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Andrew Beveridge Award Statement
The pages of the New York Times are enriched by Andrew Beveridge's research and analysis of U.S. census data, making it possible for the public to understand demographic trends, patterns of inequality and forces of social change in the New York metropolitan area and the Nation.Under a long-term contract with the Times, Professor Beveridge and his Queens College students help journalists interpret data on societal changes regarding racial segregation in housing, immigration, voting patterns, distribution of income, family composition, crime incidents, women in the labor market and population aging.His observations and maps provided the foundation for stories on the displacement of populations by Hurricane Katrina, dramatically illustrating the costs of race and class in America.Professor Beveridge's unique contribution enables the Times to regularly publish features with sociological dimensions.
Andrew Beveridge (B.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., Yale University) spent most of his professional life in the New York City area, teaching at Columbia University before moving to Queens College and the Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York, where he is Professor of Sociology.ProfessorBeveridge's scholarly work and contributions to the Times are closely related to his active community involvement. As President of the Yonkers (NY) Board of Education, he fought to bring the school system into full compliance with court decisions mandating integration.He frequently serves as an expert witness in court cases involving housing discrimination, affirmative steering, rent stabilization and affordability in support of such organizations as the ACLU, NAACP, New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, U.S. Justice Department Civil Rights Division, and the legal services programs of several cities and counties.He applied his expertise in sociology to informing numerous federal and state jury system challenges and court cases on employment and religious freedom discrimination.
Professor Beveridge's contractual relationship since 1993, a cooperative agreement between the New York Times and the CUNY Research Foundation, is probably unique to the social sciences as he and his graduate and undergraduate students remain on-call and committed to keeping the Times abreast of what they believe to be newsworthy.He has met with over one-hundred reporters and editors to explain how data could be used to document changing social and demographic patterns and expose conditions of gross inequality in the city.In this role, he developed news stories about such topics as social inequality, immigration and housing, diffusing sociological research to the public.Feature stories, many with front-page coverage, include a series on social class; race and income; family size and affluence; population growth; profiling Muslims in the post-911 environment; immigrant family patterns and retirement; the demographics of crime; aging in the suburbs; occupational mobility of women; and changing patterns of residential segregation.
Professor Beveridge more directly disseminates sociologically informed analysis through his own column in the respected website, GothamGazette.com, begun in 2001.In over 40 columns, he described changing demographics and analyzed social issues in the New York
With the support of the National Science Foundation, Dr. Beveridge developed a web site that allows anyone to query data about any census tract or county in the US, www.socialexplorer.com.The site offers hundreds of interactive data maps including historical information and future projections and is sustained by sponsors, the New York Times and the National Science Digital Library.
Professor Beveridge's projects have involved many graduate and undergraduate students who have learned how to apply sociological perspectives in helping the public understand contemporary social issues. Professor Beveridge is also the author of a number of articles in refereed journals, book chapters and a book, African Businessmen and Development in Zambia (Princeton University Press, 1979).


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Tastes for tomorrow
Lobster, hazelnut brittle and pad thai above the clouds: Each year, the caterers at LSG Sky Chefs put together new menus for Lufthansa passengers. We attended a presentation of their latest creations in Bangkok.
Fabian Fendrich didn't sleep much last night. Now it's early morning as he steps into a conference room at the airport in Bangkok and surveys the work of the past few days: a richly laid table with hundreds of different plates laden with every imaginable delicacy from lobster bisque to omelet. On his head, Fendrich wears the tall chef's hat that marks him out as head chef of LSG Sky Chefs. Now the hat is bobbing through the room and stops in front of a duck breast before floating on toward the desserts. Fendrich straightens a leaf here, checks a label there, sends a dish back to the kitchen. All is well. Let the customer come.
The customer is Lufthansa, today in the person of Thomas Brockenauer, a trained chef and confectioner. He is responsible for in-flight service food, so for all things culinary served to passengers on board. Today, his job is to sample and approve what Fendrich and his team have been working on for the past six months: the new menus for the route Bangkok to Frankfurt. It will take Brockenauer and Fendrich a full three days to sample and discuss all of the recipes. On every flight between Bangkok and Germany, First, Premium Economy and Economy Class must each be served breakfast and an evening meal. The in-flight menu for each class changes every two months. Lufthansa calls each two-month period a "cycle," so that a year's plan encompasses six such cycles – and around 480 different dishes.
Fendrich gives his presentation in a neutral setting: Gray carpet, white walls, and blinds at the windows shutting out the view of the airport. Standing in rank and file on white tablecloths are more than 500 small plates – round plates, square plates, deep and shallow plates. The food arranged on them stands out against the subdued colors of the room: Saffron-yellow noodle nests, deep-red tuna and green asparagus all vie for attention. The multitude of colors is intentional: "The dimmed light on board swallows so much color, and food should also be a feast for the eyes," explains Brockenauer, as he pulls on a white visitor's coat over his suit. He strides along the rows of tables, scrutinizing all he sees. Each cycle needs balanced menus –fish, meat and a vegetarian dish are a must, but no recipe or ingredient should be repeated too often. Brockenauer picks up the cherry chocolate Donauwelle cake and examines it closely, then gives a sea bass fillet a shove with his thumb. A strawberry on a tart attracts his attention: "They're tricky," he tells Fendrich, "they can look quite different in just four hours."
Two colleagues from Thailand accompany the presentation because they know how a true pad thai or a curry should taste. Vanida Ratanaruetai works in marketing, Sasitohn Prittipongpat is a sales specialist with Lufthansa. "Do all Thais really eat this green rice?" Brockenauer asks. Ratanaruetai looks skeptical. "It's more for hipsters and health freaks," she says. As the small group advances, a dish is thrown out here, another praised there. A white chocolate duo filled with berry cream elicits real enthusiasm from Brockenauer: "Now there's craftsmanship for you, that's first class!" An orange-colored bundt cake doesn't meet with his immediate approval, though, because it looks "like a sand pie."
Andreas Waidmann, a man with a neat parting, mischievous eyes and a handlebar mustache, has also come along to the presentation. Once a chef, he is now the operations manager in Bangkok. He and Brockenauer have known each other forever and are able to argue amicably over a fruit salad. Brockenauer likes the triangular shape of papaya and dragon fruit, but Waidmann is making the case for small rectangles. "That's far more work for us, think about it, that will be far too expensive for you," he says – but ultimately has to back down.
This is the greatest challenge in airline catering: reconciling your own standards with the limits of what's doable. The kitchen has to be creative. Fendrich marinates the strawberry in white vinegar to preserve it. To make sure that every meal fits beneath its aluminum lid, Fendrich cannot pile things on too much: He folds the ingredients, rolls and cuts them into geometric shapes, garnishes them with blossoms and splashes of colorful sauce – and never exceeds a height of 4.5 centimeters. There's also no place on board an aircraft for flash-fried foods or offal. Hygiene and health regulations require that every meat must have reached a specific core temperature and that sauces must not be too runny because they may spill over the edge of the plate when the airplane takes off.
The Lufthansa subsidiary LSG Group is experienced in all of this since it is, after all, the world's largest aviation catering company. Under the brand name of LSG Sky Chefs, it supplies more than 300 airlines in 200 locations. In the high season, European wintertime, the operation in Bangkok delivers around 21 000 meals daily. With no fewer than 42 airlines partnered by LSG Sky Chefs in Thailand to serve, Fendrich, 32, presents a new menu virtually every month. Around six months in advance of the presentation to Lufthansa, he receives his brief. The menus for 2019 should "be more modern and yet preserve tradition," says Brockenauer. He has clear ideas about modern cuisine: "No stews in which the ingredients have mushed together so that the passengers cannot distinguish them," he says, "that trend has passed." Salad garnishes are also out, he explains, "the plates are now becoming more minimalist." In addition to the classics, Fendrich has also included some new culinary trends in the menus. These days, people want to eat fewer carbohydrates and more fish and salad. And more and more passengers are asking for superfoods, sprouts, nuts, seeds and vegetables.
Business Class meanwhile has other preferences than First Class. Whereas tastes tend to be more discreet at the front, but a couple of rows further back, passengers like a little luxury to be visible. Once, Brockenauer tells us, someone suggested that for a change he should serve a really good meatball in First Class. He was skeptical: meatball, seriously? On the other hand, traditional meals were always the most popular. The veal stew is an eternal favorite not only with the passengers, but with the cooks, too. It's as low-maintenance as it's delicious, even after being transported and reheated on board. So Brockenauer cast aside all reservations and added meatballs to the First Class menu – and they proved a resounding success.
Once Brockenauer and his team have scrutinized every meal, Fabian Fendrich invites them to taste the food – but not the plates Brockenauer and Fendrich worked with, of course. The cooks have prepared a second batch, heated in the ovens the crews also use on board. More and more trays are carried in and handed around the table. Soon, countless dishes and plates have collected in the middle. Forks cross, discussions fly hither and thither. The duck breast needs to be browner, everyone agrees. The curry tastes better with prawns than with fish, and the veal could do with some couscous as a side. Hundreds of dishes have been tasted and agreements have been reached at least on the basic menus for Economy, Business and First Class.
In the following days, LSG Sky Chefs and Lufthansa will discuss special meals for vegetarians and people with allergies, budgets, prices and the exact menu wording. Starting November 1, the new menu will be served on board flights from Bangkok to Germany, keeping countless passengers fed and satisfied – and contented, too.
… air pressure is low and humidity in the aircraft cabin falls to a maximum of ten percent.
… less oxygen then enters the blood; the dryness inhibits taste and smell receptors.
… sweet and salty taste 30 percent less intense in the air; sour and bitter taste the same as on the ground.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Pittsburg State defense has had six weeks to think about their last loss.
The Pittsburg State defense has had six weeks to think about their last loss.
It is safe to say that they have done a lot of soul-searching and thinking since their 35-10 loss to Northwest Missouri State at Arrowhead in Kansas City, Mo.
The Gorillas have rattled off six wins and have held their opponents to just 18 points per game while limiting them to four yards per rush and 131.1 yards per game on the ground.
"I think, every week, since that game, we have gotten better," said senior linebacker Rusty Morgan. "We had to re-evaluate and pick it up."
PSU defensive coordinator Dave Weimers — in his first year on the job — said the Gorillas have made some adjustments since that loss in October.
"It wasn't necessarily the Northwest game but, it pushed us in the right direction," Weimers said. "We decided to change some things and be a little more aggressive and change some spots a little bit.
"Our chemistry is very good right now."
Those changes include throwing in a variety of defensive schemes predicated on the situation.
"We have played just about every defense under the sun," Weimers said. "If the football gods invented it, we have run it and we have been very multiple.
"It is a lot to learn and it is, mentally, quite a load," Weimers said. "But, we do play very smart and the guys can handle it."
Morgan, who leads the Gorillas with 97 total tackles and 15 tackles for loss, said that the defense has now come to the table with something different.
"It is just a different attitude," Morgan, a 6-foot senior, said. "We know what we need to do and we have to go out there and put it all together."
The different defensive combinations have proved successful as the Gorillas have rattled off six straight wins heading into Saturday's Division II playoff showdown at Northwest Missouri.
"We have tricked some people and that, combined with bringing more pressure, really fits more of who we are," Weimers said.
Another defensive player that has found a way to elevate himself is Southeast product Chris Swartz.
Swartz, a 5-11 junior, started the season on kick-off coverage but has since moved into a backup role to starting outside linebacker Spencer Worthington.
Swartz has 32 total tackles on the season along with 6.5 tackles for a loss and 3.5 quarterback sacks.
"We are still looking for that perfect game," Swartz said. "We should be getting better after every game."
Wiemers said that there is not one player that have sparked the defensive unit.
"You would like to have three to build around and the rest of them step up and be solid," Weimers said. "Some of the kids, we have been really pleased with and there has been a lot of improvement man-for-man.
"We know that we are not the most talented group but, togetherness and trust is something that we have stressed."
Don't think that the players have not been looking forward to a rematch the Bearcats.
"After the fourth quarter of that game, we knew we wanted another shot at them," Swartz said.
But, the one thing that the Gorillas know is that there is still work to be done in order to achieve what Swartz called "that perfect game."
"We are making fewer mistakes but there are things that we have to do better," Morgan said.
Matthew Clark can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com or at 620-231-2600, Ext. 140


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Rams Tie Cyclones in Non-Conference Game
Farmingdale State - 0, Centenary College - 0
Farmingdale, N.Y. – Farmindale State (6-8-1) tied the Centenary College Cyclones (5-6-1) in a non-conference men's soccer game this afternoon in Farmingdale, N.Y. Junior goalkeeper Ricky Meschkow (Plainview, N.Y./Plainview-Old Bethpage) made 10 saves for the Rams in 110 minutes of play.
In the first half, Centenary held an 11-3 shot advantage. Cyclones junior midfielder Matt Winkler (Great Meadows, N.J./Hackettstown) had a great scoring opportunity, receiving a cross inside the box and heading it into the upper corner, only to have Meschkow knock it away. In the second, Farmingdale led with a 7-6 shot advantage, but neither team would find the back of the net.
The first overtime was controlled by Centenary with six shots, while Meschkow made four saves in that ten minute period. The second overtime was once again scoreless, with one save per goalkeeper.


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If anyone missed out on the sale the other day, you can check out A butterfly in my hair. Enter to win a free copy of the pdf by commenting on day 15's post! Plus you'll see lots of other goodies in the advent offering—a cashmere hat by Nicole being one of them. So pretty.
1 comment:
- elflyn said...
I won this giveaway!
I am so excited, thank you for offering your patterns as a prize.
- December 23, 2013 at 2:10 PM
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Altronix ReServ1 Video Surveillance UPS
The ReServ1 Video Surveillance UPS (uninterruptible power supply) from Altronix provides simultaneous power for 12VDC and 24VAC cameras even when the power is out. Features include eight true sine wave-regulated 24VAC outputs and four regulated 12VDC outputs. Includes AC fail and low battery supervision, a built-in battery charger with automatic switch-over when AC fails and LED status indicators. ReServ1 features a lifetime warranty.
Visit www.altronix.com
ISC West Booth No. 19077
Product Category:


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The Fit Expert
Victor from our Vancouver (Granville) store says:
Very gorgeous looking shoes. The Medugorje fits small.
Believing can be the hardest thing to do, even
when you witness it with your own eyes. Designed with delicate swooping curves upon a hand carved wooden last, one has to wonder if John was experiencing Divine Intervention while drawing these lovely pumps. Using a Peruvian factory that has a reputation for outstanding quality and craftsmanship, the Medugorjes feature 3" leather wrapped heels, deliciously soft, aged leathers, and foot molding leather soles that will carry your feet safely down your fateful path. Miracles are the surprises of the soul.
Instagram @fluevog #vog_medugorje
Victor from our Vancouver (Granville) store says:
Very gorgeous looking shoes. The Medugorje fits small.
Perfect nude shoe
Something Blue!
Buying wedding shoes = easy peasy Fluevog!
I kind of picked my wedding colors based on this beautiful turquoise shoe. They especially looked nice as I jumped into a 'single whip' tai chi pose just after the ceremony, with a little turquoise toe poking out from under my wedding dress... Loved the enthusiasm at the Chicago store when the manager yelled "something blue!" when I said why I was buying them... Thanks!


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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The University Faculty Senate will meet at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9, in 112 Kern Graduate Building. The items below will be considered at the meeting.
The Senate will consider a resolution to honor the late Vice Provost for Educational Equity W. Terrell Jones. Also considered will be a response to Pennsylvania State Senate Bill 1240 from Senate Council.
Regis Becker, chief ethics and compliance officer, will lead two forensic discussions: Forensic Report on Proposed AD 88 and AD86, and Forensic Report on Penn State Values and the Pennsylvania State University Values and Culture Survey.
A vote will be taken on a motion on faculty contracts which was presented at the April 29 Senate meeting. Votes will also be taken on revisions to Senate Policy 54-00 and all related Senate policies including Academic Warning, Drop Action, and Reinstatement; revisions to the Bylaws with regard to implementing the Recommendations on Structure and Organization of the University Faculty Senate; revisions to the Standing Rules with regard to Reporting of Senate Election Results; and revisions to the Standing Rules with regard to adding a new Committee on Athletics Searches. A vote will also be taken on one advisory/consultative report from the Committee on Faculty Affairs, Recommendations Regarding AD14 Administrative Reviews.
Informational reports will be presented on the Pennsylvania State University Academic Integrity Violation Report, and Initiatives at Penn State to Address Alcohol Issues among Students. Reports appearing in the agenda only and posted on the University Faculty Senate website include the Committee on Faculty Rights and Responsibilities' Annual Report for 2013-14 and the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics' Annual Report of Academic Eligibility and Athletic Scholarships for 2013-14. Senators with questions about these reports may send their questions to firstname.lastname@example.com and they will receive a response from the appropriate committee chair.
Faculty Senate meetings are aired live via Mediasite. Instructions for the use of Mediasite are available at http://www.senate.psu.edu/agendas-records.html. Instructions for using the Poll Everywhere voting system are posted at http://senate.psu.edu/agenda/voting-instructions.html.
Members of the University community are invited to attend this meeting. Any member of the University community not a member of the Senate may request the privilege of the floor on any item of business already before the Senate. Such a request must be made to the chair, through the executive director, at least five calendar days before the meeting at which the individual wishes to speak.
The Senate Agenda will be posted on the Senate website one week prior to each meeting and the Senate Record (minutes) will be posted approximately three weeks following each meeting at http://www.senate.psu.edu/agendas-records.html.
For information on submitting major, minor, option or course proposals, the Guide to Curricular Procedures is available at http://www.senate.psu.edu/curriculum_resources/guide/contents.html. The Senate Curriculum Report is available at http://www.senate.psu.edu/curriculum_resources/bluesheet/bluex.html.


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Item Description
Advertisement, Emigrant's Intelligence Office
Author: Whitman and Searl
Date: June 15, 1856
This advertisement by Whitman and Searl, Lawrence, Kansas Territory, stated that they were proposing to open an Emigrant's Intelligence Office to "meet the urgent demands by emigrants, for accurate and reliable information in regard to the different sections of the Territory." Apparently, they had worked to create a map of Kansas, which made them qualified for this task. They also offered their services as general land agents and wrote that they "are also prepared to lay out town sites and to survey farm claims," to "negotiate the sale and transfer of town property," and to "investigate the validity of titles."
Location of Original: KSHS Call Number: Port Vault K 978.1 -D74 W592e 1856
Item Number: 100158 Number of images: 1
Keywords: Advertisements; Emigrants' Intelligence Office; Emigration and immigration; Land; Land acquisition; Land sales; Land surveys; Land titles; Lawrence, Kansas Territory; Searl, Albert D.; Settlement; Town sites; Whitman and Searl; Whitman, E. B.
pg. 1


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MACON, Ga. – The Atlantic Sun Conference has announced April Terry and Tucker Peabody as this week's Track and Field Athletes of the Week.
Terry, a native of Little Rock, Ark., collected her third outdoor field athlete of the week and second this year. She finished first, second and fourth at the Boston-Moon Classic in Nashville last Saturday. The gold medal came in the hammer throw with a toss of 45.33 meters. Terry claimed second in the shot put and fourth in the discus.
Peabody, a native of Memphis, Tenn., claimed his second-straight award. Peabody finished second in the 200-meter dash at the Ole Miss Invite. His finishing time of 21.04 seconds lowered the school-record and improved his A-Sun leading time in the event.
Peabody ranks 45th in the nation in the 200-meter dash and 23rd in the East Region. The top-48 declared at the end of the year move on to the NCAA National Preliminary Round.
Lipscomb has won the weekly honor five times for the women and three times for the men.
The Purple and Gold returns to action on Friday at the Vanderbilt Invite.


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Founders, Strivers, and Slackers
One could be forgiven, after reading this engrossing book, for wondering whether it's better to be born the son of an incurable Las Vegas gambler or a rebel leader in Sri Lanka than the son of an American president. At least you could rebell against daddy and surely no one would tell you incessantly what you had to do in the world. Anything, in fact, but to be born the son of an American president and submitted to the ultimately vesuvian destructiveness of too many great expectations!
As Noemie Emery says toward the end of her book, which traces America's presidential "dynasties" from 1775 to today, our country has seen 230 plus years of dynastic ambition. Taken together, four families—the Adamses, Roosevelts, Kennedys and Bushes—have given us seven presidents, three vice presidents, five senators, four governors, four ambassadors to major foreign powers, and four members of the House of Representatives. No slackers they. To Emery:
This sounds impressive, and is, until the downside is counted: one certain and one probable suicide, multiple deaths in what can be called young adulthood, numerous lives either warped or distorted, and more alcoholics and drug users than one can easily count. … All were in politics because of their fathers and families, and all belonged to that small group of people, beginning with John Quincy Adams at the birth of the country, who had been raised to believe they ought to be president, and if they weren't, they in some sense had failed.
"Success was in that room," Emery avers, "but there also was darkness, the result of a mixture of pressure and privilege, of ambition passed on secondhand."
This is the story that Emery sees as she looks at America's dynastic families. And hers is a compelling view, gratefully unencumbered by too much ideology or theology. She examines five major American presidents from family dynasties (Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush) and the often Shakespearean and on occasion "Saturday Night Live"-worthy interplay among them. She shows how the sons "of whom much is expected," as Churchill famously put it, instead have so often fallen by the wayside, overburdened by their families' hopes and exhausted by the demands of privilege. She unweaves the tense and often tormented skeins of the families with a skilled historian's eye and the devilishness of the good psychiatrist. Soon enough, you find yourself happy she isn't yours.
The sublimely moral Adamses? Of six sons in two generations, four accomplished little, and three were downright dissolute. Teddy Roosevelt's boys? Teddy always believed that his cousin Franklin had stolen Ted Jr.'s chance at the presidency, and his second son, Kermit, shot and killed himself with his service revolver. The great Franklin Delano Roosevelts? "The Roosevelt boys," Emery writes, "cheerfully looted their family legacy." The Kennedys? We all know the great tragedies, but then there were the seemingly endless smaller tragedies, like David Kennedy's dying at 29 from a drug overdose. The Bushes? Well, let's leave them until later.
When Emery uses her delicious, gossipy, yet not unsympathetic style to analyze the "whys" of all of these dim failures, especially in light of the great expectations that they all early faced, we get a valuable look at America's dynastic political families in toto. We see, for example, that these families have an amazing number of characteristics in common. Emery demonstrates through her own sociological Buddenbrooks of American dynasties that each moves through three major stages of increasing privilege and declining effect. First, the founders: John Adams, Joe Kennedy. Then, the privileged strivers: John F. and Robert Kennedy, George W. and Jeb Bush. Finally, and saddest of all, the inheritors, typified by the next generation of Kennedys, "who coast along in the wake of the strivers' efforts, and it is here," according to Emery, "that the rot—and the problems—set in."
We see also how each family assumes that its members deserve to lead the country, insulates itself in unity against the rest of the world, and has even thought of itself as something other than a "family." The Kennedys called themselves a "clan" or nation. The Adamses actually thought of themselves as a "race." In the dynastic family, says Emery, "each member is expected to find personal fulfillment in advancing the family goals. … The family is sometimes seen as a fighting force, almost at war with the universe. Unconditional surrender is the goal." In another part of the book, she speaks of "quasi courts-martial, followed by shunning when somebody fails or flunks out. Disloyalty to the family, regarded as treason, is heavily punished."
And then there is the internal competition—physical, political, and psychological. According to Emery, "Theodore Roosevelt led children and guests on obstacle courses that were exhausting and dangerous. The playing fields of Hyannis became an American version of Eton's—a trying locale for the building of character. … What went on in the Kennedy compound was not very different from what went on at Walker's Point in Maine, where the large, driven Bush clan went for its revels," and where it's credo, "that life was essentially broken down into a series of competitions that had to be won at all costs," emerged.
Which brings us to the Bushes, a more modern, more mercantilist, more exploring kind of dynasty, and a family that may well go down in the history of great expectations, despite the first President Bush's admirable administration, as the one real failure among America's dynastic families. Emery tells the now well-known story of how "little George"—George W.—was, from childhood, always expected to be second to his far more intellectual and capable brother, Jeb. George W. tried to excel but always fell short of his father's accomplishments. And just as John Kennedy had done in the shadow of Joe Jr., his older brother, George W. Bush, says Emery, "began to concoct a rebel persona and for much the same reason: to depreciate the standards he wasn't sure he could meet." As he grew into adulthood, he dreamed of a big oil strike he christened "the Liberator" that would free him from financial and family strains. But it was all make-believe. Drinking, carousing, insulting people, he was becoming, as Emery puts it, "an embarrassment, a study in failure."
Then in 1985, the 39-year-old George W. happened upon the Rev. Billy Graham in Maine, with whom Emery says he found "the antidote to the dynastic dynamic and its ongoing pressures and claims"—namely, faith. And faith, she says
posed a new set of standards. If the dynastic creed claimed ambition was everything, faith said there was something above and beyond it. If the dynastic creed measured a life by public accomplishment, faith said there were other ways of proving one's value. If the dynastic creed said he had disappointed his earthly father and mother, faith maintained that there was a still greater father in heaven, in whose eyes he had worth.
Therein lay the magical metamorphosis of George W. Bush.
Great Expectations suffers because Emery's assessment of the second Bush's presidency is too equivocal, considering the fact that his administration has eroded America's civil liberties, squeezed America's middle class, and refused to end a disastrous war that couldn't be won in the first place. But Emery does make an excellent comparison of Father Bush's view of the world and George W.'s. Here she quotes Jeffrey Bell of The Weekly Standard:
There is an alternative Bush I view of the world that is now engaged in a death struggle with Bush II. It has a micro, not a macro, interpretation of what happened on 9/11. It sees Osama and Islamism as limited and aberrational. It mildly supported the invasion of Afghanistan, but would favor no other significant military actions, backing mainly police actions geared toward catching Osama. … In the Islamic world, Bush I favors economic development through trade and internal, top-down reforms. While it does not oppose attempts to achieve democratic reforms in Islamic countries, it has little hope that this will be much of a factor in the immediate decades ahead.
And that is just about right. For the prodigal son, who in the second half of his life hates his father's moderation and rationality, this is pure poison. At the tips of George W.'s fingers are now stretched glory, empire, revenge, unfettered power, and the rebuke of his old friends who never appreciated him enough anyway. Anyone who reads Emery's book will have no doubt whatsoever that George W. Bush, the single most unexpected president of all of the dynastic families, will never, ever give up on his glory-filled dreams—which may be the greatest American tragedy of all to come out of all of these intense family stories.
So many interesting questions. Will George W. Bush take us into a regional or world war, spurred on by his early feelings of inadequacy? Will women like Hillary Clinton become the new stars of the dynastic galaxy? Or is it time we get tough, mount the American Coliseum, and give thumbs down to the "great dynasties"?
You can bet which way Noemie Emery tends. "Public life as an option," she says, "to be picked up at will or discarded, is one thing, and not always a bad one. But great expectations, pushed too hard with too little regard for individual difference, have given us desperate men."
Georgie Anne Geyer is a nationally syndicated columnist and the author of Guerrilla Prince: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro.


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I would love to study in a different country especially UK because the education system there is quite different from my country. You also get to meet people from different countries but I would not prefer a boarding school.
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Do the preparation task first. Then, watch the video and do the exercises. Remember you can read the transcript at any time.
Would you like to study at a UK boarding school? To find out how and to search hundreds of boarding schools, visit the Education UK website.
Teacher: Our students live here. They are not just educated here. They develop relationships with one another and we're talking about children from twenty, thirty different nationalities. And they will then go off into university, or into the world of work and business, and they have a real connection to the people they were at school with, the people who they grew up with.
Maria: My name is Maria, and I'm doing Year 8. I'm from Spain. It's really nice living with your friends because one day if you are homesick they come and they say, 'Oh, are you OK? Are you OK?' They are really nice.
Willy: Hi. My name is Willy. I come from Mexico. In the first week I think I probably was homesick. But later on with my friends, and with the studies and many at the school, I started getting distracted and I started to forget about my home and my family.
Teacher: Once a friend, always a friend, and we find that that is the case with our students.
Would you like to study in a different country? Would you like to go to a boarding school?
I would love to study in a different country especially UK because the education system there is quite different from my country. You also get to meet people from different countries but I would not prefer a boarding school.
I wouldn't really like to go a boarding school. I don't want to go away from my home for a long time.
I'd like to study a foreign country. It can be amazing meet new friends.
I really like to study in a different country ,especially in Britain and I am really trying hard to make this dream come true. I have stayed many hours in front of my computer googling for any boarding school in Britain. There are so many schools,but none of them is suitable for me. Due to my family financial difficulties I am looking for any boarding schools in UK or maybe in France,Germany that offers scholarships. I would appreciete it if any of you in this site could help me:)
Hi sona :)
It's great that you want to study in the UK! You could take a look at this website called Education UK to find out some more information about studying in the UK.
Good luck, Tina (LearnEnglish Teen Team)
I don't know if I would like to study in a foreign country, but it sure would be one big challenge for me, since I'm not a person that can adjust to big changes. Seeing this video I really thought that it is wonderful studying in a boarding school with children that come from different places. I would certainly like to go to a boarding school. It would be fun and interesting.
I hope i am traveling to UK, i am from Argentina and in my country a few people talk english. I think that it will be a nice experience for me, and for everyone.
I wish I study in the UK. I think it is very good opportunity to study here and good chance to learn English if you are from different country. And I love making new, international friends! It´s funny to have friend in another country.
But now I can´t study in the UK. But I have got a big dream to go to the university here!
Dear team,
Sorry to tell you that the vidoe couldn't be watched. So are other videos. I think the reason for this is probably our different nationalities and IP address. But I really want to watched videos on your website. Could you please solve the problem for me as soon as you can? Or I could just read essays, learn new words, listen to dialogues or something like that.
Thank you!
Hi DoctorHiStreet,
If YouTube is blocked in your country you may have problems with a few of the videos in Video UK and with all the videos in Video zone. You should be able to watch Grammar videos and Phrasal verb videos though. Can you check that you can watch those ones?
With best wishes, Jo (LearnEnglish Teens Team)
Hi every one, I'm a new member in this site.I want to be friends with all members and please help me if i have a problem.Thank you.
with best wishes
Hi sanpai28
Welcome to LearnEnglish Teens. Just ask if you have a problem.
Best wishes, Jo (LearnEnglish Teens Team)
Dear Team,
It is true that YouTube is blocked in China. Chinese government always does something annoying like this! And I also couldn't watch Grammar videos and Phrasal verb videos. But I could see videos in Speaking Exams. Could you please give me some suggestions about how to solve the problem?
An English learner from China
Hi DoctorHiStreet,
You should be able to watch the Grammar videos and the Phrasal verb videos. They are stored in the same place as the Speaking exam videos and have no link to YouTube at all. Can you tell me which browser you are using and try again please.
Best wishes, Jo (LearnEnglish Teens Team)
Hi Jo,
Thanks for your reminder. I really couldn't see these videos. If I use the Internet Explorer, there will be a camera blinking and no video. And If I use the 360 browser(a popular browser in China), there will be a black square in the area.
Looking forward to your reply, thanks
sure it would be fantastic coz meeting foreign friends is quite like my hobby.boarding schools doesnt cm in my way but if its meeting new friends well its exceptional!
© British Council The United Kingdom's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. A registered charity: 209131 (England and Wales) SC037733 (Scotland).


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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Construction workers in the U.S. Northeast should see hiring pick up after years of job losses, as the region gears up efforts to rebuild after the devastation brought by Superstorm Sandy.
New York City alone could gain roughly 10,000 new jobs for electricians, laborers, carpenters and others, according to an early estimate from the office of city Comptroller John Liu.
It remained unclear whether post-Sandy rebuilding projects, coupled with a recent uptick in residential building, could create enough construction jobs to make up for the tens of thousands lost during the recession.
The estimated 10,000 construction jobs created in the Big Apple from Sandy repair and reconstruction efforts would be less than half the 22,700 such jobs the city has hemorrhaged since its pre-recession peak of 137,500 in August 2008, according data from the city Department of Labor.
In New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, the three states hit hardest by the storm, experts said hopes for long-term job growth for ironworkers, roofers and others in the building trades depends on whether state and local governments can find financing for major infrastructure upgrades.
The three states combined are seeking at least $82 billion from the federal government to make emergency repairs. A sizeable chunk would be used to beef up tunnels, transportation, power facilities, water systems and other infrastructure to better withstand future storms.
Whether states and towns get money for those projects depends in part on whether Congress can reach an agreement on deficit reduction and avoid tumbling over the so-called fiscal cliff in January.
"Everything slows down, obviously, if we go over the cliff," said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at The Economic Outlook Group, in Princeton, New Jersey. "A lot of monies for that reconstruction would just not be available in a timely manner."
With an influx of rebuilding money from insurance companies and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for major projects, the U.S. economy could see growth of an additional 0.4 percent in 2013, on top of the approximately 3.0 percent growth already expected, he said.
The positive impact on growth could continue for next year, 2014 and beyond, he added.
With major infrastructure investment linked to Sandy and the continuation of the uptick in homebuilding, the United States could see at least 30,000 new construction jobs created by 2014, a substantial portion of them in the northeast, Baumohl said.
Economists and others cautioned that it was too early to say exactly how many construction jobs the storm may have created.
"The notion that somehow the storm solved our employment problem in a long-term structural way - it didn't," said Paul Fernandes, chief of staff for the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, an umbrella group representing all of the city's construction trade unions.
"If there's going to be a substantial effect, it will come in the form of infrastructure improvements that are being talked about now," Fernandes said.
When it slammed into New Jersey on October 29, the storm flung down trees, ripped into beaches and caused widespread flooding.
In the aftermath, hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses need repairs. Insurance companies in New York state alone have received at least 360,000 claims related to storm, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has said, and the number is likely to grow.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie wrote to FEMA on November 30 that costs for debris removal and emergency protective measures alone - not including individual assistance or repairs to houses, roads and public buildings - could exceed $160 per capita.
Some workers have already been hired to do emergency repair and debris removal and are now getting hired for rebuilding efforts.
Harry Bawa, who owns the general contracting firm Elite Global Builders Inc in the New York City borough of Queens, said he usually employs about 15 workers but now has up to 25 to keep up with demand for services in the wake of the storm.
His company has several new jobs pouring new concrete foundations for homes that saw theirs washed away. Each job can take up to a week to complete.
"To make it quick, we try to put an extra amount of guys on the job," Bawa said.
"For us, it's beneficial, but for the homeowner himself, they're losing out," Bawa said. "Some don't have insurance. They have to pay out of pocket. If you're in their shoes ... it's a real loss."
Reconstruction work can also spur increased hiring in related industries.
In New York and New Jersey metro areas, Home Depot is looking to hire more than 500 temporary workers for stores because of increased demand for everything from drywall to generators to flooring, according to spokesman Stephen Holmes.
The U.S. Department of Labor is providing $46.7 million of grant money to New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island for state governments to hire unemployed workers for clean-up jobs.
Cuomo has said that those grants could provide temporary employment for about 5,000 people.
"We're going to get a boost in construction and cleanup, but the extent of that boost we still don't know," said Elena Volovelsky, a labor market analyst for the New York City Department of Labor.
Reporting by Hilary Russ, editing by Tiziana Barghini and David Gregorio


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NASHVILLE, Tenn. – After a break in the schedule, the cross country team will hit the course Saturday for the Front Runner Invitational hosted by the University of Chattanooga.
The teams return to action for the first time since the Rhodes College Cross Country Invitational on Sept. 28.
Sophomore Prince finished the 6k course at Shelby Farms with a time of 24:59 good enough to place 58th in the 162 runner field.
Junior Theodore Nicholson paved the way for the Tigers with a time of 29:57 on the 8k men's course.
Overall Prince and the Tigerbelles finished 21st out of 24 teams at the meet. Senior Breanna Adams (28:11) would be the second TSU runner to cross the line. The next three Tigerbelles would finish close together with Sophomore Michelle Bradley leading that group with a time of 29:09 followed by junior Diera Taylor (29:11) and sophomore Jasmine Ownes (29:12).
The Tigers would finish 22nd out of 27 teams in the invitational. After Nicholson, junior Adrian McDaniel would be the second best TSU finisher with a time of 30:20. Followed by Quamel Prince (31:27), Jaheel Michael (31:54), Jalon McCutcheon (33:55), Jason Griffin (38:25) and Jakeena Gutherie (38:30).
Saturday's meet will be the final one before the OVC Indoor Championships, hosted by Morehead State on Saturday Nov. 2 beginning at 8 a.m.


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The other day, as we were hanging out in the kitchen together--I doing dishes, you playing with cars at my feet--I told you that I wanted to sing you a special song because it makes me think of you and your adoption story every time I hear it.
You looked at me pensively and then said, "That sounds great, Mommy." (I'm not kidding--you actually say things like this. I have no idea if you really understand what you are saying, but it never fails to startle me when these things come out of your mouth.) After such an unexpectedly mature reply from you, I started envisioning the moment we were about to have: I was going to sing a beautiful ballad for you, and you were going to stare at me intently and really soak in my love for the entire 4:37 minutes. I pushed play on my laptop, and the lyrical music started flowing out of my speakers--and then you started screaming angrily because you expected to hear "Brave" by Sara Barellias instead of the peaceful melody that I had in mind. ("Brave" is our favorite song to dance to together.)
And so I switched the music, and we danced. And we never got our tender moment. But tonight, on the eve of your second birthday, I want to take a few minutes to write down some thoughts that have been in my heart these past few weeks.
The song that always makes me think of you is called "Blessings," and it was written by an artist named Laura Story, but my favorite version is sung by the group Mercy River. The first verse and chorus go like this:
"We pray for blessings, we pray for peace,
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep.
We pray for healing, for prosperity.
We pray for your mighty hand to ease our suffering.
And all the while, you hear each spoken need,
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things.
Because what if your blessings come through raindrops?
What if your healing comes through tears?
And what if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know you're near?
And what if trials of this life are your mercies in disguise?"
This song makes me think of you because before you were born, I prayed and prayed to become a mother. It didn't matter to me how I became a mother--your daddy and I started the adoption process at the same time that we started fertility treatments--but when both avenues seemed only to lead to heartache, I started to doubt and fear. Life got dark and difficult. An ectopic pregnancy. Countless negative pregnancy tests. Lots of contacts from expectant mothers who were considering adoption but eventually chose to parent or chose a different adoptive couple.
I prayed and asked why. I prayed and asked that God end our wait immediately. I prayed and asked what He wanted for my life. I felt confused. I felt angry. I didn't understand why such a good and honest desire, to be a mother and give love to a child, wasn't being answered. The emotions that I felt during those difficult months are captured so well in the words of the second verse of the song:
"We pray for wisdom, your voice to hear,
We cry in anger when we cannot feel you near.
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love,
As if every promise from your word is not enough.
And all the while, you hear each desperate plea,
And long that we'd have faith to believe.
Because what if your blessings come through raindrops?
What if your healing comes through tears?
And what if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know you're near?
And what if trials of this life are your mercies in disguise?"
Last week, you and I sat outside in the backyard together at your little picnic table and ate brownies and ice cream. At the faint sound of a train whistle in the distance, you sat up straight and listened intently. "What's that noise, Mommy?" you asked. And when I just smiled, you said excitedly, "I hear a train, Mommy! I hear a train!"
My heart ached with happiness, and I leaned in close. "Give Mama a kiss?" I asked.
You reached for me across the table, your fingers sticky with gooey chocolate, your face smeared with melted ice cream, and planted a peck right on my lips.
In that perfect moment I was reminded, as I am almost daily, that you--you, my perfect little boy--are the reason that God could not give me what I wanted right when I wanted it. He knew that you were on your way, and He knew that your brave birthparents would find us when the time was right. He couldn't send us just any baby--He knew that we needed you.
I am grateful for my infertility. I am grateful that none of the other adoption opportunities worked out. I am grateful for Father in Heaven who always heard each of my desperate pleas and yet "loved me way too much to give me lesser things." I am grateful that He let me wait.
A leader in our church, Dieter Uchdorf, has said, "The children of Israel waited 40 years in the wilderness before they could enter the promised land. Jacob waited 7 long years for Rachel. The Jews waited 70 years in Babylon before they could return to rebuild the temple. [In the Book of Mormon], the Nephites waited for a sign of Christ's birth, even knowing that if the sign did not come, they would perish. Joseph Smith's trial in Liberty Jail caused even the prophet of God to wonder, 'How long?' In each case, Heavenly Father had a purpose in requiring that His children wait.
Every one of us is called to wait in our own way. We wait for answers to prayers. We wait for things which at the time may appear so right and so good to us that we can't possibly imagine why Heavenly Father would delay the answer...
Often the deep valleys of our present will be understood only by looking back on them from the mountains of our future experience. Often we can't see the Lord's hand in our lives until long after trials have passed. Often the most difficult times of our lives are essential building blocks that form the foundation of our character and pave the way to future opportunity, understanding, and happiness."
On the eve of your second birthday, Noah, this quote touches me because I am thinking about the experience of waiting for you--and I am also thinking about the future. I hope someday our picnic table in the backyard will be full of little people, your brothers and sisters who will sit with us and eat brownies and listen to train whistles. I don't know how they will join our family. We are going to start fertility treatments again in the next few months, and we are always open to adopting again. Sometimes it scares me to think about starting this process all over again, about embarking on a road that I know brings heartache. But in the past two years of being your mama, I have learned a few things that I hope will make the experience of waiting at least a little easier this time around.
I've learned that the joy of squeezing tiny hands and feet, of snuggling a squishy baby in bed first thing in the morning, of listening to you sing the ABCs all the way through for the first time--it far outweighs the heartache that it took to get you here. I would do it all over again, a thousand times, to be your mother.
I've also learned what I always knew yet didn't totally understand: that He has a plan for our lives and for our families. I hope that if we face disappointments as we try to add to our family in the next few months and years, I will pull you into our cuddle chair and put my head on your hair and read you a story. I know that won't completely take away the pain--because the heartache that often comes along with infertility and failed adoptions can be truly excruciating--but I hope as I feel my heart beating against the weight of your little body in my arms, I will remember to trust in Him and His timing.
You couldn't have come to us any sooner than you did, and as difficult as the wait was, I learned for myself the truth of the last line of the song: "What if trials of this life--the rain, the storms, the hardest nights--are His mercies in disguise?"
Happy birthday, my little love. You are the best thing I've ever had to wait for.
Eternally yours,


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2019 © WM. WRIGLEY JR. Company. All rights reserved. Life Savers, Life Savers Gummies, More Fun For Your Mouth, Collisions, Mix O Reds, Fruiteria, Pep O Mint, Wint O Green, Candy Configuration, and all affiliated designs are trademarks of the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company or its affiliates.


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by Wesley Ratko
Several near neighbors raised concerns at the June 6 meeting of the Chestnut Hill Community Association's Land Use and Planning Committee about a proposal to subdivide a two-acre property at 179 Hillcrest Ave., creating a second home where only one now exists.
The property is owned by John and Elizabeth Shober, who occupy a single-family house on the 100,000-square-foot lot.
The proposal presented to the LUPZ would create a second 40,000-square-foot lot that could host a second single-family residence on a predetermined building envelope. The shape and location of that envelope was one of many items of contention.
Lawyer Carl Primavera represented the Shobers and was joined by Richard Collier, Jr., a land planner from Blue Bell. The Shobers were not present at Thursday's meeting.
Collier presented his plan to divide the 100,000 square foot lot into two separate lots of 60,000 square feet and 40,000 square feet. The Shobers' existing home would anchor the 60,000 square foot property, leaving the second lot available for sale and the possible construction of a second home.
It is the uncertain fate of this second property that drew the ire of many residents of nearby Hillcrest Road and Meadowbrook Avenue. The rear of their homes face the proposed building envelope and many worried that their now pristine view of woods and meadow would be despoiled by a garage, which the plan indicated could be located only feet from their windows.
Neighbor opposition was voiced by Craig Hartnichek of 185 Hillcrest Ave. Hartnichek and his fellow neighbors were chiefly concerned with the flow of storm water off the property. Many were on-hand to report that heavy rains turn Hillcrest Road and Meadowbrook Avenue into "rivers."
Collier noted that the construction of facilities to handle storm water needed to be addressed.
"This is not a question of good will," he said. "State law requires that storm water be handled appropriately."
He went on to suggest that the construction of storm water management facilities on the site might actually improve the water problems near neighbors are now having.
Hartnichek's presentation soon became a cross-examination of Collier, who answered questions about his own site plan but refused to speculate about a separate drawing presented by Hartnichek, which featured an 18" storm sewer pipe that was depicted as coming off Meadowbrook Avenue and running partially under the proposed building envelope before ending without an outfall.
Collier said that the site survey on which his drawing was based revealed no such storm water pipe.
Primavera and Collier were at the LUPZ to ask for support of a zoning variance that is needed in order to create the second lot. According to Primavera, their hearing before the Zoning Board of Adjustment has been scheduled for July 11.
Philadelphia zoning regulations require that a certain amount of a property's border abut the street along which it is located – what is known as "frontage." A property where only a small amount of that frontage abuts the street is called a "flag lot" and city rules are written to discourage them.
As it is now, the property at 179 Hillcrest is a flag lot, and features a long driveway that connects the house with Hillcrest Avenue.
A second lot on this property would share access on the driveway but would be considered a flag lot as well. Primavera explained that this circumstance is a hardship that prevents the owner from fully using the property and is, therefore, cause for the zoning variance.
Additional neighbor concerns about architectural styles, deer migration into yards, and the construction of a dormitory on the newly created site were also dismissed by Collier.
Apart from the plan to construct a second home on the site was additional uncertainty about whether the Shobers would donate the property to the adjacent Morris Arboretum.
According to Primavera, the Shobers now own the subject property after being asked to purchase it three years ago by the arboretum's board of directors, who didn't want to see it bought by a third party. Plans to hand over the entire parcel to the Arboretum fell through, and the Shobers became residents of the house on the site.
Talk about plans to donate the second lot to the arboretum also raised concerns.
One neighbor expressed her general fear of the impact of an institution like the arboretum on a residential neighborhood.
Committee member Larry McEwen suggested the garage building envelope – indicated on the drawing as a separate structure from the home – be relocated as a way of easing neighbor concerns and, he suggested, improving on the garage location by reducing the distance between it and the house.
Committee member Cynthia Brey suggested that Collier and Primavera work with the property owners to develop a few alternatives to the plan that could be presented to the neighbors.
A motion was passed to send the property owners and developers back into talks with their neighbors and attempt to reach a concensus before coming back to the committee.
NOTE: The original story erroneously reported that the committee passed unanimously a motion to support the variance, provided a number of deed restrictions be imposed by the owners that include fixing the location of the building envelope, preventing future subdivision of the property, prohibiting construction of multi-family housing, and acquiring support letters from the neighbors.


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Sony has officially launched the PS Vita, or PlayStation Vita, as it's also known at E3 in Los Angeles, and Pocket-lint was on hand for a brief hands-on.
Sadly the Sony gods weren't allowing photos or video, but did let us play five games for 4 minutes a piece. Yes that's 20 minutes, yes that's only a chance to play a level or swipe at a couple of balls, which is why you should take this as a very early first impression and nothing more.
In fact from a device point of view we didn't actually see a unit that wasn't pre-loaded with a game, so we've got no comments on the menu systems, the interface, and how it all comes together.
While we only had 20 minutes in total with the PS Vita, it's long enough to get some thoughts on the hardware. The first and foremost thing to mention is that the 5-inch screen is bright, it's crisp, and it's big. It dominates the front and glows out at you like you're a moth to a flame.
It's so wide in fact that it actually makes the PlaySation Vita considerably large, large enough that we couldn't join our thumbs together holding it by the edge and large enough to make it a device that you're going to struggle putting in your pocket. If you thought the PSP was large, this is decidedly gigantic.
Still, that super-sized screen doesn't make for a heavy device. It's very light, making us wonder if it's actually hollow inside. Strange when you consider how much is packed in.
There's the fast processor that made the games we played zip along, the 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, a six-axis motion sensor, and the two analogue sticks, d-pad, PlayStation buttons, and the black touch panel that works like the Motorola Backflip and ultimately looks like a big sticker on the back.
We have no idea about battery life, about Wi-Fi performance, about sound - it sounded okay with big headphones on - or about memory, storage, cloud support, or many other things, sorry.
We played five games in our mini test - Uncharted, Little Big Planet, Virtua Tennis 4, Little Deviants, and a music game called Sound Stage.
Here we played a single level doing our best to get through it in the time allotted to us. There was plenty of jumping around a chance to look at the stunning graphics. It's not PS3 class just yet, but Sony has done a fantastic job in giving it enough umph so developers can create something very pretty indeed. Think Dreamcast or first Xbox and you're on the right lines.
The gameplay works, although our level had a little too much jumping for our liking, however this did serve to show us that you can control the gameplay via the buttons or by simply tapping on the screen.
A swipe on the screen, for example, will send Drake whizzing across a series of ledges, but it can get frustrating if you get it wrong.
Little Big Planet 2
Virtually identical in looks to the PS3 version of the game this looks to be great fun as you use the PS Vita's multiple control methods to move your character through the level. The level we played involved buttons, swaying the PS Vita to activate the six axis motion sensor, and touching the screen to interact with elements in the level. It's cute, fun, and going to be a big hit.
Virtua Tennis 4
Probably the most graphically tasty of the games we saw the experience is akin to Virtua Tennis on the Dreamcast all those years ago.
You can, like other games we played, choose an either or policy with the controls and while it was initially easier to revert to the analogue stick the touchscreen tapping method seemed to give us more control over the shot we played. Swipe up and you get top spin, down and its back spin, and up down movement gave you a lob. Do enough good shots and you get to give your opponent two fingers - that's a power move. The graphics are what will make this game stand out though - stunning.
Little Deviants
This a game made up of different levels that show off different skills of the PS Vita. There was a level that was controlled by moving the device around utilising the motion sensor, another insisted we only use the back touch panel, while a third was buttons only. Aimed as snack gaming, you could easily see any of these becoming iPhone games for 59p. We doubt however, that Sony will opt for that metric.
Sound Stage
A crazy little game that sees you play a sticky ball that can stick to black ink, but dies when it touches red. If that's not mad-capped enough for you you've got to collect notes that provide the soundtrack to the game. The more notes the better the music gets. Our demo dude said there would be over 30 different levels to get you going and like Little Big Planet the chance to make your own using the back panel as a way of making objects bigger.
Pretty mad stuff, but will no doubt get a huge cult following when it's released. The Japanese will love it.
It's very early days, but it's clear that Sony have a device that is miles better than the PSP and the Nintendo 3DS - it plays the grown-up card again.
Aggressively priced it's likely to appeal to the gamer looking for something considerably more powerful than the current crop of Android or iOS tablets and phones, however whether it will be able to succeed is a different matter.
Ultimately though the biggest loser here isn't the PS Vita, but the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, that frankly looks rather pathetic against this new monster from Sony.
I am sure we'll have plenty of chances before Christmas 2011 to get a better understanding of the console. Something that we are already looking forward to.
UPDATE: We've now managed to get some hands-on photos of the PS Vita, which we've added to the gallery.


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Getz responds loud and clear to homer tidbit
ATLANTA -- Don't believe it when players say they don't read information posted on the scoreboard, and don't sell short the power of motivation.
Royals second baseman Chris Getz proved both points Tuesday night. Leading off the third inning, a note on the scoreboard mentioned his 954 consecutive at-bats without a homer.
Two pitches later, the 5-foot-11, 185-pound second baseman ended the drought, putting a charge into a Kris Medlen fastball and sending it deep into the seats in right.
"I actually saw it on the board while I was hitting," said Getz of his third career homer. "So that definitely added to the satisfaction. It's too bad we lost, and too bad it took so long for me to get another one up there."
It had been a while since his last homer -- it was the second-longest streak among active players, with only Philadelphia's Ben Revere maintaining a longer streak. Still, Getz knew this one was gone the second he hit it.
"I did," he said. "If that one's not going out, I'm never going to get one. It was just a fastball. I took the first one, and then felt I was ready to go and get on a fastball, and I happened to catch it pretty good."
The homer touched off a wild celebration, in part because it tied the game and also because, in an interesting twist, the pitcher against whom Getz had last gone deep was in the on-deck circle, Jeremy Guthrie, who surrendered one on July 19, 2009.
"It's ironic that I'm on deck when he hits the home run, since I was the last guy to give one up to him," Guthrie said, adding with a laugh. "But as you saw tonight, I can give up a home run with the best of them."
Guthrie's place in Getz's career history is now unsecured, and that's not a bad thing.
"He's off the hook," said Getz.


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Water challenge
Anyone can build near water, but how about on it? The 16th-century architects of Chenonceau Castle were looking for a challenge, so they built a wing of the castle on top of a 60-meter-long bridge spanning the Cher River. It's now Europe's most popular castle and boasts 800 000 visitors a year.


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You Can Take It With You
In his wonderfully inspirational and entertaining new book "A Collectors Collection", Rabbi Chaim Orange tells the following heartwarming story:
Jake was desperately looking for a place to spend the night while traveling to New York from the Midwest. After unsuccessful attempts at a couple of gas stations to locate a motel in the remote area where he found himself, an attendant at a third gas station suggested he try an old-age home up the road.
He succeeded in persuading the staff on duty to let him spend the night there. The next morning he asked the manager if he knew of any Jewish synagogues in the area. The reply he received was negative with a surprising addition: "In fact, the only other Jew I have ever known was a resident here in our facility, and he died just this morning."
Realizing that he had been directed there by Providence to care for a meit mitzvah (a Jew who has no one to take care of burying him), Jake quickly arranged to have the body transferred to New York for burial. Upon arrival at the first cemetery he was asked to provide $3,000 for a burial plot. The same thing happened at a second cemetery but Jake kept on trying. At the third cemetery he was welcomed and informed that someone had once donated several thousand dollars to cover just such an emergency.
Out of curiosity they checked their records to see who that donor was. It turned out that the Jew who had made that foresighted contribution was the very one who was now awaiting burial.


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<MP> "City of the Dead"
天気に関係なく環境が悪い。"— Killian Darkwater
Necropolis, also known as the City of the Dead, is a ghoul city upon the remains of Bakersfield, located in southern California.
This Greek word meaning "city of the dead" refers to this strangely silent ghost town. Most of the buildings are intact, but travelers report that no one seems to live there, and people who arrive to settle it either end up with radiation sickness or simply disappear. The truth of the matter involves a small population of ghouls beneath the city's streets.
Necropolis is east of the Hub, about halfway between it and Hoover Dam. Merchants usually avoid Necropolis altogether, or plan their trips so that they pass it during the daylight hours, as it has a bad reputation. The ghouls are intensely afraid of outsiders, and prefer guerrilla tactics to keep their city safe. There are unsubstantiated rumors that the Master and his minions wiped out the ghoul population, but caravans traveling through the area still avoid Necropolis and tell stories of ghost-like humans in tattered clothes.
NecropolisはVault 13から東に6スクエア、南に12スクエアにあります。
On October 23, 2077, the United States was destroyed as the country was bathed in atomic fire. Those with the money and luck fled into great underground Vaults, fallout shelters which were advertised as protection, but were in fact part of a sinister experiment funded by Vault-Tec and the US government.
Vault 12 in Bakersfield was one such Vault. When the bombs dropped, air raid sirens sounded, and the Vaults sealed shut, not to open for decades or in some cases even centuries. But the inhabitants of Bakersfield were not to know that Vault 12 had an intentional design flaw - the door would never shut properly. Once it became clear that the other vaults had sealed, people within Bakersfield attempted to force their way into Vault 12 to protect themselves and their families.
Despite the obvious problems, those sheltered in Vault 12 were protected from the brunt of the blasts. It was not until radiation seeped in from toxic clouds of radioactive waste when problems arose. People's skin began to dry and flake, hair began to fall out - the first ghouls had been created (excluding Desmond Lockheart).
In the summer of 2083, the city of Necropolis was founded by the Vault 12 dwellers, as well as any locals who had survived the bombs. In the spring of the following year, Set wrested control from the original Vault 12 Overseer, establishing a status quo which would remain for nearly 80 years. The Vault 12 Overseer, not willing to take a dirtnap, was driven north, where history lost sight of him.
In 2157, the Master learned the location of the Bakersfield Vault, and in order to further his plans (which required him to find humans untainted by radiation), he sent a detachment of super mutants there to seize the Vault. Many ghouls were snapped like twigs in the attack, until Set finally parleyed with the super mutants, telling them that the ghouls are the Vault dwellers the super mutants are looking for. The super mutants, angered at failing to find an intact Vault, set up a small garrison at the watershed to watch the inhabitants and ensure Set's cooperation in the war to come.
In February of 2162, the Vault Dweller recovered the water chip in Necropolis, but Ian was killed by a super mutant and reduced to a cinder during the fight. In March of the same year, the mutant army attacked Necropolis, sparing none of the ghoulish inhabitants that did not flee. After the mutant armies advanced, they left a truly dead city behind them. Necropolis, however, didn't become completely empty as a few ghouls still lived there. [1]
The scattered survivors of Necropolis led the Great Migration across the wastes, leading to the founding of towns such as Gecko, Dayglow and Broken Hills.
Necropolis suffered extreme destruction, debris litters the streets and makes navigation practically impossible. The sewers serve to connect the various sections of town. Necropolis is divided into three districts and three sewer sections.
|Watershed sewers
|Vault 12
|Hall of the Dead
|Hall of the Dead sewers
|Necropolis motel
|Motel sewers
This district is a virtual shooting gallery, filled with ghouls. They are easy experience pickings for the distance shooter. The ghouls will become hostile easily if the Vault Dweller tries to converse and/or rifle through their storage. There are manholes which lead to the city's sewers.
Hall of the Dead編集
In a building that appears to be the remains of some sort of church, you can find a number of imprisoned glowing ones, Set, Garret, and various ghoul guards.
The last district (accessed through the sewers) and the home to:
- Children of the Cathedral medics
- The broken water pump
- A ghoul prisoner
- The super mutants with rhyming names
- The entrance to Vault 12
Three sections of tunnels connecting Necropolis districts.
The ghoul population was divided into three groups:
- The surface dwellers were what could be called the public face of Necropolis, as they were by far the most numerous of the three groups, and controlled most of the city's surface. They were typically the first thing outsiders encountered in Necropolis, and were likely the cause of the aforementioned rumors surrounding the City of the Dead. Their operations were based out of the Hall of the Dead, where their leader Set did his business. Paranoid and intolerant of outsiders and non-ghouls, the surface dwellers were often violent, attacking strangers on sight and harboring a particularly deep hatred of super mutants. This was most likely due to the super mutant garrison newly established around Necropolis' important watershed. Though Talius mentions heated resistance to the super mutant presence in the city by Set's surface dwellers, by the time the Vault Dweller arrives there appears to be a sort of stalemate between the two groups, though Set does not hesitate in employing the outsider to eliminate the super mutants garrison.
- The glowing ones were heavily irradiated ghouls who lived in the old Vault 12, shunned by even their own kind, who disliked the other ghouls as much as they did the normal humans.
- The so-called underground ghouls, who were forced to live in the city's sewers, were ironically by far the most peaceful of Necropolis' residents and were much more tolerant of outsiders than either of the other groups.
The Vault Dweller could have saved Necropolis from their slaughter by killing the Master before the Lieutenant, and doing so before 25 March 2162 (after 110 days have passed). To get the good ending, the player should never return to the city after the date passed.
Necropolis appears only in Fallout and is mentioned by multiple characters in Fallout 2 and by Raul in Fallout: New Vegas (as Bakersfield).
Behind the scenes編集
- In Fallout, according to the Vault-Tec Vault locations holodisk, Vault 12 was located in Bakersfield. However, while Necropolis lies to the north-east of Los Angeles, the actual city of Bakersfield is not far to the south-west of the Lost Hills bunker. The location of Necropolis roughly matches the town of Barstow. It is probable that while Necropolis was initially placed where Bakersfield is, the locations were moved by the developers at a later date to spread them out better along the map and game files were not updated to reflect this fact.
- In ancient Greek, a necropolis (νεκρόπολις) literally means, a "city of the dead", in this case referring to the ghouls that inhabit the ruins of the city.
See also編集
- ↑ Fallout Bible 1,6


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Industries LNG
|November 21, 2019 - Item C-1, C-2, C-3, C-6: FERC Approves Four LNG Export Projects News Release | Decisions: C-1 , C-2 , C-3 and C-6
There are more than 110 LNG facilities operating in the U.S. performing a variety of services. Some facilities export natural gas from the U.S., some provide natural gas supply to the interstate pipeline system or local distribution companies, while others are used to store natural gas for periods of peak demand. There are also facilities which produce LNG for vehicle fuel or for industrial use. Depending on location and use, an LNG facility may be regulated by several federal agencies and by state utility regulatory agencies.
The FERC is responsible for authorizing the siting and construction of onshore and near-shore LNG import or export facilities under Section 3 of the Natural Gas Act. The Commission, under Section 7 of the Natural Gas Act, also issues certificates of public convenience and necessity for LNG facilities engaged in interstate natural gas transportation by pipeline. As required by the National Environmental Policy Act, the FERC prepares environmental assessments or impact statements for proposed LNG facilities under its jurisdiction. Click the links below for maps showing proposed and potential LNG projects.
Projects which are approved and built are subject to FERC oversight for as long as the facility is in operation. FERC currently regulates twenty-four operational LNG facilities. Click the links below for maps of operating LNG facilities under FERC jurisdiction.
|Existing and Proposed Terminals


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I've been reinstalling my system as of late (been way too along a comin') and I realized that I hadn't set up a firewall yet. This, in turn, had me think how many ports were open. I was up too late and probably had too many cokes by then. I had given myself a dead simple root password so that I could finish the install and began getting that tightening, turning, wretching in the belly feeling. I couldn't help thinking that, "This could be the time that some random joe comes along and finds a nice open gate". Doesn't make much sense now, but decided then to build a script that toggles a 20 character random password to relieved my paranoia. Here it is for anyone who can find use of it. Oh, and I did get my install done.
#!/bin/bash # randompass - toggle between random and known passwords for users # User passwords to protect users=(root todd akau) # Program name from it's filename prog=${0##*/} # Text color variables txtund=$(tput sgr 0 1) # Underline txtbld=$(tput bold) # Bold bldred=${txtbld}$(tput setaf 1) # red bldblu=${txtbld}$(tput setaf 4) # blue bldwht=${txtbld}$(tput setaf 7) # white txtrst=$(tput sgr0) # Reset info=${bldwht}*${txtrst} # pass=${bldblu}*${txtrst} warn=${bldred}!${txtrst} # Check if users exist, if they don't remove from the users array list="${users[@]/%/|}" # Puts array to list, add pipe after each user users=($(grep -Eo "^(${list// })\>" /etc/shadow)) # strip spaces, end of word # Password generation passgen=$(< /dev/urandom tr -dc A-Za-z0-9/.$ | head -c20 | xargs | cat) # Variables for current passwords for user in ${users[@]}; do eval "curpw$user=\$(grep \$user /etc/shadow | awk -F : '{print \$2}')" done # Save original passwords (first run) for save in ${users[@]}; do if [ ! -f /root/pass$save ]; then grep $save /etc/shadow | awk -F : '{ print $2 }' > /root/pass$save echo "$pass Saved ${txtund}$save${txtrst} password" fi done case $1 in h ) echo " $prog <*u>- toggle random and known passwords. u - update known" ;; u ) echo "$warn Be sure no random passwords are set before updating passwords!" echo -n "Update known passwords file(s)? " read update if [[ $update == [Yy] ]]; then for known in ${users[@]}; do grep $known /etc/shadow | awk -F : '{ print $2 }' > /root/pass$known echo "$pass Updated ${txtund}$known${txtrst} password" done else echo " Passwords not updated" exit fi ;; * ) if [[ "$curpwroot" == "$(cat /root/passroot)" ]]; then for u in ${users[@]}; do usermod -p $passgen $u echo "$pass Generated password for ${txtund}$u${txtrst}." done else for u in ${users[@]}; do usermod -p $(cat /root/pass$u) $u echo "$pass Restored password for ${txtund}$u${txtrst}." done fi ;; esac


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NOTECARDS from the Blue Ridge
Love these mountains? Virginia? Floyd County? Want to say "glad you were here" or "missing you" or come see where we live?" Browse all five sets (25 total nature-landscapes) and buy your first set to keep ready for that special person who will love you for your thoughtfulness. www.etsy.com/shop/GooseCreekGoodsRead More


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Online Yoga "A Revolutionary New Way to stay Healthy at Home"
Yoga… the word has a deep meaning, it doesn't mean just doing different asanas and twisting body, it actually means the union of individual with soul or spirit. Yoga is the science of life speaking in scientific terms. Yoga as we all know took birth in India around 5000 years back and is one of the most efficient, accurate and easy way of doing workout. This is often confused by many with mere stretching and…Read More


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Cebu Travel Information
This royal Visayan province is rich in history, culture, and natural wonders.
Cebu is generally considered the most important province in the Visayas. Its capital, Cebu City, dubbed the Queen City of the South, is a highly urbanized international hub. As the most populated and developed territory in the region, Cebu holds great importance in Philippine economy and tourism, and is noted for its historical, cultural, and natural wealth.
Cebu has played a significant role in Philippine history as it is the recognized birthplace of Christianity and Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines. Hispanic churches and institutions in Cebu, such as the Basilica del Minore Sto. Niño and San Carlos University, all stand as living reminders of Spain's former power. The image of the miraculous Santo Niño that Magellan gave to local Queen Juana continues to draw flocks of pilgrims to the island.
Cebu is also home to breathtaking natural wonders such as white sand beaches and animal sanctuaries. Diving, snorkeling, bird watching, and other ecotourism activities await those who visit the islands of Bantayan, Moalboal, Malapascua, and Olangon.
Cebu was witness to some of the main highlights of the Philippines' colonial history:
- According to some sources, the name Cebu came from the word "sebu," which means animal fat. Others suggest that the name comes from the word "sugbu," which means "to wade ashore," a reference to Cebu's shoreline.
- Before the arrival of the Spaniards, the fishing village of Cebu was under the rule of Rajah Humabon.
- Ferdinand Magellan arrived on the port of Cebu on April 7, 1521.
- In 1575, Cebu was named Villa del Santisimo Nombre de Jesus, being the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines.
- In February 24, 1937, Cebu was declared a chartered city; Cebu is considered to be the oldest city in the Philippines.
Travelers' Attractions
Foodies, history buffs, beach bums, and ecotourists can all find something to enjoy in Cebu.
- For foodies, nothing beats the famous Cebu lechon (roast pig). Their fresh mangoes, dried mango, otap, and danggit are also must-try-and-buy Cebu treats.
- For history buffs, Cebu houses an array of notable historical sites that date back to the Spanish colonial times. The San Carlos University, Basilica del Minore Sto. Niño, Fort San Pedro, and Magellan's Cross are must-see structures and landmarks.
- For those who want to unwind and enjoy nature's splendour, the islands of Bantayan, Malapascua, Moalboal, and Olangon have a lot in store for you. These islands are also ideal for divers, birdwatchers, and curious ecotourists.
Getting there and away
Cebu is accessible both by air and sea.
- Local air carriers Cebu Pacific, Zest Air, and Philippine Airlines offer regular flights from Manila to Cebu.
- It takes about 20 hours to reach Cebu from Manila by sea. SuperFerry offers regular ferry trips to Cebu.


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Related Suppliers
One machine shop owner in old New England, not far from where Paul Revere made his famous ride, saw a tight labor market as a call to revolutionize his company.
Little Enterprises (Ipswich, Massachusetts) is in the semiconductor-manufacturing corridor of the East Coast. Many of the parts it manufactures are components for robots that are used as material handlers for silicon chips. Some parts are extremely complex and often one-of-a-kind prototypes.
Featured Content
Faced with the increased demands of a booming semi-conductor industry, President Scott Little says he had to change the way he produced these parts. Many of the CNC machine tools in his shop were vertical machining centers. Mr. Little said that he was only getting about 50 percent spindle utilization with these machines, because when parts were being loaded or unloaded, a machine sat idle.
Mr. Little researched how a horizontal machining center could cut costs by reducing his need for operators and giving him greater spindle uptime. To gain this advantage, he invested in a Mazak FH-4800 horizontal machining center with a two-pallet system. He says this machine gave him double the spindle usage due to its two-pallet system and faster toolchange time. But this stand-alone machine was not his ultimate manufacturing vision. His aim was to increase production using an unattended system that had the flexibility to grow with his manufacturing needs.
Mr. Little has expanded his one-machine setup into a Palletech Manufacturing Cell that includes four FH-4800 horizontal machining centers and 36 pallet stations with one load/unload station. Now he only needs one full-time operator to load and unload parts for the machines.
"We're in the semi-conductor business, which is a very difficult business because of its cyclical nature," Mr. Little says. "The last full industry downturn left me with over $1 million in inventoried parts. During the next slowdown, we'll have a million dollars of cash in the bank and no large inventory to worry about because of the way the Palletech has changed my business."
Mr. Little adds, "There is only one way to manufacture parts efficiently, and that's with automation. We came from being number 25 as a supplier to one of our largest clients to being one of its top three because of the capabilities that Mazak's Palletech Manufacturing Cell system gives us."
Mr. Little says that the Palletech system allows the company to be competitive. "We have increased our production capability. Not because of the increase in the number of spindles running, but rather, we virtually eliminated setup time for loading and unloading parts for each machine. At the same time, we ran every machine longer due to unattended machining. We currently have spindle utilization approaching 85 to 90 percent. We can handle volume production as well as a lot size of one. Or we can easily mix and vary our production runs. Each machine has 120 tools stored in the magazine. This allows us to produce a variety of different parts with the tools or have redundant tools for long part runs. By increasing the number of pallets we have, we can easily adjust our production schedules to meet any delivery."
Mr. Little acknowledges that Mazak's Palletech was a large investment for a shop of his size. But because of its modularity (the ability to add machines only when they are needed), he can make it grow as he needs more capacity. Also, with the Palletech able to do so much production, his labor rate per part has been dramatically reduced. Instead of having one person tend to one or two machines and wait for a part to finish, the Palletech allows one person to load/unload parts for all four machines with little idle time. Mr. Little is running the Palletech system 24 hours a day, 6 days a week with several hours each day of production without an operator.
"The big savings is labor," Mr. Little says. "We don't have to tie up a highly skilled machinist to monitor each machine and load/unload the parts when it's done. The time can be used to develop new fixtures, select cutting tools, do test cuts and improve the machining process. Machines just keep running and making chips without interruption."
Comparing vertical machining centers to the horizontals, Mr. Little says, "We probably would have needed another ten vertical machines with another 20 operators to do the same amount of work as just three horizontals in the Palletech system."
The Right Fit Is In The Fixtures
Custom engineered workholding fixtures are key to the effectiveness of an unusual Automated Production System (APS) recently installed at Kurt Manufacturing. It helps that one of this company's specialties is custom engineered workholding fixtures.
CNC Robotics And Automation: Knowing When To Say 'When'
In metalworking, a shop's move from one level of automation to the next can be a business-busting decision if badly timed. This article looks at what you should consider when taking the next step toward automating an operation.
Cycle Efficiency
Automated machining processes enable this maker of high-performance mountain bike parts to manufacture efficiently with minimal staff.


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Learn about hurricane hazards and what you can do to help protect yourself, your family, and your property.
The CDC site is intended to increase the nation's ability to prepare for and respond to public health emergencies.
Are you ready for the next storm?
Welcome to the Weather Underground's Hurricane Preparedness Page. Here you'll find some extremely useful information that will help you know what to do in the event of a storm-related emergency.
It's important that your main contact person is out of town, because local calls are more likely to be disrupted after a storm. Both ends of local connections are subject to problems.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security suggests a three-pronged approach to planning for a disaster:
It is important that you have on hand all of the basic supplies you will need to survive. You should have enough of these supplies to be able to sustain yourself for at least three days, since it may be a while before you can evacuate safely or before help can reach you. A sample emergency kit might look like this:
It is very important that your family have a plan before the storm hits. A good first step is to have an out-of-town emergency contact, as mentioned above. Another good step is to contact your local Office of Emergency Management to find out what your local emergency resources are. It could be that there's a specific rallying point for those who evacuate their homes, or that there's a local phone number to call to find out if you should evacuate. It's also important to know for yourself when you should evacuate and when you should stay where you are; you should come up with a set of conditions for each, so that the decision is much quicker and more clear when the disaster actually hits. Make sure that everyone in your family has a (or is with someone who has a) cell phone with SMS (texting) ability, because SMS can often make it through even when lines are too swamped for phone calls. Place your emergency contact as "ICE" (In Case of Emergency) in your cell phone; if you are incapacitated, emergency personnel will often look for that listing and call it. Above all, draft a family emergency plan before the storm, and make sure everyone has a copy when the storm hits.
Make sure that you have read up on all emergency procedures before the storm. Always pay attention to local weather and news reports, so that you aren't caught unawares. There are plenty of resources on the internet that you should read as soon as possible, and before a storm hits:


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Obamacare is Unconstitutional – Part 1
For those of you that read my blog on a weekly basis mostly to get your dander up, I will not disappoint you this week. To get right to the point, plain and simple, the newly passed "Obamacare" health care reform legislation is unconstitutional on many levels and Republicans if they have any political principles at all will run this November on a platform promising to repeal the measure in its entirety.
However, they may be saved from this act of unusual courage on their part if state attorneys general have their way. Currently, there are already lawsuits filed by 14 states against the law. The suits rightly state that, "The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty, that all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage." This argument before any court should be enough to at least invalidate that portion of the law. And if that portion is struck down then the financing mechanism for making the law somewhat viable is removed and the scheme falls flat on its face.
The states have chosen the portion of the new law that will give them the greatest chance of success in the courts. After all, it was deemed necessary at the beginning of the last century to pass an amendment to the Constitution allowing Washington to collect income taxes from Americans. How come an amendment is not required for Washington to order Americans to pay for health insurance?
But, there are also many other constitutional arguments that can be leveled against "Obamacare". Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution enumerates 18 specific powers granted to Congress. Healthcare is not one of them and as a matter of fact the responsibility for regulating the industry has historically fallen to states. States license doctors, hospitals, and have insurance commissions responsible for regulating rates and services. Of course, liberal interpreters of the Constitution will point out that there are two clauses in that same section which support their view that Congress has nearly unlimited powers when it comes to providing for the well-being of Americans.
The first clause is the "General Welfare" clause, "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States…" Taken in context, general welfare is not separated by commas from "to pay the debts" and "common defense". Therefore, the Congress has the power to provide for the general welfare of the United States by maintaining a common defense and paying the debts in the pursuit thereof. The phrase does not give Congress unlimited powers. If it did there would be no need for the 16 enumerated powers that follow in the same section.
The second clause liberal interpreters of the Constitution point to in order for Congress to do whatever it wants to is the "necessary and proper" clause. It reads, "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." Many have labeled this the elastic clause which is about as accurate a label as the "Patriot Act". The first part ending with "foregoing powers" obviously relates to the 17 previously mentioned enumerated powers in Section 8. The bone of contention is the phrase, "…all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." What are these other powers? To liberal interpreters it means anything Congress feels should be done for the 'general welfare". The real answer is the powers specified to Congress outside of Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution.
Article 2 dealing with the Executive Branch is a good example. In Section 1 of that article Congress has been given the power, not enumerated in Article 1 Section 8, to determine the time for choosing electors of the Electoral College. Article 2 Section 2 gives Congress power to enact laws dealing with certain appointments of the president. There are several amendments that give Congress power to, "enforce this article by appropriate legislation". These powers of Congress not found in the article dealing with the legislative branch are "necessary and proper for carrying into execution all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States…" That was the original meaning of the necessary and proper clause. Furthermore, health care is not specified in any of these other powers, thus it is outside of Congress's powers under federalism and a clear violation to the Constitution.
The Constitution grants very limited powers to all three branches of government, not just Congress. Those powers are enumerated and delegated in the document. To believe otherwise ignores the actual text and the historical context the document was written in. Why would individuals give unlimited power to a new government when they had just risked all they had to overthrow the unlimited tyrannical powers of another? They wouldn't. This is why a strict constructionist interpretation is correct and why Obamacare is unconstitutional.
Part 2 will deal with the interstate commerce clause and why it is important to adhere to the Constitution.
Kenn Jacobine teaches internationally and maintains a summer residence in North Carolina.