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Thursday, November 29, 2007
Planting Questions at the You Tube Debate
CNN apparently edited the General out of the rebroadcast of the debate.
There are other issues now being raised regarding whether other questioners were "plants." Some of the other questioners were either supporters of Democratic candidates or have some other left wing connection. That does not really bother me. All of the questions were respectful and serious questions. The Muslim woman might have been a former CAIR intern, but the question was a good and serious one, and was respectful (not a GOTTA type of thing). The black man who asked about getting more black support for the GOP apparently runs a satire site about black Republicans, but again, his question was serious and respectful. (I doubt the guy who asked the gun question of Biden in the Democratic debate was a Democrat)
My only problem is with the General because his name is attached to the Clinton campaign, and he was flown in at Google's expense to give a rebuttal to the answers given. His question was a serious one, but one that someone else should have asked.
How long in Iraq (and elsewhere)?
We should not be permanently occupying Iraq. Yet, 62 years after the end of World War II and 18 years after the Berlin Wall fell, we still maintain troops in Europe. The Europeans whine whenever we talk about reducing them further and a long standing plan to remove 2 heavy combat brigades was recently shelved. We still have 300 nuclear warheads in Europe. We maintain a force in South Korea too small to influence North Korea or defend the South (the real defense of South Korea should be and is with the South Korean army). We maintain a force in Japan. We maintain troops in the Balkans after our temporary occupation following the Balkan Crisis (and Kosovo still does not have an effective government).
Whenever we talk about removing troops from anywhere, the locals whine. Because we have effectively promised to defend them, so it removes real responsibility for their own security. Which is why the Europeans were completely useless in dealing with the Balkan Crisis and why South Korea in the end will follow a policy of appeasement with the North.
So it is not just Iraq. Our entire security policy has a lack of imagination and a certain amount of inertia. And not just us. Britain still has troops in Germany.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Vodka Pundit on the You Tube debate
The You Tube Debate
The question on "don't ask don't tell" and the seemingly forever rebuttal by the questioner lost me. It also turns out that the questioner, a retired Army general, is connected to the Clinton campaign.
McCain came off extremely well. He seems to have done well in the debates so far. He is calm, focused, and shows both his competency and his principles. The showed his incredible grasp of foreign policy as well as taking the torture question head on. Yes, this man should be president.
Another who did well was Huckabee. He had the best answer of the night -- what would Jesus do about the death penalty? " Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office." Huckabee, however, continues to run as the great social conservative hope and sounded like he was interviewing for a pastor's job. I think he will end up if not winning in Iowa and maybe South Carolina, coming a close second.
Romney did not impress me. He seems too polished, too much answering questions based on what he thinks will be popular.
Thompson seemed very relaxed and answered the questions well. Thompson was a better non candidate than candidate and has lost much of his early bounce. So maybe he was relaxed as he was trying out for VP. He (and the other candidates) really punted the Rebel flag question though.
Giuliani stumbled at times. He was expecting to skip Iowa and New Hampshire and concentrate on Florida with the hope of pulling off an upset in South Carolina. But he is in trouble in the early states now. The pressure is on him and he knows it.
Ron Paul was, well, Ron Paul. The Paulistas reacted, well, as you would expect.
We should have a pool as to when Hunter and Tancredo drop out. My wife (not a Republican) has no clue who they are.
In the end, McCain won and Huckabee really helped himself. Let's hope we see more of this type of format.
The Democrats Escalate! McCain Responds!
Escalating the tension, Barbra Streisand has come out publicly in support of Hillary Clinton (no word yet if it is the Mecha Streisand)
John McCain delivered the Republican response
EDITED TO ADD -- From commenter Rodak, Obama's new slogan in New Hampshire -- "WINFREY, OR DIE! "
Monday, November 26, 2007
A quote I like
Ayn Rand is supposed to have used this rejoinder to a heckler who claimed that as a foreigner, she knew nothing of America. I am not a big Ayn Rand fan, but for me, that sums up a lot of the American experience. We are all immigrants in a way. My grandfather, born in Naples, had a love of America that I can only approximate. I take her for granted, but he realized how wonderful it really was.
In the ongoing immigration war, I hope we all remember these words.
New McCain Ad
This is McCain at his best -- the quiet unassuming patriot. Admitting he may annoy many, but always taking positions based on principle.
From now until Super Tuesday, McCain needs to keep this focus. If Romney falters in Iowa and the GOP base cannot reconcile itself to Giuliani, McCain becomes the obvious choice. Though I would say he should have been the obvious choice from the beginning.
While I am not thrilled with Obama, I agree with Andrew Sullivan that an Obama-McCain race would be the best for the country.
Good Bye Trent
I will miss the unintentional irony that Lott's leadership position was a "Minority Whip."
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Chuck and Huck
I am still not sure what to make of Huckabee. But he definitely is not your father's evangelical conservative Republican.
If 24 was in 1994
Truth is, I have never seen a single episode of 24, though I did watch the South Park parody.
Please God make it stop!
The problem is that now I have swimming through my head, in alternative moments, the song "La Vie En Rose" or, worse, "No Regrets". Please God make this stop.
Drunk Blogger on the Democratic Debate
I have never met him, but he has been a great influence on me and a major part in how I will survive the soon to be Clinton presidency.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Blog McCain
A blog has been established to discuss ways for pro-McCain bloggers to help the campaign. My idea -- why not a "money bomb."
The first time I saw Phoenix
This time, it was worse. My plane arrived in Phoenix no problem, the board said everything was on time, so I stopped off for a quick dinner. I then noticed that my flight had disappeared from the board -- no indication of anything, no announcement. It was cancelled. The original plane had mechanical troubles in Washington and its replacement also broke down. So for the first time ever, I spent the night in Phoenix. I only saw what you could see from the hotel shuttle, the hotel was in Tempe and not much was going on (despite ASU being right there).
I am sure it is a nice city, but given my experiences with the airlines, I will stay away from Phoenix if I can.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Pakistan gets worse
President bush needs to make it clear now -- unless Musharraf resigns from the army and ends the emergency, there will be real repercussions.
It will not happen of course.
Who supports jihad?
One could probably spin these numbers lots of ways. But there is much anecdotal evidence that the usual line that "poverty breeds terrorism" is not really true. Bin Laden is [was?] a billionaire and we do not see much terrorism in Sub Saharan Africa.
Sullivan believes the problem is religious ideology. While I have little doubt that is part of the problem, I believe the larger part of the problem is simply the authoritarian nature of those governments. In Western societies, those who are wealthier or better educated are more influential politically. They can give money, host talk shows lobbing soft ball questions toward favored candidates, establish think tanks and run for office. (As an aside, I think that is one of the reasons Hollywood is so far left of the rest of the country -- they have money and glamor but generally are locked out of political influence.)
But if you are a wealthy or educated Saudi you probably find yourself locked out of government. There is no parliament to run for and any think tank will be censored. So you turn to religion and jihadism.
If this sounds far fetched, think back to European history. The Glorious Revolution, while portrayed as a religious and liberal revolution, was in any ways the revolt of the "squirarchy" who felt left out of the governing class by an increasingly authoritarian James II. The French Revolution began as an attempt of the urban middle classes and wealthy to take control of the French government (and it rapidly spun out of control). Even our own revolution was the result of the local elites wanting to control the colonies' destiny, not some far distant parliament.
I know most Americans have given up on democracy as a panacea for the problems of the Middle East (Sullivan seems to), but liberalization of the political structures in the Arab world is needed to stop jihadism. If wealthy and educated Arabs are in parliament or able to have influence in civil society, then maybe they will be less inclined to support bomb throwers.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
What I hope comes from the Ron Paul Candidacy
Here are a few important ones:
1. The proper role of government
2. Monetary policy (Paul gets hung up over the gold standard, but the role of the Fed and its lack of transparency should be a major issue)
3. Federalism -- on the GOP side at least people are seriously talking about federalism again.
4. Foreign policy -- for 45 years we had a foreign policy designed to fight the USSR. For 15 years since we have not really retooled that policy. Iraq is merely a symptom of a much larger policy failure. Why must the US be the enforcement arm of the UN? Why do we still maintain a large army in Europe? Why was Europe unable on its own to address the Balkan crisis of the late 1990s?
If nothing else, the Paul campaign should help restart the conversation about where the conservative movement and the GOP should go -- "compassionate conservatism" is not it.
Mother Teresa and Darkness
As I have noted earlier, some in the press have stated that these letters show that Mother Teresa was some sort of hypocrite or a secret atheist. Otters have argued that she was feeling "the dark night of the soul."
From reading her letters, however, I think it was in fact something else, something deeper. Was she simply reacting as any loving human being would to the poverty and rejection of the Indian slums? Or was she feeling spiritually the pain of loss and rejection felt by Christ on Calvary? Was it from God, or was it a reaction to her surroundings?
I cannot say. But what is clear from her letters is that she eventually welcomed the darkness as a gift from God. And despite this darkness, she never waived in her mission.
A thought for my Father on Veterans' Day
This photo is of my Dad when he returned from Korea. A newspaper photographer was at the dock, and a closeup of my grandmother feeding him ended up in the newspaper (the Daily News I think -- the clipping is somewhere in with the stuff I emptied out of my Parents' house).
My father saw quite a bit of action in Korea. He was an acting platoon sergeant by the end of the war, though he never had a permanent rank higher than corporal (he was promoted very fast so he must have been a good soldier, but he also had a tendency to mouth off to officers who he felt were below par, so he never received higher permanent rank).
He was wounded on a night patrol. He never talked much about it except to say that he got some shrapnel in his finger and his bullet proof vest was badly damaged. When I was an ROTC cadet in college, his only additional comment was to always wear my flak jacket. My mother also said that his badly damaged flak jacket was hung up on a pole at Inchon for the newly arriving troops to see with a sign saying "THIS SOLDIER IS STILL ALIVE" with an admonishment to wear their flak jackets.
At my father's funeral, one of his army friends arrived and told me the story of what actually happened. My dad, as the platoon sergeant, decided not to send his men out to do what he would not do so he decided to head a night patrol. Because he wanted to set a good example, he wore his flak jacket at all times (they were somewhat new and most soldiers did not like wearing them), none of the other members of the patrol wore theirs. They marched out, and unfortunately the Chinese decided to send a patrol out at the same time and place and they ran into each other. Artillery was called in and a battle ensued.
My father's friend was in the company that was on alert-reserve so they were called in to reinforce the line. Volunteers were asked to go and get my father and his patrol out of no man's land. Because my father was well thought of (probably because he was not afraid to stand up to officers on behalf of the enlisted men), all who were asked immediately volunteered (my father's friend was not allowed to go).
Of the four men on the patrol, only my father returned, probably because he was wearing his vest and the others were not. My dad quickly got stitched up and returned to his unit. (According to Uncle Jack, my father's telegram home that he was wounded but OK was intercepted by the neighbors and my grandfather did not know until he saw my dad wearing the purple heart ribbon on his uniform on his return.)
He was there when the war ended. He had said that toward the effective time of the of armistice, there was fear that the Communists would use it to launch a surprise attack, so his company was ordered up a mountain and told to dig in. He knew the war was over when the appointed time came, the shooting stopped, and the Chinese soldiers on the opposite hill came out of their bunkers and started waving.
He somehow sent a message ahead that he wanted a meatball hero on his return, and his family came through. If you look really closely, you can see they are also all holding small cups -- why let a few regulations keep up from toasting a return with wine.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Socialism or Death!! Viva Chavez!
I've seen this movie before -- I think Madonna was in it and I remember lots of singing
Thursday, November 8, 2007
What's Your Inner European?
Your Inner European is Italian!
Passionate and colorful.
You show the world what culture really is.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Republicans won't do it because they then will have to admit they were wrong.
Democrats won't do it because they expect the next president to be a Democrat and they do not want to look soft on National Security.
John McCain, however, thinks the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act and the 2006 Military Commissions Act already make it illegal. He even suggests anyone waterboarding after 2006 is guilty of war crimes. (Why is this man not president?)
The red herring in all this is the claim that outlawing torture will put the US at risk. I look at it this way. If something happens in the heat of battle I may look at it differently than if something happens at Gitmo. If a 20 year old sergeant under fire somewhere in Afghanistan threatens a prisoner to reveal a sniper's nest, I view that differently than waterboarding someone captured 6 months ago in a prison. The whole ticking time bomb thing is the creation of t.v. writers (all of whom are now on strike anyway).
My E-Mail to the President on Pakistan
Subject: Pakistan
To: firstname.lastname@example.com
CC: email@example.com
Dear Mister President:
I am writing to express hope that you will speak out forcefully and quickly against the declaration of emergency in Pakistan. According to press reports, you have called President Musharraf and pushed for elections. You must go further. On places like Lebanon, Ukraine and most recently Burma, you have spoken out eloquently in defense of liberalization and democracy. Pakistan's struggle is no different. While realpolitik might call for continued support of the Pakistani regime in the fight against terrorism and to help Afghanistan, that is short sighted thinking.
No matter what course is taken, Pakistan is going to explode. Speak out against the emergency and in support of those demonstrating for the return of the constitutional order. They are not only fighting for democracy against a military government, they are also under threat of Islamic terrorists who wish to turn Pakistan into a rerun of Taliban run Afghanistan. They need and deserve our support. Their fight is our fight, both short term and long term.
I know you face difficult choices each day I can only imagine. Please know that my prayers are with you.
As it stands, there is school choice in this country right now. The rich can choose whatever school they wish. The middle class can usually choose to move to places with better schools. The poor however are often stuck with failing schools.
While this is a defeat, my hope is that more modest plans will still go forward.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Stop Global Warming -- Let's All go to Bali!
I am something of a skeptic on anthropogenic global warming. I see that the mean temperatures have increased, but this follows a relatively cool period. The Earth was warm in the not so distant past (especially in the warm period before the "Little Ice Age"). Many of the glacier retreats are revealing prior inhabited areas.
I do agree, however, that reducing carbon emissions is a good thing. However, my scepticism is due in part to the fact that those most trumpeting climate change are not personally acting as if it is a crisis. Al Gore's electric bill for one or John Travolta lecturing about carbon emissions while he flies a personal 707.
But don't worry, the United Nations is on the case. And to solve the problem, they are all jetting off to Bali to talk about global warming. The 12 day conference will, I am sure, solve all our climate problems and the Earth will reenter the ice age. They need the ice for their scotch I guess.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Ron Paul has a Happy Guy Fawkes Day
Say what you want about Paul and his supporters, they definitely are motivated and have l;earned how to use the Internet.
Stephen Green asks the important question -- as both India and what is now Pakistan were long under the control of the British Raj, why is India a democracy and Pakistan on the verge of disintegration?
We have seen this all before. In 1999, Musharraf gained power in much the same way and for the same purpose. Back then, the choice was as follows:
Musharraf who was an authoritarian general
Sharif who was allied to Islamists
Bhutto who was a somewhat corrupt democrat
Which basically are the same choices today. So if we are supposed to be in the new world of "realistic" foreign policy (as opposed to idealistically pushing for democratization) is this a good thing or a bad thing?
I think the reliance on "stability" is partly how we got into this situation (and not just Pakistan and the North West Frontier Province, but the entire Middle East). We support the Taliban to bring "stability" and get 9/11. We supported Musharraf to get stability and we got nothing.
Given the choices, I say go with the somewhat corrupt democrat. Throw the dice. Every result is generally a bad one, so let's go for once with one that at least is the least cynical for a change. Bhutto is back in Pakistan. Throw the dice.
Why I am a Republican
As for me, I describe my political beliefs and their sources as follows (with apologies to French author Chateaubriand):
I am a Republican out of honor (and genetics)
A libertarian out of reason
A conservative out of taste and temperament.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
A McCain Rally?
In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, Rudy Giuliani maintains the lead nationally. McCain, however, has gained 7 percentage points in the past month, while the Fred Thompson boomlet seems to have run out of steam. Giuliani now leads McCain by 14 points nationally. Giuliani's support, however, is somewhat soft, especially among social conservatives. McCain, of course, may not make those folks happy either, but he comes without the baggage that Giuliani carries.
We have seen McCain rally before, only to drop quickly. And McCain still is in trouble on the fundraising front. But given Giuliani's soft support, he has a chance to put himself back into contention before the start of primary season.
Romney still has the lead in Iowa and New Hampshire, the early states with the most interest. Given the early and compressed primary calender, this could propel him to the nomination.
The Post is calling this the most open GOP race since 1980, when Reagan had the early lead, but there was no one dominating candidate. It is going to be a wild ride.
Hillary Hatred
I have noticed this myself. Granted, I live deep in the heart of Obama land (in my mind, Obama is not the "black" candidate but the liberal yuppie candidate), but I have noticed it here too. And like Reynolds, it is not always limited to Republicans. I have come across a few Democrats who clearly hate Hillary Clinton on a deep level that goes far beyond ideology or her somewhat hawkishness.
All in all though, this will not affect the prospects of "She who must be inevitable."
Pass the martinis please.
Friday, November 2, 2007
A Belgian Public Service Announcement
Belgium still does not have a government, though it looks like it is getting closer. No one in Belgium or Europe seems to have notice.
No government, lots of frites and great beer -- Belgium is paradise!
Tax Reform
Maybe however, it would be better for the GOP to take a good look at the bill. The bill is being touted as a reform of the Alternative Minimum Tax paid for by a surtax on the highest incomes. I personally am not that worked up about the AMT (despite having to pay it 3 out of the past 4 years). The AMT really acts as a back door flat tax and addresses the myriad of tax preferences in the code (such as the deduction of state and local taxes -- I live in a high tax city in a relatively high tax state but think people would care more about local taxes if this subsidy was repealed).
However, Rangel is looking at something which you would think is anathema on the left -- namely, lowering the corporate tax rate. Think about that. A very liberal Democrat from Harlem is proposing to use money from tax reform to partially reduce corporate income taxes.
Corporate income is really taxed twice, at the corporate level and when dividends are paid. Most of the other industrialized countries have a system whereby corporate income is taxed only once. Further, the US taxes corporations on their world wide income while in other countries, especially those with a value added tax, give relief on foreign earned income. If I had my druthers, I would replace the current two step corporate tax with a corporate level tax which is credited to dividend recipients. That would still tax corporate income paid to tax-exempt and foreign owners while taxing corporate income only once.
Given the politics, there will not be a major tax reform bill passed next year (though you may see some stopgap AMT relief. There is an election on and President Bush has no political capital left. But historically, there have been major tax reform packages in the first year of the last few presidents. And if Charles Rangel has placed the corporate income on the table, that means a chance of real reform of the tax system is possible,
Let's not reject this out of hand.
Norwegian Borat Want-to-be In New York
This is really funny, though if you object to strong language, turn it off!


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subset: commoncrawl


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SAN FRANCISCO — Carl Clark, a California man who was recognized six decades after his bravery during World War II with a Medal of Honor that had been denied because he was black, died last week. He was 100.
Clark, who received the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal in 2012, died March 16 at a Veteran's Administration hospital in Menlo Park, his daughter, Karen Clark Collins, said Tuesday.
"He didn't consider himself a hero, he never talked about it," Clark Collins said. "But after he left the Navy, he helped start the Boys and Girls Club in Menlo Park and did a lot for his community. He was a compassionate and sharing man."
Clark was serving as a Steward First Class aboard the USS Aaron Ward when Japanese kamikazes attacked the destroyer near Okinawa in May 1945.
"They would guide those planes directly into the ships," Clark said of the planes he described as "flying bombs" during a 2011 interview with The Associated Press.
Six kamikazes hit the destroyer, with the blast from one plane so powerful that it blew him all the way across the ship.
Though he suffered a broken collarbone in the attack, Clark was credited with saving the lives of several men by dragging them to safety. He also put out a fire in an ammunition locker that would have cracked the vessel in half.
Even though the destroyer's captain acknowledged that Clark had saved the ship, it took more than six decades to be recognized for his actions, according to Clark, because of "bigotry."
"It wouldn't look good to say one black man saved the ship," he said in 2011.
The captain of the destroyer tried to make up for the slight by giving him extra leave and making sure that he was not sent back to sea, Clark said.
Clark received the medal on January 17, 2012 during a ceremony at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif.
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Whether or not it is harmful depends on the troop and the leaders. When dd was in Girl Scouts, they had Saint Patricks Day party in a BAR. Yes, you read that correctly, it was a bar, actually an Irish pub. And of course it had peanut bowls and residue everywhere, so dd was excluded, but come on, what are they doing having an event for 7 year old girls in a bar?
About the outcast thing, at our school, almost every girl in first grade was wearing a brownie uniform on Wednesdays. That was why I even made the effort to put dd in. Because of the uniform, it was very clear who was in and who wasn`t.
About the self confidence and speaking skills, again it depends on the troop and the leaders. All I saw was a bunch of out of control, poorly behaved girls, overpowering a few well behaved ones (mine was one of the well behaved ones). Dd got far more self confidence and speaking skills from her acting and modeling than she ever did from Girl Scouts. There are many ways to acquire those skills other than scouts.
[This message has been edited by Carefulmom (edited October 09, 2006).]


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STORY FROM: Asbestos
N.J. Judge Refuses to Set Aside $117 Million Verdict in Asbestos Talc Case
June 29, 2018
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. –– A New Jersey state judge has denied motions by Johnson & Johnson and Imerys Talc America to set aside a $117 million verdict in a case in which the plaintiffs accused the companies of manufacturing talcum powder products that contained asbestos fibers.
In a June 29 order, Judge Ana Viscomi of the Middlesex County Superior Court let stand the verdict, which consists of $30 million in compensatory damages, $7 million in loss of consortium damages and $80 million in punitive damages.
Johnson & Johnson was allocated 70 percent liability in the compensatory damages phase of ...
Associated Law Firms
Kazan, McClain, Satterley & Greenwood
Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Levy Konigsberg
Associated Documents


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The Forgotten Achievements of Government
page: 2 of 4
- Anti-Discrimination Policies. Since the 1960s, policies like the Civil Rights Act and Title IX have chalked up impressive gains in decreasing discrimination against minorities and women. Racial segregation in hotels, restaurants and other public facilities has been eliminated. Housing discrimination and workplace discrimination, while not completely eradicated, have been substantially reduced. College enrollment for minorities has greatly increased, jumping 48% during the 1990s alone. In terms of gender, workplace discrimination and sexual harassment have decreased and record numbers of women are now attending colleges and graduate schools. There is still room for improvement – particularly in the area of equal wages – but it is clear that these policies have made substantial progress in eliminating racist and sexist practices that had existed for hundreds of years.
- Clean Water and Clean Air Programs. America's water and air are significantly cleaner than they were in the 1960s, thanks to federal legislation. The levels of four of the six air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act – nitrogen dioxide, smog, sulfur dioxide, and lead – have been reduced dramatically, by an average of 53%. The quality of the air has significantly increased in virtually every metropolitan area in the U.S. The Clean Water act has been similarly successful. When it was passed in 1972, only one-third of the nation's waterways were safe enough for fishing or swimming. Today that has doubled to two-thirds. And while only 85 million Americans were served by sewage treatment plants in 1972, that figure has now risen to 170 million.
- Workplace Safety. Businesses love to complain about the rules of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and sometimes its policies have been a bit overboard – but it has clearly been very effective in greatly increasing the level of protection for American workers. In 1970, the year before the creation of OSHA, 22,000,000 people were injured on the job and 14,000 died from job-related injuries. Since then, OSHA has helped to cut occupational injury and illness rates by 40 percent. Even more important, between 1980 and 2002, workplace deaths fell from 7.5 per 100,000 workers to 4.0. Particularly impressive has been its success against brown lung disease among textile workers, which has been virtually eliminated.
- The Military. Even Rush Limbaugh, who has never met a government program that he likes, admits that the U.S. military is a great success story. Although debates continue to rage over how the military should be used, there is complete agreement that our Army, Navy, and Air Force are the most effective military organizations in the world today. We have the best trained and the best equipped armed forces, and they have an unparalleled ability to effectively project military force – as was demonstrated in the two recent Gulf wars. In the case of the military, the government has clearly done an exemplary job of creating a well-working and effective organization.
- The West. Although few Americans think about this, much of the Western United States as we know it today is the creation of various federal programs. It has been that way from the very beginning, starting with government-sponsored explorations of the West in the early and mid-19th century. It continued with the federal government providing the money and troops for the depressingly efficient program of "Indian removal." The government also sold public land to settlers for low prices and sometimes even gave it away. The railroads, which spurred so much growth in the West, would not have been built without massive subsidies from the federal government. And today, much of the farming in many Western areas is made possible by federal water projects, substantial parts of the ranching are subsidized by the artificially low grazing fees on federal property, and much of the mining is made more profitable by dirt cheap access to federal land. Cities like Los Angeles and Las Vegas would dry up and blow away without the federally funded dam and canal projects that provide water to those arid regions. So it is ironic that while anti-big government sentiment is very strong in parts of this region, the West literally would not and could not exist as it does today without the sustained help of the federal government.
- National Weather Service. This government agency not only makes your life more convenient by forecasting your daily weather, it also helps to ensure the safety of planes in the air and ships at sea and it has saved countless lives with its hurricane and tornado warnings. It also just keeps getting better. It's predictions of hurricane paths has improved by fifty percent during the past 15 years; and its forecasts of weather 72 hours in advance is now as reliable as 36-hour forecasts 25 years ago.
- Poverty Policies. This may seem counter-intuitive. Everybody knows that poverty policy is the classic example of government failure. How could it possibly be considered a success when the poverty rate is essentially the same as it was thirty years ago? The answer is that most of the policies aimed at the poor in the U.S. were never intended to get them out of poverty. They were only intended to alleviate the suffering of the poor – and studies have shown that they have been very successful in doing this.8 For example, food stamps have worked to greatly reduce hunger and malnutrition among the poor. The poor are much healthier and have more access to medical treatment thanks to Medicaid. And rent subsidies have allowed many of the poor to move out of places with leaking roofs, inadequate heat, and faulty plumbing. These three programs form the backbone of our anti-poverty efforts – their combined budgets are eight times larger than that for welfare – and in terms of achieving their stated goals, these programs have to be considered impressive government successes.
- Student Financial Aid Programs. College is getting increasingly expensive and more and more students require financial help to attend. The federal grants, loans, and work study money provided by the Department of Education form the largest source of college financial assistance, providing billions of dollars in funding each year. These programs have worked to remove financial barriers for students and thus create more equal opportunity in higher education. They have been a major factor in producing the rapid increases in college enrollment seen in the last 50 years, and they have also contributed to the increasing class and racial diversity of the college population.
- Food and Drug Safety Programs. The federal government enforces extensive rules to protect the public from tainted food and directly regulates both the meat and poultry industries. It also plays a key role in ensuring the safe use of pesticides on agricultural products, both from here and abroad. Federal authorities are also on the frontlines in combating new threats to our food system, such as mad-cow disease. In addition, the Food and Drug Administration ensures that the drugs we take are pure and effective – an enormously complicated enterprise. Every year the FDA identifies almost 3,000 products that are unfit for consumption and ensures their withdrawal from the marketplace. Americans are undoubtedly safer and healthier thanks to these government programs.
- Funding Basic Science Research. Most research on basic scientific topics – in physics, biology, chemistry, etc. – does not have immediate commercial applications and so this work is highly dependent on government funding. Federal funds pay for 80% of the basic science research in this country, through laboratory facilities in universities and in government agencies such as the National Institutes for Health. For this reason, the government deserves a great deal of credit for the important scientific and technological breakthroughs produced by these efforts. In just one area – biomedical science – basic research has provided the foundation to develop new diagnostic technologies, such as nuclear magnetic resonance machines, and new treatments for cancer, diabetes, and many other diseases. It is revealing that nearly half of the most important medical treatments in the field of cardiovascular-pulmonary medicine have their origins in basic research attempting to unravel the mysteries of the lungs, heart, and muscles – work done by scientists not working in this specific disease area.9 Beyond such practical payoffs, government-funded basic research has also made important progress in answering many of the most profound questions that have baffled humanity for centuries: What is the nature of matter and energy – and the nature of reality itself? How did the universe begin? How will it end? Are we alone in the universe? What is the nature of life – and how did it begin? The achievements of basic science in the United States have been many and stunning – and these are achievements of government as well.


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Funding TalksBy ANTHONY WARREN,
- 1514 reads
Officials explore financial options for infrastructure needs
Talks continue on how Jackson plans to fund its current and future infrastructure needs.
The capital city has billions of dollars in road, water, sewer and drainage problems, and leaders are grappling with how to address them.
Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said at a recent budget committee meeting that the most likely scenario will include taking on long-term debt and using one-percent dollars and other revenues as leverage for it.
"It's not a question about whether we can leverage, but what leveraging strategy we can employ to the best benefit of the city," he told the city council.
"Obviously there are differing opinions on what the amount (should be) … We can speak to that. We can figure out what the sweet spot is."
Lumumba and council members discussed leverage at a meeting in late October.
The mayor said the administration had not come up with a plan at press time, and would be looking at a number of factors before making a decision.
Among factors, the administration wants a clearer picture of its infrastructure needs, as well as the impact an overhaul of the water billing system will have on water collections.
For the most part, council members appear to be on board with issuing bonds. However, members differ on how much should be borrowed and how the funds should be paid back.
Ward One Councilman Ashby Foote believes leveraging can be a "useful tool … but it's important to articulate how we will pay the leverage down."
Ward Two Councilman Melvin Priester and Ward Four Councilman De'Keither Stamps support using one-percent dollars to leverage debt.
Stamps doesn't want to use more than a third of the one-percent dollars the city is expected to collect over the tax's lifetime.
The city implemented the one-percent tax in 2014. The assessment is expected to generate between $240 million and $300 million over its 20-year lifespan.
To date, about $55 million has been collected, of which about $16 million is unobligated.
"Ten years from now, someone's going to be sitting here (on the council and will) want to do some work," he said.
Priester had questions about how the debt would be repaid, and told the mayor he would not support borrowing more than $100 million.
"One frame of thinking is you leverage (all of the one-percent money). One frame is you don't. There's something to be said on both approaches," Lumumba said. "One would leave you with funds for continuing maintenance. But we're not really to the place where any of our roads are in the condition to be maintained."
Lumumba said the city will have a clearer picture of its needs once its comprehensive infrastructure plan is completed.
The plan will include, road, water, sewer and other needs, and will give an estimate on what Jackson will need to address them.
Chief Administrative Officer Robert Blaine said officials were doing a "gap analysis" to review information that is currently available and what is lacking.
Roads alone are expected to cost the city $2 billion over the next decade, while at least $1 billion will be needed for water and sewer, according to previous reports.
Funding sources for the city include the one-percent infrastructure tax, water and sewer usage fees and the "capitol complex improvement district," or CCID.
The infrastructure tax is assessed on most commercial transactions in the city limits, excluding groceries and medicine. Funds collected go into a special account and can only be used for infrastructure improvements. Any expenditures must be spent in compliance with a master plan approved by the one-percent oversight commission.
Commissioners are on board with the idea of leveraging funds, Lumumba said.
Water and sewer fees come from collections on monthly water and sewer bills. Those dollars are collected and put in a special enterprise account, for use specifically on water and sewer needs.
This year, the city is expecting to bring in around $72 million in water and sewer usage fees, according to the 2018 budget.
Historically, billing only brings in about 80 percent of its total collections. In fiscal year 2017, the city projected $72.3 million in revenues, but only brought in $57.9 million.
So far this year, Jackson is still not collecting between $1.5 million and $2 million a month, according to Blaine.
However, a major overhaul of the water billing department is under way to improve collections and improve billing accuracy for customers.
Another revenue stream for the city is the CCID, or the "capitol complex improvement district." However, funds for the district will not start coming in until 2018, and even once dollars are available, the city will not have direct access to them.
During the 2017 legislative session, lawmakers created the CCID, which takes in a large swath of Jackson and sets up a mechanism to fund infrastructure improvements within it.
The law does not allocate the money to the capital city, but rather gives the Mississippi Department of Finance and Administration the authority to spend the money, with the input of a special advisory board.
Next fall, the state will allocate about $3 million for improvements in the district, followed by $7 million the next year and $11 million each year after that in perpetuity.


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ReadConsoleOutput function
Reads character and color attribute data from a rectangular block of character cells in a console screen buffer, and the function writes the data to a rectangular block at a specified location in the destination buffer.
BOOL WINAPI ReadConsoleOutput(
_In_ HANDLE hConsoleOutput,
_Out_ PCHAR_INFO lpBuffer,
_In_ COORD dwBufferSize,
_In_ COORD dwBufferCoord,
_Inout_ PSMALL_RECT lpReadRegion
hConsoleOutput [in]
A handle to the console screen buffer. The handle must have the GENERIC_READ access right. For more information, see Console Buffer Security and Access Rights.
lpBuffer [out]
A pointer to a destination buffer that receives the data read from the console screen buffer. This pointer is treated as the origin of a two-dimensional array of CHAR_INFO structures whose size is specified by the dwBufferSize parameter.
dwBufferSize [in]
The size of the lpBuffer parameter, in character cells. The X member of the COORD structure is the number of columns; the Y member is the number of rows.
dwBufferCoord [in]
The coordinates of the upper-left cell in the lpBuffer parameter that receives the data read from the console screen buffer. The X member of the COORD structure is the column, and the Y member is the row.
lpReadRegion [in, out]
A pointer to a SMALL_RECT structure. On input, the structure members specify the upper-left and lower-right coordinates of the console screen buffer rectangle from which the function is to read. On output, the structure members specify the actual rectangle that was used.
Return value
If the function succeeds, the return value is nonzero.
If the function fails, the return value is zero. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.
ReadConsoleOutput treats the console screen buffer and the destination buffer as two-dimensional arrays (columns and rows of character cells). The rectangle pointed to by the lpReadRegion parameter specifies the size and location of the block to be read from the console screen buffer. A destination rectangle of the same size is located with its upper-left cell at the coordinates of the dwBufferCoord parameter in the lpBuffer array. Data read from the cells in the console screen buffer source rectangle is copied to the corresponding cells in the destination buffer. If the corresponding cell is outside the boundaries of the destination buffer rectangle (whose dimensions are specified by the dwBufferSize parameter), the data is not copied.
Cells in the destination buffer corresponding to coordinates that are not within the boundaries of the console screen buffer are left unchanged. In other words, these are the cells for which no screen buffer data is available to be read.
Before ReadConsoleOutput returns, it sets the members of the structure pointed to by the lpReadRegion parameter to the actual screen buffer rectangle whose cells were copied into the destination buffer. This rectangle reflects the cells in the source rectangle for which there existed a corresponding cell in the destination buffer, because ReadConsoleOutput clips the dimensions of the source rectangle to fit the boundaries of the console screen buffer.
If the rectangle specified by lpReadRegion lies completely outside the boundaries of the console screen buffer, or if the corresponding rectangle is positioned completely outside the boundaries of the destination buffer, no data is copied. In this case, the function returns with the members of the structure pointed to by the lpReadRegion parameter set such that the Right member is less than the Left, or the Bottom member is less than the Top. To determine the size of the console screen buffer, use the GetConsoleScreenBufferInfo function.
The ReadConsoleOutput function has no effect on the console screen buffer's cursor position. The contents of the console screen buffer are not changed by the function.
This function uses either Unicode characters or 8-bit characters from the console's current code page. The console's code page defaults initially to the system's OEM code page. To change the console's code page, use the SetConsoleCP or SetConsoleOutputCP functions, or use the chcp or mode con cp select= commands.
For an example, see Reading and Writing Blocks of Characters and Attributes.
Minimum supported client
Windows 2000 Professional [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server
Windows 2000 Server [desktop apps only]
|ConsoleApi2.h (via Wincon.h, include Windows.h)
Unicode and ANSI names
ReadConsoleOutputW (Unicode) and ReadConsoleOutputA (ANSI)
See also
Low-Level Console Output Functions
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Elena (Helen) Kovalenko, born in China circa 1924, lived and worked there until she was 21 years old. She spent the rest of her life serving God as a Catholic nun for 33 years in Caracas, Venezuela. She is the daughter of Shanghai Jews of Russian ancestry. Her most precious legacy is a manuscript of stories she wrote. The manuscript has been in good keeping for three decades awaiting publication. This is her story and here are her stories.
The Birth of the Sea Dragon
Many years ago there was a large and sophisticated city in Sie Zian in northern China. In that city, the Chinese invented gunpowder. And it happened once, due to someone's mishandling error, that the gunpowder exploded, and the earth opened up in a very strange way. The city fell into a deep hole, but suffered little damage. The buildings were not destroyed and in spite of everything there were many survivors. Among them was the King, some people and several children. All those survivors could not climb up to the surface, as the hole was very deep, and at that time, there were no flying machines. There was no way out.
Everybody started to work very hard to protect their lives from some of the scavenging animals that had also survived. Soon afterwards, it began to rain and there was no way out for the water either, so the people started to panic. They built pumps with wheels to make air bubbles; and they built water tight houses. In this way, they prevented the accumulation of water inside their living quarters, but the water level continued to rise outside the dwellings and flooded the city little by little. Men used their air wheel bubbles when leaving their cavernous dwellings to go places quickly. This allowed them to gather food that grew at the bottom of the waters. The food was good for health and prolonged people's lives.
One day a baby son was born to the King, but it was a monster. This was a great tragedy and a great shame for the royal family. Since it was a boy and the King's son, he was not killed. If it had been a female baby, she would have been destroyed.
Time passed and the prince was now eight years old. He was very ugly. His fingers were joined together and between his legs was something that looked like fabric that joined them together. His skin was covered with a kind of shell that made him walk very slowly. Everybody pitied him. The prince felt very sad and he tried to kill himself. One day he went into the water without putting on his air wheel. Then, when he came out of the water, he realized that water was good for him and he swam to his house. He told his parents as soon as he arrived home: "Mother, Father, look! I can get into the water without the air wheel. Look at me!" Everybody saw how he had fun in the water.
One day, he was watching the sun's rays that seemed to spun threads over the water. He felt very sad because he was ugly and that made him think a lot. Suddenly he saw some fish coming out from the sun's rays.
"What is that?" he asked himself. He thought somebody replied: "Gru-Gru-Gru Dragon."
"Shall we play?" the prince asked the dragon.
They played and the prince spent several days without returning home. When he finally went back home, he told his parents: "I like to be in the water more than here."
"I look pretty among my new companions," he said.
His parents then told him: "Remember, you are a great king and the first one born here. You are beautiful and powerful and you should take care of your people and protect them from all those who are in these waters."
And so began the reign of the young king. He went to the waters. He loved the rocks and precious stones. He sat on his throne and thought about the sun's rays. He learned that the Sun was God, that it was superior to everything. He saw how the sun moved the plants and all living things with its rays.
Years went by slowly. One day the King of the Waters heard a voice that came from the surface. It was a youth who was crying and talking to the waters, saying: "what should I do? What should I do? They are going to punish me and kill me!"
The dragon sent his guard, the little gold fish, to find out what was happening to the young man. The little gold fish swam up to the surface and as it was about to dive because it could not survive out of water, the young man saw the little fish and found it so pretty that he grabbed it.
"Let me go!" cried the fish. "I'll give you anything you want, but let me go!"
The young man replied: "I married a girl and she wants a new house."
The little gold fish told him: "Go to that forest and you will have a new house and come back here after three days."
After three days, the young man returned crying again. The fish asked him: "What happened to you?"
"My wife is not happy with the pretty house that you gave me. She hits me and says that she wants a small carriage to travel," the young man said.
"Well," the fish said, "Go back and you shall have the small carriage to travel, and within three days return here."
After three days, the young man returned crying again.
"what's wrong now?" asked the fish, and the man replied:
"My wife is very mad at me as she wants me to cut all the trees in the forest in one day."
Then the small fish told him to wait while it went down to see the dragon. The dragon asked the fish: "What is happening?" The fish told him everything, as he usually did whenever the young man appeared, and the dragon told the fish:
"Make his wish come true and tell him to return after three days; and to think that it is already his third wish, that he should talk to his wife before her wish is granted."
The youth returned once again and told the fish that his wife wanted a sewing machine. The fish then told the dragon and the dragon replied: Tell them to leave and never to return here. They are very ungrateful."
The gold fish told the young man that he had had his last wish granted and that now they will have nothing, and to never return because the spirits of the waters were mad at him. When the young man went back to his place, he found the house old as it had been before and all the wishes granted had disappeared. Then the young couple started to work hard, as they had now learned to appreciate things more.
One day, when the dragon was near the shore of the lake, he saw a woman crying, and she was talking to the waters: "Take my daughter away because I suffer too much. Since she was born she could not lift herself up and now she is six years old and her legs are very thin. She is all bones." The dragon then picked up a bunch of lotus flowers which grew in the waters and placed them near the woman — then the flowers opened with a pleasant perfume … "How beautiful!" the woman said. The dragon then told the woman: "Cover your daughter with this sand for six months, every day." The woman did so and after six months of treatment, the little girl was able to walk.
After that, the woman always threw gifts into the waters of the immense lake, and the dragon was happy to receive things from the world above the surface of the waters.
And so the years went by, and one day the dragon saw a beautiful female bird above the waters. It was a messenger from another land called Heaven.
And the dragon thought to himself: To think that all this beauty is outside of here…." The dragon and the bird fell in love and got married. People saw this and they cut off the dragon's head, and the little bird could not return to her heaven because it was not healthy and she had done things that were incorrect. The Emperor asked for the body of the dragon, but the gods gave him another body, as they had sent the dragon to the other faraway land called Heaven. [H. Kovalenko]
The Magi and the Star
In northern China close to the border of Asia and Russia a few thousand years ago, there lived a group of magi. One of them, called The Magus, was sought after by many people. He lived in a house that resembled a pagoda, with round balconies that protruded into the sky. The Magus spent hours at night looking at the stars. He had a lot of apparatus and files. The Magus knew how to read the stars at night and knew who would be born and who would die. He knew astrology well, and he knew almost everything, as he had studied for many years.
One day The Magus was feeling depressed because he felt that he lacked something, but he did not know what it was. One night, when he was watching the sky, he saw the birth of a small star. It seemed to shine differently from the others, and it was streaking across the sky as if in a hurry to go somewhere.
"What is it?" the astrologer asked himself. "It's not time for it to be born yet, but where is that star going so fast? Is it going to the market? I am going to follow that star."
He ordered his guards to follow him, then he mounted his horse and followed the star. Soon, the star stopped above a place where the market was. The Magus walked through the market and a ray from the star shone over a house where young girls and women were sold.
The Magus went to the house and walked through the entrance that was covered by a cloth curtain.
The guard standing behind the curtain said: "You have no right to come in here."
The Magus said: "I am The Magus," and he walked straight in without stopping. He found a seat and sat down. Soon, a Chinese man brought out a newborn baby girl from a room. He asked The Magus:
"Who are you?"
"Well, I come to buy this girl," replied The Magus.
The Chinese man said: "Here is this girl, she has oriental blood. The mother was kidnapped when she was expecting, but the people who brought this girl to us lied to us. She comes from a priest's house. How much do you want to pay for her?"
The Magus said: "Whatever you want." He then paid as much as the Chinese man asked for. When The Magus left the house, his guards were waiting for him. He mounted his horse with the baby girl and rode home. He handed the baby over to his female servants and ordered them to provide everything that the little girl needed.
Years passed, and one night, The Magus was watching the sky and saw that within ten years there would be a change in China. He began to prepare himself for that. He ordered a house to be built in the rocks, with plans that he drew up himself. In the plans, he drew a very long road and a space that would always have oxygen, a space for him to breathe. He also had gardens and a house filled with pictures. In the garden he would plant trees, flowers and plants of all kinds. He also made an artificial sun, and everything was beautiful.
With everything ready, it was time to hide. The Magus told his pupils about his sanctuary. Although he had a lot of pupils, he picked only one to join him. The Magus told his pupil: "When you leave this field you will see a stone with four corners. Take one and with it you will knock each corner twice, and some doors will open. You will go down a very long spiral staircase, and we shall see each other there. Do you understand?" "Yes, Master" the young man answered. The Magus wanted to stay a little longer to watch the stars, but the end was coming and he could not stay any longer.
The little girl was now almost thirteen years old. Every time the servants and the girl came to him, The Magus would change his clothes and put on a long gown that looked like a nightgown with a wide belt at the waist. On his forehead he had a head band made of bearskin. The head band covered his forehead and kept his long hair from covering his face. The little girl worked for him, and brought him his food and milk. No one there ate meat, but only vegetables, which were grown there right inside the refuge. That was how they lived in that environment.
The Magus started to study the plants and the influence the stars had on them and he discovered many secrets, oils, perfumes, etc.
The special oils he extracted from the plants protected the skin from the bacteria that existed there. Other oils from flowers helped the skin breathe. Some extracts did not let one sleep, and others were used to make one sleep. There was also an extract that was used to awaken you if you were asleep. If you took the extract that made you sleep and did not use the extract to awaken you, you would not wake up. In this manner, the extracts helped his body to acquire strength and vitality.
The Magus gave classes to the pupils who visited him, and the rest of the time he spent in his laboratory. He did not watch the stars anymore, but only cared for the plants and herbs that grew in his abode. He felt sorry that he could not give this knowledge to other people, to beautify the skin, etc. because in those days, those who had too much knowledge were killed.
Three years went by. The girl was now sixteen.
She would always watch a particular pupil, and soon she fell in love with him.
One day, a young Chinese man came in and told The Magus that he had a problem he could not solve. The young man said: "My family wants me to marry a girl, but the parents of the girl want her to marry someone else, and she does not want to, so I do not know what to do."
The Magus answered: "You are an engineer and builder. Go and build a small temple and two pretty urns, and when everything is ready, come to me and I will place you both in the urns and put you to sleep. After a hundred years, I will send someone to wake you up. Do this, because this is the best thing to do. "
The young man left and in a short time he finished building a small temple. He then went to see The Magus. The girl the Magus had adopted overheard their previous conversation and knew about the plan, so when the young man arrived, she hid behind a sofa and listened.
The Magus told the young man: "Tomorrow I am going to the temple that you built, and you will tell your girl friend to come to the temple too. After one hour I will give you all the writings and the awakening oils to put them in the urns." The young man then left.
The next day, The Magus was in bed when the adopted daughter whom The Magus called "Star" went into his room. She took the bottle with the oil that made people sleep and put two drops in his nose, and The Magus stayed asleep, as if he were dead. Star took off the pendant he had on his chest and put it on herself. She then took several pieces of jewelry and left with them. She asked a guard to accompany her to the temple that the young man had built. The Magus was supposed to meet the young man there, but instead, Star went in his place. She told the young man that The Magus had sent her. The young man believed her because he saw the pendant she was wearing, which belonged to The Magus, and lay in the urn. The girl gave the young man the substance to sleep, and ordered the guard to give her the same potion after she lay down in the other urn. No one knew that Star was in love with the young man.
After doing what he was ordered, the guard went home. The young man's girl friend arrived at the appointed time, but did not find her boy friend. She waited for a long time in vain and finally went home. Soon afterwards, she got sick and died. On hundred years went by. During those years, the temple was covered by dirt and dust.
One day some archeologists discovered the little beautiful temple. They began to excavate it. They found two urns inside. They took them down and studied the writings inside the urns.
Late one night, one of the scientists told his colleague: "Let's leave this for tomorrow." They went up the narrow stairs which seemed to be hanging in the air. The stairs were built especially to get into the urns. When the archeologist lay down, there appeared before him the shadow of a pretty girl dancing and calling him to come down to the place where the two urns were placed. He climbed down right away and started to study the ancient writings again. This time he found the way to open the urns. As he opened them, he found another scroll and started to read it. It contained the formula and the procedures for placing a small bottle of liquid in the nose of the body that was in the urn. He followed every written instruction carefully and suddenly the mummy in the urn began to move and a girl woke up. The archeologist opened the other urn quickly and repeated the procedure, and this time the young student woke up. The student asked: "Where is my girl friend? Where is The Magus?" But little Star kept silent.
As dawn came, everyone was looking at the couple in awe. They could hardly believe what they were seeing. The young man was given the attic to live in. The room seemed to be suspended in air. In the room were the engineering sketches that the young man had been working on a hundred years ago. He later showed them to the scientists and everyone liked them.
One day, Little Star who lived in the room next to the attic appeared with a very sad expression on her face. The young man started to believe that she was his girl friend but did not underestand why she did not know him. He also felt very sad.
One day the student dreamt that The Magus was coming to see him. In his dream, The Magus showed him how to find The Magus' home and asked him to go there so they could meet. The young man got up very early the next morning and ran to the place which he had dreamt about. When he reached the place, he saw it was exactly as he had dreamt it. He touched each corner with a stone twice, and suddenly a door opened and he hurried down and found The Magus asleep. He put the awakening liquid in his nose quickly and The Magus woke up.
"Ohhhhhhhh! What happened?" asked The Magus.
Then he told the young man: "My Star deceived me. I could not imagine that she, so young, would have already learned all my secrets, and besides, she knew how to handle everything."
The Magus took his sword and waved it in the air to open an invisible curtain. Then he said: "This is your girl friend. She is going to marry a biology professor, but she is not going to recognize you anymore."
He advised the young man to wait.
"Now let's see my Star. She is in love with you, but be careful, because she is very treacherous. She knows how to manipulate all animals, so I am going to grab her and teach her a lesson so that she will never leave me again.
In a very short time, notice was sent throughout the land that a magus had moved into the neighborhood, and all neighbors were invited to his home for a party. Everyone came, including Star. After all had eaten, The Magus took out his sword and opened an invisible curtain. A beautiful park appeared and every guest was invited to stroll in the park. But before entering, he said: "Do not touch anything while you are strolling." But being very curious and disobedient, Star could not help herself and she stole a beautiful flower. Suddenly, she fell asleep. The rest of the guests left, all very happy for having seen so many extraordinary things. The Magus then placed her in an urn and covered it with different blocks of stone so she could not escape.
Fifteen years went by. The young man visited The Magus and took classes from the biology professor, but his former girl friend never remembered him again. She died of sadness, because she did not love her husband.
After the girl died, the young man went back to The Magus feeling very sad. The Magus told him: "I also feel strange. Let's go see what's happening." So he put on a white tunic with gold belts, and with his magic sword he sliced the air. A scene of a neighboring family appeared. The neighbor got married fifteen years ago and had a 14-year-old child. That child was named Star.
"Look," The Magus said, "That is Star. She escaped from the urn and from the laws of men. She has given me a lot of trouble. I am going to find a way to keep her close to me, as she is mine."
"Master," said the youth, "my feeling of love for my girl friend is very painful to me. I beg you to awaken my girld friend."
But The Magus said that was forbidden. However, one day they both went to the cemetery. The Magus called for Star. Suddenly, a storm started to develop and the urn in which the body of the boy's girl friend was placed opened up, and out came a girl. She asked the young man if he knew her. "Yes," he said. "that is why I came to find you."
"No!," she said, "Only after you die will you be where I am, in a land more beautiful than this one. Birds make their nests with gold sticks. There are no fights. People do not kill each other and they do not walk on earth, but over the flowers that change colors; and from the ground come rays of beautiful colors, and there is no pain nor suffering. Here I suffer too much, because my body hurts as much as my soul. I promise I will come for you." She said goodbye and the young man waved goodbye. Then he left with The Magus, and he looked forward to death so he could be happy with his girl friend in another world.
The Magus started to come at night to where Star was to scare her in many ways. One time he took the shape of a large spider, and another time he became a bat. One day, he wore his tunic and went to see Star. He stood in front of her with his tunic open, and told her in a very serious and sad voice: "I am tired of everything, and I am not going to bother you anymore." She saw him behave very humbly and not as strict as he used to be, so she fell in love with him and embraced him. Shortly thereafter they got married, but their marriage lasted only one day, as the Magus was very old and he had always had just one body which became stiff and looked like a statue and then it turned to sand.
When Star saw this, she was very sad and went out to look at the stars. She saw how the stars played, and one of them came down to earth. In the sky she saw many stars appear, and Star stood there staring at the sky without moving. All of a sudden, a voice came from the pile of sand. It was the voice of The Magus calling all the dead magi to come and pick up his body. Then a body formed. It was the body of The Magus. A voice said: "Thank you." Then Star saw the star that had come down go up again. She yelled: "Wait for me! Wait for me!" She fell down lifeless and then, two stars went up towards the Heavens. [Helen Kovalenko]
The Stone Tree
In Caracas, Venezuela, there was a family that lived very happily. They had married young and then a baby boy was born to them, but as the baby grew older, they discovered that he could not walk. They took him to the doctors and many tests were done, but nothing was found wrong with him.
One day, the boy was sitting on a sofa when he heard a voice calling him. He was about eight years old and could not walk. He lifted his head and saw a small line that came out of a stone. His mother was sitting in another chair, but she did not see or hear anything. The child asked: "Who is it?" And the voice answered: "I am the small stone tree. Come here!" "What?" asked the boy.
"Look", said the voice, "Stand on this line and let's go."
The boy forgot that he could not walk and stood up, stepped up with the stone tree to another stone tree, looked back and saw someone else sitting down where he was, but he looked like a giant. "Strange," he thought. As he approached the other tree, it also looked very big.
There was a door. The entrance was all made of roses, large stone roses. They went inside the tree — through the door there was another world, a beautiful circle of trees of stone, all connected as if they were arm in arm. They looked exactly the same as the one that accompanied the child.
Then they went down into the sea. The small tree showed him the beautiful scenery, and told him:
"I am going to relate to you my life." "Oh good!" said the boy. "Listen to me, I was born in a beautiful land and had my family. I was very happy. You should not be sad, never. It is not worth the while to be sad. I am now resting in this form, and I do not feel pain or fear, as I suffered before."
The tree went on to relate how beautiful it all was before. "The sun and other friends of mine, we sang and were very happy. We comforted each other. People ate our fruits, also the birds and all animals ate them too. Then there came a big movement of the earth. There was wind, and I was pulled out of the ground, away from my parents and friends. I was flying in the air for a long time, and the wind threw me into the water; I moved from one place to the other. What great pain. I lost my legs and other parts of my body, but I would not die. I started to change. I became old and ugly. Then the fish started to eat me, and suddenly, I heard a voice that said: "No one should touch this tree." "When I heard this, my body changed into stone and I did not feel any more pain. Other stones held me. For thousands of years I have lived, but I do not get tired of telling you of all the beauty I saw.
"Then finally the waters threw me on the Recife beach. A handsome boy picked me up. He had a heart of gold, and with great love, he brought me to you, so that I could tell you my secret, so that you could find your happiness."
The young boy started to say out loud, "I have found the secret, I am happy." The mother was startled and asked him: "What's wrong my son?" But the boy said nothing. He was happy, but he told no one. He always carried the little stone tree and one day found a rare liquid, which he put on his legs. He had dreamt this, but he stood up and started to walk.
"Thank you, thank you little stone tree, many thanks."
[H. Kovalenko]
The Birth of the Black Rose
One day a little boy asked his mother: "Mama, why are there black roses?" The mother looked at his son who had a great interest in knowing. The son was already a young man and was studying for his bachelor's degree. "My son," the mother said, "instead of answering the question, I will tell you a story. Afterwards, think about it, and tell me if you understand." The son, whose name was Juan, answered, "That will be fine."
When nature became what it is, as that which you studied in science, the first beings that lived began to find flowers in trees of all kinds and to prepare perfumes from their oils which flowed from the tree bark. As the extract was prepared and removed, some of it was transformed into oil and another part was transformed into paint. The seeds dispersed and grew into other trees and flowers. The way in which the perfume and other things were prepared was different from the way it is now. The people then knew how to prepare some oils that could awaken the dead when placed in the nose and enliven the glands. However, this secret was lost because those who knew the secret refused to tell anyone, and when they died, nobody knew the secret anymore.
Later, three scientists and mystics began to transform things: dried leaves, crystals and acids into other things. Then several flowers were joined together and their colors changed. They knew how to extract colors from rocks, mix them together with oils, and they knew many other things.
One day, as seeds were hurled together to test a preparation for something unsuccessfully, the seeds were placed underground, and after a few days, many small stems grew out from the ground, and then leaves grew on them. And among them grew several roses for the first time. The plants propagated amongst themselves. And as an experiment, the scientists began to mix and to produce other colors. There were already three colors: yellow, white and red. The scientists continued with the experiments and one of them encountered a preparation and as one of them made the preparation, he died. The plants propagated and it was not determined in which era the graft of the seeds took place and when a very beautiful and large black rose came into being, and nobody was able to describe in which epoch of which era this happened. Let us now go to our fantasy.
The black rose had a special perfume and nobody was able to produce much of it because nobody knew the recipe. Other roses that they produced more rapidly began to squeeze out these black roses from the soil and they had to leave and walk on their leaves to protect their flower.
This small group of black roses walked and found their tranquil resting place where nobody could ever touch them, and where they could protect and defend their beautiful color.
A man discovered that this rose had a very special part and was much stronger than other roses. People began to use these black roses for special things, taking out their essence for other uses and called them the sacred roses because they had a special power.
Juan asked: "Mama, what powers?"
"I already told you, they walked like a man. At the beginning they walked on four pedals. The first ones left the ground and joined the leaves, and they jumped. They learned to defend themselves against the sun so that they would not be destroyed by it. They did not know that they were beautiful and they were special."
"They began to worry because they were always alone and there were not many of them. They did not understand that their color made inks and magic with which people could read books and print things. Look at an example, son, the newspaper. What is the color of the letters?"
– "Black," Juan answered.
– "Don't you see that they are beautiful?"
– "Yes, mother, the letters are beautiful."
"And this flower is good magic. And so is the book good."
"Mama," said Juan, "I understand it thus, that the color black is very important for giving other colors their strength."
"Mama," said Juan, "and what else besides books and newspapers?"
"Carbon that can burn things," answered the mother.
"It is also black, right?"
"Yes," Mama said.
"And what about other things?" asked Juan. "Is space black?"
– "Think for yourself and tell me."
Juan said:
"Mama, the examples that you have told me are so beautiful that for me now there is nothing more beautiful than black color. You are divine, Mother, thanks."
[The End]


text:
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Sparse Image Coding Using an Asynchronous Spiking Neural Network
This was an attempt to replicate the retina model from [Van Rullen, 01] and to correct the error in reconstruction from this last paper due to the use of the Calderon formula. Looking at the sparsest code, this induced the introduction of correlation-based inhibition to correct this flaw. By applying these corrections, we reinvented an existing algorithm, Matching Pursuit, which was further applied to modelling the primary visual cortex (see (Perrinet,02) and (Perrinet, 03, IEEE))
see slides (PDF) comparing different strategies
get a reprint Perrinet02esann
- Laurent Perrinet, Manuel Samuelides. Visual Strategies for Sparse Spike Coding, URL URL2 . In Actes de Neurosciences et Sciences de l'Ingenieur, L'Agelonde,, 2002 abstract
- Laurent Perrinet, Manuel Samuelides. Sparse Image Coding Using an Asynchronous Spiking Neural Network, URL . In Proceedings of ESANN, pages 313--8. 2002 abstract
All material (c) L. Perrinet. Please check the copyright notice.
Figure 1 Progressive reconstruction of the spiking image in the retina. To illustrate that the visual information is contained in the spike code, we show the theoretical reconstruction of the Lena image using the algorithm presented in the paper. This particular reconstruction on the 256x256 image used a Laplacian pyramid as the linear transform because this transform is invertible and exhibits only little cross-correlation between filters. Results are improved compared to the use of the Calderon frormula (as in [VanRullen, 01]), see Fig. 2 and we recognize the original image after only a few hundreds spikes.


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Pair's business gig is worthy of note
by Kim Vo
San Jose Mercury News
There are those who doubt Nathan Church Hubbard's commitment. What is the frontman for an acoustic rock duo doing in business school?
Well, he likes to point out, it is called the music business.
Hubbard, 27, is in Rockwell Church, a duo on a national tour of clubs and colleges to promote its fifth album, "Antidote." He is also in his first year at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.
Music is not a hobby. It is his passion and his career, said Hubbard, sipping orange juice and dressed in the uniform of rockers and college students everywhere -- jeans, T-shirt and a black leather jacket. But success will require more than an ability to sing, play the guitar and write songs.
"I knew business school would give me skills I couldn't get on the road and vice versa," he said. "I said to hell with it. I'm going to do both."
Doing both goes something like this: Hubbard attends classes in the morning, works on papers and music in the afternoon and tours on the weekends. He boards planes carrying a guitar in one hand and a laptop in the other so he can study during the flight.
It sounds like an impossible schedule: a Palo Alto gig on a Thursday, a show in Claremont on Friday. A week later, it's Oklahoma on Friday, Virginia on Saturday and back in Palo Alto for Sunday brunch.
Hubbard's music partner, Joti Rockwell, is in a similar situation -- he's getting his doctorate in music theory at the University of Chicago.
Juggling advanced degrees and touring seemed like a herculean task to Kelly Redfield, a first-year Stanford medical student at Rockwell Church's show at the university last week.
"We were talking about that," said Redfield, who was on call during the concert and stepped out to check her messages. "How do they do that?"
Having it both ways
Well, time management skills, as they say in business school, are critical. Financially, student loans help, as do savings from the days Hubbard worked at a San Francisco start-up. Hubbard's wife, Lindsay, a management consultant, doubles as a roadie.
Rockwell, in an e-mail interview, described his morning this way:
After designing exercises for the music theory class he teaches, he slept a few hours then got up. "My job at the moment is to finish all my e-mails, shower and pack within the next half-hour so I'm not late for the class I'm teaching. I'll be bringing my guitar and luggage into the classroom since I'm going straight to O'Hare."
"Things slide," Hubbard admitted. "My mother has to call me instead of me calling my mom."
There's not yet a model for what Hubbard wants to do. He fired off ideas on how the industry should change: Technology can be better leveraged, music produced and distributed more efficiently, artists should have greater interaction with consumers.
"It's an industry really poised for a paradigm shift," he said. "You pay $20 for a CD in the store and, as an artist, I make $1.25."
Making a go of it
Creative people must lead and "redefine what it means to be a successful artist," Hubbard said. The duo's compact discs are released by an independent label, Homey Music. The two send e-mails and unreleased songs to fans to nurture support between shows and records. The shows, shirt and CD sales earn enough for Rockwell Church to be a profitable business, Hubbard said.
Rockwell Church is an engaging duo that play coffeehouse music, ponderings on relationships and love sung over an acoustic guitar.
The two met in Washington, D.C., when they sat next to each other in first grade. Their first concert was in third grade, playing the wedding march for a production of "Midsummer Night's Dream."
Songs inspired by children's animal books came next, including the catchy "Hobo Dog." Then Hubbard went to Princeton and Rockwell went to Haverford College, but they kept in touch and continued to play. Their first CD came out in 1995.
Once he had a big meeting in Kansas City and a show later that night in Philadelphia. There was a snowstorm in both cities. He remembers calling the club, saying it'll be tight, but it might work. He jumped into the rental car, sprinted onto the plane, pulled off his business suit. "I remember being in the air feeling, `I wish I could feel like this forever.' "
Upcoming Shows
i need the antidote for what
you slipped me
you slipped me
all content licensed to rockwell church and management


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Moderator: Tech Team
Name (cards) Armies Countries +armies Strength
djak. (5) 18 (17%) 15 (31%) +5 20
Irish_Polock wrote:What should I do?
Irish_Polock wrote:Hello Troy,
I downloaded your program and I don't quite know how to get it to work, I'd suggest getting some directions to tell you what to do after you install it.... unless I'm stupid and didn't see the "how to use" somewhere
What should I do?
Tr0y wrote:AFAIK this is not compatible with Opera.
It may be possible to port it over to Opera.
^SilentStrike wrote:what does AFAIK mean?
General Cornrow wrote:How do you get this thing to work...it says enabled...but what else do you need to do?
Aries wrote:Does anyone know how it calculates the strength statistic?
Users browsing this forum: No registered users


text:
Wallander v230 Virtual Brass and Woodwinds
One of the most highly regarded virtual instruments available today--Wallander Instruments Visual Instrument (WIVI, for short)--now boasts a host of improvements, thanks to a newly-released major update. Offered free to registered users, Version 2.30 contains five significant new features that make programming and performance easier than ever before, and add substantially to the sonic realism of the instruments.
Support for multiple input devices allows combinations of controllers to modulate notes simultaneously, making it far easier to play the instruments expressively from a keyboard. The Mod wheel/velocity combination is particularly useful and intuitive, virtually eliminating the need to use a breath controller to create realistic and expressive performances.
· The Smart Note Release function automatically determines the best note release for the performance, resulting in dramatically improved realism of phrases played from a keyboard.
· The new Section Builder facilitates "single-click" creation of multi-instrument groups, complete with automatic assignment of polyphonic voices, timing randomization, and proper positioning on the orchestral soundstage.
· Instrument Merge allows all selected instruments to be easily grouped, and then accessed with a single click. This simple, yet powerful, feature is particularly helpful when building articulations with keyswitches, as the stage is less cluttered, and the stage positions of the articulations are automatically linked.
· All instruments have undergone a variety of tonal improvements, most notably the saxophone models, which are now based on a number of new recordings.
Numerous smaller, but nonetheless important enhancements round out the package, including improvements to the reverb and room acoustics, easier parameter and data entry, and faster instrument load time.
The V2.30 update is available at no charge to all registered WIVI users. New users will automatically receive V2.30 when they purchase the software from their local retail outlet. For further information visit www.mvproaudio.com


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The murder of this magnificent nonhuman-person, whose western lowland gorilla species is critically endangered, with fewer than 200,000 individuals left in the wild, has been discussed at length already. I just wanted to make a couple points, and reproduce a pertinent quote from the book I'm reading.
The only logical conclusion that this tragedy should engender is that zoos are fucking terrible, *inherently.* No exceptions. They are nothing more than prisons for those who've committed no crime. Kidnapping animals from the wild; breeding and then keeping captive animals; unnatural, toxic, pitiful facsimiles of the real nature these animals should be in, even at what most people consider the best zoos; and at the end, the most harmful aspect of them all regarding zoos–they treat, view, teach, say, and demonstrate the idea that nonhuman animals are/as property. The glass windows through which humans crowd around to stare at zoo animals and their "habitat" should more appropriately be seen as a mirror that reflects back at those attendants some of the most awful characteristics of humanity; industrialized humans' hubris, vanity, greed, sociopathic selfishness, denial of facts, cruelty, stupidity, and ludicrous, baseless worldview that humans are superior to all nonhuman life in any way or form that truly matters. The most brilliant, scathing analysis about the innate atrocity of zoos also comes from–not suprisingly–Derrick Jensen and photographer Karen Tweedy Holmes's gorgeous, heartbreaking coffee table-type book, Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening from the Nightmare of Zoos.
I'd like to mention a few things about this tragic (though all-too-predictable) event and its resultant media and social media firestorm. The number of people outraged by it is of course a great thing. Everybody should be angry. We should be calling for the sterilization of the boy's mother 😉 But we also need to realize that–similar to oil spills, like the 20 thousand gallons of crude oil Shell just leaked into California's Central Valley (which itself was just two weeks after Shell spilled 90 thousand gallons into the Gulf of Mexio!)–zoo animals being murdered by their captors is simply an inevitable cost of doing this kind of business! Toxic chemicals and carcinogens get "accidentally" released into the air/water/soil by giant multinational corporations that deal with toxic chemicals, and animals will be abused in industries that rely on their exploitation!
The answer is not to reform this genocidal culture; the answer is to destroy it!
Finally, there's a certain moral schizophrenia, in the words of animal rights attorney and professor Gary Francione, within anybody who is upset about Harambe but has not yet gone vegan. What happened to Harambe is incredibly MILD and UNCRUEL compared to what the BILLIONS of nonhuman individuals trapped in the meat, dairy, egg, vivisection, fur, leather, and other industries. If you're not vegan, you're literally paying people to torture animals, keep them sickeningly confined to the point where they can hardly move their entire short, pitiful, miserable lives, and slash their throats in unspeakably savage, barbaric slaughterhouses. If you care about Hirambe, GO VEGAN!
And now, the passage that motivated me to write this blog. From THE MYTH OF HUMAN SUPREMACY by Derrick Jensen (who called me "One hell of a writer." How amazing is that?!)
"Regret the extirpation of a species? Not on your life. Regret our not being able to exploit them further? Now we're talking.
"This is one reason nearly all news articles about an endangered species must include reference to this species' financial value to the economy. From the perspective of human supremacists, financial value IS value. The inherent value of the other–the value of this other to itself [sic] and to its [sic] family or community or larger biotic community–is either going to be ignored, or at best, grossly undervalued."
This passage made me think of Harambe, who was murdered by his prison captors; as the above passage draws to mind, his "property value" was lowered by the event's inevitable media coverage, and so, even though he wasn't going to hurt anyone, and even though his kidnappers could've stopped Harambe by using nonlethal means, they were better off simply killing him. This is business as usual in a culture of human supremacists. I'd frankly be more surprised if they HADN'T murdered Harambe the gorilla!
And that says more than all the articles combined.
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Germany takes a stand against Antifa's left-wing radicalism…
In an unprecedented move against violent left-wing extremism, Germany's Federal Interior Ministry has banned what it describes as the most influential internet platform for the militant left group Antifa.
The move is believed to be in response to violence outside the G20 summit in Hamburg last month.
Authorities informed the management of the website linksunten.indymedia.org on Friday that they were shutting it down.
Policemen stand behind a burning barricade in the so-called 'Schanzenviertel' area, on the sidelines of the G-20 summit, early Sunday, July 9, 2017, in Hamburg. Rioters set up street barricades, looted supermarkets and attacked police with slingshots and firebombs. (Daniel Bockwoldt/dpa via AP)
Security sources claim that the website is the most influential platform for the militant left, and that it is used as a forum by extremists willing to use violence, Fox News reported.advertisement - story continues below
Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière claimed the website helped incite the violence in Hamburg and warned of "serious consequences" of left-wing radicalism, the New York Times reported.
"The prelude to the G-20 summit in Hamburg was not the only time that violent actions and attacks on infrastructural facilities were mobilized on linksunten.indymedia," the minister said, identifying the website.
He also said the site tried to "legitimize violence against police officers," which he described as an "expression of an attitude that tramples human dignity."
"This is absolutely unacceptable and incompatible with our liberal democratic order," he added.advertisement - story continues below
Fox News reports, according to the Local, Germany's internal spy agency once described the website, which has operated since 2008, as "the most important platform for violent left-wing extremism in Germany. For years it has been providing a forum for people to publish first-hand reports on left-wing crimes."
The platform has been used to coordinate actions against various causes – as the site's forum allowed people to post anonymously – and played a key role in organizing the riots in Hamburg, the report said.
Local police said at the time that the militants set up street barricades, looted supermarkets, torched cars and attacked police officers with Molotov cocktails, iron rods, and slingshots.
At the G20 protests in Hamburg in July, groups of black block anarchists burned cars, smashed in windows and looted shops in several neighborhoods of Hamburg during several days of rioting. Authorities say that 500 police officers were injured during the violence.advertisement - story continues below
Approximately 186 demonstrators were arrested and 225 were temporarily detained.
The police, meanwhile, searched the properties connected to the owners of the radical website in the German state of Baden-Württemberg.
"At the moment several premises are being searched," said Thomas Strobl, interior minister in Baden-Württemberg on Friday morning. "This step marks a major blow against the extreme left in Germany."
Fox News reports that the computers and other evidence have reportedly been seized, although no arrests in connection to the investigation have been made.
Following the announced closure, the extremist website now directs visitors to a "what to do" article calling the government's move an "authoritarian crackdown."
It also urges people to spread "revolutionary material and ideas everywhere" and come up with "alternative ways to communicate with each other and the general public in times of intensifying state censorship and control."


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A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
Northern California's Historic Wilbur Hot Springs, established 1865, a 1,760-acre health retreat with naturally occurring medicinal hot springs including a 1,560-acre Nature Preserve is now available for the first time in half a century.
A Rich Legacy
This legacy property has a colorful 153-year brand history as Wilbur Hot Springs. Prior to its establishment, in 1865, Wilbur Hot Springs was a Native American healing and ceremonial ground for the Yocha Dehe tribe of the Wintun Nation. Renowned for the healing qualities of the medicinal waters, the property has long attracted wellness seekers from around the world.
A Sanctuary for the Self
Wilbur Hot Springs is a refuge from the fast pace and noise of the modern world. This land and its healing waters offer a unique opportunity to slow down, quiet the mind, and listen deeply. Here, you can let go, sink into yourself, and reconnect with what matters most.
Incredible Potential
The property offers a host of potential commercial income scenarios, including the current health retreat, hotel, and cabins, with a 2017 gross income of $2 million, potential for commercial geothermal and photovoltaic energy production and expansion of Wilbur's existing brand of medicinal bath crystals, medicinal soaps, medicinal facial products, natural laxatives and more.
In all the world, no waters like these
Wilbur's hot mineral springs are the confluence of poetry and science. Explanations melt into wispy steam and sighs. Time dissolves. Muscles unwind. Curiosity is enlivened. What is the magic of these waters? The main highlight of Wilbur Hot Springs is enjoying the benefits of our natural hot mineral spring water. Continue reading….
A Northern California Jewel
Wilbur Hot Springs is a naturally occurring historic hot spring, and 1,800-acre nature reserve in Williams, Colusa County, in northern California, United States, about 2 hours northeast of the San Francisco Bay Area and 1.5 hours north of the Sacramento Airport. Continue reading….
A Thriving Hotel and Resort
Today, there are several generations of guests who consider Wilbur their personal sanctuary, restorative retreat, and home away from home. They come back time and time again to experience the soothing medicinal mineral waters that have rejuvenated body, mind, and spirit for centuries. Continue reading….
"Ahhh Wilbur, for me it is heaven on earth. I have nothing but good to say about Wilbur, the place, the water, the quiet serenity are what makes this place so very special to me. I came and found peace, serenity, and acceptance here."
"My favorite place in the united states. Strongest water I've ever encountered, & I've encountered many. Wilbur is our no brainer choice for birthdays,anniversaries, & any other excuse we can think of to get away for much needed relaxation. We Love you Wilbur."