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My last post was on gPXE (quite a while ago), and I talked about all the amazing possibilities that come from a network boot-loader with that much intelligence.
It looks like these benefits are starting to be realized in a big way. Recently, kernel.org (which hosts the Linux kernel, as well as a ton of mirrors and other projects) released boot.kernel.org. This service has you download a tiny (~500kB) image for USB, CD, or floppy. Stick it on a device and boot from it and you'll have an easy-access menu of various Linux installers, Linux live environments, and test tools.
It's still rough around the edges, and not all the installers work quite right, but it's moving along, and shows a lot of ingenuity. The various environments leverage HTTP, HTTPFS (root filesystem over HTTP), and/or iSCSI.
As an aside, if you want to use their USB image, but still have your stick be able to hold data, it's easy. Just (1) copy existing stuff off, (2) dd the image to the stick as directed on the page, and (3) add a FAT partition back to the stick. Step 3 isn't hard:
$ wget http://boot.kernel.org/gpxe_images/gpxe.usb
$ sudo mount /dev/sdd1 /mnt
$ mkdir backup
$ cp -r /mnt/* backup
$ sudo umount /mnt
$ sudo dd if=gpxe.usb of=/dev/sdd
435+0 records in
435+0 records out
222720 bytes (223 kB) copied, 0.159969 s, 1.4 MB/s
$ sudo fdisk /dev/sdd
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sdd: 2063 MB, 2063597056 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 1967 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd4 * 1 2 2032 eb BeOS fs
Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (3-1967, default 3): (nothing)
Using default value 3
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (3-1967, default 1967): (nothing)
Using default value 1967
Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-4): 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): b
Changed system type of partition 1 to b (W95 FAT32)
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sdd: 2063 MB, 2063597056 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 1967 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 3 1967 2012160 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdd4 * 1 2 2032 eb BeOS fs
Partition table entries are not in disk order
Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!
Syncing disks.
$ sudo mount /dev/sdd1 /mnt
$ cp -r backup/* /mnt
$ sudo umount /mnt
| permalink | related link
I just read up on gPXE, which is an open source alternative to proprietary PXE bootloaders. It supports booting a variety of environments and can be flashed onto NICs or chainloaded from regular PXE.
What struck me was this: it supports HTTP download of both gPXE scripts and binary images. This means that you could set up a web server that gives out gPXE scripts based on a PHP script or other server-side code. The end result is the ability to build a cluster whose nodes boot based on the control of a simple web server. If applied to something like the NCSU VCL, it eliminates the need for disk image transfers: nodes could be configured to run a certain environment by flipping one bit on a web server instead of pushing gigabytes of disk image data.
Furthermore, this isn't just restricted to sickly old NFS boot! gPXE supports software iSCSI boot, so all modern Linux and Windows OSes can get in on the act with just a small amount of configuration.
If I had more time, I'd love to apply this kind of deployment on our research clusters. Just putting the selection of Linux kernels in a centralized place would be a big help, even if we still mount the local disk as root!
| permalink | related link
Ars Technica is carrying an interview with Russ Daniels, HP's CTO and VP of Cloud Services Strategy. He discusses a practical definition for cloud computing and distinguishes it from utility computing.
Part 1
Part 2
| permalink | related link
We've been interested in applying power-aware techniques to virtualized compute grids, including so-called "cloud computing" grids. A key part of this work is dynamically scaling the amount of compute capacity based on load, which in some cases can be done automatically.
This article presents an opposing viewpoint and points out some ways in which automatically-driven dynamic resizing of compute resources might be a bad thing. I think the author goes a bit to far in throwing out automatic scaling entirely, but he does raise several valid points, especially with respect to security and the possibility of DDOS attacks.
| permalink | related link
I found an article that shows interesting analysis of power savings in a data center. In a 5,000-square-foot data center, a 1-watt reduction at the server-component level (processor, memory, hard disk, etc.) results in an additional 1.84-watt savings in the power supply, power distribution system, UPS system, cooling system, etc. Consequently, every watt of savings that can be achieved on the processor level creates approximately 2.84 watts of savings for the overall facility.
| permalink | related link
Tom's Hardware tested the power and performance of current Solid State Disks (SSDs) both in terms of performance and power. While the performance numbers were as expected, it turns out that the flash based drives' energy utilization is no better than a traditional 7200 RPM hard disk for a practical workload based on the MobileMark benchmark. The authors contend that this is because hard disks reach their maximum power draw only when seeking, whereas flash storage uses full power during any IO activity.
| permalink | related link
Ubuntu 8.04 was released earlier this week. You can get it from one of the official mirrors or from our unofficial mirror. This is a "Long Term Support" (LTS) release, meaning that updates will be available for 3 years on the desktop and 5 years for servers.
| permalink | related link
The Barcelona (aka "K10") microarchitecture is the latest design from AMD for both the server and desktop markets. The Phenom is the quad-core desktop variant, the Athlon X2 series includes the dual-core variant, and the 23xx and 83xx Opterons are the quad-core server varient.
The key changes over the previous line are covered in brief here and in greater detail here. Most of the interesting features require the use of an upgraded CPU socket denoted by a "+" (e.g. Socket AM2+ or Socket F+), though the CPU will work in non-plus sockets on current motherboards. Some of the "plus socket" features are:
• Separated voltage planes allow the CPU to have a different voltage/frequency for each core and the northbridge.
• HyperTransport 3.0, allowing greater bus bandwidth, including support for DDR2-1066.
In addition, the Barcelona introduces a shared L3 cache, which should have a major impact on HPC applications.
One major issue, however, is an L3 TLB bug present in the first generation of this architecture. This problem can be solved by disabling part of the L3 TLB system in the BIOS or via software (with a 10% performance penalty), or using a unique Linux patch to route around the problem with limited slowdown (but the patch is not intended for production use). See the Phenom wikipedia article for details.
In short, while Intel retains the upper hand in horsepower now, the AMD Barcelona design seems to sport many of the features predicted for future system design.
More information:
Wikipedia's Barcelona article covers the architecture in depth.
Anandtech benchmarking puts the chip through its paces.
To find a Barcelona-based chip, see Wikipedia:
• Phenom quad-cores
• Barcelona-based dual-core Athlons (scroll to "Phenom based")
• Barcelona-based quad-core Opterons (23xx and 83xx)
| permalink
This recent "Innovations" article highlights "utility computing", the idea that virtualization, shared storage, and other technologies will come together to commoditize business computing.
While I agree with the general idea, the author predicts that this will marginalize IT as a field, which seems counter-intuitive. While this kind of computing does allow fewer people to manage more systems, it does make that management that much more complicated. Further, IT has always been about helping users as much as maintaining infrastructure. So I don't see the general IT realm getting eaten by other fields, but rather splintering into specialists in networking, storage, (virtual) system administration, support, etc.
Finally, I found this quote pretty funny:
Teenagers entering higher education today are already skilled at building personal application spaces on Facebook using software modules. It's a small step to apply those principles to business applications.
"A small step" to go from facebook to a crucial business application? Seems unlikely.
| permalink | related link


text:
State-by-state look at same-sex marriage
Published On: May 07 2012 01:57:03 PM EDT
Updated On: Dec 02 2013 09:09:18 AM EST
Same-sex marriage officially became legal in Hawaii Monday. Here's a look at the path same-sex marriage has taken in states across the country.
The views expressed are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the Terms of Service and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Author/Maintainer | MITHALDU |
Version | |
Release Date | 2011-08-24 |
Kwalitee | 126.67 |
Core Kwalitee | 96.67 |
External Links |
Kwalitee Fails
Core fails
metric | remedy |
buildtool not executable |
The build tool (Build.PL/Makefile.PL) is executable. This is bad because you should specify which perl you want to use while installing. Change the permissions of Build.PL/Makefile.PL to not-executable. |
Extra fails
metric | remedy |
metayml declares perl version |
This distribution does not declare the minimum perl version in META.yml. If you are using Build.PL define the {requires}{perl} = VERSION field. If you are using MakeMaker (Makefile.PL) you should upgrade ExtUtils::MakeMaker to 6.48 and use MIN_PERL_VERSION parameter. Perl::MinimumVersion can help you determine which version of Perl your module needs. |
Experimental fails
metric | remedy |
metayml has provides |
This distribution does not have a list of provided modules defined in META.yml. Add all modules contained in this distribution to the META.yml field 'provides'. Module::Build does this automatically for you. |
has separate license file |
This distribution does not have a LICENSE or LICENCE file in its root directory. This is not a critical issue. Currently mainly informative for the CPANTS authors. It might be removed later. |


text:
Out of the political frying pan and into the partisan fire for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
A day after apologizing and taking responsibility for the problem-plagued health care website, Sebelius got subpoenaed on Thursday by one of the fiercest Republican critics of the administration -- House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa of California.
The subpoena demands documents and information relating to the HealthCare.gov website, a spokesman for Issa's committee told CNN's Lisa Desjardins.
It's been almost a month since the website for enrolling in President Barack Obama's signature health care reforms went live. But technical problems, despite a series of advance warning signs, have impeded the system and provoked anger and frustration.
Even after a chorus of apologies out of Washington, it may be another month before everything's running smoothly.
Vice President Joe Biden became the highest-ranking administration official to apologize on Wednesday for the botched rollout.
"We assumed that it was up and ready to run," he told CNN's sister network HLN. "But the good news is although it's not -- and we apologize for that -- we are confident by the end of November it will be, and there'll still be plenty of time for people to register and get online."
That mea culpa came after Sebelius apologized for the "miserably frustrating" problems during a 3 1/2-hour congressional grilling. She said she made a mistake when she told Obama that HealthCare.gov was "ready to go" for its Oct. 1 launch.
Sebelius promised a "vast majority" of consumers will have an easier time shopping online for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act by the end of November.
"In these early weeks, access to HealthCare.gov has been a miserably frustrating experience for way too many Americans, including many who have waited years, in some cases their entire lives, for the security of health insurance," Sebelius said.
She echoed the overall administration stance -- that a team of experts is scrambling to fix the website's errors.
To the frustrated users who have had problems, she said: "You deserve better. I apologize. I'm accountable to you for fixing these problems."
Obama tried to log on
Biden said he didn't even bother logging on to the health care site.
"Actually, the president tried to get online, and my daughter tried to get online," he said. "I did not, because it was clear that I was not getting online."
Obama himself acknowledged that too many people "have gotten stuck, and I am not happy about it."
"There's no excuse for it," the President said. "And I take full responsibility for making sure it gets fixed ASAP."
Glass half full?
Sebelius said the sweeping health care program has delivered on its promise to provide affordable health care coverage. Thousands have been able to access the website to look at new health coverage options that will give them security of knowing they won't go bankrupt if they get sick, she said.
Republicans have called for Sebelius to be fired for the problems, but a White House spokesman said Wednesday that Obama has "complete confidence" in her.
"She took responsibility for many of the problems that are evident with the (Obamacare) website, but she also deserves credit for the other aspects of the Affordable Care Act implementation that have gone well," spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.
In fact, Obama tried to turn the tables on Republican opponents of his signature health care reforms, challenging them to come up with helpful ideas instead of undermining the federal law.
"Anyone defending the remnants of the old, broken system -- as if it was working for people -- anybody who thinks we shouldn't finish the job of making the health care system work for everybody ... those folks should have to explain themselves," he said.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation website, 15.4 million people had individual health care coverage in 2011, representing about 5 percent of the population. The vast majority of Americans have coverage through their employer, Medicare, Medicaid or other public providers.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday that "a significant portion" of the 5 percent of people with individual coverage will end up paying less for better policies when they shop around in the new exchanges.


text:
The actress's makeup artist spills the details behind her crimson stain.
"I started with Amala Hydrate Treatment Oil and massaged Tammy Fender Antioxidant Creme Neroli and Orange on top. I lined the entire top lash line and outer third of the bottom lashes with a damp brush into an exaggerated cat eye with Alima Pure Loose Shimmer Eyeliner in Mystique, and smudged Vapour Organic Beauty Mesmerize Eyeliner into the lashes for depth. I lightly swirled Kjaer Weiss Cream Blush in Lovely on the apples of her cheeks, and used Ilia Polka Dots and Moonbeams Illuminator on the bridge of her nose and cupid's bow. Then, I dusted Dr. Hauschka Illuminating Powder on her cheeks and forehead. For her lips, I prepped with RMS Cocoa Lip Balm and used NARS Train Bleu Velvet Matte Lip Pencil for the base of the lip color to accomplish the depth of color I wanted. I blended Ilia Beauty Arabian Knits on top to lighten the look."


text:
Norwegian Jewel Review
About This Ship
More Ships
Ship Stats
Crew Members = 1,081
Entered Service = 2005
Gross Tons = 93,502
Length = 965 feet
Number of Cabins = 1,188
Passenger Capacity = 2,376
Width = 105 feet
Cruise News & Features
Visit the mysterious Land of the Golden Pagodas—Myanmar—with AmaWaterways, starting in Novembe Read more
Read more -
Dreaming of a romantic Fijian getaway? Read more
Read more -
Celebrity Cruises has improved their Captain's Club loyalty program, rewarding cruisers with complimentary Read more
Read more
· Cruises Forum
Tour Operator Grand Circle Travel & Overseas Adventure Travel
Date 5/2010
Itinerary Turkey, Greek Isles, Greece
This otherwise really good tour company which operates not only Grand Circle Travel bu Read more
My wife and I are planning a Mediterranean cruise on Celebrity in June 1014, and are having a really difficult time deciding between two equally appealing itineraries with comparable prices. Read more
My wife and I love cruises. Read more


text: Gears_of_War_3_1 By Ned August 21, 2011 11:31 AM Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Category: Share on Facebook Share on Twitter More Leave a comment Send to a friend! Print this page Pin it! Reddit This! Share on Tumblr! More from WGRD Jackie Cosplays- The Punisher You Shall Not Pass, Dog! [Video] Blowing Into Those Nintendo Game Cartridges: Does that Really Work? Catching a Sneak Peek of Jackie's 'Punisher' Cosplay Best of the Web ZergNet


text:
Trent Farris Dilfer (twitter: @TDESPN)
Position: QB
Height: 6-4 Weight: 225 lbs.
Throws: Right
Born: March 13, 1972 in Santa Cruz, CA
College: Fresno St. (school history) (Dilfer college stats)
Drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 1st round (6th overall) of the 1994 NFL Draft.
Weighted Career AV (100-95-...): 51 (1441st overall since 1950)
1-time Pro Bowler (fine print)


text:
The Publications Library is a searchable database listing literature and reports of relevance to the rural and remote allied workforce and service provision issues.
The database contains information that has been:
- produced by SARRAH; and
- passed to the National SARRAH Secretariat by those interested in rural and remote allied health professionals, service delivery, policy development and workforce planning.
If you have (or know of) papers, documents, reports, books of relevance, websites and/or other resource information relevant to AHP's in Rural/Remote Australia - please send the information to the SARRAH National Office via email.
* Some documents have restricted privacy settings. In order to view these please login.
Category Resources
Current Category: Health Reform
Resource Information
National Health Reform
August 2007
National Health Policy incorporating a rural health strategic framework and review of Medicare Plus Allied Health MBS item numbers.
Uploaded by: Shelagh Lowe (29/08/2007)
Last Modified by: Jessicah Mullins (22/02/2011)
This resource is in the following categories: |


text:
You need more results before we can create this chart.
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Your Overall Fitness Level is a relative measure of Fitness, meaning it compares your performance to the rest of the community. A Fitness Level of 77 means you are more Fit than roughly 77% of the community. As athletes everywhere continue to improve, it will become harder and harder to stay in front of the curve.
Your Overall Fitness Level is determined by averaging your performance across 8 different categories. For each of these categories you will receive a Category Level.
The categories include Power Lifts and Olympic Lifts, which are determined by your average levels of those respective lifts. The Speed category looks at your average levels for Shorter Runs and Rows (100m to 1000m), while the Endurance category looks at Longer Runs and Rows (1000m to 10km). There are also four Conditioning/MetCon Categories. We have divided Benchmark workouts and other popular workouts into four different categories. The first three include Bodyweight, Light, and Heavy workouts, all 20 minutes and under. The Long category includes workouts where the average time to completion is greater than 20 minutes. By combining your levels in these 8 categories, we get a very broad measure of your overall Fitness.
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NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 04: New York City Mayoral candidate Bill De Blasio speaks to campaign supporters in a public housing village on November 4, 2013 in the Queens borough of New York City. De Blasio is considered the strong frontrunner as New York City voters go to the polls tomorrow to vote for the next mayor. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
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Archived Boards and Threads... > MotM Travel Blog
No time.... no time....
* Harro doesn't have time to write anything usefull here right now.
It's 8:26 pm here right now, so that means I'll have to go to the airport in less then 12 hours to catch my plane..
And there is still so much to do :P
* Finish packing my bags
* Dinner
* Shower
* Take a look at all flight information again
* Sleep
* Make sure I don't forget anything (most likely will though... as usual...)
* Find stuff to do on the plane.
* Print everything that I should have (flight numbers, gates, seats, phone numbers,...)
* Send a mail to some friends to say goodby, a link to these blogs and the photogallery (not that they care :P ) and ask if they need anything from the US
* And probably a bunch of others things that I'm forgetting
So in case I won't be able to come online again... See you all at the meeting :D
* Harro is really looking forward to it.
Passport? ;)
Don't forget your laptop and adapter too...
I laugh when I see people bring something like a laptop and forget an adapter... :P
^ and making sure the laptop is fully charged before you go.
Nothing like travelling and not being able to find somewhere to charge it
Got that :D
Also have my dollars from this morning.
And laptop + adapter are both packed (and the US power convertor as well... I think...) :D
And it's charged!
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text:
I realize that, like with Dis4, you guys won't make an MK2 forum for Neptunia until it's officially announced, but could we put together some kind of policy or something for those of us who didn't go ahead and import it right when it came out?
Y'know, like leaving it out of threads that were originally just for the first game and all? I know I can't be the only one considering just abandoning that forum entirely until MK2 comes out in English. Being off-topic is something people do here constantly, and that's fine, it's how we roll, but if you're doing it to this extent, just make some MK2 threads, guys.


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Dog Brothers Public Forum
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Topic: Politics (Read 114096 times)
Power User
Posts: 11193
Re: Politics
Reply #950 on:
August 19, 2013, 12:28:38 PM »
I was actually a registered dem for a while, trying to get a sleazy sheriff out of office. Unfortunately, the guy I helped didn't turn out too much better when he got into office.
Power User
Posts: 3528
Re: Politics
Reply #951 on:
August 21, 2013, 11:31:38 AM »
I tried to post this under future of republican party but instead of reply all I see is "notify"
Someone said it best on radio the other day. I can't remember but I think it was Hannity. The Bush wing of the Republican party is all about "managing" the decline of conservative as opposed to the real right which is about standing for something. If we don't stand now we will ultimately watch the liberal agenda win.
*****And they're on their way to losing the next presidential election, too
A new Gallup poll finds the summer has once again not been kind to President Obama, with his approval rate dipping yet again. In fact, August has historically been the worst month for his approval rating throughout his presidency.
But there's a big difference this year: Republicans have had a worse summer.
Halfway through the August recess, congressional Republicans are still fighting with each other over the direction of their party. While they're united in hating ObamaCare, they have no coherent strategy for confronting Democrats and the president. Some want to shut down the government in an attempt to defund ObamaCare, some want to use the debt ceiling as leverage, and some think both ideas are nuts.
Newt Gingrich even slammed Republicans for having "zero answer" when it comes to an alternative health care plan.
The battle highlights a huge divide in the Republican Party, which impacts nearly every issue before Congress. Ten months after a brutal loss in the 2012 election, the battle for the heart and soul of the party rages.
GOP strategist Mike Murphy elegantly summed up the problem: "The party is acting as if the entire world is a GOP primary. That is a very dangerous way to operate. We have massive image problems with the greater electorate, and the silly antics of the purist wing are making our dire problems even worse."*****
Power User
Posts: 2004
Presidential pets
Reply #952 on:
August 23, 2013, 05:50:37 AM »
Interesting discussion of the politics and history of White House pets. To be read in tandem:
Power User
Posts: 28257
POTH: Corporations losing clout in GOP
Reply #953 on:
September 04, 2013, 10:53:26 AM »
Power User
Posts: 28257
Re: Politics
Reply #954 on:
September 20, 2013, 10:54:46 PM »
bama's Bluff
President Obama has adopted the unsustainable position that he will not negotiate with Congress over spending and the debt ceiling. He is betting he can get Republicans to fold without having to give up anything he wants.
Thats why were hearing ridiculous claims from him like the one he made speaking to the Business Roundtable this week: "You have never seen in the history of the United States the debt ceiling or the threat of not raising the debt being used to extort a president or a governing party and trying to force issues that have nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with the debt."
This is nonsense, of course. As Speaker of the House John Boehner pointed out recently, every major effort to deal with the deficit over the past 30 years has been tied to the debt limit."
Moreover, the implication that Obamacare has nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with the debt is simply dishonest. The law accounts for a large part of the budget and we now know that it will cost twice as much in the next ten years as President Obama promised before it was passed.
Despite the massive increase in cost and with evidence of the laws harmful effects piling up, most Democrats and a substantial number of Republicans seem content to maintain the present course, following the president who says he will not negotiate with Congress.
The truth is the President may soon be forced to negotiate. The Republican House today boldly passed a spending bill without funding to implement Obamacare, which many commentators are predicting could lead to a government shutdown.
This is a big step. It is very hard to change the status quo in Washington because most people in Washington do not want to change the status quo. If you really want to change things, you need to turn up the heat enough to force the old order to act. Thats how you bring negotiating partners to the table.
In 1995 and 1996, the government closed twice when the Republican Congress and President Clinton could not reach an agreement on spending. It is conventional wisdom in Washington and in the news media that this was a major mistake for Republicans. But that view is completely wrong. Before we took over the House in 1994, we had promised the voters we would fight for balanced budgets. We proved to the country we were serious about it, and more importantly, we proved to President Clinton that we were serious. The balanced budgets of the next four years were a direct result of those shutdowns. The heat convinced President Clinton that he had to negotiate.
President Obama may be in for a similar surprise after todays vote, a first step that could eventually force him to abandon his counterproductive pledge not to negotiate with Congress. If he continues to refuse, the government he runs will close--and the American people will begin to wonder why he refuses to make a deal. They may not be as firmly on his side as he expects. A Rasmussen poll this week found that 51 percent of Americans favor a partial government shutdown until Congress and the President agree on cuts to spending on the health care law.
When we see this level of conflict in Washington, its not because either side is stupid, and its not because theyre playing games. Its because one group wants to keep everything the same and the other group wants change. Eventually the situation will heat up enough and each side will have to negotiate.
Your Friend,
Power User
Posts: 5203
Re: Politics
Reply #955 on:
September 21, 2013, 12:02:17 PM »
Newt has this quite right. Why would you fund what you were elected to oppose, and how else will you stop it - if not now?!
Power User
Posts: 28257
Re: Politics
Reply #956 on:
September 21, 2013, 12:19:51 PM »
Quite infuriating is the misportrayal of the Reps efforts as "shutting down the government"".
The Reps are funding EVERYTHING EXCEPT Obamacare!!!
If there is a govt. shutdown it will be because of the Dems!!!
If the Reps lack the mind, heart, and balls to make this point loudly and clearly, this can turn out as disastrously as Karl Rove predicts.
Power User
Posts: 28257
Jonah Goldberg
Reply #957 on:
September 27, 2013, 04:37:45 PM »
From an informal e-missive he sends out:
The Goldberg File
By Jonah Goldberg
Sept. 27, 2013
Deer Readers (Really people, there are easier things to get your
news from than ruminant mammals. They're covered in ticks, and
they won't stand still. Get an iPad),
Okay, so I wrote the bulk of this "news"letter yesterday and I
was in a pretty foul mood. After a good night's sleep, I'm a
little less whiny, but I don't really have much time to write a
new one. So this will be one of the rare instances where my
normal column is more G-Filey than the G-File. An excerpt
For instance, here's Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who
walked out of the painting American Gothic to deliver this
homespun wisdom: "We're not going to bow to tea-party
anarchists who deny the mere fact that Obamacare is the law.
We will not bow to tea-party anarchists who refuse to accept
that the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare is
Where to begin? For starters, I know a great many
self-described members of the Tea Party, and I've yet to meet
one who would not acknowledge admittedly with dismay that
Obamacare is the law. Nor have I met one unwilling to concede
that the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare is constitutional.
Though from my informal polling, I can report that most think
the Court's reasoning left much to be desired (logic,
consistency, etc.).
Lurking beneath such lazy rhetoric is a nasty psychological
insinuation that there's something deranged not just about
opposing Obamacare, but about being a conservative. This is an
ancient smear, used to discredit conservatives in order to
avoid debating them.
Reid is a dim and sallow man whose tin ear long ago started to
rust. But it's worth pointing out that "anarchy" is not
defined in any textbook or dictionary I can find as "the
absence of Obamacare." While, yes, it's true that Mad Max,
most zombie movies, and other post-apocalyptic films are set
in worlds without Obamacare, that's really not the most
salient factor.
Okay, now onto yesterday's G-File today.
Dear Readers and the other kind,
Personally, this week has been like watching Michael Moore doing
a nude yoga routine, unendurably ugly from beginning to end, yet
with a few moments of dark comedy in between. And it's only
Thursday (Yes, I'm trying to write this a day early because
family issues will take priority in the morning).
I'm only referring in part to the political spectacle, but let's
focus on that right now. We've seen these kinds of arguments
quite a few times over the last decade. I could recount the
episodes, but at least in my memory their intensity has never
been this bad or widespread. While I think every individual
person has his own reasons, as a generalization I think there
are two factors driving pretty much everyone's crankiness.
The Weariness of Defeat
First, we're exhausted. Some may be exhausted with the fighting,
as Ted Cruz and others contend, but I think more are exhausted
by the losing -- or at least the feeling that we're losing.
People have diverse reactions when they feel like they're
losing. Some quit, sure. But I don't think there's a lot of
quitting on the right these days.
There are at least two other kinds of responses to the sense of
defeat. Some decide to go all out in one last frontal assault.
Others opt to grow more selective in their battles. Sonny
Corleone wanted to brawl, right now. Michael Corleone wanted to
play it cool until the right moment came along. Some boxers,
sensing the bout is getting away from them, go for the knockout
as quickly as possible. Others decide to lay back until their
tires himself out. In the Battle of Pharsalus, Pompey reluctantly went for the quick
coup de grâce and lost it all. Caesar, left with the option to fight or die, chose
to fight and won. Whatever, pick your own damn metaphor.
The point that I think is really, really, important is that
neither option is right or wrong in the abstract. It all depends
on the situation. More on that in a moment.
The Clarity of Fear
The second factor, I think, is that we're all afraid. And I
don't mean that in the way the people shouting at me from their
electronic perches mean it. I mean we're all patriots. We all
believe that Obamacare is a disaster and could fundamentally
transform America in ways that will hurt it.
(As an aside, it's worth noting again that there is something
fundamentally unpatriotic in the yearning to fundamentally
transform your country. I love my wife. Inherent to loving her
is loving her for who she is. Gentlemen, turn to your wife and
say, "Honey, I love you completely. It's just that I want to
fundamentally transform you into someone else." See how that
plays out. If you want to fundamentally transform the object of
affection so that it conforms to your fantasies, that is not love, it is lust.)
I've never liked the glib way people denigrate fear as if it's a
character flaw. There is nothing wrong or cowardly about being
afraid. A good father is afraid when his child is in harm's way.
A good commanding officer is afraid when his men are under fire.
Fear is like pain -- it tells you something you need to know. I
don't believe any man is fearless, but if such a person exists
he is a fool. Courage is not the absence of fear, it is the
triumph over it. In other words, what you do with your fear is the true test of
To love is to fear, because love demands that you invest your
faith and happiness in something or someone outside of yourself
and that is a kind of surrender. It is a surrendering of your
narrow self-interest to something that ultimately you cannot
fully control, and that is inherently frightening. Patriotism,
stripped of complication and theory is, simply love of country.
And most conservatives who love their country have that hollow
feeling in the pits of their stomachs -- like that angst you get when you can't find
your child at the Mall -- that something they love is in danger.
This is what unites the factions in the argument currently
splitting the Right. We are members of the same family arguing
about what to do about something we love when we fear she is
about to be harmed.
The Airing of My Grievances
I'm done arguing the tactics for now. Everyone knows that stuff
at this point, or at least they should. I've had long talks with
people on the other side of the argument this week, including
some quite close to Ted Cruz. I'll confess to the mistake of not
listening more closely to them sooner. I'm more sympathetic to
Cruz's gambit at the end of this week than I was at the
beginning. But I still think his plan wouldn't work even if all
of his
critics agreed to participate in a strategy they sincerely believed would fail. Lack
of Republican unity behind a flawed idea is not the reason the idea is flawed. But I
can tell you this: I sincerely and with all my heart hope I am wrong.
The Cruz Side & the Dark Side
And while my sympathy for Cruz's effort has grown, and my
admiration for his performance on the Senate floor is sincere
and deep, I also find his criticism of people who disagree with
him utterly indefensible on its face. He says:
If we look to a ragtag bunch of colonists in the 18th century,
the idea that we would stand up to Great Britain, the British
army -- the most mighty military force on the face of the
planet -- was impossible. It can't be done. I guarantee that
all of the pundits we see going on TV and intoning in deep
baritone voices: This cannot be done -- if we were back in the
18th century, they would be writing messages in dark ink and
sending it by
carrier pigeon, saying: This cannot be done. You can't stand up to the British army.
It can't be done. It is impossible. Accept your subjugation. Accept your taxation
without representation. Accept that this is impossible.
You know, if you fast-forward to the Civil War, a time of
enormous pain, anguish, bloodshed in the United States, there
were a lot of voices then who said the Union cannot be saved.
Can't be done. Accept defeat. I suspect those same pundits,
had they been around in the mid 19th century, they would have
written those same columns . . . this cannot be done.
I suspect those same pundits who say it can't be done, if it
had been in the 1940s we would have been listening to them. .
. . They would have been on TV [sic] and they would have been
saying, you cannot defeat the Germans.
I'll admit it: I take this personally. The mere suggestion that
because I disagree with Ted Cruz's legislative strategy I would
acquiesce to the Nazis conquering Europe and finishing the Final
Solution is repugnant. The idea that I would surrender not only
to the dissolution of the Union but the perpetuation of slavery,
simply because I don't think you can force Barack Obama to sign
into law the elimination of Obamacare, is a slander. The claim
that if you disagree with him you are no different than Royalists denying the
righteousness of the American Revolution is ridiculous.
Now I know Ted Cruz a little, and I've always liked him when I
talked to him. Some of my closest friends and colleagues are
good friends of his. But the most charitable I can be on this
score is that I am entirely open to the idea that Cruz doesn't
actually believe this and he's just letting the rhetoric get
away from him. Perhaps he hasn't thought it through -- something
that's hard to believe given how smart and intellectually
meticulous he
is. Or maybe he does realize what he is saying, but thinks the stakes warrant giving
dissenters no honorable room to disagree with him. Neither, by my lights, is an
By the way, the more apt analogy to World War II would be that
we are in the midst of the Sitzkrieg, or maybe the early days
after Pearl Harbor or some other time when war had already been
declared but the necessary assets for victory weren't in place
yet. We must invade Europe now, say the Cruzers, or Hitler will
win. No, we've got to wait until we can
actually win the inevitable fight.
It's not a great analogy, but it captures the fact that the
people Cruz is accusing of cowardice have actually spent years
doing what they can to stop Obamacare. That Eisenhower waited
until June of 1944 to land at Normandy did not mean he wanted
Hitler to win in June of 1943.
Taking It Personally
But my anger isn't really aimed at Ted Cruz anymore, in part
because I still want him to succeed and prove me wrong. It's at
you, Dear Reader. Well, maybe not you or you, but definitely
When writing a letter to many thousands of people, it's hard to
narrowcast to a relatively few individuals. But those
individuals know who they are. In the last week, in e-mails,
comments sections, and on Twitter, I've heard from lots of
people who think that because I am not swept up in Cruz-mania
that I am therefore a sell-out, a fake conservative, a coward
(or even a pro-Confederacy, Nazi-stooge Royalist).
Look, I'm a big boy ("literally and figuratively" -- the Couch),
and I've been through this more times than I can count. But that
doesn't mean it becomes any less insulting or dispiriting. I'm
not trying to play the martyr, and I fully recognize that the
issues here are mountains and my personal feelings are a grain
of sand in comparison. But when people who've been reading and
corresponding with me for years glibly accuse me of abandoning
my principles out of a desire to get more invitations to "cocktail parties" it pisses
me off.
I have no problem with people disagreeing with me. I admit I've
gotten things wrong plenty of times (more than that if you
listen to my wife or my couch). But I forwent invitations to
liberal cocktail parties long before I got dragged into the
Lewinsky scandal. And any remaining microscopic chance at
liberal love went out the window with a book called Liberal
Fascism. Before and after those personal landmarks is a road
paved with literally millions of words in defense of conservative principles and causes, as I
see them. The only thing that might get me invited to Andrea Mitchell's house for a
martini is if I pulled a full David Brock, which is about as enticing a prospect as
being Roseanne Barr's personal proctologist. Besides, I grew up on the Upper West
Side of Manhattan. I've been to liberal cocktail parties. They're not that great.
Again, this isn't about me -- but this "news"letter pretty much
is! And the only way it works is if I vent what's on my mind.
And the only way I know how to be a pundit is to say what I
think. Obviously, there is a tension between being part of a
movement and maintaining independence. But I think the Dick
Morris approach of saying what your fans want to hear regardless
of the truth is not merely dishonest, but dishonorable.
In fact, anyone in my line of work who tells his audience only
what it wants to hear isn't really in my line of work. He's an
entertainer or cheerleader. There's a need for such people in
any movement, and while I don't think you have to be all one or
the other (I'll cheerlead from time to time), the second you
start saying things you don't think are true, you've declared
yourself a hack or an entertainer or politician, none of which
are what I signed up for. And, since we're on this honesty kick, when well-compensated
commentators whose whole business model is to tell their audiences exactly what they
want to hear say that I or National Review are "selling out" by disagreeing with our
readers, it stews my bowels. In purely financial terms, there's only downside for me
to disagree with the people who buy my books or read my columns. For National
Review, taking unpopular positions on the right doesn't add to the
subscription rolls.
Anyway, I know, I know this G-File is lacking in the requisite
jocularity. But frankly that's because some of you pissed me
off. Not because you disagreed with me, but because you didn't
give me the benefit of the doubt -- which I think I've earned
from you, and you, and maybe not you, because you're new around
Power User
Posts: 11193
Remember when the left was all about "civility"?
Reply #958 on:
October 01, 2013, 07:03:03 PM »
Two Russians Walk Into a Parliamentary Crisis...
BY JULIA IOFFE @juliaioffe
What is a president in a presidential constitutional republic to do when faced with an intransigent, bull-headed faction among his people's representatives?
Well, Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first democratically elected president, was once faced with a similar situation exactly 20 years ago, in October 1993. The parliament, then called the Supreme Soviet, was increasingly against Yeltsin's neoliberal economic reforms (suggested to him by young Western advisors like Jeffrey Sachs). On one hand, these reforms freed up the old Soviet command economy. On the other, they drove the country into chaos and violence, and left tens of millions impoverished, their savings nullified by skyrocketing inflation. The parliament, dominated by old Soviet conservatives, was increasingly against these reforms and refused to confirm Yeltsin's key economic advisor. Yeltsin held a national referendum, a sort of national vote of confidence, which he won, and used it as a justification for what he did next.
Almost exactly 20 years ago, he dissolved parliament. The vice president and the speaker of the parliament dissolved Yeltsin's presidency, and holed up with their supporters in the parliament's headquarters, now known as "the White House."
Then Yeltsin did this to it.
Power User
Posts: 2004
House Rules change
Reply #959 on:
October 15, 2013, 07:14:32 AM »
Power User
Posts: 28257
Re: Politics
Reply #960 on:
October 15, 2013, 10:30:53 AM »
BD: Let's put those in the Congress thread as well please.
Power User
Posts: 2004
Backroom Politics
Reply #961 on:
October 16, 2013, 06:56:39 AM »
I started listening to this a few weeks ago. An interesting, (pretty) insider look at DC politics. Currently, of course, the shutdown/budget issues are the topic of discussion, but that need not be the case. Longtime US REP. John Dingell was on the show yesterday.
I forgot the link:
Last Edit: October 17, 2013, 06:12:51 AM by bigdog
Power User
Posts: 28257
Re: Politics
Reply #962 on:
October 16, 2013, 12:02:19 PM »
CNN has revived "Crossfire" with Cutter and XX Ship (or something like that) most days with two guests and on some days with Newt and Van Jones as well. About two days ago there was a scintillating discussion with Newt, Cutter (who is in serious need of some bitch slapping) not-stupid Obama econ flunky Goolsbie, and Carly Fiorina (former CEO of Hewlett Packard and former Rep candidate for US Senate from CA.
Fiorina, whom I did not care for while she was at HP nor while she was a candidate for Senate, actually impressed me greatly. Apparently, in the way of many Reps, as a candidate she felt she could not be candid, but here she revealed herself to be quite well informed, quite thoughtful, quite articulate, and quite classy.
Power User
Posts: 2004
trouble at Heritage?
Reply #963 on:
October 18, 2013, 01:30:08 PM »
From the article:
Recently, Heritage refused to publish two papers about the National Security Agencys surveillance programs written by a prominent conservative attorney. Why? Because he concluded that the programs were legal and constitutional, according to sources familiar with the matter. It was a surprising move for a think tank that has supported extension of the Patriot Act which authorizes some of NSAs activities and has long been associated with right-of-center positions on national security and foreign policy.
. . .
But the think tanks decision not to publish Bradburys opinions did not bury them.
Power User
Posts: 5203
Re: trouble at Heritage?
Reply #964 on:
October 18, 2013, 02:01:35 PM »
Quote from: bigdog on October 18, 2013, 01:30:08 PM
From the article:
Recently, Heritage refused to publish two papers about the National Security Agencys surveillance programs written by a prominent conservative attorney. Why? Because he concluded that the programs were legal and constitutional, according to sources familiar with the matter. It was a surprising move for a think tank that has supported extension of the Patriot Act which authorizes some of NSAs activities and has long been associated with right-of-center positions on national security and foreign policy.
. . .
But the think tanks decision not to publish Bradburys opinions did not bury them.
I don't know about the wisdom of refusing to publish, but their publishing is seen as their endorsement of a view. NSA and the Patriot Act powers are certainly issues that divide the right.
Heritage also just opposed the Medical Device Tax Repeal in the budget deal.
Because it leaves everything else in place.
Conservatives are very busy questioning each others tactics - while accomplishing nothing.
Power User
Posts: 28257
Jonah Goldberg
Reply #965 on:
October 18, 2013, 05:26:46 PM »
The Goldberg File
By Jonah Goldberg
October 18, 2013
Dear Reader (and those poor Hawaiians who bizarrely got this "news"letter as an error warning while trying to log on to Healthcare.gov),
Maybe it's my sleep deprivation. Maybe it's the fact I spent yesterday afternoon like Martin Sheen in his Saigon hotel room in Apocalypse Now doing tai chi amidst empty whisky bottles. Maybe, just maybe, it's the fact that I can't get the song "The Mighty Quinn" out of my head, but I feel pretty good about the state of things.
Don't get me wrong, I still think things are messier than my aforementioned hotel room and I'm not jumping for joy the way I will when Quinn the Eskimo gets here. I also stand by all of the comments that have elicited more bile from my colleagues on the right than a bulimia party on the set of America's Next Top Model after the Ben and Jerry's product-placement episode.
One fellow on Twitter proclaimed that Jonah Goldberg is "Saul Alinskying the Tea Party and he doesn't even know it. #MediaBubble" because I said on Fox yesterday that the Tea Party comes out of this more internally galvanized but externally more radioactive among Americans outside its sphere. This guy has an elephantine epidermis compared to the other thin-skinned responses I've gotten to my utterly banal observation. Some have skin thinner than the slightly congealed cream on the surface of an old cup of coffee. Others don't even seem to have a skin at all, and are simply walking around like flayed souls flinching at even the sight of a bottle of lemon juice.
The complaint seems to be that it is wrong to suggest that the Tea Parties came out of this fight with their brand or reputation diminished among non-tea-partiers, even if it is objectively true (or if that's too tendentious, even if it's what I truly believe). It's difficult for me to catalogue all the ways I think this is silly. For starters, there's nothing ad hominem about the statement.
For instance, if I were to say that Barry Goldwater became more "radioactive" when he said, "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!" it would be a true observation. That wouldn't mean, however, that I disagreed with what Goldwater said.
Moreover, radioactivity is the whole point! That's what the Tea Party does. It reminds me of Charlie Cooke's response to a C-SPAN caller's asking, "Why can't guns be safer?" He answered: "Because they're guns."
If the Tea Party isn't pissing someone off, it's doing it wrong.
Like the skinny guy everyone in prison is afraid of, much of the Tea Party's political power is drawn from the perception that it's just a little crazy. Boehner's hand has been strengthened over the last few years by his ability to tell Obama, "Hey, look, I'd love to cut a deal with you but you see those guys over my right shoulder? -- DON'T LOOK THEM IN THE EYE! They are crazy and if I walk back there with what you're offering they will rip off my legs and beat me to death with them. And then they will get mean."
So why did I get crosswise with them this time? Because I didn't think their strategy would work. But going over all that again feels like airing dirty laundry during Thanksgiving dinner just so you can get grandma riled up about grandpa's escapades during the war. "You weren't fighting Communists! You were fighting syphilis! We're going home!"
Still, like most of my colleagues, I didn't think the strategy would work. And that was a risk for the Tea Parties themselves. Sometimes to use power means to lose power. Good hostage-takers are always careful to ask for a ransom the victim's families can afford to pay, otherwise what's the point?
Indiana Jones and the Tea Party of the Lost Ark
In a recent episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon introduces his girlfriend, Amy, to the Raiders of the Lost Ark, which she'd never seen before. She liked the movie, she explains, despite the big "story problem." Sheldon is aghast at the suggestion there could be any story problems with the "love child" of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. "What story problem?" he demands to know. She explains that Indiana Jones is absolutely irrelevant to the story. If he'd never gotten involved, the Nazis would have still found the ark of the covenant, they would have still brought it to that island, and they would have still had their faces melted.
I'd never thought of it that way before, but it's actually a very close parallel complaint to the one I've written about many times. My dad -- who loved the movie -- always laughed at the idea that the Nazis would be able to use the ark for their dastardly purposes. The idea that God would be like, "Darn, it's out of my hands. I guess I have no choice but to lend you my awesome powers for your evil deeds," is pretty ridiculous. They even returned to this idea in the third movie, when the Nazis tried to get their hands on the Holy Grail -- because, you know, Jesus would totally say, "Nazis!? Rats. There's nothing I can do. It's life everlasting for the SS!"
I'm no theologian, but I just have a hard time believing that's how God rolls.
Anyway, I bring this up because I think you can say something similar about the last few weeks. There was a whole lot of action, but at the end of the day, things worked out the way they were going to all along. I'm sure there's a really good extended metaphor in here somewhere. Default was the face-melting ark, but we looked away at the last minute. Or defunding Obamacare was the Holy Grail, or something like that. But I want to get back to why I feel pretty good about how things worked out.
Obamacare: The Horror
While I think the notion that we wouldn't be talking about Obamacare were it not for Ted Cruz's filibuster is simply untrue, the fact that he laid down that marker, and forced everyone in the party to do likewise, will almost certainly work to the Right's advantage down the road. We can all argue about how unpopular the shutdown really was and how damaged the party brand is, but my guess is that the worst of it has to be behind us. The shutdown will fade from memory while the Obamanation of Obamacare will grow. If you read the Wall Street Journal story today alongside Yuval's post in the Corner, it's becoming ever more clear that this is kind of an M. C. Escher drawing of failure. The error pages literally have errors in them. Jonathan Cohn -- a passionate Obamacare booster -- has a relatively balanced piece about the rollout problems, but he goes back to boosterism when it comes to the issue of premiums. He simply asserts that competition is working and delivering lower premiums. I am at a loss as to how he can know that given that all the reporting I've seen suggests that if you're healthy and middle class, your premiums will likely go up. It even happened to a Daily Kos blogger whose tears are delicious!
Imagine going to Target the day after Thanksgiving for the "Black Friday" sale. You wait for hours or days for the doors to open. You rush in like O. J. Simpson in the old Hertz ads, leaping over pyramids of GI Joes with the Kung Fu Grip, sidestepping the giant Justin Bieber cardboard displays. It's complete chaos. Some woman who wants the same George Foreman Grill you do punches you in the uvula. You kill a guy with a trident when he tries to get the last Bluetooth beer helmet. Finally, because you kept your head on a swivel, you get your cart to the check-out line and the cashier tells you everything in your cart isn't on sale, but it's actually twice as expensive as it would be on a normal day. Why? Because in order to buy the things you want, you have to buy a bunch of stuff you don't want; a DVD of Bridges of Madison County, a cornucopia of indecipherable feminine products, a top-of-the-line salad spinner, and a twelve-pack of Ensure.
That's Obamacare for you.
And the fact that the GOP caused a huge fuss that briefly annoyed some people to protest this mess is really not such a bad thing.
It's Obamacare All the Way Down
Look, it's always possible that eventually they'll get all the kinks out and make this thing work well enough to avoid a total disaster. But every day it looks more and more like this thing is a Big Government onion. Liberals think the outer layer is bad but that if they just peel that away it'll be great. But the thing about onions is they're onions all the way down. You can peel all you want, you'll never find a prize in the center, but you just might find yourself crying in the middle of a big mess.
Consider this from the Sunlight Foundation:
All but one of the 47 contractors who won contracts to carry out work on the Affordable Care Act worked for the government prior to its passage. Many -- like the Rand Corporation and the MITRE Corporation -- have done so for decades. And some, like Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, are among the biggest wielders of influence in Washington. Some 17 ACA contract winners reported spending more than $128 million on lobbying in 2011 and 2012, while 29 had employees or political action committees or both that contributed $32 million to federal candidates and parties in the same period. Of that amount, President Barack Obama collected $3.9 million.
Arnold Kling responds:
I don't hold it against the contractors that they had prior government experience. I don't hold it against them that they lobby or contribute to campaigns.
To me, the scandal is that there are 47 different organizations involved in building the site. I cannot imagine that any sane project executive would want it that way. I am just guessing, but it seems more likely to me that this many contractors were imposed on the project executive because there was a requirement to "spread the work out" to keep all these companies in the politicians' pockets.
The Limits of the Moral Equivalent of War
Don't worry, I'm not going to wear my sandwich board and ring my bell about William James again. But I do feel like making one point. Whenever I make the argument that government is very bad at doing things like Obamacare, the liberal response is invariably to offer counter-examples. "The military is awesome! Are you saying SEAL Team 6 is bad at what it does?" or "We sent a man to the moon!" Other counter-examples are pretty rare, but there are some. The NIH does some great things. The Coast Guard, the Peace Corps, etc.
What liberals never appreciate is that in all of these counter-examples there's something else going on. The institutional cultures that won World War II or put a man on the moon or that discover some new protein are not strictly speaking government cultures. While none of them are immune from bureaucratic stupidity and inefficiency, ultimately higher motivations win out.
How the Marines' esprit de corps differs from the post office's esprit de corps should be pretty obvious. But even in the other examples, the cultural core of excellent government institutions is driven by something greater than a mere paycheck and significantly different from simple "public service." The NASA that sent men to the moon was imbued with a culture not just of excellence and patriotism but the kind of awe and wonder that cannot be replicated by the Department of Health and Human Services. Moreover, for scientists passionate about space and the race to get there, there was simply no place else to be. That meant the very best people were attracted to NASA. Even if, for some strange reason, you're passionate about writing billions of lines of code for a website and managing health-insurance data, there are still better things to do with your time than work on Obamacare.
I want to be fair to government workers. Many individuals who work for government are dedicated to doing excellent work for the public good. But I'm talking about culture here. President Obama talks as if, absent a war or other national crisis, the entire government can still be imbued with the spirit of sacrifice and excellence that won World War II or put a man on the moon. And that's just crazy talk.
Obama, the permanent campaigner, believes that governing should be more like campaigning. Everyone unified towards a single -- Obamacentric -- purpose. Everyone loyal to his needs. Everyone in agreement with his agenda. In 2008, when asked what management experience he had, he said that running his campaign proved he was ready for the presidency. That should have been the moment when we all heard the record-scratch sound effect and said "What's that now!?" Even if Obama deserved all of the credit for his campaign's successes, campaigning and governing are fundamentally different things. Campaign culture allows for people to be fired. It also rewards excellence, which is why some very young people rise very quickly in the campaign world, while it's far more rare in civil service. Campaigns have a deadline-driven, crisis-junky energy and sense of team loyalty that is at least somewhat analogous to a war or some other crisis. That's why the Obama campaign website was great. It's also why the Obamacare website's error page has an error page.
Power User
Posts: 28257
Congressman Tom McClintock (R. CA) makes a point that needs to be made
Reply #966 on:
October 26, 2013, 08:31:14 AM »
He may be a bit overblown in claiming that delaying the penalty is a big deal, but the instinct is right.
Dear Friends,
This nation has gone through 18 government shutdowns in the last 37 years. Fifteen of those 18 shutdowns occurred when Democrats controlled the House. In those 15 shutdowns, the Democrats demanded increased abortion services and labor and environmental policy concessions.
Perhaps the reason we dont remember those shutdowns as vividly is because in those days, presidents negotiated around the clock to resolve the disputes that caused them and did everything they could to minimize the publics inconvenience and suffering.
This time was different. This time, the President refused to negotiate and took unprecedented steps to amplify the pain and suffering that the public endured.
Why would the administration do this? They told us why because they were winning politically.
What was the outrageous Republican demand that Democrats refused even to discuss during the 16-day shutdown while they ordered our public servants to make life as difficult as possible for people?
On September 30th, with the deadline just hours away, House Republicans had dropped all conditions to fund the entire government with one substantive exception: delay the individual mandate that forces people to buy policies against their will. Democrats summarily rejected this proposal and for 16 days refused to negotiate on this single point, while literally accusing Republicans of sedition.
Then this past Monday, the Presidents Press Secretary made this stunning admission: the Obama administration may itself seek to delay the individual mandate by dropping the penalty for non-compliance.
Theyve got to be kidding.
For the 16 days of the shutdown, the only substantive dispute was the Republican plea to delay the individual mandate for the millions of Americans who couldnt find or afford Obamacare policies.
Doing so could have ended the impasse instantly. During those 16 days, it was clear to everyone that the exchanges werent working. Yet the President and Congressional Democrats refused even to discuss the matter, while they turned their formidable propaganda machine to the task of winning politically.
These facts speak for themselves and need no embellishment from me. John Adams once observed that Facts are stubborn things. As passions cool and reason resumes its rightful place in the nations discourse, these facts will speak eloquently and stubbornly of what happens when politics trumps policy and propaganda trumps reality.
Power User
Posts: 5203
Re: Politics - shutdown
Reply #967 on:
October 26, 2013, 12:11:17 PM »
McClintock makes a valid point.
Just a sidenote here, the whole 'shutdown' question is another case of liberals owning our language and the rest of us allowing them to do that. The Affordable Care Act isn't about affordable care and the shutdown wasn't a shutdown.
We had a partial shutdown, a 17% shutdown, a non-essential pause, a 16 day, partial, 17% non-essential paid vacation, but we didn't have a shutdown.
Imagine if we did have a shutdown. Shut down the airports, close the military bases, lock up the Courts and the White House, end food inspection, turn off the missile defense, etc etc. Disaster, disease, famine, that isn't what happened. The effect I saw was that rush hour traffic moved a little bit better.
Let the pollsters ask, who do you blame for the 16 day paid pause of 17% non-essential federal functions. 51% or more should say who cares.
Power User
Posts: 5203
Politics: Krauthammer v. Jon Stewart
Reply #968 on:
October 26, 2013, 02:00:28 PM »
This is a 3 part video of 30 minutes, especially good for me to see because I don't watch cable tv where these characters hang out.
At times CK is brilliant, but also he validates some of the points liberals are making and misses some opportunities. Stewart gets called out in part but is quite persuasive with many of his points. Important questions perhaps for 'the way forward', how to answer the liberal take on all of this more effectively and how do you get conservatives to be more on the same page in order to do that.
Power User
Posts: 28257
Re: Politics
Reply #969 on:
October 26, 2013, 07:02:32 PM »
I agree that I disagree with CK on some important points, but that was an excellent conversation.
Power User
Posts: 5203
Re: Politics, Virginia Governor's race
Reply #970 on:
October 31, 2013, 10:57:23 AM »
An interesting and well articulated point made by Sean Trende on Real Clear Politics that also relates to our discussion on 'the way forward':
"Cuccinellis problem in a nutshell is this: The Old Dominion would probably vote for a candidate who had sued a professor at the University of Virginia over his climate science research. It would probably vote for a candidate who referred to homosexuality as unnatural. It would probably vote for a candidate who tried to limit no-fault divorce. It would probably vote for a candidate who covered up an exposed breast on the state seal. It would probably vote for a candidate who wasnt sure if the president was born in the United States. It would probably vote for a candidate who told colleges and universities to strip protections for gays and lesbians.
What it wont typically do is vote for a candidate who holds all of these positions, and is unapologetic in them. Truth be told, Virginia hasnt been particularly fond of strident social conservatives for quite some time; Oliver North, Michael Farris, Mark Earley, and a host of other similar Republicans have met similar fates. The mold of a successful statewide Republican here has been John Warner, Jim Gilmore, and Bob McDonnell, all of whom would check most of the boxes on a conservative scorecard, but who also knew how to communicate those stances to your average suburban voter in a non-threatening way."
Power User
Posts: 28257
Websites for Dummies
Reply #971 on:
November 02, 2013, 12:27:00 PM »
Power User
Posts: 5203
Fla Gov candidate Dem Charlie Crist: "his only core belief is personal ambition"
Reply #972 on:
November 05, 2013, 08:40:05 AM »
Republican former governor Charlie Crist is now a Dem running for his old seat. Gov. Scott has approval number challenges. Crist has his own baggage:
Mr. Scott can run on the state's robust economic recovery. He can point to the 500,000 jobs that Florida has added during his tenure compared to the 632,000 lost over Mr. Crist's four years in office. Meanwhile, the jobless rate has fallen to 7.0% from 10.9% since Scott entered office.
The Republican governor will also be able to exploit Democrats' former criticisms of Mr. Crist. A new ad cut for the governor features Democrat Alex Sink, the state's former CFO and Democratic gubernatorial candidate, slamming Mr. Crist for failing "to lay out a business plan to get Florida out of its worst recession" and Democratic chair Karen Thurman noting that "his only core belief is personal ambition."
Power User
Posts: 28257
Re: Politics
Reply #973 on:
November 06, 2013, 09:37:10 AM »
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?" --Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801
BO's Pulitzer for Fiction!
Our friend, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), offered a few words on Obama's presidential achievements: "You know, the president already has a Nobel Prize for peace; I think he's shooting for one in fiction." Indeed, if he wins a Pulitzer for fiction, it will have been earned, unlike his meaningless Nobel.
Comment | Share
October Saw Near-Record Debt
Despite the government being "shut down" for half the month of October, the federal debt increased by $409 billion -- the second biggest one-month leap in history. The biggest leap was October 2008, which featured the bank bailout. According to CNS News, "At the close of business on Sept. 30, 2013, the last day of fiscal 2013, the federal debt subject to limit stood at $16,699,396,000,000. At the close of business on Oct. 31, 2013, the first month of fiscal 2014, the debt subject to limit stood at approximately $17,108,378,000,000." Those GOP "anarchists" weren't as successful as Democrats would have us believe.
Comment | Share
O'Care Not a Federal Program?
According to HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius, ObamaCare isn't considered a federal health care program, therefore it doesn't have to play by the same rules as other entitlement programs. The New York Times reports, "the Obama administration has ruled that neither the federal insurance exchange nor the federal subsidies paid to insurance companies on behalf of low-income people are 'federal health care programs.'" As a result, the decree "exempts subsidized health insurance from a law that bans rebates, kickbacks, bribes and certain other financial arrangements in federal health programs, stripping law enforcement of a powerful tool used to fight fraud in other health care programs, like Medicare." Unsurprisingly, Sebelius offered no legal reasoning, just simply an opinion of the law. Then again, this entire administration adheres to the rule of men.
Demos Duck and Dodge Disaster
Yet another key ObamaCare supporter in the Senate is looking for a place to hide. Dianne Feinstein is now insisting, "I said this directly to the president's chief of staff -- they ought to take down the website until it's right." That's not what she said to House Republicans when they tried to delay the ACA!
ABC 'Recreates' LAX Shooter
How intent is the media into scaremongering folks on the dangers of "assault" weapons? Following the LAX shooting, ABC's Good Morning America chalked up an animation of the shooter with several, eh, inaccuracies. The alleged perpetrator, Paul Ciancia, used a Smith & Wesson M&P15 semi-automatic rifle. But ABC's graphic depicts Paul Ciancia holding a M16 selective-fire rifle -- which does meet the qualifications for an assault weapon -- along with a m-203 40mm grenade launcher. Yes, a grenade launcher. The weapon Ciancia used is legal for civilians to own. The weapon ABC depicted is not. Learn the truth about assault weapons.
Inquiring Minds Want to Know...
Burt Prelutsky asks, "How is it that in civilian life, people are always being arrested and charged as accessories to various crimes, but when every senior officer at Fort Hood turned a blind eye to the fact that Major Nidal Hassan openly proclaimed his allegiance to Osama bin Laden and jihadism, not one of them has been indicted as an accessory to mass murder?"
New Lies About Old Lies!
Obama's oft-repeated lie -- "If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period." -- got a new twist this week. Obama now claims what he really said was: "Now, if you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you could keep it if it hasn't changed since the law passed." And he's now repeating that lie across the nation. Except he did not ever qualify his initial promise, which was the key to getting ObamaCare passed. He is wrapping the new lies in this assertion: "If we had allowed these old plans [to continue] then we would have broken an even more important promise -- making sure that Americans gain access to health care that doesn't leave them one illness away from financial ruin." Right -- have you seen the deductibles for the O'Care plans? Memo to BO: Two lies don't make it right.
Next Crisis? Doctor Shortage
The ObamaCare enrollment debacle is just a small glimpse at the frustration millions of Americans will experience by receiving subpar health care. America already has a shortage of around 20,000 primary care physicians, but a new report from CBS reveals that by 2025, that number will jump to about 52,000 -- likely a conservative estimate. BO promised that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, but O'Care is helping push older physicians toward retirement -- a startling dilemma considering almost 50% of doctors are older than 50. Demand and compliance with mandates will simply become too burdensome for private practice, meaning it will become difficult to retain or obtain a private physician. This train wreck's just getting started.
Mass Cancellations Aren't New?
On top of explaining that he didn't really mean you could keep insurance you liked if your insurance company changed it (due to ObamaCare regulations), he said that people receiving cancellation letters is nothing new. "We did this to put to end the days when the individual market had no standards, when every year, thousands of Americans would be dropped from their coverage. People are acting like this is some new phenomenon." Millions of Americans losing their insurance due to ObamaCare absolutely is new. What chutzpah.
Obama's Country Blues
Country music star Larry Gatlin offered up this tribute to Obama:
They're goin' to mind your own business
They're goin' to mind your own health
Goin' to recreate everybody equal
Goin' to redistribute all the wealth
They're goin' to put a tax on everything standing still
And everything that moves
And the beatings will continue
Until morale improves
Power User
Posts: 2004
Why so many Americans believe Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories
Reply #974 on:
November 11, 2013, 04:48:52 PM »
From the article:
Conspiracy theories are conquering the country, leading us into a dark age of cynicism. Americans are bombarded by a growing barrage of outlandish tales, aided and abetted by a polarizing media, and amplified by the echo chamber of the Internet. While all sides indulge in conspiracy theories, Republicans and conservatives are particularly prone to them. Such inflamed rhetoric divides nations and destroys deliberative democracy.
Power User
Posts: 28257
Re: Politics
Reply #975 on:
November 12, 2013, 09:05:56 AM »
In the case of the Kennedy assassination there are plenty of reasons to question the official version.
Power User
Posts: 5203
Re: Politics
Reply #976 on:
November 12, 2013, 10:46:34 AM »
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on November 12, 2013, 09:05:56 AM
In the case of the Kennedy assassination there are plenty of reasons to question the official version.
How do you think it happened?
Power User
Posts: 28257
Re: Politics
Reply #977 on:
November 12, 2013, 10:59:15 AM »
I don't know, all the theories seem to have problems with them , , ,
Power User
Posts: 2004
partisan divide in the Senate
Reply #978 on:
November 14, 2013, 02:02:49 PM »
Power User
Posts: 28257
Re: Politics
Reply #979 on:
November 14, 2013, 02:42:52 PM »
Please post in the Congress thread as well. TIA.
Power User
Posts: 5203
Americans are more conservative than they have been in decades
Reply #980 on:
November 17, 2013, 10:11:15 AM »
Meanwhile, outside of Seattle...
Americans are more conservative than they have been in decades
James Stimson knows as much about public opinion as anyone in America. He has been tracking the nations policy preferences for more than 20 years using a policy mood index derived from responses to a wide variety of opinion surveys involving hundreds of specific policy questions on topics ranging from taxes and spending to environmental regulation to gun control.
The latest update of Stimsons policy mood series suggests that the American public in 2012 was more conservative than at any point since 1952. (Actually, since mood in each year is estimated with some error, it seems safer to say that the current level of conservatism roughly equals the previous highs recorded in 1980 and 1952.)
Power User
Posts: 28257
Ten Biggest Lies of 2013
Reply #981 on:
December 16, 2013, 01:45:54 PM »
Includes a few from our side:
Power User
Posts: 3528
Re: Politics
Reply #982 on:
December 17, 2013, 07:16:09 AM »
Good post. It goes to show us how very difficult it is to know what is true and what is not true. OTOH I don't even know if the conclusions in this fact checker are true.
Power User
Posts: 5203
Re: Ten Biggest Lies of 2013
Reply #983 on:
December 18, 2013, 09:00:27 AM »
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on December 16, 2013, 01:45:54 PM
Includes a few from our side:
Pretty amazing that even the WashPost confirms Pres Obama is the Liar of the Year. Mis-speaks by a few lowly Republicans hardly compare. Michele Bachmann, leaving office, with her facts wrong is hardly news and there was no accompanying bill to slash food stamps by 70%. We are closing the Vatican embassy, but the out of office Jeb Bush implied false blame. Lamar Alexander connected two 'unrelated' spending items. That one could go under 'opinion' check. NRA said armed guards at Obama's children's school. If wrong, they are protected by armed guards every other minute of the day. Hardly a big deal or the basis of a public policy decision. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) charged that then- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in April of 2012 signed a cable directing a drawdown for security assets for the U.S. Embassy in Libya. In fact the cable had her signature but the Post says they all do...
Kerry's statement that I opposed the invasion of Iraq would be as meaningless as a Michele Bachmann statement - even we had not chosen people like Biden and Kerry for the highest positions in the administration!
The 'keep your policy' doozy was an obvious one, but good for the Post to publish this one by the President:
The day after Benghazi happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism.
Hard to believe a journalist wasn't fired over that one.
The day after Benghazi the President gave a speech in Las Vegas ripping Republicans. He was on-time and looked well-rested!
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text:
Genre; Urban Fantasy
Format: Ebook
Published: July 2011
Review by Lis
My flash fiction for this week
This sounds like a fun read, but I'm a bit concerned about Figg's nosiness - is it too much? I mean, sometimes there are characters who are concerned and a bit nosey, so you like them. And sometimes there are Characters who just need to know everything and are so nosey that you want to do them bodily harm.
Orgasm machines?! Woman, what have you been reading?
Thank you for your lovely comment. I appreciate and love them all :D
I answer them all here.
Update: I have switched to embedded comments, so please let me know if you can't comment
(and do tell if evil word verification shows up as I switched to new blogger)
© Blogger template Starry by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008 Modified by Lea
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text:
Welcome to CowboysZone! Join us! Come on! You know you want to!
You cannot post in the chat room because you have not posted enough in the forums!
Witten has more catches than megatron
Discussion in 'Fan Zone' started by JPostSam, Dec 3, 2012.
Page 2 of 4
Page 2 of 4


text:
Supervising News Editor Maggie Leung -- 404-827-1401
Relatives of people killed in a Colorado mass shooting last July say the theater owner's invitation to a private function before the complex reopens is "disgusting" and "wholly offensive to the memory of our loved ones."
POL-Fiscal-Cliff (will update)
After exhaustive negotiations that strained the country's patience, the House approved a bill to avert the dreaded fiscal cliff, staving off widespread tax increases and deep spending cuts.
POL-Clinton-Hospitalized (will update)
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been speaking with her staff and is active on the phone as she recovers from a blood clot in a vein between her skull and brain, a spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
ENT-California-Bieber-Paparazo-Death (will update)
Paparazzi have had nasty run-ins with pop star Justin Bieber, including a high-speed chase in July that prompted a city councilman to predict that such an encounter could end tragically. It happened Tuesday. A photographer, who thought he spied Bieber sitting in his parked white Ferrari, was struck and killed by oncoming traffic as he walked across a Los Angeles freeway to get back to his car after snapping photos.
As rumors swirl over Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's health, supporters and opponents of the ailing president are trading barbs over who's behind them.
Syria-Civil-War (will update)
The death toll in devastated Syria has surpassed an estimated 60,000 people, the United Nations said Wednesday, a dramatic figure that could skyrocket as the civil war persists.
The father of Malala Yousafzai, the teenager whom the Taliban tried to kill, has been given a job in a Pakistan consulate in Birmingham, England, where she is recovering from gunshot wounds to her head and neck, Pakistani officials said Wednesday. Ziauddin Yousafzai has been appointed education attache and will function as head of the consulate's education section for three years, the Pakistani government said. His job could be extended two additional years. At the time of his daughter's shooting, Ziauddin Yousafzai ran a school in Pakistan's conservative Swat Valley that kept its doors open to girls -- in defiance of the Taliban.
Top lawyers in the India district where a woman was gang-raped are saying that they will not represent the six men accused in the attack, which led to her death.
The death toll in devastated Syria has surpassed an estimated 60,000 people, the United Nations said Wednesday, a dramatic figure that could skyrocket as the civil war persists.
Gunmen have kidnapped an American journalist in Syria, the journalist's family announced Wednesday.


text:
This is a limited edition with a white cover, it looks just like the normal yellow cover, but says advanced readers edition at the bottom. Inside on the first page below the ISBN number it says "Cover design by Peter Mendelsund" then "Uncorrected Proof" " Not for Sale"
This imaginative tale is sparked by the forty year old disappearance of Harriet Vanger, a young heir of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden. This event consumes the life of her octogenarian uncle, who is determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder.
It's... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)
"Mikael Blomkvist: What has happened to you? How did you turn out this way? You know everything about me. I don't know shit about you. Not a damn thing. Lisbeth Salander: That's the way it is."Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander
""Sex has nothing to do with friendship. Sure friends can have sex, but if I had to choose between sex and friendship when it comes to you, there's no doubt which I would pick.""Mikael Blomkvist
"Keep it in mind that I'm crazy, won't you?"Lisbeth Salander
"What she had realized was that love was that moment when your heart was about to burst."Lisbeth Salander
"Every family had a few skeletons in their cupboards, but the Vanger family had an entire gallimaufry of them."Mikael Blomkvist
"Then I discovered that being related is no guarantee of love!"Henrik Vanger
"Normally seven minutes of another person's company was enough to give her a headache so she set things up to live as a recluse. She was perfectly content as long as people left her in peace. Unfortunately society was not very smart or understanding."Description of Lisbeth Salander
"Cortez looked like someone newly in love, the way only twenty-four-year-olds can look."
"In the evening he went to the cinema to see "The Lord of the Rings", which he had never before had time to see. He thought that orcs, unlike human beings, were simple and uncomplicated creatures."Mikael Blomkvist
"The media have the ability to attract the craziest people to call in perfectly absurd tips. Every newsroom in the world gets updates from UFOlogists, graphologists, scientologists, paranoiacs, and every sort of conspiracy theorist."
"I've had many enemies over the years. If there is one thing I've learned, it's never engage in a fight you're sure to lose. On the other hand, never let anyone who has insulted you get away with it. Bide you're time and strike back when you're in a position of strength - even if you no longer need to strike back."
"Everyone has secrets. It's just a matter of finding out what they are."Lisbeth Salander
"Kill them all and let God sort them out."(print on Lisbeth Salander's t-shirt)
"The Stock Exchange is something very different. There is no economy and no production of goods and services. There are only fantasies in which people from one hour to the next decide that this or that company is worth so may billions, more or less. It doesn't have a thing to do with reality, or with the.....economy."Mikael Blomkvist
"The truth was that she enjoyed digging into the lives of other people and exposing the secrets they were trying to hide."
"Friendship - my definition - is built on two things," he said. "Respect and trust. Both elements have to be there. And it has to be mutual. You can have respect for someone, but if you don't have trust, the friendship will crumble."Mikael Blomkvist
"She minded her own business and did not interfere with what anyone around her did. Yet there was always someone who absolutely would not leave her in peace."
"Good. So we're singing from the same song sheet."Lisbeth Salander
"Hi. Great to see you. I thought you died or something."Dragan Armansky
"And if you lied about that, what else did you lie about?"Mikael Blomkvist
"No, I don't believe in God, but I respect the fact that you do. Everyone has to have something to believe in."Mikael Blomkvist
"When she was done, she slipped into her bedroom and put on jeans, and a T-shirt with a slogan ARMAGEDDON WAS YESTERDAY – TODAY WE HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM."
"In that case, it might amuse you to know that I also have principles comparable to your ethics committee's. I call them Salander's Principles. One of them is that a bastard is always a bastard, and if I can hurt a bastard by digging up shit about him, then he deserves it."Lisbeth Salander
"There's always someone willing to believe malicious rumours."Dirch Frode
"Journalists who falsify materials are idiots."Mikael Blomkvist
"Don't ever do anything for nothing."Dragan Armansky
"When she stopped, the silence was deafening."
"I'm a nut freak, I admit it: a freak."Lisbeth Salander
"You shouldn't have sex with people you're working with. It just leads to trouble."Mikael Blomkvist
""Si el Sr. <Ildefonso> Martínez se hubiera tomado el trabajo de conocer a algún "falangista independiente", se habría dado cuenta de que no forman especie alguna. Ellos son, por más que le pese a muchos, la auténtica encarnación del pensamiento joseantoniano, que no es precisamente el del Movimiento. <...>"
"Consequently, her only remaining option was to do what she had always done—take matters in her own hands and solve her problems on her own. That was definitely an option.And it did not bode well for Herr Advokat Nils Bjurman."
"She went around with the attitude that she would rather be beaten to death than take any shit.And she always got revenge."
"Being a homicide detective can be the loneliest job in the world. The friends of the victim are upset and in despair, but sooner or later—after weeks or months—they go back to their everyday lives. For the closest family it takes longer, but for the most part, to some degree, they too get over their grieving and despair. Life has to go on; it does go on. But the unsolved murders keep gnawing away and in the end there's only one person left who thinks night and day about the victim: it's the officer who's left with the investigation."Detective Superintendent Gustaf Morell
"Salander never forgot an injustice, and she was anything but forgiving."
PART 1 Incentive
CHAPTER 1 Friday, December 20
CHAPTER 2 Friday, December 20
CHAPTER 3 Friday, December 20–Saturday, December 21
CHAPTER 4 Monday, December 23–Thursday, December 26
CHAPTER 5 Thursday, December 26
CHAPTER 6 Thursday, December 26
CHAPTER 7 Friday, January 3
PART 2 Consequence Analyses
CHAPTER 8 Friday, January 3–Sunday, January 5
CHAPTER 9 Monday, January 6–Wednesday, January 8
CHAPTER 10 Thursday, January 9–Friday, January 31
CHAPTER 11 Saturday, February 1–Tuesday, February 18
CHAPTER 12 Wednesday, February 19
CHAPTER 13 Thursday, February 20–Friday, March 7
CHAPTER 14 Saturday, March 8–Monday, March 17
PART 3 Mergers
CHAPTER 15 Friday, May 16–Saturday, May 31
CHAPTER 16 Sunday, June 1–Tuesday, June 10
CHAPTER 17 Wednesday, June 11–Saturday, June 14
CHAPTER 18 Wednesday, June 18
CHAPTER 19 Thursday, June 19–Sunday, June 29
CHAPTER 20 Tuesday, July 1–Wednesday, July 2
CHAPTER 21 Thursday, July 3–Thursday, July 10
CHAPTER 22 Thursday, July 10
CHAPTER 23 Friday, July 11
PART 4 Hostile Takeover
CHAPTER 24 Friday, July 11–Saturday, July 12
CHAPTER 25 Saturday, July 12–Monday, July 14
CHAPTER 26 Tuesday, July 15–Thursday, July 17
CHAPTER 27 Saturday, July 26–Monday, July 28
CHAPTER 28 Tuesday, July 29–Friday, October 24
CHAPTER 29 Saturday, November 1–Tuesday, November 25
Followed by The Girl Who Played with Fire.
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text:
For shiny and healthy hair, consider the amazing benefits of a hot oil treatment
By Leah Fletcher
To be health and vibrant, African American has some vey specific needs. For some, a dry scalp and hair breakage may become problematic. One remedy may be a hot oil treatment, often used to correct damaged black hair, However, the benefits of a hot oil treatment is varied and not all hair types need hot oil treatments.
The primary benefit
Hot oil treatments prevent breakage, which is common among people with coarse hair textures, such as African American hair. The need to moisturize the hair follicle with extra oil is prompted by the desire to promote continued growth and sheen while maintaining the integrity of the hair follicle. Hot oil basically allows the required oil to be deposited into the hair to prevent dryness, which contributes to breakage. Hot oil treatments also create extra body and shine, which can be beneficial for black hair because it is prone to become brittle or dull do to its coarse texture.
Types of oils used
There are many types of oils that can be used for a hot oil treatment. Olive oil is very popular because of its smooth and silky texture. Many people use the olive oil found in their kitchens. Coconut oil is beneficial as a daily moisturized and a hot oil treatment. Jojoba oil is a favorite because it helps correct dry scalp and prevent dandruff. Emu oil is used to help with hair loss for individuals who have thinning hair, perhaps due to the use of wigs, weaves or hair extensions, weaves or wigs. It is preferred among some hair care professionals and is available in black beauty salons and beauty supply stores.
Castor oil treatments also are common and quite beneficial for black hair due to its thick consistency. For individuals with extremely curly types of hair, castor oil may help loosen curls and create greater waves and textures. Jamaican castor oil is best because it is unrefined, eliminating unnecessary chemicals that may be deposited in the hair from other types of oils. Castor oil is often mixed with an array of other oils, including olive and coconut oils, to create the right consistency for an individual's hair texture. It is a good idea to use castor oil with a light conditioner to balance ph levels.
Easy to apply
Hot oil treatments need to be heated to ensure the texture of the oil is light with a temperature low enough to be applied to the scalp. To avoid heating the oil too quickly, some place oil bottles in hot water instead of putting them in the microwave. Heating oil in a small saucepan slowly is another popular method. The best way to apply hot oil treatments is to place oil on the hair and scalp and then rub it in with your hands.
The oil should be applied to the whole head, with special attention being given to the scalp, which should be equally saturated with oil. A plastic cap may be worn after oil application and should be worn for 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the condition of the hair. Sitting under a dryer can help to set oils and increase moisturizing effects.
Salon treatments versus homemade treatments
You might believe you need to go to a salon for a good hot oil treatment. While salon treatments can be relaxing and beneficial, they use the same oils you can purchase at a beauty supply store, or that you have in your kitchen cabinets. Homemade hot oil treatments are more economical and allow you to adapt oil needs to your particular hair type. A mixture of oils can be used to create the perfect balance and consistency of oil, depending on your hair care needs. There is an array of hot oil kits you can purchase with step-by-step instructions that can reduce your costs.
How often
How frequent you get oil treatments depends on the texture and dryness of your hair. Some opt for a weekly treatment; others opt for a monthly treatment. Those with dryer scalps should elect oil treatments more regularly to prevent drying and breakage. At the same time, caution is needed to avoid over saturated hair, which becomes limp and greasy. Be sure to wash your hair regularly to prevent oil build up. However, after you relax hair or undergo any chemical process, hot oil treatments can help improve elasticity, moisture and sheen.
+ Top Story
For a time, finding useful hair styling and grooming tips for Black men proved to be difficult. But increasingly, ethnic-oriented hairstylists and male fashion gurus are expanding the options and exploring variations on hairstyles for black men that work with their natural texture.
A facial is considered one of the best ways to care for your skin, especially when it is given by an experienced and knowledgeable esthetician. While most women hear the term "facial" bandied about and they have often thought about getting a professional facial, many don't know where to begin. So...
You are looking in the mirror and examining the face that is staring back at you. Upon further examination, you begin communicating with the visage about the desire for a new look. You ask the question: Is the answer new makeup, a new hairstyle, or a new hair color?
Nail art design exceeds the conventional manicure and gives you an opportunity to express your own creative style. Nail art, like makeup, is an easy and inexpensive way to modify your appearance when you want to match an outfit or alter your mood. Nail art services are offered in most salons.
A Hollywood entertainment blog recently featured a photo montage of high profiled actresses and models captured on what appeared to be their "bad hair days". An international model, who shall remain nameless, but noted for sporting long flowing weaves, happen to wear her hair in a sweeping updo.
The age-old debate still rages on among African American women regarding choices surrounding natural or relaxed hairstyles. There are those who prefer natural hair ranging from curly to kinky or somewhere in between. And, there are those who go to great expense to straighten their hair.
There are a variety of innovative methods African American women use extensions to twist their hair. The most common are Kinky Twists, Senegalese Twists and Havana twists. However, it's the Havana Twists hairstyle that is gaining in popularity.
As the fall season approaches, many will consider selecting a new hair routine for the cooler season. During the summer months, many African American women considered options that included curly hairstyles, loose waves and natural styles.