010 allows the DOT to penalize airlines for false advertising if a flight is at least 30 minutes late on half of its arrivals in a four-month span.
No airline has been fined under that policy. But they have gotten the message.
"The DOT is very sensitive to delays and dissatisfied passengers," said Sean Cassidy, a vice president of the Air Line Pilots Association labor union and an Alaska Airlines pilot. "Airlines are taking a little more conservative approach to ensure they're going to arrive on time."
The DOT policy also requires airlines to post on-time records of flights on their websites for travelers to see when making a reservation. "Customers benefit from better information and peace of mind," DOT spokesman Bill Mosley said.
Airlines pay close attention to their on-time performance, too. "It's part of their marketing campaigns, part of their affinity programs to develop consumer loyalty," Cassidy said.
Regional jets play a role
With their fleets of 50-seat regional jets, small airlines are handling a growing number of short flights while major airlines move to longer routes that can be served with fewer flights and are a better fit for their larger airplanes.
Longer flights are far more likely to arrive early because pilots have extra time to make up for departure delays or to accelerate ahead of schedule. Flights longer than 1,500 miles were nearly twice as likely to arrive early as flights shorter than 400 miles, USA TODAY found.
The average distance of major airlines' domestic flights soared from 603 miles in 1988 to 772 miles in 2012, DOT records show.
That trend helps explain why Southwest Airlines has seen its early-arrival rate skyrocket from just 1% in 1995 to more than 13% last year. "Southwest has started flying longer flights over the years," Hozdulick said. "In the early '80s, we were almost a regional carrier."
Small airlines are excluded from the DOT reporting requirements, and USA TODAY's analysis excludes flights run by those airlines. Small-airline flights are less likely to arrive early, given their short-haul routes.
One segment profiting from the increase in early arrivals is airports, where passengers appear to be spending more time — and money.
Passengers spent roughly 20% more last year on airport food and retail goods than in 2010, according to a recent report by the Airports Council International-North America.
READ MORE: At airports, fliers' shopping options multiply
ALSO ONLINE: The best new airport amenities
"I call that the all-good situation," council Executive Vice President Debby McElroy said of early arrivals. "The passenger gets off the airplane early, they have more time to check e-mail, get a sandwich, buy a card."
When software consultant Tink Wilkinson is heading home to Mobile, Ala., from a business trip, his first flight regularly arrives early at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson, leaving him two hours before his connection. That gives Wilkinson time for a sit-down dinner. "If I land in concourse A and am taking off from D, I might go to B to eat," he said.
But Cassidy, the union vice president, worries that early arrivals will turn into delays as the economy recovers, air travel increases, and the aviation industry awaits air-traffic-control improvements that enable more planes to land in a shorter time span. Although on-time performance is near a record high, delays are getting longer. The average delayed flight arrived 56 minutes late last year, up from 38 minutes in the early 1990s. Early flights arrived an average of 22 minutes ahead of schedule.
"My concern is looking further down the line," Cassidy said. "Airlines are flying at record load factors. There's not a lot of slack. Once we start adding more demand and adding passengers and cargo, how is the system going to perform two, three, five or 10 years down the road?"


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Eccentric rocker and former Mint Chick Kody Nielson is the early frontrunner in the Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards.
In today's announcement of the finalists in the technical awards, Nielson has two nominations in the Best Producer category for his work on Bic Runga's Belle and his own project Opossom's debut, Electric Hawaii.
Fellow producer and self-described "jack of all trades" Nic Manders is the other finalist, for singer-songwriter Lydia Cole's debut album Me & Moon.
The technical awards also include Best Engineer and Best Album Cover.
Renowned engineer, mixer and producer Olly Harmer is a Best Engineer finalist once again for Victoria Girling-Butcher's Summit Drive. He won last year, alongside Thom Powers and Aaron Short of the Naked and Famous for the band's debut album, Passive Me Aggressive You.
Harmer is joined by Neil Baldock, another 2011 technical award finalist, who also worked on Cole's album, Steve Roberts for Kevin Field's Field of Vision, and Steve Garden on Te More by Whirimako Black and Richard Nunns.
In the Best Album Cover category, visual gurus Special Problems - double-finalists in Best Music Video category at last year's awards - pop up for their design for dance poppet Ruby Frost's Volition; Angela Keoghan is up for the beautifully illustrated Bannerman artwork Dearly Departed (she was also a finalist in 2011 for Bannerman's last album The Dusty Dream Hole); and Yvonne Todd rounds out the designer line-up for Haunted Love's Spirit Revival.
The winners of the technical awards will be announced at the VNZMA finalists announcement event, at The Cloud on Queens Wharf on October 3. The line-up for this year's Critics' Choice Showcase and the 2012 New Zealand Herald Legacy Award recipient will also be announced ahead of the main award ceremony at Vector Arena on November 1.


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Dartium Mac OSX Build rev 117836
January 16, 2012 6 Comments
For those interested in trying Dartium on MacOSX, here is a build of Dartium from Dart's bleeding_edge. I have just tested it enough to run hello world at the moment. I'd like to get feed back on how it runs for others if possible.
wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/33138127/dartium_macosx/Chromium.app.tar.gz wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/33138127/dartium_macosx/Chromium.app.tar.gz.md5 wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/33138127/dartium_macosx/README.txt md5sum -c Chromium.app.tar.gz.md5
It might be best to refer to this previous post for any additional information.


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Published Mar 23, 2017
What is the best pawn shop in town?
Whether its vintage vinyl or the newst CD's, what is your favorite record... see the Top 5 →
Where do you get the best shoes, clothing, and accessories for some... see the Top 5 →
When you're ready to hit the slopes, where do you go to get the hottest... see the Top 5 →
Where do you head to for the best in sporting equipment for your favorite... see the Top 5 →
Cakes, cookies, brownies, fruit pies. Who bakes up the most mouth... see the Top 5 →
In the mood for Swiss, Goat, Cheddar or Mozzarella cheese. Who has the... see the Top 5 →
The 2017 Denver A-List awards are based on more than 74,000 votes from local Denver-area experts.


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I wanted to spread the word about two truly wonderful organisations here in Australia. They were created out of tragedy & have now spread their wings to support other families going through the same or similar situations.
The first one I want to present to you is called Heartfelt & they are truly amazing people & angels here on earth. They're a volunteer organisation of professional photographers from all over Australia who are all dedicated to giving the gift of photographic memories to families that have experienced stillbirths, have premature/sick babies or have children in the Neonatal Intensive Care Units of their local hospitals, as well as children with serious & terminal illnesses. They're dedicated to providing this gift to families in a caring, compassionate & heartfelt manner. They have done an amazing job at getting known in the major hospitals in Australia, but are always presenting themselves to other hospitals & medical facilities so they're aware of the work they do & can call on them if ever they need to.
They can be found here: http://www.heartfelt.org.au/ & here on FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/Heartfelt.Australia
ABC did a story on Heartfelt on 20 June 2012. Click onto this link to watch it: Charity captures memories for families of stillborns
Pillars of Strength
The second organisation I wanted to share with you is called Pillars of Strength. For the time being they are only able to assist NSW families, but are hoping to go Australia wide in the future. Pillars of Strength provide fathers with support & time out they need while their baby/ies are sick, or to provide support & time out after the loss of their baby. The organisation's Director started this support group after losing his premature son after being in NICU for two days. He saw a need for fathers needing respite as they are the ones that often get overlooked in times like these. The father's take on the role of supporting their partners while they grieve & recover from the birth, look after other children in the family, deal with medial bills, have to arrange a funeral for their child etc, whilst trying to come to terms with the loss too, which is why their tagline is, 'dad's need time off too'. So far they've arranged golf days & been able to watch a few NRL games & they hope to be able to be able to help many more families in the future.
They can be found here: http://www.pillarsofstrength.com.au/concrete/ & on FaceBook here: https://www.facebook.com/


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ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) Von Miller and Kevin Vickerson are appealing fines they said they received from the NFL for hits on Carolina quarterback Cam Newton last weekend.
Miller's $21,000 fine was for a low hit, but Denver's star linebacker insists he was blocked into Newton and didn't come anywhere near his knees.
Vickerson's $15,000 fine was for a horse collar tackle that he insists was more of a swipe.
Miller said he had two fines overturned on appeal last year for hits on Mark Sanchez and he feels he has another strong case.
Vickerson said he hopes to at least have his fine reduced.
Online:http://pro32.ap.org/poll andhttp://twitter.com/AP-NFL


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Three Years in the Saddle Civil War Diary Receives State Grantby Beth Swift • July 13, 2005 Share:
This spring, the Robert T. Ramsay Archival Center at Wabash College and the Crawfordsville District Public Library applied for and received a $4,000 grant to digitize the Civil War journal of Henry Campbell.
Three Years in the Saddle is the story of a local boy, who, along with his buddies, went off to war. In July of 1862 Campbell and friends went to Greencastle to "muster in." Upon examination, it was discovered that Campbell, 16, was too young to be a soldier and was to be sent home. Only the intervention of Captain Eli Lilly kept this from happening. It seems that Campbell had a useful talent in that he could play the bugle. Lilly told the doctor that Campbell was essential as a bugler. It turned out that Lilly was right as his first bugler couldn't learn the calls. In this way, Campbell became a member of Lilly's brigade.
They marched off to war and Campbell faithfully recorded the large and small happenings of this notable regiment. They became a part of Wilder's Lightening Brigade, so called because they were mounted and outfitted with the new Spencer repeating rifles. This rifle was the key to a number of victories. At that time the muzzle loader was the primary weapon. Load, fire, drop back and reload was the order of the day. With the Spencer rifles, Wilder's men simply kept firing.
This diary gives the reader of today a look at life as a Civil War soldier from the perspective a young man from Crawfordsville.
The project, which was one of only 12 funded in the state, will scan the original diary and an accompanying typescript and serve both over the web. The Library is digitizing the typescript to make it searchable to users and Wabash is digitizing the handwritten diary and accompanying maps. When the project is finished it will offer a tremendous resource to teachers and students in the state. The project is part of a larger initiative from the State Library to create an Indiana Digital Library. This project is supported by the Institute of Museums and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the Indiana State Library.
Swift is Wabash College Archivist.


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The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego, $2.8 million to build and deploy a new high-performance computer system called "Trestles."
Designed to increase productivity for a broad spectrum of researchers, Trestles will have 10,368 processor cores, a peak speed of 100 teraflop/s, and 38 terabytes of flash memory. It will begin operations before the end of 2010 and remain in use for three years under the NSF award. The system will work with and span the deployments of SDSC's recently introduced Dash system and its larger Gordon data-intensive system, to become operational in mid-2011.
Like Dash, Trestles will be available to users of the TeraGrid, the nation's largest open-access scientific discovery infrastructure.
To be configured by SDSC and Appro, Trestles is based on quad-socket, 8-core AMD Magny-Cours compute nodes connected via a QDR InfiniBand fabric. Each of the 324 nodes will have 32 cores, 64 GB of DDR3 memory, and 120 GB of flash memory. With a total of 10,368 cores, Trestles will offer significant compute capability for meeting the science objectives of a large number of users.
In addition, SDSC is taking an innovative approach of complementing the existing capability of TeraGrid systems that favor large users and high system utilization, with a system that has the capacity to deliver science impact for large numbers of TeraGrid users.
A fair number of computational science approaches require resources with scheduling flexibility and rapid turnaround. "By focusing on core counts of 1,024 or less, Trestles is designed to serve a much larger number of users while simultaneously improving their productivity as measured by turnaround and the number of jobs completed," said Allan Snavely, associate director of SDSC and also a co-PI for the new system.
SDSC's approach with Trestles with regard to its size, allocation range and scheduling practices will also benefit the emerging Science Gateway paradigm for high-performance computing (HPC) system access. Science gateways is a relatively recent phenomenon in supercomputing. Currently led by Nancy Wilkins-Diehr of SDSC, the TeraGrid Gateway program began in 2004 as web portals designed and used by scientists. The program extends the analysis capabilities of these community-designed interfaces through the use of supercomputers, yet insulates users from supercomputing complexities. While gateway usage still represents a small fraction of total TeraGrid usage, about 25 percent of TeraGrid users now access resources via gateways rather than through single-user accounts, according to TeraGrid data.
To ensure that productivity on Trestles remains high, SDSC will adjust allocation policies, queuing structures, user documentation, and training based on a quarterly review of usage and user satisfaction data. SDSC's Dash and Triton Resource clusters use a matrixed pool of expertise in system administration and user support, as well as the SDSC-developed Rocks cluster management software. SDSC will also run the Inca monitoring framework to ensure the system meets all service-level expectations. SDSC's Advanced User Support will establish key benchmarks to accelerate user applications, and subsequently will assist users in tuning and optimizing applications for Trestles.
Trestles is also the name of a world famous surf break in San Diego County and one of the largest remaining undeveloped stretches of Southern California coastline. It is named for the railway bridge that crosses San Mateo Creek, home to a highly diverse and fragile community of plants, birdlife, mammals and reptiles, making it an ideal area to study biodiversity and climate change.


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New Feist album came out yesterday. Absolutely excellent.
This song blows me away.
I never watch reality shows, but had to watch this since the girlfriend had put up with football all Sunday. I don't even like rap and thought this was gonna suck because it was an original song, and those usually suck. But this songs been stuck in my head since I heard it. Maybe its just the back story cause I'm a sucker for anyone who has one shot and knocks it out of the park, but I think this kid is really talented.
New Wilco album is outstanding...possibly their best.
...nice...those guys have been around for a while...
Me'shell Ndegeocello's new album drops in mid-November. She's put out this teaser...


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(Phoenix, Ariz. -- July 22, 2010) Testifying at a congressional hearing today in Washington, D.C., Attorney General Terry Goddard urged the federal government to intensify its efforts to take down the Mexican drug cartels and to utilize techniques developed by his Office to disrupt the flow of money that funds their violent operations.
Defeating the cartels would be the best way to reduce illegal immigration into the United States, Goddard said, because they control the smuggling of both humans and drugs across the Mexican border.
"The Justice Department has called the cartels 'the greatest organized crime threat to the United States,' and I agree," Goddard testified. "The overwhelming majority of illegal border crossings are conducted and coordinated by these criminal organizations. It is long past time for Congress to make dismantling the cartels a top national priority."
Goddard offered a list of what he called the five most important things Congress can do to stop alien smuggling:
- Target the drug cartels and their leadership. Without cartel assistance, illegal border crossings will drop dramatically.
- Go after the money. The cartels are estimated to bring in as much as $40 billion a year from drug-smuggling and human-trafficking. Stopping the flow of funds could do more than anything else to weaken them.
- Follow Arizona's lead. The Arizona Attorney General's Office has developed techniques to stop illegal money transfers that work. This effort should be expanded across the entire southwest border.
- Anticipate the cartels' next moves. One move will likely be greater use of stored value devices, which need to be regulated much more effectively.
- Provide resources adequate to meet the threat. Additional federal resources should include $50 million in Operation Stonegarden funds to match the $50 million from our settlement this year with Western Union to support law enforcement agencies in the four southwest border states.
Goddard testified before the House Homeland Security Committee's Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism. The hearing was titled "Enhancing the Department of Homeland Security's Efforts to Disrupt Alien Smuggling Across our Borders."


text: The California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) Hazard Mitigation Planning Division is responsible for a comprehensive local and state planning program. Mitigation requires the coordinated effort and participation of a wide range of stakeholders and the public in the planning process. Hazard mitigation is the cornerstone of every communities approach to reducing vulnerability to disasters. Hazard mitigation is the only phase of emergency management specifically dedicated to breaking the cycle of damage, reconstruction, and repeated damage. The planning process is as important as the resulting plan because it creates a framework for the state of California to reduce the negative impacts from future disasters on lives, property, and the environment.


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General Manager
- Job Number: cee6da3e-6d88-461b-bc23-a77900141878
6350 W Ramsey St Unit MBanning,CA
- Posted Date: 6/19/2019
THIS IS A FRANCHISE POSITIONDescription:
Papa John's Pizza is seeking a General Manager to manage all functions of a Papa John's restaurant to ensure that quality customer service and products are being delivered to our customers. We are looking for active, motivated people in the restaurant world with pizza or equivalent experience. We are looking for leaders! Successful candidates should demonstrate exemplary operational skills, good judgment, be customer-focused and a team-oriented leader. You are responsible for all the key elements of running a profitable restaurant. This includes cost control, inventory control, cash control, staffing, scheduling, and customer relations. This person will ensure customer satisfaction through training employees properly and adhering to all company standards. You set the example. You must follow ALL policy and procedures 100% of the time and expect the same from your crew. Other responsibilities: Staffing, Paperwork, Food management, Scheduling, Cash control, Perfect image and adherence to standards, Training, Great Customer service, Store cleanliness, Attendance & punctuality, Marketing. Additional Requirements: • Must be at least 18 years old. • Ability to work with phones, computers, keyboards, touch screens, and fax machines. • Basic accounting, math, and cash management skills. • Strong verbal and communication skills. • High School diploma or GED preferred. • Prior Papa John's work experience a plus. • Above all, you must be hard-working, team-oriented, friendly, honest and committed to great customer service. Note: This is a franchise position.
While performing the duties of this job, the team member is required to constantly use hands repetitively, stand for prolonged periods, walk, grasp firmly/strongly and lightly with hands, and use fine finger dexterity. The team member is frequently required to bend over, twist, reach above shoulder level, crouch or stoop, kneel, repetitively use feet, and use head and neck in a twisting or static motion and to look up and/or down, and lift and/or move up to 30 pounds.
Additional Info:
Great things are happening at Papa John's restaurants. Work where the best ingredient is you! If you are looking for a fulfilling career with an international brand, flavored with challenging work, mixed with professional development opportunities, a competitive wage/salary and a collaborative team environment, then look no further! Papa John's franchise stores seek people who share our philosophy for success, are looking for quality business practices and meaningful work. All these combine to produce not only the best pizza, but also the best team members. Better Ingredients. Better People. We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.


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'Why?', she said. "Well, because Ireland is a magical place. All the little towns are beautiful, and all the people there are so funny and so nice, even though they all drink a lot." Eva went on to tell me that she finds the backwardness of the place endearing. 'You know', she said, 'like, hardly any trains, and the sweet old drunks in the pub.' Most of all, she'd really like to visit the romantic castle they go to in the movie, and see the old fashioned red phone box in the park.
Oh dear, thought I, she's stuck in MOVIE IRELAND, and I began to tell her Ireland is not actually as it's portrayed in the film, but I could tell by the look on her face that she is married to this fantasy. Not wanting to burst the bubble in her Hibernian dream, I didn't tell her the train system in Ireland is quite modern and relatively efficient, and most pubs (aside from those aimed at college-aged tourists in Temple Bar) are family oriented and without the stage drunks. I didn't mention the fact that the castle in the movie doesn't actually exist, but is a digital enhancement of ruins in Portlaoise, and there is no English-style red phone box anywhere in St. Stephen's Green. Instead I thanked Eva for her help, and said I hoped she would one day take the opportunity to travel to Ireland.
|Left: An entrance to St. Stephen's Green featured in the movie 'Leap Year'. No red phone box in sight.
Right: The sort of telephone booths you do see in urban Ireland.
|Top: One of several Luas (pronounced Louis) tram lines you will find in the city of Dublin.
Bottom: The Dart commuter train system. This one is stopped at Bray, County Wicklow.
|The ancient past and the modern present co-exist.
Top image: The Rock of Cashel as you approach it through the town of Cashel, County Tipperary.
Bottom image: Swords Castle in downtown Swords, County Dublin.
Pawel said he had already been living in Dublin for a while, and he bombarded me with exactly what he liked about it and what he didn't. He told me that the Irish are great talkers, but poor listeners, and think they know everything, and think everyone who is not Irish is stupid. He told me he hated all the rainy days, and the homeless people and the drug addicts in the street. His deeply negative attitude made me wonder why he would choose Ireland for study, but Pawel was a great talker and a poor listener, so he didn't answer my question.
Me? My opinion lies somewhere down the middle, between Eva's rose-coloured Ireland and Pawel's deeply cynical one.
It is true, in Ireland there is a serious problem with heroin addiction, and if you travel there, you may come across addicts in certain areas. On a couple of occasions I've 'interacted' with addicts in Dublin, on the quays, and on Marlborough Street near the Pro-Cathedral. This mostly involved refusing to give them money, and being very assertive in telling them to move away from me. Last summer, during a very early morning bike ride on the quays, I fast tracked away from a couple of addicts who were injecting drugs while seated on a bench across from the Custom House. As a historian, I am saddened by the fact that these days the grounds of Croppies Acre in front of Collins Barracks, as well as the grounds of the Golden Bridge cemetery, are locked up to keep the addicts out.
Also, it is true there are Irish who are great talkers and poor listeners, but I believe you will find people like that in every country in the world. It also strikes me that if you treat people the way you want to be treated, then most of them will respond in kind. If you are friendly and open and respectful, then they will be too. I think Pawel has failed to understand that fact.
One thing which seems to surprise some people, like Pawel, is the fact that many Irish are very well read, are engaged and interested in many topics, and have the expectation that others are as well. Personally, I have enjoyed discussions with taxi drivers, wait staff and guests in restaurants, and hotel desk clerks, as well as members of my own Irish family, on a wide range of topics, including Irish history. In my travels I have encountered people from many countries who do not know the history of their own country as well as some Irish know the history of Ireland.
As for Eva's impressions, the landscape of Ireland is absolutely magnificent, and is spotted with many charming towns and handsome cities, as well as beautiful castles and ancient ruins, and in that respect I also feel as though the island is a magical place. However, the mark of recession blots many Irish towns and cities, and there you get a dose of reality when you see shops boarded up, and once thriving businesses that have closed their doors.
Also, there are many nice, welcoming, and funny Irish people to meet in Ireland, but no, not everyone is very welcoming. Just as in other countries, some people are caught up in their own lives and couldn't care less about tourists. If you take a local bus, you will find some operators who will barely acknowledge you, other than to tell you to buy a map, while others will happily help direct you to your destination and beyond. If you venture off the beaten path and go into pubs frequented by locals, in some you will be welcomed with open arms, while in others you may be viewed with suspicion.
In Ireland, when I asked one of my aunts named Kathleen (I have a few) about perceptions of Ireland and the Irish, she told me she believes most Irish are very down to earth and easy going, and in favour of an enjoyable time, and a good laugh. However, she said at times some Irish, including her, look at tourists and just wonder what it is they want from 'us'. Aunt Kathleen put it best when she said,
At times Jenn, it's as if some of them are waiting for us to break into song or recite our party piece. We're not perfect. We're real people with real problems who just happen to live in a beautiful land with a remarkable history. We're not leprechauns or fairies, and we have no magic dust.
Aunt Kathleen paused for a moment, and I could see in her eyes that she didn't want to let me down, and then with a smile she added, 'well maybe just a little magic dust'.


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Farmers, ranchers and others who need manual labor have limited options for a legal workforce, says a recruiter for the H2A and H2B guest worker programs.
Libby Fulton Whitley, president of MAS Labor, says the agricultural labor force is contracting, "even with a nationwide unemployment rate of 8.3 percent. Migration from Mexico is at net zero," she said during a session on immigration at the recent Texas Produce Convention in San Antonio, Texas.
Less labor could mean more fruit and vegetable production moving offshore. The H2A program has supplied relatively few workers for agriculture. In 2011, only 290 applications were filed for H2A to fill a need for 2,108 workers. The H2B program, which recruits non-ag workers, had 415 applications to fill a need for 11,037 workers in 2011. And only 310 applications have been filed to date in 2012 to fill more than 8,000 jobs.
"Texas is the second largest user of H2A workers in the nation," she said. "But it does not supply a significant percentage of workers in agriculture. If you have a vacuum, something will fill it. That's what has happened in Texas."
The H2A program has been around a long time, since 1952, with changes made in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act and with more recent alterations. "The Department of Labor has broad authority over the program," Whitley said.
She said the Bush administration was unresponsive to needs to change the program from 2001 through 2007 but made some adjustments in 2008. "President Obama suspended the Bush H2A regulations," adding the Obama administration kept "the worst of the 1987 and the Bush regulations and added more."
She said wage rates increased from $8.70 per hour to $9.08 and other costs, including recruiting fees, shifted to employers. Visa fees and transportation costs were changed to be due to the worker at the end of the first work week, Whitley said.
The "vast majority" of H2A workers are Mexican.
Several legislative proposals have been made to improve H2A. "Accommodating current workers will be essential." That includes from 1 million to 1.2 million unauthorized workers currently in the workforce.
She said H2A has "significant drawbacks" that limit widespread implementation. "We need a contract-based program that's flexible. Several bills have been proposed. We would like to see the best ones meshed together."