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So today saw the launch of the long awaited Raspberry Pi Model B.. This small yet perfectly equipment little circuit board is almost certainly going to change many peoples lives.. Booting from an SD card the Raspberry Pi is currently able to support a hand full of Linux Distributions, including Raspbmc, OpenELEC, Debian GNU/Linux, Fedora, Arch Linux.
"So what?" I hear you cry.. Well look at it this way, how many other functional machines can you get for a mere £21.60! Sure, the Pi looks tiny, but check out the list of features below..
- Broadcom BCM2835 700MHz ARM1176JZFS processor with FPU and Videocore 4 GPU
- GPU provides Open GL ES 2.0, hardware-accelerated OpenVG, and 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode
- GPU is capable of 1Gpixel/s, 1.5Gtexel/s or 24GFLOPs with texture filtering and DMA infrastructure
- Boots from SD card, running the Fedora version of Linux
- 10/100 BaseT Ethernet socket
- HDMI socket
- USB 2.0 socket
- RCA video socket
- SD card socket
- Powered from microUSB socket
- 3.5mm audio out jack
- Header footprint for camera connection
- Size: 85.6 x 53.98 x 17mm
Not only that, put the Pi supports AirPlay, making it a cheap customisable stand in for the Apple TV devices.
Popular desktop based applications have already been ported over to Raspberry Pi including XBMC, which as you can see from the YouTube video below suits the device perfectly!
That's the exciting stuff out of the way, now for the bad news.. This device is almost certainly going to sell out in seconds.. So if I was you, I wouldn't get my hopes up of getting one too soon. However to stand a better chance, you might want to register over at RS Components website, who will let you know when there available


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Compiled by Kathrin Gerner, KF16, Rwanda
This week, you have no fewer than 14 new articles to choose from on the Kiva fellows blog: Let the fellows take you along on borrower visits across the world. Learn how Kiva field partners expand the reach of microfinance in Rwanda, fill the microfinance donut hole in Sierra Leone and improve social performance in Uganda. Find out what poverty is like in urban Tajikistan and rural Burkina Faso. Get inspired by one of the creative ways to bring renewable energy to the developing world in the form of a soccer ball. And finally, watch a video of "Why We Kiva" to get a glimpse of why Kiva fellows jump at the opportunity to be thrown half way around the world to work with Kiva's many local field partners.
Girlie's Peanut Butter: Borrower Verification in the Philippines
Country: Philippines / Fellow: Jill Hall (KF16)
As Jill completes here borrower verifications, she meets the lady who makes peanut butter.
Going the Distance: Expanding the Reach of Microfinance in Rwanda
Country: Rwanda / Fellow: Whitney Webb (KF16)
Whitney takes a look at the creative ways Urwego Opportunity Bank uses to reach the far-flung areas of Rwanda.
The Donut Hole Conundrum + Mamoud's Story
Country: Sierra Leone / Fellow: Tejal Desai (KF16)
Tejal learns about the small enterprise loan, a loan product that is targeted at people that are financially overqualified for microcredit but too poor to receive a bank loan.
In Sickness and in Health: An MFI's commitment to its clients in times of need
Country: El Salvador / Fellow: Andrea Ramirez (KF16)
Andrea explains how Fundacion Campo came up with a plan to help residents in areas flooded by the recent rain falls in El Salvador.
Pride & Poverty: A Photo Essay of Kiva Borrowers in Georgia
Country: Georgia / Fellow: DJ Forza (KF16)
DJ shares impressions of her borrower visits in Georgia.
More Than a Simple Find/Replace Operation: Changing CREDIT to Kredit
Country: Cambodia / Fellow: Dave Weber (KF16)
Dave explores why CREDIT is undergoing a name and logo change.
Downsizing Development: How a Soccer Ball Could Change the World
Country: Kenya / Fellow: Lauren Barra (KF16)
Lauren comes across a soccer ball that might help bring renewable energy to the developing world.
Microfinance by Land or by Sea
Country: Peru / Fellow: Kate Bennett (KF16)
Kate spends a week at the beach, but instead of working on her tan, she visits borrowers with Kiva field partner Caja Rural Señor de Luren.
This Is Urban Poverty in Tajikistan
Country: Tajikistan / Fellow: Chris Paci (KF16)
Chris experiences first-hand what urban poverty is like in Tajikistan.
The Second Bottom Line and BRAC Uganda's Gold
Country: Uganda / Fellow: Andrew Huelsenbeck (KF16)
Andrew takes a look at BRAC Uganda's dedication to social performance.
Mysteries, Geoglyphs + too-good-to-be-true Kiva Borrowers
Country: Peru / Fellow: Kate Bennett (KF16)
Kate wonders if a full loan repayment on the first repayment date might be too good to be true.
La Réalité de L'Afrique
Country: Burkina Faso / Fellow: Alison Moomey (KF16)
Alison gets a wake-up call to the realities of life in rural Burkina Faso after spending a weekend in a village without electricity or running water.
Video Blog: "Why We Kiva" – Kiva Fellows Around the World
Country: Bolivia / Fellow: Mariela Cedeño (KF16)
Mariela gives you a glimpse of why Kiva fellows jump at the opportunity to be thrown half way around the world to work with Kiva's many local field partners.
Updates from the past month:
Green Loans, Dark Alleys + On-the-Ground Footage of it All
Kiva-style Microfinance, Reggaeton + a Journey though the Commercial Jungle
Loan Use, Agriculture Loans + Stuff Kiva Fellows Like
Starting Capital, Development Levels + Adventurous Borrower Visits
Going Pilot to Active, Meeting Borrowers + Technology and Social Performance
Plus more pictures from the past week:

subset: commoncrawl


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HRIC has resigned from the Global Network Initiative (GNI), the multi-stakeholder group founded in 2008 to advance freedom of expression and privacy in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector.
As a founding member and former board member of the GNI, HRIC has actively contributed to the GNI's efforts in developing robust principles based on international human rights standards, and a framework for ensuring accountability for those principles. In a climate of increasing government surveillance and intrusion into personal privacy, HRIC believes that meaningful compliance with these principles and rigorous implementation of the accountability framework are more critical than ever. China, because of its enormous market and political and economic clout, poses particularly steep challenges for companies and other stakeholders, including the risks of self-censorship. HRIC remains committed to the value and role of multi-stakeholder processes and the principles on which the GNI was founded, but at this time we will devote our resources and energy to other means of addressing these challenges.
Over the past eight years, the GNI has made valuable contributions to promoting rights in the ICT sector in general, particularly through its work on policy advocacy, privacy, and surveillance, and pressing for greater transparency from governments. We welcome future opportunities to continue working with stakeholders in diverse platforms to effectively address the complex and intensifying rule of law and human rights challenges posed by China's policies and actions, in particular for the ICT sector.


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2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 cups milk chocolate chips (12 oz.)
24 mini-marshmallows
1 cup finely crushed graham crackers
Melt butter in a medium sized saucepan over medium heat; whisk in cream and bring to a boil. Remove pan from heat and stir in chocolate chips until melted and smooth. Chill saucepan in refrigerator for 1 hour, or until chocolate is solid and rollable; roll into 24 balls, stuffing a mini marshmallow into the center of each. Chill truffles a few minutes before rolling in graham cracker crumbs; chill for a few minutes again so they solidify a little more.
Makes 24 truffles


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Student from Huazhong Normal University in China Wins 2009 Gertrude Scharff-Goldhaber Prize
Na Li performs research at Brookhaven Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider
July 7, 2009
UPTON, NY — Na Li, a graduate student at Huazhong Normal University who expects to receive her Ph.D. in physics in the spring of 2010, has been awarded the 2009 Gertrude Scharff-Goldhaber Prize, consisting of a framed certificate and $1,000. The U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory established the award to recognize substantial promise and accomplishment by women graduate students in physics who are performing their thesis research at Brookhaven Lab, or who are enrolled at Stony Brook University.
Administered by Brookhaven Women in Science (BWIS), a nonprofit organization that supports and encourages the advancement of women in science, the prize honors the outstanding contributions of the late nuclear physicist Gertrude Scharff-Goldhaber. In 1950, she became the first woman Ph.D. physicist appointed to the Brookhaven Lab staff. She also was a founding member of BWIS.
Li earned a B.S. in physics from Huazhong Normal University in 2004 and is continuing her studies at the school to earn her doctorate. She is currently performing her thesis work at Brookhaven's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a world-class accelerator where physicists study what the universe may have looked like the first few moments after its creation. At RHIC, physicists have discovered a "perfect" liquid, which many describe as quark-gluon plasma, a form of matter that is thought to have existed ten-millionths of a second after the Big Bang.
2009-10985 | INT/EXT | Newsroom


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Winners and Honorable Mentions of the Twitch Channel Points Hackathon
Today is an exciting day. After two months of your hard work and dedication, the Twitch Channel Points Hackathon comes to a close and we are thrilled to announce the winners of the competition! Channel Points have become a core part of how communities interact on Twitch. Rewards – especially custom rewards created by a broadcaster – are now an important way for communities to celebrate their unique culture and identity.
With the addition of the Channel Points API and EventSub's real-time events that were announced in November, Twitch integrations can programmatically manage and fulfill custom rewards that viewers use to influence the content of a stream. These technologies provide an opportunity for third-party developers to build the most innovative interactive experiences for broadcasters and their viewers on Twitch.
And wow – the competition certainly delivered. There were about 500 participants who signed up and 60 projects submitted by the deadline. The projects covered a broad range of uses from applications that manipulate gameplay to tools that trigger physical elements in a streamer's environment.
Earlier today the top ten nominees and the winners of the hackathon were announced on the TwitchDev channel. The results are also included below to learn more or try out each project for your own stream!
Hackathon Winners
Without further delay, here are the runner-up and winning projects for the hackathon with a description in their own words.
Broadcaster Tools Runner-up: CastMate
By Erin Fitzpatric and Scott Resnick
We were looking for fun ways for our viewers to interact with our different stream elements such as Hue lights, sound files, and OBS scenes. It started with a "Disco Party" channel reward and quickly evolved into so much more. Our focus for the hackathon was improving the broadcaster and viewer experience with an emphasis on broadcaster tools. As variety gamers ourselves, we were frustrated by the need to reconfigure active channel rewards every time we would switch games. There is already a lot of setup that goes into starting a Twitch stream and we wanted to make this experience easier for the broadcaster.
Broadcaster Tools Winner: Hydrate
By Tyler Anton
A lot of streams have channel point rewards that remind the streamer to hydrate (drink water). A friend of mine had the idea to take that a step further and allow the chat to actually hydrate the streamer. This project allows the chat to fill a cup with water via Channel Points. When this reward is redeemed, it activates a water pump that transports water from a container to a cup that's visible on stream. I plan on moving from a breadboard setup to a custom PCB with a 3D printed enclosure and water reservoir.
Game Integrations Runner-up: Just Spinning
By Streaming Toolsmith
Just Spinning is heavily inspired by TV game shows, as well as fun/whimsical games like Fall Guys, Jackbox Party Packs, and others. My aim with any project is to increase the interactivity between streamers and their viewers. I usually do this with game integrations, but I figured spicing up a 'Just Chatting' segment was a fun change of pace. Using Channel Points, viewers are added to a queue of players. Whenever the streamer feels like it, they can trigger a 'wheel spin' that will determine a random game played by the streamer and the viewer. These quick, light-hearted games serve to break up the monotony of Just Chatting, and add even more interactions and fun highlights with the streamer.
Game Integrations Winner:There's a Twitch Among Us
By Ricky T and Efren Aguilar
We created this mod with heavy inspiration from the GTA V Chaos mod, where Twitch Chat users can interact with what occurs in GTA V. We love playing Among Us with our friends, and thought something like this would be really fun to try making. By using Twitch Channel Points, Twitch viewers can redeem these points to interact with the broadcaster's game of Among Us. With enough Points, determined by the broadcaster, viewers can kill a random player in the game, or swap all the positions of all the living players.
Honorable Mentions
In addition to the hackathon winners above, there are a number of honorable mentions that will receive some Twitch goodies and may be something fun for your own stream!
Bloons TD6 Streaming Channel Point Integration
By Peter Fredebold
By Jeroen van Baar, Nick Barth, and Joris Kok
By Instafluff TV
Duelers - Overlay Game for Streams
By J'Brian P
Stream Weather
By Instafluff TV and Maaya Konopaskova
By Jeroen van Baar, Nick Barth, and Joris Kok
Valheim Twitch Mod
By Sébastien Mischler
Thank You
We would like to extend a tremendous "thank you" to all of our competition judges for contributing their time to review submissions, especially our Twitch Partner guest judge, Mrgregles. Mrgregles is not a stranger to building custom interactive experiences for his community so stay tuned as he may just make an appearance on the TwitchDev channel soon!
Thank you for participating in the Twitch Channel Points Hackathon. Even if you did not win a prize, you are all contributing toward unique and innovative interactive experiences that Twitch broadcasters and their viewers are going to love.
Visit the Twitch Channel Points Hackathon project gallery to see demos of all the submissions.


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Looking for motivation to practice morse code [BenB] built this morse code keyboard. It uses USB and is recognized as a standard keyboard thanks to the V-USB stack running on the ATmega168. The project is rounded out with a clean look thanks to the chewing gum container that serves as an enclosure.
His design is simple enough that any morse key you have on hand can be used. You could even adapt that glove coder you built a couple of years back.


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Introduction to Kite Aerial Photography (KAP)
Sep 13, 2011
Introduction to Kite Aerial Photography (KAP)
Kite Aerial Photography (KAP) is something that has appealed to me for some time, and earlier this year I decided to build a KAP rig, buy a kite, and take some photos from up in the air.
Recently I posted my first KAP photos, and will be posting more in the future.
I intend to write post more information about my experiences with KAP over the coming months, but thought I would start off with a post describing what KAP is all about, and the equipment that is typically used.
Why KAP?
What is the appeal of KAP?
camera rig suspended from kite line
Why do people invest significant amounts of time (and sometimes significant amounts of money) getting cameras airborne?
I think KAP is appealing because it provides the ability to achieve different and unusual camera angles that are not possible using ordinary photography techniques. Photos taken from a high vantage point allow familiar landscapes and buildings to be captured from a unique viewpoint, yet still allowing them to be easily recognizable.
For myself, KAP appeals to me because it combines multiple hobbies – photography, electronics, building and modifying gadgets (ie, KAP camera rigs), and kite flying is always fun!
KAP Overview
KAP is one form of aerial photography, where a camera is suspended from a kite line to allow aerial photos to be taken. Other options for aerial photography include mounting a camera on a pole, balloon, radio-controlled aeroplane or helicopter, but KAP is a relatively inexpensive way to get into aerial photography, and appeals to me because of its (apparent) simplicity.
KAP self-portrait (Southern River, Western Australia Canon PowerShot G5 @7mm, 1/1600 sec, f/4)
KAP Equipment
Here is a quick overview of the key items of equipment needed for KAP.
Any camera can be used for KAP, but to keep the size of the kite to something manageable, most KAP-ers use a point-and-shoot camera to keep the weight down as much as possible. However, it is certainly possible to hoist a SLR camera up in the air with a suitable kite.
Camera Rig
While the idea of hanging a camera from a kite is fairly simple, and some of the KAP rigs are quite simple, I have also seen some very complex rigs!
A KAP camera rig is a frame or structure that hangs from the kite line, and is designed to hold the camera. It can optionally provide pan and tilt functionality to change the direction and angle where the camera is aimed.
Early concept drawings for my first KAP rig
Camera rigs vary from the extremely simple, to rigs that are very complex, with remotely controlled pan and tilt mechanisms, multiple cameras, etc. Rigs can be constructed from almost anything, with aluminum being very common, as it is cheap, relatively light, and easy to work with. Wood, plastic, acrylic or fiberglass can also be used, and some people use carbon fiber.
Note that the camera rig is not normally suspended from the kite itself, but is attached to the kite line some distance down from the kite.
Remote Control and Camera Triggering Options
A simple camera rig will hold the camera in a fixed position, without offering any ability to rotate or tilt the camera once it is in the air.
More complex rigs use two or three channel radio controlled servos to remotely rotate and tilt the camera, as well as triggering the camera's shutter button.
RC transmitter used to control the airborne rig (Bob Blackburn Reserve, Seville Grove, Western Australia)
Various other options exist for triggering the camera's shutter button, including dedicated intervalometers, running custom firmware on the camera to periodically trigger the shutter (for example,CHDK on a Canon point-and-shoot camera),or using something like gentLED to trigger the camera via infrared or USB.
Some people even use a video transmitter on the camera rig to allow them to remotely view what the camera is seeing.
FlowForm 16 kite with 5m fuzzy tail
Not all kites are suitable for KAP. A kite needs to have sufficient lift to carry the camera and rig, radio control receiver and servos in the air. It also needs to provide stable flight, so it doesn't move the camera around too much in the air, and to ensure it doesn't unexpectedly fall out of the air.
In addition to stability, different types of kites have other characteristics that can offer further advantages or disadvantages, including flying angles and the range of winds in which it can be used.
The FlowForm 16 is a great starting point for a small camera and rig.
A Picavet suspension is designed to keep the camera rig hanging level, no matter what angle the kite line is, and to damp any movement of the camera caused by movement of the kite line.
Picavets commonly consist of a cross, attached in two places to the kite line by a single length of string threaded through pulleys or loops on the Picavet and the line hooks, allowing the weight of the camera and rig to keep the rig level.
What's Next?
To see some sample KAP rigs, have a look through the photos in the KAP Rigs group on flickr.
In the coming months, I'll be posting some more information about my own KAP rig and kite, as well as my experiences with getting a camera up in the air for the first time.
About The Author
This post was written by Martin Pot, a photographer and an engineer based in Perth, Western Australia. You can follow his blog here, and connect with him on G+ here.
All photographs are by Ashley Pot/Martin Pot, and used with permission
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
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Be nice, be on-topic, no personal information or flames.


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From Novi Sad to Štip, EX-YU countries plan for new airports |
Bihać Airport |
Earlier this month, the municipal council in Bihać, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, approved the creation of a public operator for Bihać Airport (JP Aerodrom Bihać). Amir Beganović has been appointed as acting CEO with the local government seeking to develop the existing airfield into a commercial airport. The municipality will invest some one million euros, in cooperation with a Turkish partner, to develop the airport. Furthermore, local authorities hope to receive additional funding from the Federal government. Bihać would become Bosnia and Herzegovina's fifth international airport following Sarajevo, Tuzla, Mostar and Banja Luka, which handled a record 1.081.134 passengers over the past eleven months.
Novi Sad Airport |
The government of Serbia's northern province of Vojvodina has announced plans to develop Novi Sad's sports and agriculture airport into a commercial one, despite it being only seventy kilometres north of the capital Belgrade. According to plans set out by the local government, the airport will cater for low cost flights, general aviation as well cargo flights. The design of the new terminal has been completed and is similar in size to Tivat. The Prime Minister of Vojvodina, Bojan Pajtić, says the project will likely be financed through a public-private partnership with an investor already identified. In 2004, the private charter airline Di Air, from Montenegro, operated a promotional service from Tivat to Novi Sad with some twenty passengers on board the L-410 Turbolet aircraft. According to a state study, out of all the airports in Serbia, the one in Novi Sad experiences the least fog affected days. According to the government, three million euros will be invested into developing the airport.
Užice Airport |
Millions have been provided so far for the redevelopment of Užice Airport, in western Serbia, which was devastated during the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia. The Serbian government and the European Union have jointly invested over one million euros into the creation of a project masterplan, while significant funds were raised several years ago at a donors' conference for the removal of mines around the airport's runway. "Once we complete the overhaul of the 3.100 metre runway, than all aircraft will be able to use the airport", the Managing Director of Užice Airport, Saša Savić, said last week. Local authorities hope for the airport to be used for charter and cargo flights. The region is home to some of Serbia's most exported goods. However, it is also close to several major former Yugoslav cities, with Sarajevo and Belgrade just 118 kilometres away. During the 1996 summer season, JAT Yugoslav Airlines operated a two weekly Belgrade - Užice - Tivat service. The entire redevelopment and construction project is valued at nineteen million euros.
Nikšić Airport |
Montenegro is preparing to open its third international airport next year, in the town of Nikšić, in the country's west. Over 1.6 million euros have been invested in the airport's redevelopment since work began in 2012. Local authorities have contributed several thousand euros for the construction of two taxiways and two aprons, while 85% of the finances were provided by the European Union Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance. The airport's runway, which is 1.450 meters long, can accommodate smaller general aviation aircraft, as well as regional planes such as the ATR. Currently, work is being carried out on the construction of a control tower, lighting system and a small terminal building. Local authorities hope to operate the airport jointly with a private enterprise through a public-private partnership agreement. Nikšić Airport was built seventy years ago and was used primarily for pilot training. Following the breakup of Yugoslavia, it fell into disuse. Prior to its redevelopment, the airport already featured a single taxiway as well as a hangar.
Rab Airport |
Rab Island, located off Croatia's north-western coastline is likely to become the sight of the country's tenth commercial airport. A total of 800.000 euros have been spent on various surveys and environmental impact reviews of the future airport sight, all of which have been financed through the European Union's Pre-Accession Assistance Funds. According to preliminary plans, the airport will be used for both domestic and international flights and will feature a 1.700 metre long and 45 metre wide runway. In addition, it will have the ability to accommodate aircraft with a capacity to seat up to 150 passengers. According to local authorities, the airport could handle over 200.000 passengers per year with some 50.000 arriving from the European Union and a further 75.000 travellers from Russia and the Far East. Rab Airport will also be able to handle cargo traffic and will feature hangars and pilot training facilities. The airport will also offer parking, which will be able accommodate 500 vehicles, a first aid and fire bridge service, customs, duty free and other facilities in line with international standards. However, concerns have been raised over the airport's viability. Rab is sandwiched in between Rijeka and Lošinj airports, the latter of which is struggling to attract larger-volume traffic itself.


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These are tough times! Given the rotten economy it isn't hard to be a pessimist about everything, and government seems to top the list. The November elections saw Congress shift to the Republicans, and yet America as a whole still seems to lack confidence that they are going to make things much better. A recent Rasmussen poll shows that only 28 percent of Americans believe we are headed in the right direction and almost half think our nation's best days are behind us.
This frustration extends to every level of government.
The city of Phoenix recently has been accused of mismanagement by City Councilman Sal DiCiccio. He continues to promote that Phoenix needs to be completely restructured.
I served with DiCiccio for a couple of years on the Phoenix City Council and consider him a friend, but I was caught off-guard by his attacks. Phoenix has a heritage of being recognized for its quality management. Consider this:
- In 1993, Phoenix won the prestigious Carl Bertelsmann Prize for being one of the two best-run city governments in the world.
- In 1995, Financial World magazine ranked Phoenix the best-managed city out of the nation's 30 largest.
- In 2000, the Government Performance Project conducted by the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, along with Governing magazine, named Phoenix as the Best Run City in the United States and gave it the only "A" grade of the 35 cities it studied.
- In 2009, the National Civic League named Phoenix an All-American City for the fifth time. It had previously won in 1950, 1958, 1980 and 1989.
Each of these awards evaluated different areas, such as financial management, performance management, infrastructure management, human resources, capital management, managing for results, use of information technology, and collaborative projects addressing critical issues.
Okay, that's Phoenix' heritage, but what about now?
Phoenix has hit the same rocky times as just about everyone else. We could rationalize that in a bad economy in which people are spending less and property values have crashed, it makes sense that municipal revenues, which are based off of these factors, have also dropped. Last budget cycle, Phoenix was faced with a $270 million shortfall. How did they deal with it? They extended a food tax that almost all other municipalities in the Metro Phoenix area already had, asked their employees to take pay cuts (3.2 percent for employees and 6.9 percent for management), and cut services for the remainder. Those service cuts came after a series of budget hearings held throughout Phoenix in which more than 5,000 citizens provided input. It was a balanced approach that didn't rely on placing the entire burden in any one area.
If the city of Phoenix is guilty of anything, maybe it should have planned better for a rainy day. But if you believe that is true, answer these two questions: First, was this economic recession really a "rainy day" or more like a torrential downpour? That leads to the second question: who did plan for this? We hear all about the nightmares from Wall Street to Main Street. Companies have vanished, banks have failed, and multitudes of homeowners have lost everything. These stories are unfortunately all too common. Almost all governments are having these same problems. Here in Arizona, our state government has been struggling with massive revenue shortfalls. What our Legislature is faced with in the next session makes counties and cities financial problems seem pretty small by comparison.
None of this points to a sudden reversal of Phoenix's good management practices. In fact, Phoenix now has a General Fund budget that is $79.2 million lower than it was five years ago, even though it has had an increase of 6 percent in the population. Phoenix has cut budgets six of the last seven years in order to live within its means. In the last two years, Phoenix has downsized its employee base from more than 16,000 in 2008 to 14,500 today. Phoenix is at a 40-year low in terms of employees per capita. All of this has happened while staying focused on public safety and maintaining many other vital city services. The crime rate in Phoenix is at a 20-year low. Even Phoenix' bond ratings are amongst the best in the nation. Phoenix received a AAA from Standard & Poor's and an Aa1 from Moody's.
So back to the pessimism that people are feeling. In a bad economy, isn't it easy to believe that government should be able to rise above it? As we face personal and business crises in a recession, do we really expect that government won't face the same problems? Many people think that all government is wasteful and inefficient, so isn't the message that Phoenix is being mismanaged one that is easy to accept?
The city of Phoenix isn't perfect, and there is always room for improvement. The truth is it is trying to provide the same level of services to more citizens with fewer employees and less money. It reminds me of a saying I once heard: We've been doing so much with so little for so long, that we are now qualified to do everything, with nothing, forever.


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This article is more than 1 year old
AMD pins exascale vision on Fusion APUs
The rebirth of vector processing
Because Advanced Micro Devices has not yet announced its 16-core "Interlagos" Opteron 6200 processors, it has to talk about something, and in situations like that, it is best to talk about the far-off future. And so AMD rounded up a bunch of its partners on Wednesday in San Francisco for a shindig to talk about the challenges of exascale computing.
Chuck Moore, CTO in the chip maker's Technology Group, did the talking about exascale, or the desire to create machines that can deliver more than 1,000 petaflops of number-crunching performance. Moore was one of the lead architects of the "Bulldozer" core used in the forthcoming Opteron processors, as well as for the Fusion hybrid CPU-GPU chips, which AMD calls accelerated processing units, or APUs for short.
While Moore is hot on GPUs, he said this is not something new, so much as a return to the past with a twist. "GPU computing is still in its infancy," Moore explained. "Instead of thinking of computing on a GPU, you should be thinking of this as a revival of vector computing. Going forward, we will be developing GPUs that look more like vector computers."
That got a big hallelujah from Peg Williams, senior vice president of HPC Systems at supercomputer Cray, a descendent of one of the companies founded by Seymour Cray - the legendary supercomputer maker from Control Data (and the company that bears his name) and a man who forgot more about vector processors than most experts will ever know.
The issue, said Moore, is not getting to exascale performance, but getting to exascale performance within a 20 megawatt power budget by 2020 or so.
When Moore and his colleagues were thinking about the design of the Bulldozer core, they did some math and figures that to get somewhere between 1 petaflops to 10 petaflops of performance would eat up around 10 megawatts of power, depending on the system architecture, interconnect, and the scalability of the application software running on the massive cluster.
At the midpoint of the performance range, you are talking about needing 200 megawatts to power up an exascale machine. At $1 per watt per year, which is what these supercomputer labs cost, you are talking about needing $200m a year just to turn the machine on and cool it. So clearly, scaling up high-end x86 CPUs – or any big fat RISC chip – is not the answer.
That's why Oak Ridge National Lab's "Titan" machine is a mix of CPUs and Nvidia GPUs embodied in a Cray XK6 chassis. That machine is expected to scale from 10 to 20 petaflops. At 20 petaflops, about 85 per cent of the oomph in the Titan machine will be coming from the GPUs. CPUs, which handle all the serial work to keep the GPUs fed with numbers to crunch.
The AMD plan, says Moore, is to get a 10 teraflops Fusion APU into the field that only consumes 150 watts, and to use this as the basis of an exascale machine. "You start to think that maybe we can get there," said Moore, saying that he would put a stake in the ground and predict an exascale system could be built by 2019 or 2020.
The issue is not the CPU or the GPU, but rather memory bandwidth between the two devices and between the main memory they will share. This will involve stacking memory in 3D configurations on a chip package with these CPUs and GPUs.
"That is technology that doesn't exist today, but it will be here in time," Moore predicted.
The other trick will be to have a single memory address space for the GPUs and CPUs, but perhaps using different memory technologies to create different segments of main memory that would be more suited to CPUs or GPUs, and let the system try to use those blocks whenever possible.
This idea, like all others, is not new, of course. There are probably many examples, but the one that comes to my mind is the single-level storage architecture of the System/38, AS/400 and Power Systems machines from IBM. They treated cache, main, and disk storage as a single addressable space, meaning that programmers didn't have to worry about pointers and moving data from disk to memory and back.
It was done automagically by the operating system so RPG programmers could focus on the business logic in their programs instead of worrying about data management. This is precisely the goal that everyone has for future supercomputer applications that span multiple computing architectures.
The use of Fusion APUs in supercomputers got its start today. Penguin Computing, an AMD reseller, announced that it has sold a 59.6 teraflops system to Sandia National Labs, one of the big US Department of Energy compute facilities. The 104-node system is based on AMD's A8-3850 APU and is plunked into the Altus 2A00 rack server. And yes, it can play Crysis. ®


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Document #1318952
USDOS – US Department of State (Author)
Switzerland is primarily a destination and, to a lesser extent, a transit country for women and children subjected to sex trafficking and children forced into begging and theft. Sex trafficking victims originate primarily from Central and Eastern Europe (Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine), though victims also come from Latin America (Brazil and the Dominican Republic), Asia (Thailand), and Africa (Nigeria, Guinea, and Cameroon). During the last year, Swiss government officials and NGOs reported an increase in the number of women in prostitution and children forced into begging and shoplifting from other parts of Europe, especially Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, many of whom were ethnic Roma. The majority of identified victims in sex trafficking were women between the ages of 17 and 25, although some victims were as young as 14-years-old. Most victims reported a significant history of exposure to violence and exploitation prior to their arrival in Switzerland. While the majority of trafficking victims were found in urban areas, police and NGOs have encountered victims in bars in rural areas in recent years. Swiss police encountered an increasing number of sex trafficking victims forced into prostitution in private apartments. There reportedly was forced labor in the domestic service sector, particularly in foreign diplomatic households in Geneva, and increasingly in agriculture, construction, hotels, and restaurants. Federal police assessed that the total number of potential trafficking victims residing in Switzerland was between 2,000 and 3,000. Most of the victims who were trafficked to Switzerland were recruited through family members or friends.
The Government of Switzerland does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. The Swiss government took strong and diverse efforts to prevent trafficking during the reporting period, including funding a campaign against child sex tourism, conducting a study on child begging, and forming bilateral working groups on trafficking with key source countries. Nevertheless, many Swiss cantons identified few children in begging as trafficking victims. Swiss efforts to protect trafficking victims improved with the introduction of measures to better protect witnesses; these measures were taken, in part, to lay the groundwork for Switzerland to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. Switzerland also took critical federal-level actions to enable the legislature eventually to pass a law prohibiting prostitution of all persons under 18. Nevertheless, until the third-party harboring, transport, or recruitment of a teenager in prostitution is illegal, Switzerland does not prohibit all forms of trafficking. In addition, improvements are needed in accountability for convicted traffickers; suspended sentences continue to be the norm.
Recommendations for Switzerland: Ensure the prohibition of the prostitution of all persons under 18-years-old nationwide; explore ways to increase the number of convicted traffickers who receive sentences commensurate with the gravity of this serious crime; increase the number of convicted traffickers serving time in prison; provide adequate funding for trafficking victim service providers and ensure there are trafficking-specific services for children and male victims; drawing from recommendations in the Union of Swiss Cities and City of Bern report on begging, strengthen trafficking victim services to children in begging in all cantons; identify more children in begging as trafficking victims; conduct a nationwide awareness campaign that addresses labor and sex trafficking and targets potential victims, the general public, as well as potential clients of the sex trade and consumers of products made and services provided through forced labor.
The Government of Switzerland continued to improve its anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts this reporting period, largely by moving forward toward the prohibition of child prostitution. Switzerland prohibits trafficking for most forms of sexual and labor exploitation through articles 182 and 195 of the Swiss penal code, which prescribe penalties of up to 20 years' imprisonment; these penalties are commensurate with penalties prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape. Swiss law does not, however, expressly prohibit the prostitution of children aged 16 and 17 under all circumstances throughout the country, leaving these children vulnerable to sex trafficking when a third party profits from a child in prostitution. In December 2011, the Federal Council approved an amendment to the Swiss penal code that would prohibit the prostitution of children aged 16 and 17, including the transportation or harboring of children in prostitution. This modification of the penal code is ongoing and is expected to be completed by late 2012 or early 2013. In the reporting period, several cantons also prohibited child prostitution.
The Swiss government continued to operate specialized anti-trafficking law enforcement units at the federal level. The Coordination Unit against the Trafficking of Persons and Smuggling of Migrants (KSMM) is the specialized unit of the federal office of police tasked with anti-trafficking policy, information exchange, cooperation, and training; it is not directly involved in criminal proceedings or investigations. Swiss authorities conducted 233 investigations into human trafficking and forced prostitution in 2011, in contrast to 159 investigations in 2010. At least 11 of those cases involved labor trafficking. During 2011, the government prosecuted approximately 50 suspected offenders for sex and labor trafficking offenses, and 69 for forced prostitution, compared to 62 prosecutions for sex and labor trafficking and 99 for forced prostitution in 2010. Swiss authorities convicted 14 sex trafficking offenders in 2011, compared with the 31 offenders convicted in 2009. Swiss courts continued to award suspended sentences to many convicted trafficking offenders; although some offenders received up to 4.5 years' imprisonment, at least three other convicted offenders received suspended sentences.
On April 1, the KSMM and the Swiss police institute held an advanced course for police and security forces on combating human trafficking. On October 27, the KSMM collaborated with a cantonal entity to organize an interdisciplinary seminar for judicial authorities in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. In June, Swiss authorities incorporated many of the principles of an anti-trafficking guide produced by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) into Swiss anti-trafficking training manuals. The guide included instruction on how to identify potential and presumed trafficking victims. During the reporting period, Swiss authorities cooperated with several countries and with Europol to investigate trafficking crimes. The government did not report the investigation, prosecution, conviction, or sentencing of any public officials for human trafficking complicity.
The Swiss federal government improved efforts to bring foreign diplomats who had committed domestic servitude in Switzerland to accountability. In September 2011, the federal court of the Canton of Geneva ruled that the consul general of Saudi Arabia resident in Geneva had violated the rights of two Indonesian domestic workers the consul general had employed for domestic work and childcare in 2005 and 2006. The consul general had forced the two women to work 14-hour days, paying them as little as $300 per month. The court ordered the Saudi diplomat and the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to reimburse the two domestic workers for unpaid wages totaling $82,000.
The Government of Switzerland improved its victim protection efforts during the reporting period, significantly enhancing protections for victims who chose to be witnesses in court proceedings. Under the Swiss Victims Assistance Law, all trafficking victims were entitled to shelter, free medical aid, living stipends, and psychological, social, and legal assistance from government-funded victim assistance centers. Although some facilities specialized in assistance to trafficking victims, most were shelters for victims of domestic violence. Trafficking victims were allowed to leave the shelters at will and without chaperones. In 2011, the leading anti-trafficking NGO offered specialized shelter in apartments exclusively for female trafficking victims. Availability of services to men was often limited in rural areas, but in urban areas, there were assistance centers with more specialized expertise available for trafficked men and boys. Male victims were occasionally accommodated at hotels or NGO-run shelters. The Swiss government also provided financial support to NGOs active in supporting trafficking victims.
Several of Switzerland's cantons have formal procedures for the identification of victims and their referral to protective services. Swiss government authorities referred approximately 53 percent of the trafficking victims to NGO assistance centers. Cantonal assistance centers identified at least 61 victims in 2011, compared with 90 victims in 2010. The country's principal anti-trafficking NGO received approximately half of its operational funding from the government. The lead NGO reported assisting 164 trafficking victims, 61 of whom were newly identified victims, compared with 179 sex trafficking victims and seven labor trafficking victims in 2010. Over 80 percent of these victims were sex trafficking victims. Federal and cantonal authorities compensated NGOs on a per capita basis for services provided to trafficking victims. Although the majority of victims served were women, one major anti-trafficking NGO offered assistance to a male sex trafficking victim.
The government encouraged victims of trafficking to participate in prosecutions; at least 100 victims of trafficking cooperated in the investigation or prosecution of trafficking offenders in 2011. The government implemented new witness protection measures for high-risk trials, including trafficking trials; the new measures provide the opportunity to obscure trafficking victims' physical appearances and relocate witnesses. The Swiss Federal Council also allocated over $2 million for witness protection facilities in 2012. Cantonal immigration offices granted 30-day stays of deportation to more than 19 trafficking victims in 2011 and issued 66 short-term residency permits to victims for the duration of legal proceedings against their traffickers, compared with 34 stays of deportation and 51 short-term residency permits in 2010. The government also granted thirteen trafficking victims long-term residency permits on personal hardship grounds, an increase from 10 victims in 2010. Although there were no reports of victims being penalized for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked, some victims not identified may have been treated as immigration violators. Swiss law enforcement took efforts to ensure that children in begging were treated as trafficking victims rather than criminals by making a strong policy statement on the proper treatment of children in forced begging.
The government significantly improved its trafficking prevention activities during the reporting period, adopting new regulations on the working conditions for domestic staff in diplomatic households and entering into bilateral anti-trafficking partnerships with governments of key source countries. The Swiss Federal council adopted the Private Household Employees Ordinance, which provided new guidelines for the working conditions for domestic staff employed by members of the diplomatic and international organization communities. The Swiss government strengthened relationships with source countries to address trafficking in persons, including establishing a bilateral working group with Romania on trafficking in persons. During the past two years, Switzerland has allocated the equivalent of $1.5 million to support the code of conduct for the tourism industry aimed at reducing child sex tourism. In May and November 2011, Swiss authorities also conducted workshops on combating child sex tourism. Nevertheless, the Swiss did not prosecute any child sex tourism cases in 2011. The Swiss government gave significant funds to anti-trafficking programs internationally, including in Africa, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. In order to raise public awareness, the Swiss government co-funded the production of a movie about trafficking in Switzerland. The police coordinating unit collaborated with the union of Swiss cities and the Bern police to conduct a study and report on organized child begging, which concluded that children begging and stealing should be considered victims of trafficking rather than criminals and afforded protection. The government provided specific anti-trafficking training for all Swiss military personnel prior to their deployment abroad on international peacekeeping missions.
Trafficking in Persons Report 2012 - Albania (Periodical Report, English)


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Norway's largest and longest pipeline, laid by the vessel Saipem Castorone, reached the Johan Sverdrup field in the North Sea.
Late last week the last pipe of what is now Norway's longest and largest oil pipeline was installed right next to the riser platform at the Johan Sverdrup field. The 36-inch pipeline extends 283 km from the Mongstad oil terminal outside Bergen to the giant field in the North Sea.
"We have together with our supplier Saipem succeeded in laying the oil pipeline to Johan Sverdrup without any serious incidents. It has been a significant operation, involving more than 600 people at the most, who have welded together over 23,000 pipes to create what has now become Norway's largest and longest oil pipeline," says Geir Bjaanes, responsible for subsea, power and pipelines for the Johan Sverdrup project.
"The oil pipeline plays a really central role in the project. When the Johan Sverdrup field produces at peak, 660,000 barrels of oil valued at more than NOK 350 million each day, will flow daily into Mongstad," says Bjaanes.
The vessel Saipem Castorone began pipelaying operations at Mongstad in late April this year. After, the pipeline was laid through the Fensfjord before the vessel set course for the Johan Sverdrup field. The operations have been executed with high quality and no serious incidents.
With the oil pipeline installed Saipem Castorone is now getting ready for the next stage – laying the 156 km long gas pipeline that will extend from the Johan Sverdrup field to the Statpipe pipeline, from where gas from the field will eventually be shipped to Kårstø. The pipeline installation operations are expected to be completed during the autumn.
"We have spent many years with Saipem planning these operations. We're all very aware of the size of the task, with several months at sea with a significant installation scope. The key is to follow the thorough plans that we've prepared and maintain our significant focus on HSE along the way, until also the gas pipeline is in place," says Tor Kåre Egelandsdal, responsible for the pipeline installation and the contract with Saipem.
When the pipeline operations are complete, the 2018 Johan Sverdrup installation campaign will be over. With three jackets, two topsides, one bridge, over 400 km of pipelines, and 200 km of power cables, the 2018 campaign is probably the busiest installation campaign ever for a project on the Norwegian continental shelf. And in 2019 the last two topsides and remaining bridges will be put in place before startup of the first phase of the Johan Sverdrup development expected in November next year.


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Like religion, the game of baseball is founded on aspirations rarely met. It generates far more failure than fulfillment.
Andy Petttittte vs. Do(u)g Fister.
To those pulling for an A's-O's ALCS: Oh well. Like oxygen in the air we breathe, the Yankees are back in the ALCS, against the Tigers, who are led by Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder (The One That Got Away). Which team will win the right to play the Cardinals in the 2012 World Series?
*from "The Crisis Manager," a profile of Yankees manager Joe Girardi in the Sept. 24, 2012, issue of The New Yorker


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
Water is a fundamental human need. It is obviously essential for hydration and for food production - but sanitation is an equally important use of water.
Over the last several months I have been working with City staff to create a program to assist those households who need water bill assistance. If you are struggling with paying your water bill in this challenging economy, the loveDROP program may be a resource for you. Our main goal is to prevent disconnection of water to the residents in the City of Miramar. This program includes extended payment plans, financial literacy support, community resources and other incentives. To learn more about the options available to you or to apply for help please contact: 954-602-4357.
Just like a reservoir is filled drop by drop, we need your help. Be the DROP (Donors Restoring Other People) that will not only restore safe, clean water to those needing assistance, but will also help to restore their dignity and put them on the path to working towards long term self-sufficiency.
1) Miramar residents who wish to contribute, can do so by adding a donation to their monthly City of Miramar water bill payment. You can also send a donation to: loveDROP program, City of Miramar, Finance Dept./Cashier's Office, 2300 Civil Center Place, Miramar, FL. 33025
2) If you are not a customer and wish to contribute, please mail your donation to: loveDROP program, City of Miramar, Finance Dept./Cashier's Office, 2300 Civil Center Place, Miramar, FL. 33025. Please write "loveDROP Donation" in the memo section of your check. Donations can be made as a one time gift or as a monthly donation of any amount.
You can change a life for a little as $1 a month!
3) If you are interested to learn more about the program or want to donate click here to send an email to the Vice Mayor's office and someone will contact you.


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Last week we had a pretty strong winter storm which knocked out our power. We have an electric stove which of course puts a cramp in cooking. However i do have a fire place and cast iron, so i tried cooking with the fire. Haveing never done this before I decided a stew would be easiest. So i chucked a bunch of stuff in the dutch oven, put it close to the fire and let it sit for hours. In the end it needed a long time to be done (5 hoursish) but it turned out ok.
Anyway, does anyone have some suggestions as to the type of food that might led itself well to cooking on actual fire? we get a lot of storms and we loose power for days at a time.


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Microsoft to hold mysterious media event on June 18
Microsoft has sent e-mail invitations to reporters far and wide about a mysterious announcement in Los Angeles on June 18.
(Yeah, that's Monday. And this is Thursday. Four days from now.)
"You are invited to an exclusive Microsoft media event in Los Angeles, California on Monday, June 18th. Doors open at 3:30 PM," reads the invitation from Microsoft's Waggener Edstrom PR agency.
I don't know what this might be.
One guess: Perhaps this is the Xbox Music unveiling. Xbox Music is the replacement for Microsoft's Zune Music service. Microsoft officials noted the importance of Xbox Music during the recent E3 conference when they shared an overview of their SmartGlass Xbox companion app, but didn't discuss specifics about plans for ZunePass, multiplatform support or other Xbox music/video futures.
The reason I'm guessing this: It's in Los Angeles, so most likely entertainment related. And it's two days before Microsoft's day-long Windows Phone summit in San Francisco, where the Softies are expected to finally shed official light on what's in Windows Phone OS 8, a k a "Apollo."
But another guess: Maybe this is Microsoft advertising related. The Cannes Lions ad-fest is next week. Could this be some kind of a roll up of how Microsoft is helping partners bring new kinds of ads to even more of its properties? (Yay?)
But (inside baseball alert), Edelman is MIcrosoft's PR agency for Xbox. Waggener is Microsoft's agency for Windows and Windows Phone, among other accounts.This invitation came from Waggener.
Other guesses? (And don't say Yammer acquisition, unless you have a good reason why the pair would make that announcement in Los Angeles)
Update: A couple of other sites (AllThingsD, for one) believe the announcement might be more of a glimpse of Windows RT tablets and services running on them. The timing kind of makes sense, as Windows RT, the operating system running on these tablets, will share a number of the core elements that are expected to be part of Windows Phone 8 -- which Microsoft is going to detail on June 20. Still, why Los Angeles, for a Windows RT media event, I wonder.... And why so late in the day (3:30 pm PT)...
Update No. 2: Another interesting (and plausible-sounding guess) comes from Brier Dudley at The Seattle Times. He thinks Microsoft is either buying outright or partnering with Hulu.


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Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
NEW YORK (AP) — On the first night of her book tour, Amy Schumer had a lot to talk about besides her book.
Like what is the story with some of those couples on "The Bachelor?"
"They spent literally six hours together, and they don't know anything. They're like 'Will you marry me?' and then on the way out they're like 'What like what religion are you?'" she joked Tuesday as she spoke before more than 200 fans at the Barnes & Noble in Manhattan's Union Square.
And why are so many funny people from Long Island?
"The only way I can describe it is that at one point Long Island tried to secede," she said. Long Island, home to Schumer and Jerry Seinfeld among others, instills a "level of entitlement and overconfidence" that is "perfect for standup," she added.
Schumer's "The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo" is a collection of very personal essays, with stories of sex, childhood, show business and relationships, along with lists of things that drive her crazy (couples who work out together) and things she loves (telling a new joke, scones and sex "because it's pretty great and should be mentioned"). Schumer received a reported $8-10 million for the book, and the investment so far is paying off for the Simon & Schuster imprint Gallery Books. As of late Tuesday, "The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo" was No. 2 on Amazon.com's best-seller list, trailing only "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two."
Interviewed by Comedy Central star Abbi Jacobson, Schumer said that she intended from the start to write the most candid book she could, drawing upon journals she began as a teenager. Schumer said she had been asked over the years to contribute pieces to magazines, perhaps advice on how to balance work and private life. But she laughed at the idea of advising others. "It's amazing I'm allowed in public. I have nothing to teach anybody or tell anybody," she said.
Schumer described herself as more vulnerable than her edgy comedy suggests. Noting the tattoo revealed for all on the book's back cover, she said it was a "good example" of her "trying to be hard." Her book can be bleak, and even tragic, as she recalls the shooting last summer in a Louisiana theater during a screening of her hit comedy "Trainwreck." Schumer remembered being described by one critic as "melancholy," but she agreed with Jacobson's observation that "The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo" is the work of an optimist.
"I'm not foolishly optimistic," she said. "I'm realistically optimistic. "I think things are going to be ok."
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Career Exploration
A career as a financial advisor can be one of the most rewarding career paths a person can take. It provides professional and personal flexibility, the ability to define the career path you want, and make a real difference in the lives of the people in your community. However, for all it has to offer, it is as challenging as it is rewarding. To be a successful financial advisor requires an entrepreneurial spirit, the motivation and discipline to build your own business, and the ability to continue learning and growing.
We want to help you decide if this is the right career and the right firm for you. Together, we will go through a mutual career exploration process to make sure this career, and our firm are the right fit for you.
The career exploration process includes:
- An initial discussion around your goals, motivations, and life objectives to see if we can help you achieve your career objectives.
- Explore assessment tools that will provide you with third party feedback.
- Meet with numerous firm associates and key management team leaders who are positioned to guide your success track.
- Sample the most important parts of the career, helping you determine whether you are comfortable with what is required to build your practice.
We invite you to explore the opportunity to continue your career with us. For more information about a career in financial services, or to take the next step toward a more rewarding career, contact us.


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With just 5 days left until the launch of 2012 Topps Series 2, collectors are readying for another wave of the GOLD RUSH.
This year's Topps Baseball product is nothing short of "GOLDEN†with The Golden Giveaway, Golden Moments inserts, Gold parallels, real Gold cards and more. And leading up to launch, Topps has some special announcements to make regarding this special release…
Including this one!
Topps is pleased to announce it is offering a Gold Rush Wrapper Redemption program to support the launch of 2012 Topps Baseball Series 2 (Please read the following carefully and follow guidelines to ensure you receive packs)
This exclusive set continues with 50 new subjects and selected autographs from such stars Bryce Harper, Yu Darvish, Ken Griffey Jr. and more!
Collectors sending in 50 HOBBY wrappers (or 14 HTA Jumbo wrappers) of 2012 Topps Baseball will receive a 5-card cello pack of exclusive GOLD RUSH cards.
And now, Topps has opened up the program to RETAIL wrappers as well! Send in 50 retail wrappers (12-card packs only) and also receive a 5-card GOLD RUSH pack. There are an incremental 10,000 5-card packs available for Retail in addition to the 10,000 Hobby packs.
Following are guidelines for the program,
- All packages must be postmarked no earlier than June 6th, 2012.
- Hobby and Retail wrappers must be packaged and sent to Topps separately and clearly marked "HOBBY†or "RETAIL†on outside of package. Combined Retail and Hobby packages will not be accepted.
- Topps will accept 2012 Topps Baseball Series 2 wrappers only. This is limited to HOBBY, HTA and 12-card RETAIL wrappers.
- Each household will be limited to receive a total of TEN 5-card packs.
- This program is valid while supplies last.
Packages should be sent to:
Gold Rush
Duryea, PA 18642
For real time updates, follow us on facebook and twitter @toppscards, because these will go QUICKLY!
Related Posts


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Meanings W page 8
List of Chinese symbols starting with W, page 8
The list for meanings of Chinese characters starting with W has been divided into a few pages, but if you want to see them all, please click here.
I wish you like my website and go on clicking and clicking on its other sections!
Thank you!


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There's mounting evidence that poverty is not just a condition; it's often a trap. Children who grow up poor are more likely to get sick, more likely to die, and far more likely to fail in school - especially if they've suffered extreme poverty before the age of six.
"The Forgotten 14 Million" explores why both government and the free market are failing the most vulnerable young Americans.
Transcripts Falling Behind in Kentucky One in five American children lives in families with incomes below the federal poverty line.
Schooling Poor Kids in Minneapolis Can schools with an overwhelming number of poor children succeed?
Children in the Fields America's farm industry employs thousands of children in dangerous conditions.
The Politics of Child Poverty Why do Americans tolerate a high rate of child poverty?
Susan Stamberg, Broadcast Host
Talk back in the MPR Forum! How would you address child poverty? Should the government be more involved, or Americans more self-reliant? Answer these questions or ask your own on our interactive bulletin board.
Related Links


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Tuberculosis: Introduction
In an age when we believe that we have the tools to conquer most diseases, the ancient scourge of tuberculosis (TB) still causes 2 million deaths a year worldwide—more than any other single infectious organism—reminding us that we still have a long way to go. Even equipped with drugs to treat TB effectively, we haven't managed to eradicate this deadly infection.
What is the history of tuberculosis? And how has it managed to survive for so long? This section will answer these questions, plus describe the symptoms and treatment options available for TB.
An Ancient Scourge That Still Kills Today
Disease Diction
Tuberculosis was first formally described by Greek physician Hippocrates around 460 B.C.E. He called it phthsis which is the Greek word for consumption, because it described the way the disease consumed its victims. Consumption was the most widespread disease of the time, and most of its victims died. The word consumption was used to describe the disease until 1882, when the tuberculosis bacteria was identified as the cause of the disease.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacteria that causes tuberculosis, has been around for centuries. Recently, fragments of the spinal columns from Egyptian mummies from 2400 B.C.E. were found to have definite signs of the ravages of this terrible disease. Also called consumption, TB was identified as the most widespread disease in ancient Greece, where it was almost always fatal. But it wasn't until centuries later that the first descriptions of the disease began to appear. Starting in the late seventeenth century, physicians began to identify changes in the lungs common in all consumptive, or TB, patients. At the same time, the earliest references to the fact that the disease was infectious began to appear.
In 1720, the English doctor Benjamin Marten was the first to state that TB could be caused by "wonderfully minute living creatures." He went further to say that it was likely that ongoing contact with a consumptive patient could cause a healthy person to get sick. Although Marten's findings didn't help to cure TB, they did help people to better understand the disease.
The sanitorium, which was introduced in the mid-nineteenth century, was the first positive step to contain TB. Hermann Brehmer, a Silesian botany student who had TB, was told by his doctor to find a healthy climate. He moved to the Himalayas and continued his studies. He survived his bout with the illness, and after he received his doctorate, built an institution in Gorbersdorf, where TB patients could come to recuperate. They received good nutrition and were outside in fresh air most of the day. This became the model for the development of sanitoria around the world.
Antigen Alert
Tuberculosis is spread through the air, so everyone is at some risk.
In 1865, French military doctor Jean-Antoine Villemin demonstrated that TB could be passed from people to cattle and from cattle to rabbits. In 1882, Robert Koch discovered a staining technique that allowed him to see the bacteria that cause TB under a microscope.
Until the introduction of surgical techniques to remove infected tissue and the development of x-rays to monitor the disease, doctors didn't have great tools to treat TB. TB patients could be isolated, which helped reduce the spread of the disease, but treating it remained a challenge.
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dangerous Diseases and Epidemics © 2002 by David Perlin, Ph.D., and Ann Cohen. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.


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March 18, 2022 – The deadline for property owners to remove winter decorations, such as evergreen blankets and wreaths from plots at the Midland Cemetery is Thursday, April 1. After that date, any remaining winter decorations will be removed and discarded by Midland Cemetery personnel.
Property owners are also reminded that all artificial flowers and decorations must be placed in a suitable, unbreakable container such as a pot or vase. Placing items directly into or on the ground is prohibited. Cemetery personnel will remove and dispose of decorations not meeting these requirements.
In an effort to maintain the appearance and upkeep of the Midland Cemetery, the Midland City Council adopted cemetery rules that outline specific rules and regulations regarding maintenance, allowable items, and time frames for placing and removing grave decorations within the cemetery. A complete copy of the Midland Cemetery Rules is available, upon request, at the Cemetery Office on the grounds of the cemetery, or at the City Clerk's Office located at Midland City Hall. The rules are also posted on the City's website, at www.cityofmidlandmi.gov/cemetery.
For questions or further information, contact the Parks and Recreation Department at 989-837-6930


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Ronald Reagan on Principles & ValuesPresident of the U.S., 1981-1989; Republican Governor (CA) | |
And the other, an oppressive government that would lead America down a darker, less free path. I'm no Ronald Reagan and this is a different moment in time, but I believe with all my heart and soul, that we face another time for choosing, one that will have profound consequences for the Republican Party, and more importantly, for our country.
I say this, in part, because of my conviction that America is poised to lead the world for another century. If we make the right choices [against Donald Trump], America's future will be even better than our past and better than our present.
Our federal government regulates everything and anything. How much water goes into you commode. How much water comes out of your showerhead. The temperature of the water in your washing machine. How many miles to the gallon your car must get.
"Are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions.
"But now, some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that American is freedom--and freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs protection."
The actor responsible for those words was Ronald Reagan, in his farewell address to the nation in 1989. His warnings still ring with truth.
One of the precipitating events occurred in 1988, when the university had ended the core humanities curriculum, called Western Civilization. Western Civ had been deemed to be about "dead white men" and therefore unacceptable for a multiethnic, multiracial, multigendered campus. The course had been replaced with Culture, Ideas and Values, also known as CIV, without the offending "Western" preceding it. CIV's curriculum required race at least one book by a "woman of color."
The rifts became chasms when Stanford rejected the request of the family of Ronald Reagan to establish his presidential library on campus. Ostensibly, the excuse was traffic congestion at the site, but everyone knew that it had been the agitation of a small but vocal group that forced the university to turn down the library.
Perhaps ironically, every Republican likes to claim the mantle of Reagan these days, sometimes out of genuine admiration, other times, pure politics. I'll always remember that much like my father today, Reagan in 1976 was considered by many establishment types to be outside the "mainstream" of the Republican Party.
At the 1976 convention, my father was one of only four US Congressmen to support Reagan over a sitting Republican president.
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States when men were free."
There was a lot of speculation about whom Reagan would choose for vice president. At the convention in Detroit, he was in discussion with Gerald Ford about some sort of co-presidency. They agreed it wouldn't work--a good decision. Then Reagan called Dad and asked him to be his running mate--an even better decision.
On election night, the Reagan-Bush ticket crushed Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale 489-49 in the Electoral College.
Reagan used this strategy throughout his political career. He had defeated a popular incumbent California governor by more than a million votes because Reagan boldly and clearly declared his opposition to more spending and higher taxes, and his commitment to bringing efficiency and eliminating waste in Sacramento.
He again contrasted his clear, profound beliefs with the temporizing "realism" of the Republican establishment in his 1976 presidential primary campaign against President Jerry Ford. And in 1980 Reagan again offered Americans a clear choice between his vision of a resurgent America and President Carter's focus on adapting to American decline.
It was a huge success. We raised $3.1 million--more than all the Victory Committee in America combined. The Reagan national campaign supporte our efforts with a modest TV buy and a more-than-adequate number of appearances by Reagan and his home state vice presidential running mate, George H. W. Bush. In Texas, Reagan-Bush walloped Carter-Mondale by nearly 14 points.
The county committees and coalition groups were then drawn into an elaborate voter identification and get-out-the-vote operation from more than a hundred phone centers and many more local headquarters. We put special efforts into precincts where past election returns provided evidence of lots of swing voters and even focused on Democratic primary voters in precincts where conservative Democrats ran well.
It was a huge success. We raised $3.1 million. The Reagan national campaign supported our efforts with a modest TV buy and a more-than-adequate number of appearances by Reagan & Bush. In Texas, Reagan-Bush walloped Carter-Mondale by nearly 14 points.
To be clear, inclusion does not mean lack of principles. In 1975, after the post-Watergate Democratic landslide, Ronald Reagan encouraged conservatives to raise a "banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors." We once again need bold colors to reinvigorate our movement. Our solutions must be clear enough and bold enough to make it evident how different we are than the Left and to cut through the mainstream media's leftwing bias and trivial obsessions.
What would have happened had I gained the nomination? Frankly, I don't know that I could have beaten Ronald Reagan. He was more than a candidate at that time; he was a movement.
After the election, I phoned President Carter on December 15, as his administration was nearing its end. He asked me if I was looking forward to the new administration. I answered, "Not one day sooner than they take office."
"Mrs. Reagan was a precise and demanding woman," recalls the Reagan aide over administration of the White House. "Her sole interest was the advancement of her husband's agenda." It turned out that most of Nancy's advice was sound. As she explained it, "As much as I love Ronnie, I'll admit he does have at least one fault: He can be naive about the people around him. Ronnie only tends to think well of people. While that's a fine quality in a friend, it can get you into trouble in politics."
To the list of transformative presidents we must add one conservative, Ronald Reagan. After the depressing years of the 1970s, people were ready for "morning in America." Reagan had the gift of leadership, and behind Reagan were armies of strategists able to turn a personal triumph into a systematic ideological reversal. Reagan succeeded in transforming public assumptions from the general premise that government should help to the idea that government was likely to make matters worse. Thanks to very effective Republican campaign machinery, ideological zeal, and party unity, that presumption held for another two decades--until it was ultimately discredited by events.
Boulware gave Reagan books by great free-market thinkers like Hayek & Friedman. Reagan spent hours reading them on the train, which is how he travelled in those days, and this prepared him to talk to blue collar workers about the American system.
Boulware believed every issue had an "M"--the point where the majority opinion on that topic was found. If you could "move the M," you moved the entire framework of the debate. Reagan did not argue within the framework of the leftwing elites. He "moved the M," changing the fundamental framework of the debate and requiring people to think about issues in a completely new way.
The irony was that Bill was an avid student of history and had read at least 10 presidential biographies for guidance on successful transitions. He cited Ronald Reagan's disciplined approach as his model, specifying that he would "follow Reagan's pattern in establishing a limited set of priorities." George Stephanopoulos said that, like Reagan, his boss didn't want to get "sidetracked by side issues." Indeed, the Reagan transition was a paragon of efficiency and planning that began 7 months before Election Day, with nearly 1,000 people working on it. By contrast, the Clinton transition sometimes seemed to have a staff of two--Bill & Hillary--and their failure to delegate slowed the appointment process to a crawl
Until that point--people forget this today--the race was neck-and-neck. In one of the debates of the 1980 campaign, Reagan wasn't brilliant. But he was fine. He didn't fumble lines. But his most brilliant move was the way he dealt with Carter's attempt to attack him as a dangerous ideologue. When Carter suggested that Reagan had tried to discontinue Medicare, Reagan looked directly at the president, and laughed, "There you go again..." That was it. Carter looked like a fool.
George Bush, mumbling, when he was asked why he should be elected to the highest office in the land, said, "It's not a job. It's a challenge. And I am idealistic. I'm driven to contribute something."
In the White House situation room, George Bush, who had been told Reagan would recover, left the President's chair empty and sat in his own seat. "The President is still the President," he said. His graceful comportment contrasted sharply with that of the Secretary of State, who had raised hackles earlier in the day by dashing to the lectern in the White House pressroom and declaring himself in charge.
Reagan accepted his honorary degree, [and endorsed the Brady Bill], named in honor of his press secretary James Brady, who was forever disabled by the handgun aimed at the President and his party in 1981.
The Republican Party in the US had been masterful at creating a groundswell for conservative ideas after Senator Barry Goldwater's resounding defeat by Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 Presidential election. Shocked by the margin of their party's losses, several Republican multimillionaires embarked on a strategy to seed conservative, even right-wing political philosophy, and to develop and advance specific policies to further it. They funded think tanks, endowed professorships and seminars and developed media channels for communicating ideas and opinions.
It is important to stress that a significant difference exists between Reagan & Clinton. Reagan did not repeatedly demonstrate the effects of his background as an ACOA. Clinton, on the other hand, did.
One can draw an interesting parallel between Reagan and Clinton. Reagan's mother dealt directly with his father's alcoholism. In the case of Clinton, denial of the problem and of anything unpleasant was the means by which the alcoholism was avoided.
One might compare my task to that of a film editor who has to integrate a few hundred close-focus frames with 20,000 feet of gauzy long shots. But biography is sometimes freer than film to rise to such challenges.
Any quest for the real Dutch is bound to be an exercise in frustration. Hence the dullness of many of the books that have been written about him, their inability to capture his magic. Since Reagan has primarily been a phenomenon of the American imagination, he can only be re-created by an extension of biographical technique.
�Dutch is days away from publication. but in the meantime, its publisher, Random House, is guarding copies zealously, party for fear of a controversy about Mr. Morris�s writing style, which employs an unconventional technique that disturbs historians and former Reagan officials who have heard about it.
Simply put, Mr. Morris has invented a character: himself. For literary purposes, the author, 59, has essentially transformed his own life. revised his age, birthplace, identity and resume to become a Zeligesque narrator who is a Reagan contemporary.�
NY Times review, �Is Dutch flawed by Mr. Morris�s technique? To judge from the book�s extensive notes, it in no way distorts the record of Mr. Reagan�s life, only the viewpoint from which it is told.�
Dutch, 81 years old, stepped to the podium to give a short speech of thanks. �God bless, the United States of America.� He said it so reverently that I wondered if love for country was not Reagan�s one and only passion.
Afterward, in the receiving line, he took my hand and nodded with patent lack of recognition. Yet the following afternoon, his retirement chief of staff called to say that Reagan had remarked, �I saw Edmund in the reception line. I think he is waiting for me to die before he publishes his book.�
Even in his dotage, he had seen something in my gaze that I did not want to acknowledge.
At first it was difficult to believe that such a management policy could be intentional. Mixed results were inevitable; disaster was possible--even probable. I found myself in an environment in which there seemed to be no center, no structure, no agreed policy. I struggled to understand a reality that was far removed from what I had always imagined life in a high government post to be.
Never did President Reagan really lose his temper or utter a rude of unkind word. Never did he issue a direct order, although I, at least, sometimes devoutly wished that he would. He listened, acquiesced, played his role, and waited for the next act to be written.
They reached George Washington University Hospital in three-and-a-half minutes. Reagan made himself get out and walk toward the emergency-room door. Just inside, out of public sight, his knees buckled.
[He was wheeled into surgery] with his wit intact: �Honey, I forgot to duck,� �Who�s minding the store?� and-to the solemn company costumed in surgical greens-�Please tell me you�re Republicans.�
The President�s chest was closed at 5:24 PM. He had �sailed through� surgery, the hospital announced, and was an �excellent physical specimen.� On April 11, the President was well enough to walk out of the hospital.
Many establishment Republicans in Washington scoffed at Reagan's candidacy.
What the mainstream politicos did not understand about Ronald Reagan was that he was running for a reason--not for the money and not for fame (he already had both). He was running to change the country.
The speaker on the radio was CNBC reporter Rick Santelli, on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, in his now-famous rant that sparked the modern Tea Party movement. The next day I started organizing.
I had never organized a protest before. I had never even been to a protest. But I had been active online. And I did understand politics. Most important, I knew that the time had come to do something to save the country. I was reminded, deep inside, of something that Ronald Reagan said in his 2nd inaugural address: "If not us, who? And if not now, when?" As I looked at my young children, I could not shake the thought that this was my personal responsibility as a citizen and as a mother.
As Ronald Reagan always liked to say, he didn't leave the Democratic Party--the Democratic Party left him. Now I too knew the feeling.
Indeed, during the late seventies, Marcus and I grew increasingly attracted to Reagan and his conservative philosophy. We loved it when he said that Americans wanted a conservatism of bright colors, not pale pastels--we sure did. That is, we wanted someone who would unabashedly take the fight directly to the economic declinists, the foreign policy defeatists, and the anti-family relativists who seemed at the time to dominate both parties. Republicans of the "me-too" persuasion held no appeal to us. We wanted a GOP that would fight to make real change. So we liked Reagan.
Reagan won the hearts and votes of the American people by shifting the debate from a myriad of confusing political issues to values Americans recognized immediately as their own. By reminding Americans of our goodness and strengths, Reagan held up a mirror and helped us see ourselves at our very best. Reagan made us believe we could get across any river on our own. Reagan convinced Americans that freedom would work for everyone and that the big-government welfare state was just a fox clothed in deceptive political promises.
Unfortunately the cause of freedom has had too few articulate champions since Ronald Reagan.
Reagan knew every generation of Americans must make a choice between freedom and socialism. Today that choice confronts Americans more urgently than ever before.
When Carter was president, the prevailing mood was malaise. Nobody could run the country, you just did the best you could not to make it worse. When Reagan became president, all of a sudden people started to believe things could be accomplished. The Soviet Union could be stared down and spoken about in plain language, unions could be forced to behave responsibly, taxes could be reduced in the hope that individuals would make smarter decisions for their dollars than the federal government. The feeling was that the president was very much in charge. Reagan understood that much of that was optimism. It did not mean that leaders ran around cheerful all the time, but that they found ways to build morale.
Common sense told us that when you put a big tax on something, the people will produce less of it. So, we cut the people's tax rates, and the people produced more. Common sense also told us that to preserve the peace, we'd have to become strong again after years of weakness and confusion. So, we rebuilt our defenses.
As long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours.
And how stands the city? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than 8 years ago. And after 200 years, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge; her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.
I�ve spoken of the Shining city all my political life, but I don�t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it.
My friends, we did it. we made the City freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all not bad, not bad at all. And so, goodbye. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.�
�What you see is what you get,� several of his intimates had warned me, when I asked about his hidden depths. Nevertheless, I could not believe how little one got and how shallow those depths appeared to be. At 75, he was taciturn much of the time, conducting meetings with only the barest of introductory remarks, which he would read from typed cards. When he was asked direct questions, he would refer again to his cards, and if there was nothing there to help him, he would smile, shrug, and let Shultz or Regan answer.
Poor decent, dull Walter Mondale realized Reagan [was unbeatable] when he debated him, and was famously rolled for trying to raise the age issue. �I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent�s youth and inexperience,� Reagan promised. Even Mondale had to laugh.
Americans favored Reagan because for four years he�d kept, or fought to keep, all his campaign promises. He had cut taxes, harnessed government, revived the economy, freed the entrepreneur, and cursed the ungodly. The ship of state was realigned, empowered, larger, prouder-and for those reasons less considerate of people who sailed steerage, or of powers that got in its way.
Isn�t our choice really one of up or down? Down through statism, the welfare state, more and more government largesse, accompanied always by more government authority, less individual liberty and ultimately totalitarianism, always advanced as for our own good. The alternative is the dream conceived by our Founding Fathers, up to the ultimate in individual freedom, consistent with an orderly society.We don�t celebrate Dependence Day on the Fourth of July. We celebrate Independence Day.
Similarly, in his "Evil Empire" speech in 1983, Reagan declared, "The source of our strength in the quest for human freedom is not material, but spiritual. And because it knows no limitation, it must terrify and ultimately triumph over those who would enslave their fellow man." When human freedom and dignity were under assault during the Cold War, Reagan knew that the spiritual nature of man and the freedom to know God where central to defining humanity and decisive in defeating tyranny.
"Soviet leaders have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is that which will further their cause, which is world revolution. Lenin, their guiding spirit, said in 1920 that they repudiate all morality tha proceeds from supernatural ideas--that's their name for religion--or ideas that are outside class conceptions...They must be made to understand we will never abandon our belief in God. Yes, let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in totalitarian darkness--pray they will discover the joy of knowing God."
What drove his critics crazy wasn't that Reagan pointed out the godlessness of the Soviet system, but that he pointed out the presence of God in ours.
In that speech Winthrop predicted that the new land would become a "city upon a Hill." Those words, of course, appear in the Book of Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus called upon his flock to be "the light of the world," a shining example.
More than three centuries later, those words would also inspire Ronald Reagan--he believed that America must always be that City on a Hill. In 1974, at the first Conservative Political Action Conference, held, interestingly enough, in Washington, D.C., the Gipper declared that American was "the last best hope of man on earth." He sure was right!
I remember when Ronald Reagan embraced these spiritual leaders well known within the community of faith but largely unknown by the general public and told them, "I'm not here for you to endorse me; I'm here to endorse YOU." In the elections since 1980, when this constituency was energized and turned loose, they made the difference in elections. When they were discouraged or driven to the sidelines, elections were lost.
I read the Bible. I travel with one, in fact, and there's never a time that I don't have a page or a passage bookmarked or flagged for my ready reference. Why? Because the Bible always has something new to teach me, some new way to look at the world. It's accessible, and at the same time it's beyond knowing, and I can't for the life of me figure how anyone gets along without it.
[The evangelical community] wanted their president to be a godly man. Jimmy Carter had talked about being born again but had disappointed most evangelicals. Though Carter at least made faith in office fashionable, Ronald Reagan was their true hero. He talked about divine destiny, the rights of the unborn, and the influence of the Bible on his life. But despite his eight years in office, th Reagan administration had not made much progress on the issues religious conservatives cared about. They wanted a man who would use the presidency as a bully pulpit, face down the liberals, and make the country safe for faith once again.