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Occupy Global
Occupy Wall Street At the Crossroads - by Ismael Hossein Zadeh
"...Why aren't more of the 99% joining the movement? And why has support for protest actions of the Occupiers declined?"
Then in May more than 30,000 people protested in Santiago against the HidroAysén project to build five mega dams in Patagonia (a project supported by both the government and the opposition) without consulting the public. Never before had an environmental action united so many people, an indication that change was underway.
Soon after, victims of the 2010 earthquake began to demonstrate. Most of them were still homeless, spending their second winter in highly precarious conditions. As they pointed out, highways used to transport goods had been repaired, but not the homes of the poor and working class.
At the end of April, students began to mobilize. On June 30, 200,000 marched along the Alameda, Santiago's most important thoroughfare. From then on, there were dozens of marches. "Young people were moved by a festive spirit," according to historian Mario Garcés. There were no political party banners or uniform signs. Above all, there were no marches to familiar state symbols-Congress and the President's Office, the usual destinations for unions and political parties.
In the following weeks, students, especially high school students, occupied the television network Chilevision to protest coverage of the mobilizations. They also occupied political party headquarters, both the ultra-rightist UDI and the opposition Socialist Party.
Occupy and superimpose freedom and life over the existing ruins of society..everywhere. Appeal to none of it because it is dead to us, but only refuses burial. Zombie institutions populated by the dead from the neck up.
Eventually when all of the trappings of faux democracy are finally thrown off, when popular dissent is finally crushed as a result of having become criminalized and associated with terrorism, and the project of reducing workers and the working poor, who dare not grumble anymore in public, to the status of low paid serfs in the employ of conglomerations and their political wings in government comes to fruition, the total implementation of which not being too far off at all; it will be the turn of the unionized cop who assisted in all of that to be replaced by lower paid security personnel, who might only need to come by their qualifications through an online course or something. And when even those become too expensive, they'll just import security guards at a fraction. And so the cop swinging his baton and spraying his pepper spray at the faces of today's activists, ultimately fights for the right of corporations to eventually replace this 'service' on their behalf with indentured servitude from elsewhere. Profit's destination is to drain from everywhere until there is nothing left.
After Journalist Arrests, U.S. Plummets in Global Press Freedom Rankings
According to this report, the U.S. has dropped 27 places to 47th in the world. This is especially troubling as we head into an election year which is sure to spark new conflicts between police and press covering rallies, protests and political events.And these Occupy arrests are not isolated incidents. According to organizations like the Society for Professional Journalists, the National Press Photographers Association and the Committee to Protect Journalists, the arrests at Occupy events are part of a growing trend in the U.S. and worldwide.
President Obama has often made media reform and press freedom part of his platform. As a candidate he called for Internet freedom, greater media diversity and limits on media consolidation. "The arc of human progress has been shaped by individuals with the freedom to assemble," Obama said in a speech at the United Nations in 2009, "and by organizations outside of government that insisted upon democratic change and by free media that held the powerful accountable."
Stun Guns Vs Occupy DC (and vid)
"Cops tase protester in pyjamas"
Wall Street's Secret Spy Center, Run For the 1% By NYPD - by Pam Martens
"...the center is jointly shared and operated by the NYPD along with the largest Wall Street firms. The Wall Street firms that were bailed out by the 99%, are now policing the 99%..."
'US Brutality Against OWS Overwhelming' (and vid)
"Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS) emerged when a group of demonstrators gathered in New York's financial district on September 17, 2011 to protest against social and economic inequality, high unemployment as well as corruption and the influence of corporations on government.
Interview with Oscar Leon, Latin American broadcaster who talks about the domino effects of the Occupy movement from the US to Latin American countries and a new anti-imperialist force..."
The Heroes of Super Bowl Sunday - by Dave Zirin
"...My new heroes are the people in the Occupy and Labor movements who gathered to protest on Super Bowl Sunday. All of these proud trade unionists and Occupy activists showed up even though the AFL-CIO explicitly instructed people not to protest on the day of the big game.
That's why it's so important that the people were a presence at this Woodstock for the 1 percent, leaving energized and excited about further forging connections between the Occupy and the Labor movements. After all, we don't have $3 Million for a 30 second ad. We just have the ability to gather and be heard..."
The Occupy Wall Street Journal: A New Declaration - by Derrick Jensen
"We hold these truths to be self-evident:
That the real, physical world is the source of our lives and the lives of others...
Once we've recognized the destructiveness of capitalism and industrial civilization - both of which are based on systematically converting a living planet into dead commodities - we've no choice, unless we wish to sign our own and our children's death warrants, but to fight for all we're worth and in every way we can to overturn it..."
Occupy Brief: Common Sense Resources to End 1%'s War Crimes
"This brief explains, documents, and proves objective and independently verifiable facts of the 1%'s crimes that kill millions, harm billions, and cost trillions...Please Report and Share
Thanks to Occupy, Senate Looks at Inequality by Sarah Anderson I had the opportunity to testify on inequality before the Senate Budget Committee last week. No one seems to recall the last time the committee devoted a whole hearing to this issue. So you can add this to the signs of the Occupy movement's impact on our political discourse. ... The Committee's Ranking Member, Senator Jeff Sessions, and Republican witnesses tried to raise doubts about the inequality data, questioning whether things were really as bad as they look. I didn't envy them the task of being an inequality denier in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Awesome work by Occupy bringing attention to inequality, and now it's paying off!
99% For Stopping The Next War Before It Starts (and vid)
Why We Must Occupy Our Food Supply - by Anna Lappe
"The call to Occupy Our Food Supply, facilitated by Rainforest Action Network, is being echoed by prominent thought leaders, authors, farmers and activists including the Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva, Food Inc's Robert Kenner and authors Michael Pollan, Raj Patel, Gary Paul Nabhan, and Marion Nestle, among others. If you eat food, grow food, love food, join us to
Occupy Our Food Supply."
Max Keiser On The Edge: Genesis Of 99% Movement (and vid)
"David Degraw from AmpedStatus.com talks about the genesis of the 99 percent movement and how it led to Occupy Wall Street.."
'Americans Live Under Fascist Rule' (and vid)
"The Occupy movement has decided to protest against the big corporations using the American Legislative Exchange Council [ALEC] to buy off legislators to craft laws securing their interests. Press TV interviewed Linh Dinh, writer and political analyst from Philadelphia and others to further discuss this issue.."
10 "Occupy" Candidates Running for Congress
Unlike the tea party, the Occupy movement hasn't involved itself much in elections. But that hasn't stopped a slew of progressives and political outsiders from capitalizing on the movement's energy. Here's a rundown of 10 electable House and Senate hopefuls who, one way or another, have made Occupy part of their campaigns:
Alan Grayson (Florida): Nobody running for Congress has done more to side with Occupy Wall Street than the outspoken former congressman from Orlando. In October on Real Time with Bill Maher, Grayson destroyed conservative pundit PJ O'Rourke with a fiery defense of the movement. A clip from the segment now features in an Occupy-themed video that automatically plays on the Grayson campaign's homepage. Beloved by progressives for his voting record and willingness to go on the attack—he likened Dick Cheney a blood-sucking vampire and summed up Republicans' health care plan as "die quickly"—Grayson lost his reelection bid in 2010 but is attempting a comeback in Florida's new Democratic-leaning 9th Congressional District.Prospects: Excellent. He's one of only three candidates whom the DCCC has named "Majority Makers," meaning that their races are top priorities.
Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin): In 2010, the National Journal called Baldwin the most liberal member of the House. She earned kudos in November from the Occupy crowd for sponsoring a resolution opposing any government deal that grants criminal immunity to banks. "When the conventional tools for expressing yourself...are closed and your voice is cut off," Baldwin has said of Occupy Wall Street, "what else is left but to use the possibility of standing on a soap box and screaming to anyone who will listen?"Prospects: Excellent. She is the likely Democratic nominee to replace the retiring Sen. Herb Kohl.
Reclaiming the Commons: Human Lessons in the Era of Corporatism and Perpetual War - by Phil Rockstroh
"...unless we start to see the world and our role in it with new eyes, we will be unable to alter the structure of the present system Withal, it is imperative to be in full possession of one's humanity when facing the desperate, dehumanizing forces of an order that has grown ever more brutal in direct proportion to its rapidly declining purpose and legitimacy.."
Police State Blues - by Phil Rockstroh
"At mid-evening, on Saturday March 17, upon the six-month anniversary of the occupation of Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, the NYPD initiated another brutal operation to expel OWS activists from the premises, and to discourage, in general, those who might venture attempts to exercise their right to free assembly and free expression across the whole of the city of New York, as winter proceeds into Spring.
In a police state, unjust actions by authoritarian bullies, operating at the behest of privileged bullies in power, act by caprice and will escalate their level of brutality by the degrees that the public at large reacts with support and indifference to the state's assaults on civil liberties and common decency.."
The General Assembly resolution calls for a month of action, starting March 24 and leading up to Earth Day on April 22, to draw the Occupy movements across the country and around the world further into the struggle to protect the climate. "Earth Month," which will target all fossil and nonrenewable fuels, is being spearheaded by a group from OWS called 99forEarth. The resolution also calls for "connecting the dots between the 1% and the destruction of the planet." At one end of the chain are specific depredations on specific environments: "Our mountains in Appalachia are blasted; our drinking water in the northeast [is] threatened by fracking; our American heartland is charted for an oil pipeline; and our forests in the northwest [are] targeted for further deforestation." Connect the dots and you find that the corporate destruction of the earth's climate has been "financed by the 1%" and that a "small group of polluting businesses" have "hijacked our political system for their benefit."...The Occupy movement is about reclaiming a future for people who have had their life chances rubbished by three decades of global neoliberalism and austerity. But it's not just about paycheck economics; the destruction of the climate and environment is an integral part of the neoliberal world order. The same corporations, banks and financial institutions that destroyed the economy are destroying the global environment. The struggle to preserve the earth and its atmosphere is, by necessity, a struggle against those forces....
The climate crisis is a global crisis, which will require global cooperation to solve. Without international agreement, if one country restricts corporate carbon pollution, global corporations will seek to move their production elsewhere. In a global economy, countries are likely to seek economic advantage by allowing higher levels of pollution. Fortunately, both Occupy and the climate protection movement are highly hooked up globally—the protests that linked Occupy and other economic justice movements on October 15 reached an estimated 1,500 cities worldwide, and 350.org has initiated globally coordinated demonstrations in every country except North Korea.
An economy driven to enrich the 1 percent cannot meet the needs of the 99 percent for a secure, sustainable future. We need a strategy to counter the threats to economic security and climate security by putting people to work to create a low-pollution, climate-friendly, sustainable global economy—what is sometimes described as a Global Green New Deal. It will require democratizing our economy so that we can direct our labor and our investment to sustainably meeting the needs of all people. It will require not just different policies, or even different structures, but a global society mobilized for change. A Global Green New Deal will ensure jobs and livelihoods for all, because it will take all the work—and all the creativity—we can muster.
We Are All Luddites - by David Rosen
"This year 2012, marks the 200th anniversary of the Luddite uprising, when English textile workers smashed looms with hammers. Few words in the English language invoke such perjorative connotations as Luddite. It signifies the machine breakers, someone who opposed progress - and, thus, the capitalist project.
Today, two centuries later, the popular struggle against capitalism - a system involving not only commodification and the maximization of profits, but also imperialism, patriarchy, racism, hierarchy and sexual repression - draws inspiration from the Luddites.."
BTS: Occupy Anniversary Special: Highlights, Pitfalls & Shifts of Pubic Consciousness (and vid)
"A look at the successes and shortcomings of the Occupy movement..'


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Mountain Buggy's most lightweight and compact stroller yet!
Mountain Buggy introduces its lightest 3-wheeler yet, tailored to be the ultimate city adventurer. Its high quality engineering with state-of-the-art hybrid blend tires and easy single-hand fold, super lightweight frame, and ultra adaptability from new born to toddler--zipping in and out of the city will be a breeze!
The freerider is an ingenious design – a simple concept offering dual functionality that transforms a buggy board into a scooter in seconds (no tools required!).
The Free Rider comes with connector 1; making it compatible with the whole Mountain Buggy line. The snap and go transformation from buggy board to scooter means fun in seconds. The Freerider attaches via a connector that fastens to the rear axle of the buggy. The Free Rider features a 2-mode rear wheel castor - swivel for using as a stroller board to follow the buggy in any direction and fixed for scooting. The clip in handle bar that can be taken off for folding up the back of the buggy.
Product Features
- Mountain Buggy's most lightweight and compact stroller yet
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- NOTE: the freerider is sold with connector 1 only. Connector 2 and 3 sold separately. (connectors allow for more compatibility)
- Switches full swivel castor position used in stroller board mode to the fixed position used while scooting
- Stroller board attaches via a connector that fastens to the rear of the buggy
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- Clip-in handle bar can be taken off for folding up the back of the buggy
- Toggle that fastens board up the back of the buggy
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- Rear wheel brake for use in scooter mode
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- Maximum Weight: 44 lbs. / 20 kg
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Color: Black, Red
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Stroller Type: Lightweight
Gender: Unisex
Number of Seats: Single
Personality: For Your Racer
Stroller Type: Lightweight
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'Suspicious' Are on North Long Beach Road page 6 'Harlem Heilfighters' come to Freeport page 8 Hillary Clinton wants a change by Laura Schofer In a recent inien'iew. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton discussed her hopes to set the countn^ on a new course, exploring options for health care, immigration, and foreign policy, among other issues. In a roundtable discussion with local journalists. Senator Clinton said that "the administration needs to change its policies. We need to change direction." Senator Clinton pointed to problems with our health care system, the bmgeon-ing federal deficit and the need for fimd-ing of alternative energies. Overseas, Senator Clinton believes we need to engage hostile nations such as North Korea in a dialogue to solve or reduce conflicts. In taq, the senator hopes to work with other Democrats to re-deploy our troops. Closer to home. Senator Clinton has a plan to reduce taxes as well as create affordable housing. "Ultimately, we need a cheaper and more reliable health care program," said Senator Clinton, referring to Medicare Part D and the problem with the doughnut hole. "I think we can do a better job. I voted against this because it is a bait-and-switch program. ^Mi> pay premiums and not ha\e ser\!ces? It's shocking." Mrs. Clinton added that she is still committed to a national health care program. "We are seeing a lot of problems coming to pass. Our system is deteriorating. Many more people are not insured and businesses are moving out. We not competitive with our health care." she said. "We are no longer number one when it comes to preventive care although we're still number one in medical technology. We need a cxinsensus between health care providers, businesses and our citizens. What we need is a uniquely American plan." The Republican administration needs to re-examine its foreign policy with regard to North Korea and Iraq, continued the senator. "The administration needs to change its policy towards North Korea now that that we know they may be on the brink of nuclear arms. They [administration] say they won't talk to bad people. Well, you don't need to talk to your friends. All through the Cold War we talked to the Soviet Union. We need an international effort with the United Nations. We must change course before this gels out of hand. North Korean leadership is like a teenage gang who are desperate for respect They are immature and wantonly indifferent to their people. It may be emotionally gratifying to not talk, but it doesn't work to pull out our inspectors. We need to work out a deal with North Korea and help them." Senator Clinton also wants some kind of international consensus on Iraq: 'The president and vice-president are extremely stubborn, even in the face of reality. We need to bring enormous pressure on the Iraqis - the Sunnis, Kurds and Shites. It takes a strong hand to resolve these problems. "Let's create an oil trust to (continued on page 2)
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Date | 2006 |
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Format | PDF; TIFF |
Source | Freeport Memorial Library |
Language | English |
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Road bondsCan the state currently afford this expense?January 30, 2012West Virginia doesn't have enough money to adequately maintain the roads and bridges we have. Plunging the state deeply in debt to build new ones may be putting the cart before the horse.... No comments posted for this article.
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Down East 2013 ©
Born in Maine
It's been exactly seventy years since John A. Green developed the Mooselook Wobbler on the shores of Mooselookmeguntic Lake, and the many varieties of this popular lure (above) have proven wildly successful at attracting trout, salmon, and other game fish in lakes across New England and Canada. Throw a little pump down your rod and the silver spoon turns into a wounded baitfish, vainly fluttering and darting away from a monster brookie's hungry jaws.
Rangeley's Lost Trout
The little blueback trout survived the Ice Age, but it was no match for sport fishermen.
Rangeley's reputation in the late nineteenth century as a world-class angling destination wasn't just savvy marketing. The lakes region had the actual trophy fish to back up its claim as the "Land of Fishing Legends." In 1886 an angler on Mooselookmeguntic caught a monster brook trout measuring 26.5 inches and weighing a whopping 12.5 pounds. For many years afterwards, this leviathan held the world record for the largest brookie ever caught by an angler.
Why did Rangeley brook trout grow so big? They were on a power diet of sorts. Originally the Rangeley watershed was home to two noteworthy coldwater species, brook trout and blueback trout (below). Actually a subspecies of arctic char, the little blueback - Salvelinus alpinus oquassa - rarely reached more than ten inches in length and served as the preferred prey species for large brookies. (Their Latin name, incidentally, commemorates their discovery in 1854 in Lake Oquassa, which was Rangeley Lake's Abenaki name.) Bluebacks lived in deep water for most of the year, only venturing into the shallows in October to spawn (when they were netted, trapped, jigged, speared, and otherwise molested by fishermen).
Unfortunately, the emergence of the Rangeley region as a renowned angling destination - drawing hundreds of well-heeled anglers from cities up and down the East Coast - meant doom for the bluebacks. As more and more anglers took to the waters, the brook trout suffered (the daily bag limit was an incredible fifty pounds per person). In order to keep the fishing experience worth traveling for, the Oquossoc Angling Association introduced landlocked salmon to the lakes in 1875 (rainbow smelt were also brought in as another forage fish). For the bluebacks, the ecologic effect was disastrous. In addition to facing another plankton-eating competitor in smelt, they now found themselves serving as food for two predatory species. By the early 1900s the native blueback trout of the Rangeley Lakes was extinct.
But the story ends on a hopeful note. Despite humanity's best efforts to make trouble for them, a renegade population of bluebacks and their other arctic char cousins survives in Maine. According to an "Arctic Char Management Plan" prepared in November 2001 by Frank O. Frost of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, twelve lakes in Maine - near the headwaters of the St. John, Union, and Penobscot watersheds - still harbor relic populations of char, including bluebacks. Floods Pond in Otis is one such outpost, and it is likely that char have survived there because the pond serves as one of Bangor's municipal water supplies and is off-limits to fishing. Nine other char waters are open to anglers, however - from Black and Debouille ponds in Aroostook County, to Enchanted in Somerset County. "The most endearing angling quality of arctic char in Maine," writes Frost "is the opportunity to catch a sometimes highly colored, native, and very uncommon fish in remote environments." It's not every day that you can drop a line in the water and hook a piece of history.
For more information on where to fish for arctic char in Maine, along with special restrictions, go to www.maine.gov [2] and search for fishing regulations.
Bass vs. Brookies
The trophy waters of the Rapid River have become a battlefield between a native and an invasive species.
By Joshua F. Moore
The native, wild brook trout that live in the Rapid River near Rangeley have survived for centuries because of their ability to adapt to everything from floods to droughts, destructive loggers to eager dam builders. Today, the best hope for these trophy fish rests with the same creature that has always been its greatest threat: mankind. More than two decades after someone illegally dumped a few buckets of smallmouth bass into Lake Umbagog, the voracious "bronzebacks" have broadened their habitat to include everything from Umbagog to Lower Richardson Lake - including the 3.2-mile stretch of fly-fishing-only water that comprises the Rapid River. Juvenile brookies have become appetizers for the predacious smallmouth.
Consequently the smallmouth have reproduced, the number and size of trout in the river have dropped. Containment is not an option - a trout might roam the entire length of the river in a single day during the spring and summer as it searches for the tastiest insects - and so installing barriers such as those that have been built to keep the bass from entering or leaving small waterbodies such as B and C ponds nearby is impractical on the Rapid River. The bass have made a home in the river, and all that can be done now is to make that home as unwelcome as possible, fisheries biologists say.
"Short of poisoning the whole watershed, this is not a problem that is going to go away," remarks Jeff Reardon, New England conservation director for Trout Unlimited. "We're into the management phase of dealing with a species that we wish wasn't there, but is."
Developing a management plan for the Rapid River has been priority number one for Trout Unlimited, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, and various Rangeley-area conservation groups practically since bass were first discovered in the river back in the late 1980s. Proposals have included everything from electrically shocking the bass to encouraging large-scale harvests of the fish, but biologists say the best solution may well be to use the river itself against the newcomers. Dave Boucher, a state fisheries biologist, says that for the past two years he has been testing the impact of periodically "flushing" the river during bass spawning season by increasing the flow out of Middle Dam from its normal level of about four hundred cubic feet per second to around 1,200. These scheduled pulses of water, released several times each night during late June and early July, appear to cause some of the bass to abandon their young at the "nests" they have built in the river and to retreat to more tranquil water in Lake Umbagog and Pond in the River. The young fry stand little chance of survival in the river without an adult to protect them, and though a mature bass may return to spawn again later in the year, these offspring do not usually have the chance to grow enough to make it through the winter. And because brookies are not spawning when the flows are increased, the pulses have little impact on trout. (Whitewater rafters, who also use the Rapid River, also welcome the higher water levels, Reardon says.)
The tests, funded by more than $120,000 raised through a national campaign sponsored by tackle dealer Orvis and through smaller fund-raisers in the Rangeley area, appear to show that the flushing is having an impact in the Rapid River. "We've only done this for two years and our consultants are still writing up their report, but we definitely had an impact on adult bass and saw some attrition of bass fry," Boucher remarks. But he emphasizes that the pulses of water are hardly a silver bullet that will eradicate the problematic smallmouth. "The tests appear to be very site-specific: if the male sets up his nest in a place with good cover, behind some good rocks or something, then there was little change [in the bass population]."
Indeed, if it is adopted permanently, fluctuating the flow of the Rapid River would only be one piece of a management philosophy for Rangeley's storied stream. The catch-and-release limits that were put in place in 1996 will almost surely remain, and biologists will continue to research new ways of keeping the bass population in check. "We've looked at targeted removal of the yearling bass, where we could go in there and electrofish and remove the offending bass, but this is something that's going to happen forever," Boucher explains. The ultimate impact of the introduction of smallmouth bass, as well as the measures being taken to control it, will probably not be fully understood for decades to come, fisheries experts say, but in the meantime the Rapid River has become a poster child for the perils of introducing a fish into a waterway. "One of the most interesting things for us as biologists is to study and document what the impact will be of introducing bass to a prime trout water," Boucher says. "We'll continue to use this as a teaching tool to tell people that moving fish around is not a good idea."
Scientists and anglers alike are quick to point out that while the Rapid River is under threat, it remains one of the premier trout waters in the nation. "The river is known worldwide for its large brook trout, and you can still catch some really good-sized brookies - in the four-plus-pound range," says Rocky Freda, a fishing guide from Bethel who regularly takes clients to the Rapid River. "The difference these days is that you probably catch twenty bass for every trout." (Many anglers admit to resorting to their own fisheries-management practice when faced with such an overpopulation, employing a technique cheekily referred to as the "land release.") But even the bass can't distract from the special experience of fly-fishing the Rapid, especially from mid-May to July. "There are a lot of other good rivers that have brook trout in them, but they don't have the brand that the Rapid does," Freda declares. "When you get to the river, and you're right down on it, you think you're back in the bush. You can't write the book any better than what the river is all about."
Reardon, too, says Maine still has the opportunity to preserve a fishery that is the envy of the angling world. "We're talking about managing intact populations here, where other states are talking about managing scattered remains of populations," he says. "The quality of the brook trout fishery is still extremely high - it's still one of the best brook trout fisheries in Maine."
Even scientists like Boucher recognize that keeping native, wild brook trout in the Rapid River is a struggle that goes beyond preserving one particular species of game fish. "The Rapid represents a significant part of the cultural heritage of the Rangeley area," Boucher remarks. "That area was colonized by people who went up there seeking these trout. They are part of our natural and cultural history, and they're exceedingly valuable to us."
Land of Legends
It's no wonder the Rangeley Lakes, shown below in a Farrar's map dating from 1876, spawned not only some of Maine's largest trout but also its most famous fly tiers and fishermen (and women). The chain of lakes, streams, and rapids that extends from Umbagog Lake, on the New Hampshire border, through Welokennabacook and Molechunkemunk (now called Lower and Upper Richardson lakes, respectively) and up through Mooselookmeguntic and Rangeley lakes is an angler's paradise that collectively covers some eighty square miles. A large percentage of the land is held in permanent conservation easements, so this part of western Maine ought to continue producing fish stories for many generations to come.
[1] http://www.downeast.com/files/images/lure.jpg
[2] http://www.maine.gov


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Your two-minute Talking Point on Taxes
The focus of the Democratic argument against McCain is that he's for the Bush tax cuts. Let's think about what tax cuts mean for the economy. We have a housing problem – too many houses are up for sale and too few people can afford to keep their home or buy the ones on the market. As a result, people in desperation to unload their | Read More »


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Game show host and musician Wayne Brady ("Let's Make A Deal") and Jamie Jones perform a medley of Grammy-nominated songs on THE TALK. Photo: Monty Brinton/CBS ©2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.


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Lava retired from the feline blood donor program at NCSU Vet School. I figured he'd done his duty and needed a good home. He's adjusting to living in a household – something he's never experienced before, since he was bred specifically for research. Everything is new and exciting to him, much like it would be for a kitten except he's a full-grown four-year-old!
Lava loves his porch
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I'm going to do everything I can to get Skyrim to run decently on my current computer (specs to the left) at my monitor's native resolution (1280x1024). That's my goal. I used to be able to play it on my Athlon64x2 4400+, may it's non-soul forever rest in peace - that thing was a loyal beast. Skyrim's performance has been getting much better with patches, and I believe I can do it (with a lot of tweaking, at least). So first up, fixing this: to this:
turn off antialaising, that will slow the SHIT out of the game... Other than that i would try and manually tweak it. Try this if you get confused: http://www.geforce.com/Optimize/Guides/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-tweak-guide?sf2686171=1/#1
Wow, I thought I was pushing it playing on a GTS 250 1GB with an i7 950. I feel for the strain you are putting on that old thing. As mentioned, shut off the AA. I don't even use it on MY rig, and Skyrim doesn't need much AA anyway. AF is the less FPS hungry of the two, but I'd leave even THAT off. You may want to set textures to Med too, esp if the FPS start slowing to a crawl indoors where there's lots of torches and fog. What may be the slowest parts are the big civil war battles where there's lots of AI and smoke and fire going on though. There your CPU is going to be feeling it too.
Skyrim seemed to run quite smoothly on my friends backup pc that he gave to his sister for playing skyrim at 1280x800. It has a 2.8ghz pentium d, an 8800gs 384mb, 2gb ram and XP. A single core is another story though... Can't you get a cheap second hand 3800x2 or something?
volumetric effects. the terrain is delt with by the card. smoke/shadows hit CPU like a brick. lower them med /low reflection on water and med to high texture effects and it should run.
I took off AA, did a few ini tweaks (LOD of objects and shadows, took shadows off of grass and trees, lowered the amount of trees/particles, and raised the memory limits), took off vsync, and shoved AF to 16x - texture quality is still high. Outside runs anywhere from 20 to 45, running around Whiterun (I forgot to check at the top of the stairs, I'll be back in a minute) usually runs around 10 to 25, and inside is around 25-75 (yeah, really). Combat (nothing spectacular) bogs it down about 5 to 7 fps. This is starting to sound significantly easier than when I first started... I have no money, as in I have a sandwich bag on top of my dresser full of pennies. That's about it. I've played it before when I had my x2 4400+, but I uninstalled when it broke. Unless it's for you or something... Anyways I just took off depth of field (I didn't notice it there before), and lowered particles to 400. I'll be back soon.
If you could copy and paste the contents of your skyrim.ini I or someone else will probably be able to whip you up an optimised one : ] I'm about to go to bed but if no one has done it by the time I get back from the bank tomorrow I'll do it.
I went through the first dragon fight and it got 20-30 fps the whole time, and 16-ish fps at the top of Whiterun's stairs (looking down towards the city), so I'm beginning to think that my CPU is secretly much faster than it let's on.
So I was playing it last night, and it seems to me that it's powerful enough to play the game, just not powerful enough to load anything while doing it. I got a few screenshots you'd all enjoy (sorry, there in reverse chronological order): This is Redoran Retreat, the first thing you'll notice is that it isn't there This was the path to High Hrothgar, you'll find that there aren't nearly as many steps as there should be Moar of the same This is a waterfall, and where I'm standing should be a river. Moar of the same This was somewhere around Riften A waterfall around Riften, not as bad as the previous This is that town before the path to High Hrothgar This was somewhere around that town (I can't remember what the name was, sorry) Rocks and forest around Riften And they all do eventually load, it just takes forever.
With your current setup I would suggest going to Windows 7 x86. You'll see a big improvement with only 4gb of ram, and a single core.
surely there's someone around with a 939 athlon x2 laying around that they'd be willing to part with if you paid shipping. This is painful.
I'm still using mine. If I have a motherboard crap out on me, whoever wants it can have it. True! I'm using a s754 single core CPU and 2gb of RAM and it is a much better O/S than XP was.
It's not always like that, just when I'm on a horse and I go too fast - besides, my horse died so I walk/fast travel everywhere nowadays, so it never looks that bad anymore. Aside from that, the game is perfectly playable - just avoid riding horses.
"Faster" is relative to what one accepts as far as image quality and frame rates. In a game like this, the performance can start showing choppiness at anything under 45 FPS. I try to minimize my dips to no less than 40 FPS. A comfortable frame rate window in this game is at least 45-65 FPS. Where it starts affecting gameplay most is when you're trying to get in accurate arrow shots. Times like that, the choppiness is hard to deal with. Have you tried different patches to find which ones give the best performance? I can't remember which ones they are, but the 1st or 2nd ones that claimed an FPS boost might be the best way to go. As far as single cores go, I stuck it out with my Pentium 4 way too long. It was getting to be quite a strain on my eyes. Switching to a decent quad was one of the best gaming purchases I've ever made.
Yea, I have 2 laptops with C2D T7200, one with xp and the other with win7 x86 and the win7 x86 is much faster. I also, tried win7x64 and with the low hardware in those machines the win7 x86 was much snapper than the x64 build. EDIT: Anything under or equal to 4gb I would only run x86.


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Simply designed, this wedding ring is crafted in platinum with subtly squared sides for interest.
This ring is perfect for my wedding band. I have a large, vintage engagement ring, so the simplicity of this ring provides a nice complement to the showiness of the engagement ring. Some reviewers commented that this ring is too thin. It is very thin, but that's why I chose it. I wanted something that would look elegant and also stand up to daily wear. I'm very satisfied with the quality, fit, and price.
Elizabeth, Madison, WI – December 2013
The ring is very comfortable to wear, in fact, I don't even know that it's on. At least now people will know that I'm still married. I developed an allergy to white gold and haven't been able to wear any of my rings for several months. I have my eye on several settings on Blue Nile that may become home to my diamond. Blue Nile delivered quickly and the product I received was as pictured.
Susan, Brockport, PA – November 2013
Nice looking ring but a little too thin, even for my tiny hands. I ended up returning it for the 2.5 mm low dome ring and am happy with the thickness.
Holly, Middleton, WI – November 2013
Note: Prices and availability are subject to change without notice. View our terms and conditions for more information.
Note: Prices and availability are subject to change without notice. View our terms and conditions for more information.
Blue Nile realizes that you may not know the ring size for a given finger, and we want to help. We provide a printable ring sizer that can help determine your ring size. Prior to printing, ensure that page scaling is set to "none" on your print dialog box.


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Camp Cookery |
From inside the book
21 pages matching salt pork in this book
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Review: Camp Cookery
User Review - Tim - GoodreadsPart of Kepharts later combined book, Camping and Woodcraft, fascinating and still relevant today. Have a go at some of his recipes, some look a bit dubious but they work, and if all you had was his ... Read full review
Review: Camp Cookery
User Review - Li.b.re....LI.V.RE. - GoodreadsThe less a man carries in his pack, the more he must carry in his head. ;-) Read full review
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ashes bacon baked beans baking powder baste beans beef bird biscuit black pepper boiling water braising bread broiled brown burn cakes camp celery seed clean coffee cold water cook corn curry powder desiccated dish dough drain Dried Dutch oven eggs fire fish flavor flour fork fresh fried fruit frying-pan gravy grease green hang hardtack hardwood heaped tablespoonfuls heat Horace Kephart hour inches juice keep kettle knife lard layer legs lemon Macaroni meal meat milk minutes nutmeg onion oven oysters parboil pepper and salt pieces potatoes pounds pudding quart remove rice roasted salt and pepper salt pork salted water sauce serve side simmer skin slices soak soup split spoon sprinkle squirrels stew stick stir sugar tablespoonful teaspoonful teaspoonful salt tender thick thin toast tomatoes vegetables venison vinegar water to cover wood Worcestershire sauce


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Top Stories of 2011
As the year comes to a close, it is time for year-end reflections. In our case that means sharing the most popular articles of 2011. The following were viewed the most, and in some case created a lot of discussion as well.
1. Readers' Choice Awards 2011
2. Adding More Awesome to Your Office by Shawn Powers
3. Python for Android by Paul Barry
4. Review: Recompute Cardboard PC by Shawn Powers
5. Tiny Core Linux by Joey Bernard
6. The Geek's Guide to the Coolest Holiday Gifts
9. Fun with ethtool by Jayson Broughton
10. Ubuntu 11.04, Unity Released to Mixed Reactions by Susan Linton
Hacking to virtualization, Python to Unity and everything in between are represented, so please enjoy catching up on any of our top stories you may have missed. We look forward to bringing you more in the new year!
2011 graphic via Shutterstock.
Nice list you have there!!
Nice list you made there for us, will be looking for more post from you in the future, Thanks
Jim @ Trancoso
This is useful list content
Thank you for this useful list content
I will go one by one to gain additional knowledge of you here
once again, thank you very much
I think that it is really
I think that it is really good thing what you wanted to do and I am sure that it will be okay for you in the future if you put in order all the stuff you have to do in the next period.
Masini Noi
Nike Football boots
the original Nike Speed boot!New products for us.the new Vapor football boots have undergone the same new paint work as the boots and now feature the updated asymmetric but now it's time to take a look at the boot Nike Football Boots that paved the way.
Top Ten terminal commands of 2011
I wrote this one-liner so I could have my very own top ten list.
history | awk '{print $2}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -10 | awk 'BEGIN {print "Num. \t Command \t times"}{print NR "\t" $2 "\t\t" $1}'
here's mine (sorry for the formatting if its messed up)
Num. Command times
1 for 190
2 echo 174
3 ls 153
4 cd 129
5 history 103
6 grep 33
7 cat 27
8 exit 18
9 find 16
10 awk 12
TOP XXX in 201X
In the end of Dec every year, the internet and news paper will appear lots of "TOP XXX in 201X". :)
Also the content I think the Python will the first, as lt affect many people's life.
Linux has become a key foundation for supporting today's rapidly growing IT environments. Linux is being used to deploy business applications and databases, trading on its reputation as a low-cost operating environment. For many IT organizations, Linux is a mainstay for deploying Web servers and has evolved from handling basic file, print, and utility workloads to running mission-critical applications and databases, physically, virtually, and in the cloud. As Linux grows in importance in terms of value to the business, managing Linux environments to high standards of service quality — availability, security, and performance — becomes an essential requirement for business success.
Sponsored by Red Hat
If you already use virtualized infrastructure, you are well on your way to leveraging the power of the cloud. Virtualization offers the promise of limitless resources, but how do you manage that scalability when your DevOps team doesn't scale? In today's hypercompetitive markets, fast results can make a difference between leading the pack vs. obsolescence. Organizations need more benefits from cloud computing than just raw resources. They need agility, flexibility, convenience, ROI, and control.
Stackato private Platform-as-a-Service technology from ActiveState extends your private cloud infrastructure by creating a private PaaS to provide on-demand availability, flexibility, control, and ultimately, faster time-to-market for your enterprise.
Sponsored by ActiveState
Tinker with Molecular Dynamics for Fun and Profit | Dec 12, 2013 |
Android Candy: Free, Family, Fun—Fantastic | Dec 11, 2013 |
The Geek's Guide to the Coolest 2013 Holiday Gifts | Dec 10, 2013 |
A Plexible Pi | Dec 09, 2013 |
Linux Kernel News - November 2013 | Dec 06, 2013 |
Mars Needs Women | Dec 05, 2013 |
- Readers' Choice Awards 2013
- Tinker with Molecular Dynamics for Fun and Profit
- The Geek's Guide to the Coolest 2013 Holiday Gifts
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- first stab at this was the
6 hours 55 min ago - As both an avid cacher and
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I've just received a notification from LinkedIn, informing me that someone has left me a recommendation on my profile. Reading it brought tears to my eyes. Every client I work with is so important to me, so special. And to receive these words touches my soul. If you know you're here for something great, and you're still trying to find what that is, message me and lets see how I can support you too.
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What Can We Learn from 1 Peter?
Faith Without Works is Dead (James 2:17)?
Why Must Marriage be Defined as Being Only between a Man and Woman?
Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide. (New International Version Bible Online)


text: V cast tv CellphonesBy Danny Allen PO Edit117L Verizon's HTC Imagio Arrives October 6: V CAST TV Streaming on WinMo 6.5Windows Mobile 6.5 phones arrive next Tuesday, and as rumored, the HTC Imagio will be amongst them. It has a 3.6-inch screen with TouchFLO 3D UI, dual CDMA/GSM compatibility, and is Verizon's first smartphone to support V CAST Mobile TV. Read… 10/01/09 2:00am 10/01/09 2:00amVerizon's HTC Imagio Is Just the Blunted Tip of the Windows Mobile 6.5 Iceberg


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The fundamentals for SVL haven't changed so this is just one of those moves in mining shares that need to be weathered. The price has already come back up to 2.63 from a low of 2.53. There have been a lot sudden moves both down and up in mining shares over the last few years. Better to sell near a high than at a low unless one has a margin call or something. I still think we're in a bull market for Gold/Silver and see SVL going to $4+/sahre in my opinion.


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Nation national security correspondent Jeremy Scahill appeared on Democracy Now! to talk about his film Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield, which was shortlisted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for an Oscar this week. Dirty Wars takes a critical look at the US targeted killing campaign in Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia and beyond. Scahill also dismissed a plan announced by the Obama administration in July to narrow the scope of its killing program. "It's a lot of smoke and mirrors," Scahill said, arguing that Obama and his team have set a precedent of pre-emptive war for future presidents.
—Steven Hsieh
If Third Way is truly concerned about electing Democrats, they chose a strange fundraising firm to partner with.
When Third Way's president and senior vice president of policy published a Wall Street Journal opinion piece this week decrying the economic positions of Bill de Blasio and Elizabeth Warren, namely, taxing the rich and expanding entitlement programs, their arguments rested on (weak) grounds that such ideas are bad for Democratic Party electoral prospects.
Earlier this week, TheNation.com obtained the latest disclosure forms for Third Way and reported that the think tank relies on a corporate lobbying firm called Peck, Madigan & Jones—a company featured by The Hill as among the "Top Lobbyists" of 2013—to raise more than half a million dollars a year. What makes Peck, Madigan & Jones such a top player on K Street?
Peck, Madigan & Jones's largest client is the US Chamber of Commerce, a corporate trade group that represents large corporations like AIG, Bank of America and Dow Chemical. The Chamber, through its financial policy and legal affiliates, has paid Peck, Madigan & Jones $570,000 this year alone.
While the Third Way op-ed made a point of claiming that progressive economic policies wouldn't play well with voters in Colorado, in 2008, their fundraisers' client ran nasty attack ads against a Third Way leader in the state. When Third Way co-chair Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) first ran for the Senate, the US Chamber sponsored an advertisement against him on energy policy, declaring, "Every time he's blocked American energy production, he's made the tyrants and sheiks happy. But we've paid the price."
Last year, Third Way co-chair Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) faced a barrage of attacks from the Chamber. One ad during the election last year instructed viewers, "Call Claire McCaskill. Tell her Missouri doesn't need government-run health care. Support the repeal. We need jobs!" Watch it:
As The Huffington Post's Luke Johnson reported, other Third Way co-chairs have commented on the growing controversy over the Wall Street Journal column. Representatives Joseph Crowley (D-NY), Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) and Ron Kind (D-WI)—all Third Way co-chairs—have distanced themselves from the arguments laid out in the piece.
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We noted earlier this week that several Third Way trustees gave campaign money to Mitt Romney. But it might be even more problematic for the group that it has ties to the US Chamber, an organization that is dedicated to unseating Third Way leaders.
Peter Rothberg lists the top ten songs about Nelson Mandela.
On the same day that President Obama eloquently described his vision of an economy defined by economic mobility and opportunity for all, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow was busy cutting a deal with House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas to slice another $8 to $9 billion from food stamps (SNAP), according to a source close to the negotiations.
"One study shows that more than half of Americans will experience poverty at some point during their adult lives," said President Obama. "Think about that. This is not an isolated situation.… That's why we have nutrition assistance or the program known as SNAP, because it makes a difference for a mother who's working, but is just having a hard time putting food on the table for her kids."
Indeed it does, but the chairwoman consistently fails to get the memo.
There are currently 47 million Americans who turn to food stamps to help make ends meet. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, nearly 72 percent are in families with children; and one-quarter of SNAP participants are in households with seniors or people with disabilities. Further, 91 percent of SNAP benefits go to households with incomes below the poverty line, and 55 percent to households below half of the poverty line (about $9,500 annually for a family of three).
Despite the fact that the Institute of Medicine demonstrated the inadequacy of the SNAP benefit allotment, and that a child's access to food stamps has a positive impact on adult outcomes, the program was just cut by $5 billion on November 1. The average benefit dropped from $1.50 to $1.40 per meal. The Senate Agriculture Committee's previous proposal to cut yet another $4 billion from SNAP would have led to 500,000 losing $90 per month in benefits, the equivalent of one week's worth of meals.
"That was the first time in history that a Democratic-controlled Senate had even proposed cutting the SNAP program," said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. "The willingness of some Senate Democrats to double new cuts to the program…is unthinkable."
The president recognized in a very personal way the need for a SNAP program that protects families from severe hardship.
"When my father left and my mom hit hard times trying to raise my sister and me while she was going to school, this country helped make sure we didn't go hungry," he said.
In contrast, Berg tells of a mother he recently met who now sees this country turning away from her and her children.
"I recently met a mother of two, trying to advance herself and her family, by working her way through college," said Berg. "After November 1st, she lost $46 worth of groceries a month, which equals at least thirty fewer meals for her family."
It seems she and her kids are about to absorb another hit.
"These SNAP cuts will be devastating to families across the nation," said Dr. Mariana Chilton, co-principal investigator of Children's HealthWatch, a research organization analyzing the effects of economic conditions and public policy on children in emergency rooms and clinics around the country. "Not only will families lose significant SNAP dollars—which will make it harder for them to feed their kids and also reduce their children's nutrient intakes—but it will also cause major health problems for children, increased hospitalizations for very young kids, and greater need for psychosocial and mental health services for school aged kids."
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President Obama perfectly captured what it means for this country to turn its back on children.
"The idea that a child may never be able to escape poverty because she lacks a decent education or healthcare, or a community that views her future as their own, that should offend all of us and it should compel us to action," said President Obama.
We are the community, and it is offensive. Now is the time to tell the president: if these cuts land on his desk, he must veto the bill.
Update, December 7, 3:39pm: Senator Stabenow's office did not initially respond to a request for comment, but have replied to this post. Their statement:
Senator Stabenow strongly opposes any changes to food assistance that make cuts in benefits for people who need help putting food on the table for their families. She has been the number one defender against the House Republican proposal to cut food assistance by $40 billion, including rule changes that would throw four million people off of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) altogether.
Unlike the House proposal, the Senate Farm Bill protects critical food assistance for the over 47 million Americans who need help. The Senate bill saves $4 billion solely through ending program misuse—like stopping lottery winners from continuing to receive assistance, cracking down on retailer benefit trafficking, and curbing the misuse of a LIHEAP paper work policy by a small number of states. It is very important that we continue to maintain the integrity of these critical food assistance programs so that opponents cannot use rare examples of misuse as arguments for gutting assistance to children, families, seniors and disabled Americans.
While no final agreement has been reached, Senator Stabenow will not support any policies that arbitrarily remove people in need from SNAP or make across-the-board cuts to benefits. She will only support savings focused on program misuse.
Update, December 9, 11:31am: Response from Greg Kaufmann:
I think many anti-hunger advocates would disagree with the notion that the Chairwoman has been "the number one defender" against the draconian SNAP cuts proposed by House Republicans. Representatives Jim McGovern, Barbara Lee, John Conyers, and Marcia Fudge come to mind, as does Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. They not only defend against Republican cuts, but also try to strengthen benefits at a time when nearly 50 million Americans aren't necessarily sure where their next meal is coming from.
It is true that Senator Stabenow has spoken clearly in her opposition to the extreme cuts and rule changes in the House Republican proposal. But that's hardly a reason to claim bragging rights—it would be like a WNBA player boasting that she can whup any Junior High School player in a game of one-on-one.
The statement that $4 billion (of the more than $8 billion in SNAP cuts agreed to in current negotiations) is found through cracking down on lottery winners, retailer benefit trafficking, and addressing "misuse" of the Low Income Housing Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) seems misleading. The amount of SNAP benefits misspent due to fraud by lottery winners and retailers is negligible, and of course everyone supports vigilance to protect the integrity of the program.
But the bulk of the $4 billion in cuts alluded to here—and the other $4 billion-plus agreed to in negotiations—is found through a change to the rule that currently allows families receiving SNAP assistance to qualify for additional benefits if they receive LIHEAP assistance to help with their utility bills. (If a state's governor opts in to what is called the "heat and eat" program.) The heat and eat program—which boosts SNAP benefits for families receiving utility assistance—is based on the recognition that too many Americans are choosing between paying for food or paying for energy. Some states sign families up for $1 in heating assistance so that they then qualify for the additional food stamp benefits, decreasing the likelihood that they will face the "heat or eat" dilemma. According to Politico, the agreement between Senator Stabenow and Republican leaders would require $20 in LIHEAP assistance in order to receive additional SNAP benefits. That change would result in up to $8 billion in SNAP cuts. Currently, roughly 20 percent of eligible households receive LIHEAP, so there is little reason to believe that most states would step up to meet the $20 threshold for people who need it.
While Senator Stabenow might not be in a position to defend the $1 work around that helps get families the assistance they need, she surely is in a position to explain why both Democratic and Republican Governors alike are looking to obtain additional benefits for families that qualify for food stamps, and why we need to be increasing, not decreasing, those benefits.
The Chairwoman might remind the country that the average benefit is $1.40 per meal for an individual. She might point to the report by the Institute of Medicine that clearly describes the inadequacy of food stamp benefits: from the way a family's net monthly income is calculated by using a standard shelter deduction capped at $478; to the assumption that low-wage workers with erratic schedules will have time to cook unprocessed ingredients from scratch, as well as access supermarkets that offer a variety of healthy foods at lower costs in urban and rural areas. The Chairwoman might tell America that the SNAP program assumes food prices are consistent no matter where one lives in the nation. She might point to the millions of families that include children with special health care needs—families not permitted to deduct their out-of-pocket health care costs to calculate their net income. She might draw attention to USDA testimony—all the way back in 1933—that the theoretical "Thrifty Food Plan" currently used in the SNAP program to determine a nutritious diet at minimal cost is for "restricted diets for emergency use," and that "a reasonable measure of basic needs for a good diet… should be as high as the cost of the low-cost food plan" which would result in more generous food stamp benefit levels.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the staff asserts that the Senator "strongly opposes any changes to food assistance that make cuts in benefits for people who need help putting food on the table for their families." But the fact is that the proposed changes would indeed cut benefits for people who need help putting food on the table. As the Food Research and Action Center writes, "Bottom line, elimination of 'Heat and Eat' means lost meals for elderly and disabled households."
The Chairwoman is in a position to educate the country about how the SNAP program really works, and how it could and should be made better. If raising benefits through LIHEAP isn't the right avenue, then she and her fellow-Democrats should suggest the myriad of reforms that would more accurately measure the existing need of hungry families in this country and would consequently raise their benefit levels.
The point isn't that Republicans would never go for those reforms. The point is to speak the truth to the American people, shatter the myths and end the misinformation, and make the Republicans defend policies that are indefensible.
Update, December 9, 11:31am: Response from Joel Berg, executive director, New York City Coalition Against Hunger:
In the year 2000, as a private citizen on vacation time, I volunteered for a week in Grand Rapids, Michigan to help elect Debbie Stabenow to the United States Senate. That is why it is particularly painful to me that not only is she playing a key role in cutting nutrition assistance for struggling families, but she also is not being straightforward with the public about the impact of the policies she is promoting.
Virtually all advocates—myself included—agree with her efforts to stop lottery winners from continuing to receive assistance and to crack down on retailer benefit trafficking. But given how rare lottery winners and retailer fraud are, those changes are mostly cosmetic and have nothing to do with the more than $8 billion in nutrition cuts that she is proposing.
The third provision she is proposing—the one that would cut all the money—would eliminate a current feature of the SNAP program that now allows governors in 14 different states, of both political parties, to better combine home energy assistance with SNAP benefits in order to boost food aid to some of the hardest-hit families. Every single penny Senator Stabenow is proposing to take out of SNAP would come directly out of the grocery baskets of families that are very low-income and are currently eligible for the benefits.
It is important to again note that the $5 billion in SNAP cuts which went into effect on November 1 were also enabled by Senate Democrats. Senator Stabenow's contention that she must advance massive additional cuts of more than $8 billion—as the only possible way to forestall even more massive cuts proposed by the GOP—is misleading as well. As Chair of the Agriculture Committee, she has it well within her power to propose a Farm Bill with no additional SNAP cuts whatsoever. The House Republicans have no legal ability to pass additional cuts unless the Senate Democrats and President Obama consent to such cuts. The Democrats should join together in scrapping this horrible bill that slashes food for struggling families while boosting corporate welfare, and instead start from scratch with a brand new farm bill that aids small to mid-sized family farmers, slashes hunger, and boosts rural economic development.
Update, December 9, 11:31am: Response from Dr. Mariana Chilton, PhD, MPH, Director, Center for Hunger-Free Communities, Drexel University School of Public Health:
When Senate Ag leadership likens the cuts to SNAP as "savings" that curb "misuse of a LIHEAP paperwork policy," we can see that they do not fully grasp the way that American families experience hunger and food insecurity.
Families don't go hungry in a vacuum. Families make terrible tradeoffs- between paying for heat or paying to eat. The women of Witnesses to Hunger—who use their photography and stories to describe their experiences with hunger and poverty—can tell you that first hand. Jill Shaw, a Member of Witnesses to Hunger from Central Pennsylvania shows a picture of her stove, and writes: "I am a witnesses to hunger everyday. I am a witness to the disappointment in my children's eyes when they tell me they are hungry and I tell them there's no food. My stove is a source of heat more than it is a source for cooking food." To learn more about housing and utilities and how they relate to hunger, just take a brief tour here of America's reality in Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, and Camden NJ. If you want this in cold hard numbers instead of pictures and experiences, see our Children's HealthWatch research.
Those of us on the ground: pediatricians, public health researchers, social services providers, and the true experts—those who know hunger and poverty first hand—recognize that the forward thinking states have attempted to prevent the worst of hunger and the worst of frigid mornings. The states that utilize the heat and eat provision, are actually improving our current income support systems, because they are calculating the amount of SNAP benefits needed when one considers the true cost of shelter. To learn more about this, check out the Congressional Research Service explanation.
This LIHEAP provision is a protection for families based in a cold hard reality: food insecurity is a form of hardship based on trading off costs of basic needs. It's a smart work around that ought to be scaled up across the country, not slashed as a technical expediency. If there were really forward thinking change coming out of the Senate and House, the SNAP benefit calculation would be based on the true cost of shelter regardlessof whether or not a family receives LIHEAP. It's a frigid wake-up indeed, to see these proposed cuts. Some have said that the House GOP is out of touch with low-income America, but sometimes it seems as if all of our leaders are out of touch.
Editor's Note: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this headline suggested that Stabenow was pushing for the cuts to food stamps.
Last week, Greg Kaufmann wrote about the need for a shared agenda to combat poverty.
Few, if any, of the towering figures of the twentieth century inspired as many people, or as many songs, as Nelson Mandela. Artists of all genres and stripes found different ways to pay tribute to Mandela, the architect of the ANC's resistance strategy, as he served twenty-seven years in prison before emerging to lead his country into a peaceful transition to majority rule. As the world mourns the loss of Mandela, 95, here are ten of my favorites presented in tribute. Please use the comments field below to let me know what I missed. RIP.
1. Free Nelson Mandela, The Specials
2. Mandela (Bring Him Back Home), Hugh Masekela
3. Asimbonanga, Johnny Clegg
4. When You Come Back, Vusi Mahlasela
5. Nelson Mandela Song, Nomfusi & The Lucky Charms
6. Give Me Hope Joanna, Eddy Grant
7. Black President, Brenda Fassie
8. House of Exile, Lucky Dube
9. Sooner Than Later, Kent O'Shea
10. Number 46664, Bono, Joe Strummer and Dave Stewart
Fox Business, an affiliate of Fox News, has responded to the rise of worker protests across the country by inviting on a finance industry trader to trash them.
The network aired several segments this week designed to criticize efforts to raise the minimum wage. In one, guest Jonathan Hoenig made a range of strange and misinformed comments, including a declaration that "every prominent economist over many, many decades has agreed [that] the minimum wage is discrimination."
In reality, more than 100 economists have called for raising the minimum wage to benefit workers. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz signed onto a letter last year arguing that "a minimum wage increase would provide a much-needed boost to the earnings of low-wage workers."
Hoenig then argued, "Only about 4 percent of people making the minimum wage are actually supporting a family full-time." The Economic Policy Institute notes that over a quarter of those who would be affected by increasing the minimum wage are parents, and a third are married. Also, one in every five children in the United States has a parent who would benefit from a federal minimum wage increase.
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Finally, Hoenig said his opposition to increasing the minimum wage stems from his belief that doing so would prevent workers from becoming the CEO of McDonald's and other fast-food chains. One has to wonder if Hoenig, a financial investment advisor based in Chicago, has ever bothered to meet with the McDonald's workers in his city who are gainfully employed, yet, homeless.
Gabriel Thompson goes on NPR to discuss how Walmart is exploiting its warehouse workers.
"Five shirtless dudes are running through downtown Tallahassee in front of courthouse spelling JAMEIS on their chests."—Tweet from USA Today Sports Reporter Dan Wolken
Ten takeaways from news that Florida State's star quarterback, and shoe-in Heisman Trophy winner, Jameis Winston will not be charged with rape after a year-long investigation:
1) This country has a long and ugly history of accusing African-American men of rapes that did not occur. From the lynch mobs of the Old South, to the legal lynchings of the Scottsboro Boys and the defendants in the Central Park Jogger case, to countless stories we will never know, this has been a scar on the history of the United States. Black men have been repeatedly targeted and seen their lives destroyed by accusations that splice the horror of sexual violence and the stereotype of the ravenous predator.
2) This country also has a more recent history of allowing athletes, particularly star athletes, particularly amateur athletes compensated with status, hero worship and entitlement, to get away with rape.
3) This country has an even more recent history in the Internet age of destroying women on social media and threatening their families, if they dare bring forward any accusations of rape against athletes.
4) College football culture will place a black man on a pedestal as long as he can deliver bragging rights, championships and millions of dollars in revenue to small-town colleges and universities. Off the football field, or after your playing career ends, good luck. If Florida's system of criminal justice has sent any discernable message this past year, it is this: if you are an African-American teenager, you want to be Jameis Winston, not Trayvon Martin.
5) I do not have the slightest idea what happened between Jameis Winston and his accuser. I do know that the statement from this woman's family could not be more correct: "The victim has grave concerns that her experience, as it unfolded in the public eye and through social media, will discourage other victims of rape from coming forward and reporting."
6) If it is proven true that a local police detective said to the accuser's lawyer that Tallahassee is "a big football town, and the victim needs to think long and hard before proceeding against him because she will be raked over the coals and her life will be made miserable," then we can only hope that the family will pursue charges against the Tallahassee police department and sue them back to the Stone Age.
7) There are too many cases of too many women who are intimidated to come forward and pursue charges of sexual assault. There are too many cases where jock culture and rape culture are so intertwined you don't know where one ends and the other begins.
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8) There are too many cases where sports fans believe defending your team means destroying any young woman who dares stand up and try to speak about what happened. Seriously, if you are one of these people, get a life.
9) There are too many sports reporters, overwhelmingly men, that believe the myth that there are just lines of women trying to bring false rape charges against star athletes.
10) No matter the result, the Jameis Winston case has become yet another instance where the sports environment sends a message to women that if you are sexually assaulted, your best course of action is silence. That, above all else, must change.
Dave Zirin looks at how jock culture can support rape culture.
If there were any lingering fears that the election of Bill de Blasio as mayor of New York City would usher in an era of communist revolution beholden to black nationalist interests, the news from this morning should quell such concerns. From The New York Times:
Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio was expected on Thursday morning to name William J. Bratton to lead the New York Police Department, according to two people with knowledge of Mr. de Blasio's decision.The move will return Mr. Bratton to the helm of the nation's largest force at a time of historically low crime rates and a deepening rift between officers and the public.
After riding the wave of anti-stop-and-frisk activism to a decisive mayoral victory, it's rather disappointing that de Blasio would tap the architect of that policy, who also spent his years as police commissioner in Los Angeles increasing its usage, to once again lead the NYPD. But it's hardly surprising.
While he criticized outgoing commissioner Ray Kelly for the "overuse-and-abuse of stop-and-frisk," de Blasio has stopped short of calling for an end to the policy altogether. He has been in favor a "mend, don't end" approach, supporting the reforms as handed down by US district court judge Shira Scheindlin as a result of the Floyd v. City of New York case. His choice of Bratton for police commissioner is consistent with his previously stated positions. For the progressives who helped elect him, as predictable a move as it may have been, it's still disappointing.
Bratton has been credited with the improvement of community relations between police and the public in LA, particularly among black and Latino communities, as well as reductions in crime. He has also voiced support for affixing police officers with cameras, a practice that could lead to a reduction in the use of force/the number complaints filed against police. But he is hardly the type of choice one makes to signal a radical shift in the way policing will be done. He is the commissioner responsible for instituting the "broken windows," zero-tolerance style of policing that has meant more harassment of the poor/working-class and communities of color. As veteran police reporter Len Levitt put it, appointing "Bratton, [means] change within the NYPD will be that of style rather than substance.
In a statement, Joo-Hyun Kang, spokesperson for Communities United for Police Reform, said: "It's critical that Mr. Bratton rejects policies that rely on discrimination, demonstrates a commitment to true accountability, and works to ensure the department values officers' abilities to build respectful community partnerships based on respect for the dignity and rights of all New Yorkers rather than on discrimination-based stop, summons and arrest quotas." These are changes to the culture of policing that I'm not quite sure someone of Bratton's pedigree is equipped to implement.
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The mayor-elect had an opportunity to signal a fundamentally new approach to the way policing would be done in NYC, but chose instead the safe and familiar, which has never benefited the communities that elected him to office. De Blasio has always been the most progressive candidate with a chance of winning, not the most progressive. His choice for the "new" police commissioner is the first action that should signal to liberals/progressives that now is not the time to rest. What got the issue of stop-and-frisk to the forefront of national consciousness and the subsequently the mayoral race was grassroots activism and organizing. The same will be required to ensure that not only are reforms to stop-and-frisk implemented but that the policy be overturned altogether in favor of community-based policing that relies on trust, not fear, to ensure that crimes that actually effect quality of life (rape, robbery, murder) are fully investigated.. That's true no matter who occupies the office of mayor or police commissioner.
Mychal Denzel Smith explains why it doesn't matter that race relations are "better" than they were in previous generations.
John Graham, who died on November 26, at age 92, was perhaps the most popular cryptic crossword constructor in the world. He created puzzles for The Guardian as Araucaria, which is the Latin name of the monkey puzzle tree. In the Financial Times, he was Cinephile, an anagram of Chile Pine, which is another name for the same tree. He announced he had cancer in a cryptic crossword a year ago, and his last puzzle included the phrase TIME TO GO.
He was a minister in the Church of England, and a man of the left who would not contribute puzzles to Murdoch-owned newspapers. Henri solved a few of his puzzles over many years when visiting relatives in the UK, and remembers one puzzle whose theme was the leaders of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa—not something one would find in most US cryptics.
Cryptic crosswords, of course, are much, much more popular in the UK, where five different newspapers offer cryptic crosswords daily. Perhaps because of this broad audience, there are different styles among British constructors. (Or perhaps the causation goes the other way?) Araucaria was a leading exponent of a relatively easy-going style, perhaps best summarized in this quote: "Any clue is legitimate which leads, by whatever route, to an answer which, 80 per cent of the time, can be known to be correct as soon as it appears to the mind" (quoted in his obituary in the Financial Times).
His editor at The Guardian wrote:
Araucaria once articulated his difference with extreme Ximeneans thus. To clue the word CAIN (who killed Abel) his device might be to insert an "I" into "CAN," which has the slang meaning of "prison". His clue might be: "Having committed a murder, I am in prison." A Ximenean would object that the "definition" in the clue for Cain is unfair, because "Cain" is a noun and "Having committed a murder" is not; and, because here "I" is a letter of the alphabet and not a personal pronoun, it should be followed grammatically by "is" not "am." So a strict Ximenean would require some clue like: "Being guilty of murder, I must be put in prison." In Araucaria's view, Guardian solvers would find that his clue was fair—and better. Most of them were on his side.
Ximeneans describe their cluing principles as "square dealing." In the United States, Frank Lewis was the main constructor who did not subscribe to square-dealing orthodoxy, although Richard Maltby arguably also falls in that category (which did not prevent either of them from having a loyal following). As far as we know, everyone else on this side of the pond writes puzzles from a Ximenean perspective—as do we. For the most part, we share with the British Ximeneans and with our US colleagues a concern for grammatical correctness and an insistence that cryptic readings should work exactly as written. But this does not prevent us as solvers from enjoying a wide range of styles, or as constructors from loosening the reins once in a while. We realize that solving every clue with an eye to 100 percent correctness is part of the fun for many solvers, but Araucaria's prodigious output and popularity are evidence that there are other ways to enjoy cryptic crosswords.
How about you? Do you enjoy dissecting every clue, or are you just hoping to fill the diagram? Please share here, along with any quibbles, questions, kudos or complaints about the current puzzle or any previous puzzle. To comment (and see other readers' comments), please click on this post's title and scroll to the bottom of the resulting screen.
And here are three links:
• The current puzzle
• Our puzzle-solving guidelines
• A Nation puzzle solver's blog where you can ask for and offer hints, and where every one of our clues is explained in detail.
It is time for a great big increase in the minimum wage.
Who says?
The American people.
It is not just the thousands of fast-food restaurant workers and their allies who rallied Thursday in 130 cities across the country, although the "strike against poverty wages" puts a human face on the data charting a dramatric increase in enthusiasm for this fight.
It is vital for supporters of wage increases to recognize—as everyone from Pope Francis to President Obama is talking about income inequality—that few proposals attract such broad support as the idea of raising hourly pay so that people who work forty hours a week can support their families.
A Hart Research Associates poll conducted last summer for the National Employment Law Project Action Fund found that 80 percent of Americans surveyed favor a $10.10-an-hour wage floor. And the support cuts across lines of partisanship, ideology, race and region.
Ninety-two percent of Democrats favor the increase, as do 80 percent of independents and 62 percent of Republicans.
Support from Americans who earn over $100,000 a year (79 percent) is roughly the same as from Americans who earn under $40,000 a year (83 percent). Southerners are almost as supportive (81 percent) as Northeasterners (86 percent).
This enthusiasm is not just theoretical. It is immediate. Seventy-four percent of Americans say that Congress should make it a priority to significantly increase the minimum wage.
Where they can, voters are getting ahead of Congress. In New Jersey, voters just raised the state's minimum wage by a dollar and cleared the way for additional hikes by indexing increases to inflation.
In the Seattle area last month, voters backed a $15-an-hour minimum wage for the airport city of SeaTac, and elected a $15-an-hour advocate, Kshama Sawant to the city council. Even before Sawant's swearing in, newly-elected Mayor Ed Murray has announced that a city will study hiking wages. And Sawant says, "If corporate resistance results in the ordinance getting watered down or not passing in 2014, then we will need to place an initiative on the 2014 ballot…. Workers simply can't afford to wait any longer for $15 an hour."
Something real is happening across the country. And it is about time. When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. marched on Washington for jobs and freedom fifty years ago, the federal minimum wage was $1.25 an hour. In today's dollars, that guaranteed base wage would be $9.54 an hour.
But the federal minimum wage today is just $7.25 an hour.
So low-wage workers are more than $2 behind where they were when King declared: "We refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we've come to cash this check—a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice."
As Congressman Keith Ellison, D-MN, said at a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, "Income inequality threatens our democracy as Jim Crow segregation did in 1963. Families are working harder than ever and are still struggling to put food on the table. A full day's work doesn't mean a full day's pay."
And that is especially true for fast-food workers.
Most Americans are aware that, especially in a weak economy, fast-food restaurant jobs are no longer "entry-level" positions. In chain restaurants across the country, most workers are adults. And substantial numbers of them are trying to support families.
But if they are paid the minimum wage, or even a bit more, they live in poverty.
"Almost one-quarter of all jobs in the United States pay wages below the poverty line for a family of four. CEO compensation, meanwhile, continues to climb. It would take a full-time, minimum-wage worker more than 930 years to earn as much as the chief executive officer of Yum! Brands, which operates Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC, made in 2012," explains Christine Owens, the executive director of the National Employment Law Project. "Fast-food workers are in the lowest paid occupational category. The median hourly wage for front-line fast-food workers is $8.94 nationally. Many don't even earn that. A shortage of hours further limits income. Fast-food workers work only 24 hours a week on average—at $8.94 an hour, this adds up to barely $11,000 a year."
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Organizing for better pay for fast-food and retail workers does not just benefit those workers and their families. "We can't build a strong economy on jobs that pay so little that families can't live on them," notes Service Employees International Union President Mary Kay Henry. "Raising the wage floor will make the economy stronger for all of us."
Indeed, argues California Congressman George Miller, the senior Democratic member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, "Low pay…holds back our recovery from the Great Recession."
Miller is the House author of the Fair Minimum Wage Act (HR 1010), which would increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. The rate would then be indexed to inflation, so that pay increases come when prices rise. Additionally, Miller's bill would increase the required cash wage for tipped workers.
Ultimately, increases must go even higher to achieve a living-wage standard. But what Miller proposes is a meaningful step in the right direction.
"Better pay will put more money into local businesses and spur economic growth," says the California congressman. "That's why a living wage is not about asking for a handout. Rather, it's about valuing work. And it's about growing the economy from the bottom up by increasing working families' purchasing power. Americans on today's picket lines aren't just standing up for themselves—they are standing up for a stronger America."
Allison Kilkenny on the fast food workers striking for living wages nationwide.
Thursday morning, House Democrats held a deeply emotional hearing featuring several long-term unemployed Americans who pleaded with Congress to extend the expiring federal Emergency Unemployment Insurance program, which provides benefits to jobless Americans after their state benefits run out. (It's really worth a watch, to see the emotional pain that comes with being unemployed.)
The program has been extended or modified eleven times since it was created in 2008 as the economy cratered, but is set to expire at the end of 2013—meaning 2.15 million long-term unemployed would lose benefits entirely.
The looming House-Senate budget negotiations have been viewed as the best vehicle to extend the EUC program—and Thursday's hearing ended with some dramatic news from House minority leader Nancy Pelosi. She made it clear that Democrats couldn't support any agreement that didn't have an EUC extension, either in the actual budget or as a separate piece of legislation.
Addressing the long-term jobless who testified, Pelosi said:
"Yes, indeed, we are making a very clear statement that we cannot, cannot support a budget agreement that does not include unemployment insurance in the budget or as a sidebar in order to move it all along.It would undermine who we are as a country, [and] most importantly, it would strike at the heart of what you bring to America. Everything you have said is about the middle class—the backbone of our democracy."
Meanwhile, a senior Democratic Senate aide close to the budget negotiations confirmed to The Nation that a EUC extension is still very much in the mix. Senator Murray, who is leading the negotiations for Democrats, "continues to push for this and it remains an open item as the negotiations continue."
Details of a possible agreement have been leaking out in recent days, though there is no mention of the EUC program either way. The agreement is sure to be fragile, however, given the spending levels and federal pension changes rumored to be included—meaning that every last vote will be crucial in the House. That's what makes Pelosi's pledge so notable.
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Additionally on Thursday morning, House Speaker John Boehner told reporters he would be "willing to take a look" at a long-term unemployment insurance extension.
The White House, too, is pushing for an extension—President Obama plugged it in his major economic address Wednesday, and on Thursday the White House issued a report detailing how many long-term jobless in each state would lose benefits.
President Obama recently called inequality the "defining challenge of our time."


text:
The University of South Carolina welcomes graduate students from diverse backgrounds to enjoy the lifestyle that the university and the city of Columbia have to offer.
Students here find a tradition-rich and growing institution with a host of opportunities—from challenging academics, to over 300 clubs and organizations to extracurricular activities and volunteer and service projects. The Horseshoe is the University's picturesque center of campus, a gathering place for studying, sunbathing, or just relaxing. A few blocks from main campus, the University's unique research and innovation district, Innovista, is taking shape including a new building for the Darla Moore School of Business.
Campus Highlights include: