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Doris Edwards needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 44 designs submitted by 10 freelance designers.
We make creative video to help businesses grow. Our slogan is "Explain Tell and Teach Your Business Online"
We produce short video boosters on any subject related to a business' products or services. Our videos represent valuable and relevant content that may be integrated in 4 key areas of any business:
1) as a customer relationship tool (existing clients)
2) as content for a marketing campain (new clients)
3) as an additional revenue stream (new product)
4) maintain skills levels
Please refer to home page of http://www.highonvideo.com for above points and http://www.highonvideo.com/pricing for some video examples..
We target businesses rather than individuals.
We presently have a mixed bag of clients: multinationals (banks, insurances) and medium-sized to smaller companies, plus some associations/charities/political party.
We are moving into a new market but above clients are still targeted. Our new market is helping clients upgrade their Internet presence (usually static websites) to a new level by profiting from Internet's new marketing, communication, advertising opportunities.
The people we will be talking to:
In bigger companies the responsibles for Communication, Marketing, Social Media
In smaller companies the business owners
In associations whoever is responsible for communication, marketing
Please feel free to be creative. The "high on video" term opens many possibilities :-)
Given our target audience, we can affort to be provocative, but at the same time conveying professionalism.
Also, we have at this stage no preference for any colours. Our WordPress blog can be adapted to whatever logo we finally choose.
It would be good if the logo would integrate into a banner that spans the whole width of the page. Background if possible "degraded"
Please see http://www.copyblogger.com and http://www.scribeseo.com for backgrounds. Don't refer to these two sites for logos which are a bit boring.
Less boring, might be an idea = http://www.foolishadventure.com (but I prefer that the banner would span across the whole width)
Thank you in advance for your creative genius :-)
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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|Statement by Ambassador Wang Min at the Security Council Open Debate on Conflict Prevention and Natural Resources
Mr. President,
I thank Deputy Secretary-General Eliasson for his briefing. We have also listened attentively to the interventions of Mr. Annan, Managing Director Anstey of the World Bank and Under-Secretary-General Grynspan.
Natural resources form the material foundation for human survival and development and play an important role in promoting countries' economic growth and development. However, in some conflict regions, the illegal exploitation of and trafficking in natural resources and their irrational use and distribution will likely become major factors in triggering and fuelling conflict.
Addressing the problem of conflict resulting from the abuse of resources requires a multifaceted industrial mix and a pattern of sustainable economic growth, which are needed for the promotion of sustainable development. On the other hand, the factors leading to armed conflict are numerous and complex, involving political, economic, social and other factors. Nevertheless, natural resources are not a direct cause of conflict.
Allow me to stress the following points on the relationship between natural resources and the prevention of conflict. First, the domestic sovereignty of States over their natural resources must be respected. All States possess inalienable sovereignty over the resources within their territory. Given the rights and duties of those countries, which include managing and using their natural resources, the exploration, development and use of those resources should be determined by the people of the country itself. The international community should respect that principle in conducting resource-related cooperation. In particular, it should respect the ownership by the country in conflict in efforts to improve the management and use of resources and to ensure that the people of the country concerned will benefit from them.
Secondly, United Nations agencies and programmes should enhance coordination in that area and together assist conflict-affected countries to improve the management of their natural resources. They should also work within their respective remits and avoid repetition. China supports the efforts of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council, interalia, in continuing the discussion on the management and use of natural resources. In formulating integrated peacebuilding strategies, the Peacebuilding Commission should bolster the important area of natural resources management in post-conflict resolution and reconstruction. The United Nations special missions and various specialized United Nations development agencies should integrate their resources and synergies in order to support countries in conflict in their efforts to strengthen capacity-building and the rational development and use of their natural resources.
Thirdly, from its vantage point, the Council should play its natural role in carrying out its responsibilities. As the main United Nations organ responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security, the Council should place greater reliance on mediation and good offices efforts. The Council must prioritize the prevention and resolution of conflict when it seeks to effectively fulfil its responsibilities in safeguarding international peace and security. Therefore, sanctions imposed by the Council should not serve as a means in themselves, but should be specifically targeted to avoid adverse impacts on the country's use of natural resources while it is subjected to sanctions.
Fourthly, it is imperative to devote greater attention to the role of regional organizations and relevant mechanisms. In recent years, the African Union and other regional and subregional organizations have played an important role in encouraging African States to bolster their resource management and development efforts and improve the integrated management of natural resources.
Intergovernmental mechanisms, such as the Kimberley Process, have played an outstanding role in curbing illegal trafficking in natural resources. Those mechanisms should be encouraged to play a mutually complementary role with the efforts of the affected countries and the United Nations so as to ensure further contributions in that area.
Transforming a country's natural resources into the opportunity to create an enhanced future requires the coordinated efforts of countries and the international community. China supports the efforts of the relevant United Nations agencies, based on their respective mandates and the distribution of labour, in assisting the countries affected to shake off the curse of natural resources and promote their use and development.
Thank you, Mr. President.

subset: commoncrawl


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NWL notes: Cubs' Blackburn bulks up
Right-hander dominating for Hawks after adding 30 pounds
By Patrick Brown / Special to MLB.com | June 28, 2013 8:33 AM
Hitters, take note: Paul Blackburn is not afraid.
Boise's 19-year-old right-hander is off to a rock-solid start this season, and to him, it's a result of his steady approach on the mound. There aren't any crazy superstitions or repetitive routines. Instead, it's all about consistency and a single, recurring mantra: no fear.
That confidence is already showing in the box score. In three starts this season, a span of 15 innings, Blackburn has yet to allow an earned run while scattering eight hits and two walks. His 20 strikeouts, 0.67 WHIP and 0.00 ERA lead the Northwest League and helped him earn Pitcher of the Week honors for the week ending June 24.
With numbers like that, why should he be afraid?
"If a guy hits you hard, you just have to let it go, because that happens in baseball," Blackburn said. "I don't care if it's the fourth hitter or the ninth hitter, you have to approach everyone like they're the best hitter out there. Don't give into them, and make them show that they can beat you on your pitch."
It's his mentality, coupled with extended time he's spent weight training, that has created a vast difference in the Cubs prospect. Last season he allowed 23 hits, including two homers, and seven walks in 20 2/3 innings with the AZL Cubs. Compare that to this season, where he's struck out seven more batters in five fewer innings, and it's clear Blackburn's potential continues to rise.
One big difference, he noted, comes directly from the weight room. A first-round pick in the 2012 Draft (56th overall) out of Heritage High School in Brentwood, Calif., the 6-foot-8 righty weighed in at a modest 160 pounds. Having spent the last three months in extended spring training, he's put on about 30 pounds and wants to get to an even 200 before it's all said and done.
On top of that, Blackburn is never satisfied by simply "pitching well," as he puts it. There's a continuous drive for consistency and improvement, motivation rarely found in teenage athletes.
"If I go out and throw seven innings, allow one hit and walk a guy, it's a great outing, but I'm not as happy as I would be if I went out there, didn't give up a hit and didn't walk anyone," he said. "One of the biggest things to me is just finding a way to keep the team in the ballgame to get a win."
Hawks coach Gary Van Tol has been impressed with Blackburn's composure and attention to detail. Even when he's not pitching, he's studying the game and coming to an understanding of how quickly fortunes can change in baseball.
Though Blackburn is sure to allow an earned run soon, he's certainly set the bar high for himself.
"He goes right after guys, he's pitching to contact, and he's throwing inside," Van Tol said. "Paul has shown some veteran composure out there by going him after hitters with no fear."
As he continues the pursuit of his dream, Blackburn has made it clear that turning around is not an option. The would-be business major instead has his sights set on working in Chicago, but at the friendly confines of Wrigley Field, as opposed to corporate America.
"Wrigley Field is a great atmosphere. … That's just a great feeling to know that in the future I could be there," he said. "I was going to see where business took me, but as of right now, I haven't really had to think about it."
In brief
Welcome to the league: The Hillsboro Hops earned their first franchise victory in their home opener in dominant fashion, defeating the Eugene Emeralds, 12-0.
Who's hot, who's not: Spokane outfielder Christopher Garia has three home runs in his last five games. … Boise outfielder Yasiel Balaguert has 10 RBIs in his last nine contests. … Eugene righty Justin Livengood has struck out 10 in his last 5 2/3 innings. … Spokane righty Josh McElwee has fanned 15 in his last six frames. … Eugene shortstop Chase Jensen has not recorded a hit in his last 22 at-bats. … Tri-City righty Shawn Stuart allowed four earned runs on two hits and two walks while only recording one out in his last two appearances.
He said it: "Young pitchers come in here very confident, because they've all made it on their high school teams or on their college teams. A lot of these kids, it's the first time they're going to go through any type of adversity. To be honest with you, we like to see them stumble a bit out of the block so they can be humbled so we can clear the air and get down to business." -- Boise skipper Gary Van Tol on pitchers having to adjust to professional baseball
Patrick Brown is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues or its clubs.View More


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Cart Surfer?
I think CP said they would be updating a mini game because of the flood… BUT WHAT IF…. it is cart surfer? Because now, the mines are locked up, and you can't seem to play cart surfer now. 😐 So Im suspecting they are updating that game.
I think CP said they would be updating a mini game because of the flood… BUT WHAT IF…. it is cart surfer? Because now, the mines are locked up, and you can't seem to play cart surfer now. 😐 So Im suspecting they are updating that game.
Want to be on my blogroll? Well, there's only THREE simple rules...
1. You must have a working banner that leads back to this site... no custom ones unless I approve of them first! Also, adding ME to your blogroll is optional, but very appreciated. :) It may get your site rated 1+! (I have ratings on my blogroll, scroll down to see it.) This must be on BEFORE you ask to add you to my blogroll.
2. You must have at least 100 hits/views. (That's LOWER than other sites' requirements! Awesome!)
3. You must follow my site/comment rules.
Cool? Okay, now to notify me, just comment on a post! (Not on pages, or that will be ignored.) Don't spam while asking, either! Also, your site MUST be related to Club Penguin ONLY. Not Club Penguin and Chobots/Webkinz/Webosaurs, etc. Then, I'll go check out your site (please include a link! JUST IN CASE, I'll edit your comment so it says something else instead of your site. No advertising in my comments! But you can, if it's for the blogroll.) and approve it or disapprove. If declined, that has NOTHING to do with how good your site is; it has to do with the blogroll requirements and such. If you don't receive an answer (ON THIS SITE! Keep checking back to see if you've been approved/added!) within a week, maybe I'm off on vacation, (FOR A WEEK?!) maybe I'm too busy, maybe I'm dead (WHAT?!?!!), maybe you got declined, maybe I'm finished saying maybes, maybe I should stop, maybe OK--. There. Cool? Alright, what are you waiting for? Don't hesitate; let's get cranking!!!
Also, I will be releasing an eBook that helps get you more famous/popular. Even the most famous blog owners don't always follow these instructions right and people start disliking them! Well, it will be released once I get to about 80k hits/fans and a PLUS version will be available at 100k!!! (You'll have to buy this ultimate, mega addition, though, for a smaller price than you'd expect out of an ordinary, normal guide that doesn't help as much...)
Not in any specific order.
1. Yislay
2. Ora
3. Tails
4. 10Poseidon10
5. MEEEEe :D
6. Jigglychu
7. Munchie/Munchies/Munchy
8. OMG I FORGOT THEIR NAME!! Cuz it is so hard to pronounce AND spell without referencing first!
|ora181527 on sooo…
|Ora on sooo…
|Ora on sooo…
|Sarah on Can Osama Bin Laden die a…
|ora181527 on Can Osama Bin Laden die a…
Club Penguin
Make friends and play games in wonderland that is Club Penguin.
|Play this free game now!!


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3 LA Guys Make A Trip To China: Brandon Jennings (w/ Gary Payton, Horace Grant & Demar Derozan) - Under the Armour S2 Ep. 1
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About Me
I am a 40-something wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend. I am addicted to sports, weather, news, coffee, crossword puzzles and a good book. I am embracing the chaos, holding on to my sanity, counting my blessings and loving my good life.
Follow me on Twitter! @angie128
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What I'm Reading
"Private London" by James Patterson


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DESIGNED FOR | Doodlebug Design
PROJECT | Make Life a Big Adventure Layout
WHERE THE IDEA CAME FROM | Actually I can credit myself on this one because I had so much fun creating this shadow box for my youngest son that I had to play around with the concept again.
THE PROCESS | Basically I traced around a small bread and butter plate with an embossing tool to leave a faint outline of the circle on my layout and then filled it in with stickers, die-cuts and epoxy dots. It takes no time at all and is lots of fun using up all those little bits and pieces that wouldn't necessarily get used.
THE STORY | We lost our beloved horse Cisco earlier this year so I've been putting together a bit of a book to pay homage to his life with us.
PRODUCT LIST | Doodlebug - Happy Harvest
Patterned Paper: Garden Grown, Apple Orchard, Forest of Friends, Sunflower
Mini Doodlepops: Shades of Fall, Owlettes
Stickers: This & That, Icons, Quotes
Sprinkles: Fall, Halloween, Bumblebee, Tangerine, Limeade, Ladybug
Rub-ons: Simply Sweet Bon Bon,


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The New York Times building is currently on fire. While the building has been evacuated by the NYFD, several intrepid Times staffers, including this correspondent, have stayed inside to report on an historic event as it unfolds. The cause of the fire is unclear
The brazen torching of the New York Times headquarters by its soi-disant publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr, is a sordid attempt to wring a paltry few million more from the corpse of a once great newspaper. His shameless looting of company coffers as the paper spiraled into bankruptcy, gave new meaning to his nickname "Pinch"
(THIS IS DON. GRAF 2 EXHIBITS OVERHEATED AND NON-OBJECTIVE RHETORIC. PLS REMOVE IT AND THIS PAREN B4 PUB) but there is some evidence that a member or members, of the Sulzberger family may have engaged in arson of the New York Times Building, hours before the newspaper's closing
MAY HAVE? Our careers are dead in the water but fatuous waffling over accountability by pea-brained collaborationist editorial drones from Nyack and Tarrytown, lives on. The building's on fire! Torched by the owner! It's called Jewish Lightning! This is what killed the paper! Hiding the truth with half-truths. Limp-
(THIS IS DON AGAIN. SPIKE GRAFS 2 & 4. BLOCK LAKSHMI GURTZ'S PASSWORD!) however there is doubt publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. was involved. Given his reputed Asperger's syndrome it is improbable that the family would have deputized him to carry out
(DO NOT REMOVE THIS GRAF OR 2 & 4 OR I WILL PERSONALLY COME TO THE 7th FLOOR & REMOVE YOUR LUNGS VIA YOUR WEASEL MOUTH) -dick editors like Don Prendergast were the reason we ducked a dozen opps to expose the trillion-dollar subprime Ponzi scheme. Why? Because Pinch's social buddies were making pornographic amounts of dough and Don wanted
(CALL SECURITY & FIND THIS MORON! NOW!) The Times headquarters was a towering composition of glass and steel clad in a coruscating veil of ceramic rods. Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano it was rooted, according to Times architectural critic Nicolai Ourroussoff
(GOOD LUCK YOU BALD BOZO – WHAT IF I'M NOT IN THE FUCKING BUILDING, HUH?) to blow management any chance he got, while real reporters with the real story were frozen out because they didn't go to CJS and were South Asian
(YOU WILL NEVER WORK IN JOURNALISM AGAIN DO YOU HEAR?) in a more comforting time: the era of corporate Modernism that reached its apogee in the 1950s and 60s. If Piano gently updated that ethos for the Internet age
(OH YEAH? I'M CC-ING SLATE, DRUDGE AND HUFFPO AS WE SPEAK) According to two eyewitness sources, a man carrying an empty gas can and wearing a Heath Ledger Joker mask ran from the Times lobby shortly before fire exploded from the 5th floor
(I SWEAR I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND IMPERATIVE - DELETE ALL PARENS FROM THIS STORY BEFORE IT GOES LIVE!!!!!) his architectural genius may come to naught as flames engulf the upper stories, whose ceramic curtain wall extends beyond the roof to finish the building in a lace-like crown of white
(TOO LATE, IT'S ALREADY LIVE!! LMFAO!!!) jumped into a limo on 8th Avenue with the vanity plate AOSLZBGR and sped off in the direction of the West Side Highway.


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Return to Transcripts main page
The Economy Election; The Big Fix on Jobs; Capitalism On Trial
Aired January 22, 2012 - 15:00 ET
ALI VELSHI, HOST: Look beyond the primaries and we're headed for a presidential election likely to be decided by an uncertain but improving economy. I'm Ali Velshi. Welcome to YOUR MONEY. Americans are split on whether they would vote for Mitt Romney over President Obama if Romney is the Republican nominee. But they are solidly behind the GOP frontrunner when it comes to the crucial issue of who can get the economy moving. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll finds just 40 percent say that President Obama can get this economy moving, while more than half of those polls believed that Mitt Romney has what it takes. Now this polling data leads me to the most important economic issue of all, and that is jobs. More than 100,000 jobs have been added in each of the last six months. It is not enough. It is not enough, but it is steady improvement. And nothing means more to how Americans feel about the economy than whether they have a job or know someone who just got a job or conversely, someone who lost a job. Let's head to South Carolina and bring in CNN contributor Will Cain, a good friend of our show. Will, as a conservative, are you sensing some worry among Republicans that the stronger job creation is going to weaken the advantage that Mitt Romney could have over President Obama on the issue of being better able to improve the economy? WILL CAIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I would say that the numbers are moving in Obama's direction. It's better than if they're moving the other way, than if unemployment was increasing. But look, I don't want to get too quasi-intellectual on you here but I would be careful about -- how much those indicate which way the economy is moving. I compare it to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave." You know, Plato said he may give the metaphor of a bunch of prisoners trapped in a cave, tied together and staring at a wall. VELSHI: Yes. CAIN: A blank wall their entire lives, and they begin to think that the shadows reflect reality. VELSHI: Right. CAIN: My point is, I'm not sure unemployment and jobs accurately reflects the direction of the economy. We still have a euro debt crisis that's leaving economies shaking in their boots, Ali. We still have massive levels of debt in the United States. We're working off that debt. VELSHI: Right. CAIN: And we still have, look, 30 percent, 30 percent of Americans are underwater on their home mortgage. VELSHI: Yes. CAIN: And 50 percent are effectively underwater. VELSHI: Well, I give you this. (CROSSTALK) CAIN: They don't have the capacity to move. VELSHI: I'll give you this. That is the -- that continues to be an intractable problem, but let me just go back to jobs for a second. You and I have discussed. CAIN: Yes. VELSHI: I am not a fan of associating job losses with a particular president just because it coincides with their term in office but let's say we did that because lots of people do. President Obama, under his watch, 4.6 million jobs were lost on his watch. Two-thirds of those jobs are back already and at this pace of job creation, all of those jobs will be back probably before Election Day. Now who knows which way that's going to go, but boy, that's going to be a tough argument. I can see those ads with Obama versus Romney. That is going to be tough, regardless of how -- whether you think it's a real reflection of the economy or not. CAIN: Well, you're absolutely right. That's going to be a great essentially bumper sticker. It's going to be a great campaign point. But here's why I describe those other pressures on the economy, Ali, is because in the end how voters feel about the economy will be impacted by so much more. It will be impacted by those factors I talked about, housing, debt and Europe. VELSHI: Yes. CAIN: Leaving voters with a sense of uncertainty, with a sense of fear, with a sense of feeling poor. All of that will impact how they feel about the economy. VELSHI: Sure. CAIN: I think much more than a number that reflects job losses and unemployment. VELSHI: Well, I'm with you there. CAIN: Look, still 92 percent of Americans have jobs. VELSHI: I'm with you there. That how you feel about it may have more to do than reality. The same thing with recessions. Alexis Glick, a good friend of ours, the CEO of the GENYOUth Foundation. She's also worked on Wall Street. She's reported on it for a long time. She knows business, she knows politics, and this is really going to come down to money and politics, Alexis. ALEXIS GLICK, CEO, GEN YOUTH FOUNDATION: It's absolutely true. And I see what Will is saying. I mean the bottom line is the trend is Obama's friend right now, so we're starting to see job creation move in the right direction. There is a ton of cash built up in corporate America right now sitting on the sidelines, so there are some positive signs and real interest rates are as low as they've been in decades. So you do have some favorable things. But, look, most of middle class America right now feels that they're still under siege. Many of them feel that the recession did not end. CAIN: Right. GLICK: And that is a big problem. So confidence is key to this election. Yes, Obama can say I've recreated all the jobs that have been lost, but also under his watch, deficits have never been larger. The U.S. debt rating was downgraded for the first time in history. Those are also the points that the Republican side of the equation are going to heavily pound this administration on. VELSHI: OK. So we are agreed on the fact that ultimately, and I think the same thing decided the midterm elections and the same thing decided the 2008 presidential elections. How people feel, particularly on the issue that is most important to them, the economy, will determine how they vote. I want to bring in Harvard professor, Ken Rogoff. He is the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. Ken, the issue here, we're agreed how people feel influences them. What may be more important to improving our economy is what we actually do. I would love to hear presidential candidates talking about specific things that would create long-term growth. GLICK: Job creation. VELSHI: Not just tax cuts, and not -- you know, but real stuff. And Ken, you often talk about infrastructure. How do you make that into something that makes sense for an election? KEN ROGOFF, PROFESSOR, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: I mean I'd love to see real ideas debated in this election because I worry about us entering this state of lethargy. We are improving. I think the economy is going to hurt President Obama, but if it continues to trend upwards, it won't hurt as much. But I mean this isn't just about this year but much longer term. How are we really going to improve our education system. VELSHI: Right. ROGOFF: And make it more competitive. If we're going to build infrastructure not just so that it's like a handout but that we really build infrastructure. How are we going to de-lever this housing, this -- all this housing debt, some of these subprime mortgages. They're never going to get paid. VELSHI: And in fairness, in fairness, and Alexis and I were just talking about this before the show started. We are not hearing those details from anybody. GLICK: Where are the plans? VELSHI: Anybody in office or anyone who's running. Am, I right, Ken? ROGOFF: No, absolutely. I said that's what I'd love to hear. I think in some sense it's the voter doesn't want to hear the reality. VELSHI: Right. ROGOFF: The voter doesn't want to let us go in any direction. CAIN: That's right. That's right. ROGOFF: Anyone who sticks their neck out, it gets cut off. GLICK: But if you're a nominee right now, to me that is the biggest issue. CAIN: Right. GLICK: Who has put down a serious economic plan. VELSHI: Right. GLICK: We are adult enough to know there's a reality facing us, and it's been staring down our door for years now. Tell us the truth. Lay out the plan. I think they're afraid to lay out the plan. VELSHI: I will -- I will say to you that the one candidate who put down what looked like a pretty good plan is out of the race, Jon Huntsman. Couldn't get passed 2 percent in the polls. Stay with us, Alexis, Ken and Will. Optimists beware because that crisis in Europe continues to threaten whatever is going on here in the United States and around the world. Could it end up being a big factor in the U.S. presidential election as well? How and why, I'll tell you about it next on YOUR MONEY. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: There are signs of a real recovery in America. Markets are up, but most importantly, jobs are being added and we know it is all about jobs. But one look at Europe, and you might start to temper your expectations. Europe's debt crisis has forced the World Bank to lower its forecast for the entire globe's growth in 2012 to just 2.5 percent. That had been -- that forecast had been more than one percentage point higher just in June. Now, Ken, let's not pick a not-so-random date, say, November of 2012? What do you see Europe's debt crisis doing? Will it get to the point that it could actually kill this recovery that we might be in right now at a critical time for an incumbent president? Could it create an opportunity for his opponent? ROGOFF: Europe is a mess. Make no doubt about it. But I'd say it's maybe four to one that it won't be decisive, that they'll muddle through for another year with maybe their central bank printing money. That's not a long-term exit strategy, but it might make it through 2012. VELSHI: Will, of all the economic issues, you say, and you know, you might be right on this. You say Europe is going to end up having the greatest effect on the outcome of the presidential election, but that very few people here will know why. What are you talking about? CAIN: Right, right. Well, look, man, this euro thing is no bueno. And you talked about the numbers a minute ago with the World Bank, let's put into real world. The World Bank said developed countries' economies should prepare for the worst. VELSHI: Yes. CAIN: That's not good. Germany is officially in a recession. It's not just Europe, by the way. Chinese demand is down. All these little star economies like Brazil and Germany that live on exports, how is that going to work when the Chinese economy slows down? I can't time this, Ali. I can't tell you that this will happen before an election. And the market right now says I'm wrong, by the way. But what I'm telling you is if this bleeds over, and it's not unlikely that it does, into the U.S. economy, if it drags down U.S. demand, that will have an impact on how these consumers -- forget voters, how consumers feel and then eventually voters feel and they'll punish the man in office, either before or after November. VELSHI: Yes. Alexis, Europe is everybody's biggest or second biggest trading partner. Europeans' -- Europe's leaders have made it clear they don't want a handle -- they don't want a lesson in handling their debt problems from the U.S. The U.S. is very keen to give them some guidance. Tim Geithner has been there several times on what to do. But if Europe's crisis threatens the improving economy that President Obama needs to run on, the one he's got right now, what does he do? What does President Obama, what does Treasury Secretary Geithner, what do Americans do to say please, please over there get your house in order? GLICK: I've got to tell you, Timothy Geithner is the key. He is the answer to the problem. He has been the one most aggressively addressing the problem overseas. He's made the most trips over there. You think that coordinated effort a couple of months ago out of central banks didn't start here in the United States? He's got experience with problems in the past in a global economy, OK. He's dealt with sovereign nations failing on their debt. So, number one, Geithner is the key. Is there much that Obama can do? No. But let me tell you something, Geithner warned the IMF, warned them in Europe, $50 billion isn't enough. He said you've got to have a $500 billion coffer. They didn't listen. Now we're talking about a trillion dollar coffer. TARP did some terrific things in this country. It prevented a collapse. If they don't pay attention to what happened here in the United States, it's their fault. And frankly, we will see some degree of an impact because they're going to be in a deep recession for years to come. We will see it in our trade. VELSHI: Ken, you were the chief economist for the International Monetary Fund. You look at what's unfolding right now. Is the -- are -- is the International Monetary Fund, is the European Central Bank doing enough to, you know, head off a catastrophe in Europe? ROGOFF: Not forever. Definitely not forever. I completely agree with Will on this. Right now really the main thing they're doing is printing money. That works for a while, but eventually it will lead to inflation if they don't do something more. But it is very hard to call the timing. And Europe is going to be in recession. It's not good for us, but we're doing a little better, it will drag us more slower for a long time, but the big question, will they have a layman type event? VELSHI: Right. ROGOFF: When Greece defaults, as I think it will this year. VELSHI: Yes. ROGOFF: Will it be a Lehman type event? I think it will not be as immediately catastrophic to be decisive in the November 2012 election, although it's certainly a key wild card. VELSHI: All right. That's a very good point to end on, that Europe has been in what feels like a recession for some time. That going on may not be the end of the world. But if there's a run on a bank, if there's a credit crisis, we know that we are all attached by that string, and that will affect somebody trying to get a loan for a car right here in the United States. GLICK: Absolutely. VELSHI: Thanks to all of you. What a great, smart discussion. Will Cain for us in South Carolina. CAIN: You bet. VELSHI: Alexis Glick, the CEO of GENYOUth Foundation, which you should look up, it's a very interesting organization. And of course, Ken Rogoff, one of the smartest men on the planet. He is professor at Harvard University and the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. Last week we focused on capitalism being on trial in this country and we found out just what needs to be done to fix America's economic system. With more than 15 million Americans unable to find work, we'll break down exactly what employers are looking for to fill the millions of job openings. And we'll answer the question, is there a mismatch in this country between skills and jobs? The "Big Fix" is next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: Let's talk about jobs. Right now in the United States there are 3.2 million job openings, but many employers, including those on President Obama's job council, continue to tell the president they simply cannot find workers who are qualified to fill some of those positions. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SHERYL SANDBERG, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, FACEBOOK: Every company I know, my own included, we're desperately trying to hire more people, but it has to be people who have the technical skills to meet the jobs we need, and it gets harder and harder. (END VIDEO CLIP) VELSHI: It has to be people who have the technical skills to fill the jobs we need. Jonas Prising is the Manpower -- is ManpowerGroup's President of the Americas. Manpower surveyed thousands of companies around the world and found that more than half of U.S. employers are having trouble finding people to fill open positions. Jonas, let's talk about this. Specifically, you found that the hardest jobs to fill last year were skilled trades, sales representatives, engineers, drivers and accounting staff. And Jonas, you have said many of these companies have cited a lack of skills as a reason for the talent shortage. Now what skills are individuals who are looking for jobs in America lacking that would allow them to fill some of those positions? JONAS PRISING, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAS, MANPOWERGROUP: The skills that employers are looking for are the kinds of skills that require a level of experience, training and also adoption to new technology. So when we talk about manufacturing skills, for instance, the specific positions that employers in manufacturing are finding difficult to find are positions such as machinists, CNC operators, mechanics, specialized welders, so quite specific positions. They're impacted by two things, technology has improved. The kind of skills that used to be applied to those skills have moved on, so you have to have the new skills required, and then you also have an aging workforce where people with those experiences are retiring from the workforce. VELSHI: Right. And you've named -- PRISING: Add to that -- VELSHI: You've named a number of professions like that, engineering, welding, accounting, where we constantly talk to people from those fields who say we can -- we can hire pretty much everybody that schools graduate in those areas. PRISING: That's exactly right. And what's driving that shortage as well at the same time, it should be said that employers are very picky when it comes to choosing the skills. They want the right skills at the right time at the right cost, so there's also a supply and demand issue where employers are not really responding to a surge in demand. VELSHI: Right. PRISING: They are being very choosy, when to hire. VELSHI: Anthony Carnevale is the director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Anthony, there are 3.2 million job openings in the country right now. That is not new. In fact Fareed Zakaria on the show last week said there's generally, you know, in the millions of jobs that are just sort of churn in the economy. Ten years ago there were five million jobs available. In December of 2007, right before the great recession took hold, there were more than four million job openings. You say the problem is systemic and the education system in this country needs to teach practical, technical skills that are more closely in line with the things that people will go on to do in their day-to-day job. So what does that mean? Does that mean that people shouldn't be sending their kids for a liberal arts education and they should be going to trade schools? ANTHONY CARNEVALE, DIRECTOR, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY CENTER ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE: It means in general that the education system is in a race with technology change and economic change, and it's losing the race. We used to have an economy that required primarily what we think of as blue-collar skills, and there has been a profound shift essentially since the '80s when it began to accelerate, towards white- collar skills and technical skills, and American -- and American education institutions are having a very hard time keeping up. VELSHI: Former "New York Times" columnist Bob Herbert is a senior fellow at Demos, a friend of our show. Bob, there is -- this is an issue. We do need engineers and we do need accountants who are trained in great American universities, but at the same time we need to be having people attending vocational schools and getting skills like we've discussed as welders. How do we -- how do we deal with establishing who goes to what school for what and how we get everybody the right education for this market? BOB HERBERT, SENIOR FELLOW, DEMOS: Well, I don't think we do it by pointing to the problems that employers are having, finding specific workers. This is a small segment of the overall employment problem. And my question would be, you know, if -- if there's a shortage of workers in a given field, then the free market says that you should offer those workers more money. So pay more and presumably you'd get more qualified applicants. VELSHI: Let's take a quick break and we'll talk about what we do not for the mismatch, not for those people who aren't able to fill the jobs that are already open but what we do to see if there are more jobs that can be available. All of you, Jonas, Anthony and Bob, stay with us, we'll be right back on YOUR MONEY. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: On the show a week ago we spoke about capitalism on trial. Our panelists offered a number of specific areas that need to be addressed to fix America's economic system. Mort Zuckerman, the editor of "US News & World Report", said we need to start training people to fill the jobs that are available today. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MORT ZUCKERMAN, EDITOR IN CHIEF, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT: There's a whole mismatch in terms of the number of people coming out looking for jobs and the qualifications that people need for jobs, particularly those who are educated, particularly in the world of science and technology. There are shortages of people, there are literally millions of open jobs. (END VIDEO CLIP) VELSHI: And there are. ManpowerGroup found that 47 percent of U.S. companies that were having trouble filling specific jobs did complain about a lack of skills within the pool of applicants and many of those are technical or scientific jobs. But here's what else the company said. Fifty-two percent complained that applicants were looking for more pay, which I think has been going on since the beginning of time. Thirty-five percent cited a lack of experience. That's a tricky one in a tough job market because you need a job to get experience. Bob Herbert, from the -- a senior fellow at Demos and former columnist for "The New York Times." Bob, you mentioned a few minutes ago that there's a perfect capitalist fix to the skills gap problem. Schools should be -- schools which make money should be educating them properly and companies should be paying them properly. How do we -- how do we deal with that? HERBERT: Well, what I think is that we have a much bigger problem in this country with regards to employment than most people are recognizing in that our public officials are willing to say. What we really need to do would require a really long period of huge investments. We would need to rebuild America's infrastructure and we would need to fix our education system so that many more Americans are getting four-year degrees and higher. This would require investments that apparently are not going to be made in this period of austerity that we're in now, but it's that combination of education and rebuilding the infrastructure that provides a platform for creating new industries that create millions of more jobs for the future. We are not doing -- we're not even having a real conversation about that. VELSHI: All right. So on one level, while our viewers are watching this and hopefully the idea is to spur better political debates so that our elected officials and those running for office can start to give us some specific ideas and plans about how we will better educate people. For the viewers watching us who can only make a decision about their own families, maybe their own kid going into school, Anthony, what do you advise someone then who worked so hard to get their kid into school, the kid signs up, and at that point it's a free-for-fall, we don't really know why we're getting that BA and that's it's for. What should they -- what kind of universal skills or universal areas of study that will get them employed are useful? They should do what they love, do what they want to do because we also know in labor economics very clearly that if you don't like what you do, you're not going to be any good at it. But the other dictum here is that you should know what kind of job opportunities and careers, usually what kinds of occupations a particular major will lead you toward and there are huge differences. If you major in petroleum engineering, you'll make $120,000 a year. If you get a counseling degree and work in a social service agency, you'll make $30,000 a year and the differences in employment are huge. It isn't just the level of education. If you decide to become an architect in this economy, you're in trouble. The unemployment rate is 11.3 percent and the long-term projections are that it will stay above 10 because of the collapse in construction and finance. So you need to ask the people in your program what's happening to the people that graduated last year. The danger here is that you're looking years ahead and trying to decide what's going to make a big payoff for your college education. If we went back a few years and you talked about kids coming out of architectural schools, we would have said that's a great field to be in because the housing industry is booming, you need to design these buildings, homes, businesses and that sort of thing. So you have to be really careful -- VELSHI: So what do you do then? You make a good point, but what do you do? For people whose only control over this is them and their kids and what they study or what they retrain into, bringing it down to micro, what decisions can we make? Do we all have to become engineers and accountants and welders, like Jonas is saying? CARNEVALE: We do know a great deal about the recent past in terms of people's majors and their ability to get jobs and sustain careers, and we know more than most will admit about where the future is. I will guarantee you that if you get a degree that in some way leads you into health care, whether it starts with biology or radiology that you're going to be employable over the next decade. The same with computers, business services, the same with education incidentally because of the huge glut of baby boomer retirements. We know more about this than we ever tell young people when they go to college. VELSHI: Jonas, last word to you on this. Your best advice for folks who are looking to sort of take control and know that they can be employable for 5, 10, 15 or 20 years? PRISING: I think that the conversation needs to be about being work ready as opposed to being graduate ready. Just as the conversation that we just listened to. We think that the obvious gaps that we're now seeing and we can really project pretty far into the future should give a very good guide line to those people planning for their future and their careers. At the same time, as you specialize in something, you are going to be wanting to build a platform of critical thinking and problem-solving ability and those kinds of skills that eventually will also be transferable between different fields. VELSHI: Thanks to all of you. We'll remember Bob Herbert's point, that while we can all try and solve our own problems, this actually is a problem that needs to be solved at higher levels about what we're doing for our society and how we're preparing them for the workplace of the future. Thanks to all of you. Jonas Prising is the president of the Americas of the Manpower Group, Bob Herbert is a senior fellow at Demos and Anthony Carnevale is the director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. All right, here's question for you. Do we need Wall Street? Do we need banks? The answer to those questions might just surprise you. It's next on YOUR MONEY. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VELSHI (voice-over): They were at the heart of the financial meltdown. They took risks with your money. They robo signed your mortgages. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got sold out. VELSHI: And now they're making money hand over fist. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The banks that are too big to fail have now become bigger. VELSHI: Too big to fail or too deep in the pockets of decision-makers to be punished? BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Never again will the American taxpayer be held hostage by a bank that is too big to fail. (END VIDEO CLIP) VELSHI: So, do we need the banks or would we be better off without them? Adam Davidson is the co-host of "Planet Money" on NPR. He wrote an article for "The New York Times" magazine called "What Does Wall Street Do For You." Tamara Draut is Vice President of Policy and Programs for Demos and Chrystia Freeland is an editor at Thompson Reuters Digital. Adam, let me start with you. As popular as it is to criticize Wall Street and the banks, you say that without them, the poor would stay poor and there would be no middle class. Explain yourself. ADAM DAVIDSON, CO-HOST, NPR'S PLANET MONEY: Well, there's plenty of reasons to be really mad at these particular banks and there's no reason why we need these particular banks or these particular bankers. But a financial intermediation process, which is basically what banking does at its core, is one of the key reasons why we are no longer living in something like the Middle Ages. I spent a lot of my career in places like Haiti and Iraq and other very poor countries in the world. And what you learn in countries without a financial intermediation process, without good banks, without good financial companies is there is no way for the extra money sitting around that the rich people have to get to the poor people who might use it to create new businesses, to improve their life, to borrow money to get an education. So you really don't need mobility at all. So in no way am I trying to say our system is perfect or doesn't need changed, but we have something really special in a modern financial system that very few people in the world today and very few people in the history of the world have had access to. VELSHI: You know, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, Nicholas Kristoff, wrote in the "The New York Times" this week, quote, I've been sympathetic to the "Occupy Wall Street" movement but look, finance is not evil. Banking has contributed immensely to modern civilization by allocating capital to more efficient uses. Banking laid the groundwork for the industrial revolution and the information revolution. I can feel the tweets being sent right now. I can see the angry e-mails without even reading them. Tamara, what's your sense of this? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that we do definitely need a banking system, but we need a banking system that fulfils the core purpose. I mean think of the banking system as like the plumbing of our society. It directs how money flows through the economy. The problem is, is when it starts siphoning money out of people's wallets, out of the economy toward really unproductive purposes and I think that's exactly what we saw happen in the lead-up to the financial crisis is banks have really strayed from their core mission in society, which is to help spur economic growth, not just to grow themselves for the sake of growing themselves. VELSHI: But that's not necessarily an ill that the banks have only been involved in, right? We've become that. We've become a society where things just grow for the sake of it. We want economic growth, we want profit growth and we're not quite sure what societal good comes out of it. Bonuses are expected to drop for 2011. They should be being paid out about now by 30 percent to 40 percent for many on Wall Street. But if you look at the average bonuses over the past few years, there's this popular perspective. That while the whole country struggled through this great recession and people lost their homes and their jobs, banks got bailed out. People on Wall Street were raking in six-figure bonuses. Is that fair, first of all, to say that that's true? And is this, if it is true, capitalism run amuck? CHRYSTIA FREELAND, EDITOR, THOMSON REUTERS DIGITAL: Yes, it is true. I think that Adam and Nicholas are absolutely right, it is essential for a modern market economy. You know, like Adam I've spent time in countries that didn't have advanced banking systems. For me it was the Soviet Union and then immediately the former Soviet Union. One of the most pressing items on the reform agenda was to create banks. Because imagine trying to buy an apartment or a car if there was no such thing as a bank, pretty devastating. Having said that, I think people are right to be angry at Wall Street. The reason people are angry and you've talked about this a lot, Ali, is it turned out that the profits were privatized and the losses were socialized. So it was, you know, a heads, I win, tails, you lose and people are right to complain about that. And the point about banking is, it is a very specific type of private business activity. It is a highly regulated industry and it has to be a highly regulated industry. Because we cannot allow the financial sector to fail for precisely the reasons that we've been talking about, about how essential it is to the economy as a whole. And that means, and I think bankers are very loathe to accept this, that they have to accept much more regulation and much more intrusive government than people working in other sectors. VELSHI: Well, part of the reason, this is one of my first questions here that I think we're going to get to now. We're going to take a quick break, but we'll get to this. Should they be regulated better? Are they too big to fail and why, why if we all agree with this has the system not been fixed? We agree it needs to be there, why is it still broken? We're going to talk solutions about the banking sector next on YOUR MONEY. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: OK, this is a conversation that matters to all of us because we all bank and we all have an opinion about the banks and we have all been affected by the banks. If you're wealthy and well off and you have good credit, the banks have been fantastic to you. If you're not in those positions or you're jobless or you're an underwater home, you may want to hate the banks. But how do you fix the banking system going forward? The problem here is that for at least the last 15 years, the concept of regulating financial institutions has been to put people in charge of them who will do their best largely to stand -- to not stand in the way of these companies becoming strong and profitable and big. Adam, you wrote in "The New York Times" magazine last weekend, one lesson of this crisis is that regulation, no matter how well intended, cannot be trusted to rein in Wall Street. So Chrystia is saying, we need more regulation, you're saying it's not going to work. DAVIDSON: I think there are regulations that can work, I just think that people overemphasize the idea, we just need more regulation. History is pretty clear on this. There have been major financial crises every few decades, 1907, obviously the 1930s, again after the 1980s. And what happens is everyone gets very -- you know, the general public becomes very excited and very upset and very interested and Congress responds, sometimes wisely, sometimes not so wisely, and creates a set of regulations, and then things calm down, things get better. The general public just goes about their business, but the banks are concentrating on one thing, which is profit. And so there's this concept of regulatory capture, which basically means that the banks are going to wait us out. They're going to spend us out, meaning the citizens, and they are going to slowly co-opt the process. That doesn't mean to say we don't need regulation, not to say it should be a wide open -- VELSHI: You're saying it hasn't been effective. I just heard all regulators with one brush a moment ago and I want to just back track on that a little bit, Tamara. Because Sheila Bahr, who was in charge of shoring up our nation's banks during the financial crisis as the head of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation I think was a good regulator. I think her operation ran very well. She wrote this week that if banks are too big to fail, the banks that are too big to fail are broken up, customers would benefit. Customers would benefit. The government would benefit. The banks themselves would benefit. Do you think this is a part of the solution, that our banks are not just too big to fail, they're just too big? TAMARA DRAUT, VICE PRESIDENT OF POLICY AND PROGRAMS, DEMOS: Absolutely, I think she's exactly right. And she has been a really effective regulator. I mean listen, Adam is right. The financial system will find a way around regulation. At the same time, one of the major things that helped this crisis spin out of control was deregulation over the last 15, 20 years of the banking system, and particularly on some key fundamental principles that I think we have to re-enact. And that is, again, breaking up the banks and separating systems of consumer commercial banking, investment and insurance. Bringing back, you know -- VELSHI: Why is that important? Why is that important? So when I go to a bank and deposit my money, it's not being used in some crazy, risky venture that I wouldn't understand if I studied it for a month? DRAUT: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And so that we have these companies that are more manageable, more efficient and more accountable to the regulators and people can get their heads around. I mean, during you know, the build-up of the housing bubble and all of the assets and the bets upon bets upon bets, the CEOs of these banks had no idea what their companies were producing. VELSHI: Let me give you an example. The thing that broke us all down, most people in AIG even at the highest levels couldn't explain to you what it was. Chrystia, if we're all on the same side of this thing, and I think most people are. There's a problem, the banking system doesn't need to go away, it needs to be fixed, why can't it get fixed? Why can't we properly regulate banks as Adam points out? Is it the lobby? Is it that Wall Street is too entrenched in Washington or vice versa? What's the problem? FREELAND: Well, I think Adam did point very effectively to the fact that it's the case with all special interest lobbying. The banks care about this a lot more than everybody else does and so they are really, you know, focusing on it with laser precision. It's also really complicated issue. But I do want to push back against an idea that Adam was advancing, although Adam I'm a huge fan of yours. I think you're brilliant, but there's a little bit of fatalism in what you were saying about this notion that crises are inevitable. We can't rely on regulation to save us. Of course, that's true. I'm hearing that a lot from Wall Street right now, and I don't think that's an accident. I think that is a line that Wall Street is pedalling right now to make us throw up our hands and say no regulatory framework is perfect so don't worry about it. And I think that that is a crucial mistake. I would draw a parallel with driving and cars. Car accidents are inevitable and people will die in car accidents. That's a tragedy. It doesn't mean that we give up. You know, we still have seat belts. We have airbags. We have speeding limits and we have to have the same attitude towards banks. Yes, accept that regulation isn't perfect and it's really dangerous to think that it can be, but also try to make it better. VELSHI: Keep on trying until we succeed at that. All right, good to talk to you all what a great conversation. I guess, we're keeping the banks. Adam, good to see you. Thanks very much -- FREELAND: You will be relieved to hear that, Ali. VELSHI: If you haven't read Adam's article, go look it up. Adam Davidson is co-host of "Planet Money." Chrystia, of course, writes on this stuff all the time. Chrystia Freeland from Thompson Reuters Digital and Tamara Draut, Vice President of Policy and Programs at Demos. Chrystia has got to go, but it's too bad because when we come back I'm going to be talking about the oil sands of Canada, which is right about where she's from in Canada. The Obama administration killed the Keystone pipeline project for now. Why that wasn't a good move next in "My XYZ." (COMMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: Time now for the XYZ of it. On Wednesday the State Department with the approval of President Barack Obama blocked the expansion of the Keystone pipeline, which currently funnels more than half a million barrels of oil per day from Canada's oil sands for the American Midwest. Now the expansion would have more than doubled that capacity to 1.3 million barrels a day and extended its reach to the Gulf of Mexico where ships would be able to load Canadian synthetic crude oil, which is a better quality oil than what we drill from the ground for delivery to world markets. I want to take a moment to explain the oil sands to you because there's a lot of misunderstanding about it. Unlike traditional drilling either on land or in water, in Alberta, the oil is mixed into the earth. This is some oil sand that I picked up on one of my visits up there. To separate the oil from the sand inside it, it's an energy intensive process. You use hydrogen to heat water, the water basically melts and washes and separates the sand from the thick heavy oil embedded in it. Once the sand and oil are separated it looks like this. This second vile over here. A thick black oil and the oil has to be further processed into this a synthetic crude oil, a light high quality low sulphur form of crude oil that can be easily refined into things like gasoline, diesel, heating oil. And as you can see the synthetic oil that's produced from the oil sands is gold in color rather than the black that you normally expect. But the extra step of upgrading that viscous molasses-like oil in the sands of Alberta into usable crude emits three times as much carbon dioxide as simply drilling for and transporting conventional oil from Texas, Venezuela or even Saudi Arabia. And that process, obviously, is more complicated than drilling a hole in the ground. It uses more energy and traditionally open pit mine. That's me up in the oil sands. It is done in areas that were once covered by forests. The area that's been clear cut to mine this oil sand is so vast that it can be seen from space. It's dirty. It's environmentally unfriendly, but it is getting better. Today, it takes less energy to mine a much smaller area and the water used and the washed sand is cleaner and safer. Forests are being replanted and the whole operation is becoming bit by bit a little greener. It's not green, really nor is the mining for coal by the way that produces half of the electricity we use in the United States. Nor are the trucks that we drive to transport our goods to stores and warehouses. The dirty fact is that we use a lot of oil. If we'd like to go about our lives without harming the planet, we need to change our habits. The recent Detroit Auto Show indicates that to some degree we are becoming better conservationists. In fact, U.S. demand for oil has dropped a bit over the last 10 years, mostly, because we drive a little less and we choose more fuel efficient cars. But even though the U.S. uses a quarter of all the oil produced in the world, it is still less than 5 percent of the world's population. The rest of the world as it prospers is using more oil. China will end up using the most and that's why rejecting this pipeline may have been a big mistake. The president accused Republicans in Congress of forcing his hand because they inserted clause in December's tax bill that made him issue a decision by February without a quote, "full assessment of the pipeline's impact." But the State Department and other agencies have spent three years reviewing this expansion. They all agree the pipeline need to be rerouted to avoid a possible leak over the sensitive aquifer in Nebraska. It would have been rerouted. There are pipelines all across this country. This was the wrong pipeline to take a stand over and the reason for that is the only place the oil sands gets pipe into right now is the United States. There's no pipeline to the Canadian west coast where that oil could be loaded on to super tankers and shipped to China. But China and Canada have a plan to build that pipeline and with this deal dead they just might go ahead with it. So for those who felt they didn't want to buy dirty oil rest assured dirty oil will still be mined and refined and every last drop of it will get sold to the highest bidder. Obviously, politics are at play here. The president hoped to postpone his decision beyond the elections this fall so as not to alienate environmentalists from his political base. But the Republican backlash to President Obama's decision mentions none of that. They blasted him for destroying tens of thousands of American jobs that the pipeline expansion might have created. I'm not sure it was going anywhere near the 20,000 jobs the pipeline company said it would create to lay the pipe or even 6,000 jobs the State Department estimated. It would have created some jobs, but that's not actually the point. The point is America just cut off an opportunity to buy lots of oil from a friendly, politically stable neighbor and that's just a bad plan. That's my XYZ. Thanks for joining the conversation this week on YOUR MONEY. We're here every Saturday, 1 p.m. Eastern, Sunday at 3 p.m. Eastern. Make sure to check out my new book with Christine Romans, "How To Speak Money." It's a step by step guide in understanding the language of money and everything you need to know, head to amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com right now to get your copy. You stay connected to us 24/7 on Twitter my handle is @alivelshi. The show handle is @cnnyourmoney. Have a great weekend.


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Facilitating the spread of knowledge and innovation in professional software development
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Kirk Pepperdine talks about the steps to take to cure the problem of memory and also covers how the JVM can both help reduce the memory - strength of an application.
Monal Daxini presents a blueprint for streaming data architectures and a review of desirable features of a streaming engine. He also talks about streaming application patterns and anti-patterns, and use cases and concrete examples using Apache Flink.
Sugu Sougoumarane gives an overview of the salient features of Vitess, and at the end, he covers some advanced features with a demo.
Blockchain is, for many people, still synonymous with cryptocurrencies and financial applications, but it has enormous potential as a tool for the common good. This article explores whether blockchain could help good causes and discusses whether the lessons from ethics could benefit the blockchain community.
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Matthew Chew remembered
Marilyn and Rick Chew are spending the one-year anniversary of their son Matthew's murder in a quiet coastal town in central California, but their thoughts this weekend are with their surviving children in Connecticut - and with New London, the community most shaken by Chew's violent death.
The Chews said in a recent phone interview from their home in California that they have suffered deeply this year, experiencing shock, anger, sadness and consuming thoughts of their son's violent death. Even joyful family gatherings have been tempered by grief because their family unit is broken, they said.
"We get out of bed and function every day, but he's with us all of the day as we do the things we have to do to carry on with life," Marilyn Chew said.
Matthew C. Chew, 25, an artist, DJ and cook who grew up in Ledyard and moved to New London as a young adult, was assaulted and fatally stabbed Oct. 29, 2010, as he walked home from his job at 2Wives restaurant on Huntington Street.
Six local teens, who allegedly set out to beat up someone at random that night, were arrested a month later.
The crime, devastating to Chew's family and friends, also resonated with various segments of the city's population, from the arts community, where Chew was making a name for himself, to the business sector, which feared the tragedy would cast a pall on revitalization efforts, to city officials and police, churches, and the schools the alleged perpetrators attended.
The families of the imprisoned teenagers grieved their own losses and, with the news that other random attacks had occurred in New London, many who knew neither the victim nor his accused attackers feared for their safety.
This weekend's memorial events include a Halloween-themed candlelight vigil Sunday at the Bean & Leaf cafe. Some of Chew's bold-colored paintings are on exhibit at the coffeehouse, and Chew's parents recently installed a memorial bench on the patio there. Costumes are encouraged. Chew loved Halloween, according to his friends, and had planned a party before his death.
Washington Street, home of Chew's favorite coffeehouse, also is where he lived, and where, moments before he was attacked on nearby Huntington Street, a bank surveillance camera recorded the images of the six roving teens who would be accused in his death. They are Tyree Bundy, Idris Elahi, Matias Perry, Rahshad Perry, Brian Rabell and Marquis Singleton.
At a court hearing earlier this year, three of the teens testified that they were watching TV at Elahi's house when they decided to go out and jump someone. Rahshad Perry dared Elahi to stab somebody, according to the court testimony, and the two gave each other "dap," or knocked fists, to seal their commitment.
The teens remain incarcerated and have been making regular pretrial court appearances in New London Superior Court during which prosecutor Stephen M. Carney discusses the case with the teens' attorneys and with Judge Patrick J. Clifford.
The state expects to resolve Elahi's case first, since he allegedly was the lead aggressor. The case has bogged down while Elahi undergoes a psychological evaluation that was requested by his attorney.
The evaluation, fairly routine in murder cases, is geared toward uncovering mitigating factors, or information about Elahi's life that could be presented to the court with the hope of securing reduced charges or a lesser sentence.
Marilyn Chew said she has not given a lot of thought to the six teens during the past year because it takes away from her thoughts of Matthew. She and her husband have been in touch with the state's attorney's office and said they would be here should any of the teens go on trial.
"I always trip up on the same thing I tripped up on early on," said Rick Chew. "Why did these six people do this? The answer is, I don't know and I can't tell you, either because I can't put myself in their shoes or because there was no actual reason."
The Chews, who have said they hope for enduring, positive change in New London as a result of their son's death, have been participating in survivors' groups in California.
They also have been involved, with Matthew's friends, in the creation of The Matthew Chew Memorial Scholarship for the Arts. At Sunday's memorial vigil, posters from Chew's paintings, as well as wristbands and stickers, will be on sale.
The scholarship fund, administered by the Community Foundation of Southeastern Connecticut, shows a balance of more than $4,000, according to Amanda Bachand, who said her friend would be happy that his death jump-started efforts to improve the city. There have been several fundraisers for the scholarship during the past year, and there is talk of a music festival.
"I feel like this kind of started a revolution in New London," Bachand said.
In the wake of Chew's death, city officials formed the Safe Cities Commission and obtained $74,000 for youth programs. Private citizens started organizations like the nonprofit New London Antiviolence, which organized neighborhood walks and recruited volunteers to work with young people. Churches got involved and businesses contributed to various fundraisers.
"When something like this happens, it has a rippling effect, not just in New London, but in surrounding towns," said John Pescatello, who leads the antiviolence group. "As a parent, you think, 'That's terrible, and it could happen to my child on either side (victim or attacker).'"
Rev. Carolyn Patierno of the All Souls Unitarian Church, who spoke of the importance of maintaining peace at an impromptu vigil that was organized by Chew's friends on the night of his death, said it felt this year as if the heartbreak of the tragedy never stopped. But there are glimmers of hope, she said.
"I think the community weathered the tragedy as best it could, and there's still a lot of work to do," Patierno said. "I'm hopeful this will never happen again, that there will be a place for young people to gather and for recreation and for community building."
Remembering Matthew Chew
What: Halloween-themed candlelight vigil
When: 6:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: Bean & Leaf caf�, 13 Washington St., New London
Officials seek answers after recent acts of youth violence in New London
Highlights: ECC girls basketball final NL 54, Bacon Academy 40
Watch Live: New London vs. Bacon Acadmey in ECC girls' basketball final
Fitch's Amara Robinson: from broken back to all-state cheerleader
Bills introduced to change state law regarding mileage payments to legislators
Kevin P. McMahon, 'The People's Judge' of New London County, dead at 68
Republicans could regret allowing Trump to use sham emergency


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Wilderness First Aid is a very equipment intensive class. Most of the equipment used is on loan from various instructors and/or units. The amount of the equipment we have is what currently limits the class sizes.
We are always on the lookout for equipment in various stages of use. If you or your unit has anything listed below and would like to donate it to the Five Rivers Council CPR training please make arrangements with Marc McGrain.
Water Filter - Cartridge style - does not need to work
Tent - any condition as long as it stands, this is used as a scenario propt. Leaks terrible is fine.
Tarps - any size, almost any condition
7' Poles, 2-3" in diameter, relatively straight
Frame Style Backpack - condition of any fabric piece is not important
Lifeguard Throw Bag - any condition. This is used for demonstration only!
SAM Splints
Wool/Heavy Blanket - used is fine
Sleeping Bag - almost any condition, used for scenarios.
Foam sleeping pads - any condition or sizes
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PasadenaNow Outsources Local News Coverage UPDATED
Yes, you heard that right. Our very own Pasadena Now has outsourced its local news coverage to India. No, I kid you not. The news is spreading, fast (hell, it's already in Boston).
Before I launch into a curmudgeonly tirade about the downfall of local journalism, let's give James Macpherson a chance to make his point, as quoted by the AP:
James Macpherson, editor and publisher of the two-year-old Web site pasadenanow.com, acknowledged it sounds strange to have journalists in India cover news in this wealthy city just outside Los Angeles.
But he said it can be done from afar now that weekly Pasadena City Council meetings can be watched over the Internet. And he said the idea makes business sense because of India's lower labor costs.
"I think it could be a significant way to increase the quality of journalism on the local level without the expense that is a major problem for local publications," said the 51-year-old Pasadena native. "Whether you're at a desk in Pasadena or a desk in Mumbai, you're still just a phone call or e-mail away from the interview."
That's true, to a certain degree. The type of journalistic coverage Macpherson is talking about really could be done by someone in another country, largely because their "coverage" often consists of little more than glorified press releases and parroting of the local media.
To be sure, there's a lot of good work that can be done online. Lord knows the majority of our information comes to us online and we depend upon the web as invaluable research tool. But there are clear limits to using the internet to report on local news and politics.
At the least, it would be very difficult to understand the issues Pasadena faces, from a development perspective, without having your feet on the ground, without walking the streets of Pasadena. To understand why Robin Salzer and Jacque Robinson both emphasized neighborhood security in their campaigns, it helps a lot to walk up and down the streets north of the 210, just to get a feel for the neighborhood. And it's difficult to imagine anyone being able to offer original content on the renovation of Pasadena's City Hall without ever being able to visit.
Of course, that's not to stay that the state of local journalism in Pasadena and the Foothill Cities is just hunky dory. If anything, McPherson's decision demonstrates that the opposite is the case. Expectations for local reporting are such that it's not beyond the pale for him to hire someone in India. And as the proliferation of a local blogosphere demonstrates, from the Claremont Insider to your very own Foothill Cities, there are a lot of folks who want more.
Local journalism is entering into a tumultous transitional stage. From part-time bloggers like ourselves to the full-time efforts like Pasadena Now to the Pasadena Star-News, everyone is trying to figure out just what niche they can carve out, how they can contribute to local news coverage and debate, and (perhaps most importantly) how they can make a buck. How it will end up is anyone's guess, but we certainly doubt that it will end up in India.
One final ironic note: from what we can tell, this eminently local story was picked up by, of all people, an Associated Press reporternot the local press. In other words, as things stand the local media already often takes its cue from outsiders. We don't fault MacPherson for simply being logical given the sorry state of local reporting, but clearly this isn't carrying the ball forwardits simply accepting the sad state of the status quo.
Props to Kevin Roderick for the link. As he notes, the AP report was also printed in the SF Chronicle, which reveals that "Associated Press Writer Matthew Rosenberg in New Delhi, India, contributed to this report." It also links to the original craigslist advertisement, which says:
We seek one to two 500-word articles each day Monday through Friday (depending on news that is occuring) PLUS two weekly in-depth Special Reports which focus on the City Council's weekly Council Meeting ... The Council meeting is televised on the Internet.
We do not believe that geographic distance betwen California and India will present unsurmountable problems, and that working together with you will result in your development of a keen working knowledge of this City's affairs. This will result in accurate and authoritative News reports.


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Genealogists researching in Quebec are hampered by the closure of post-1899 civil register records to the general public. Because of this situation, I have begun indexing the birth and death notices of the Montreal Star newspaper. These notices may at times provide wonderful nuggets of information about people who lived in Montreal and the surrounding area, as well as those who maintained ties there after moving elsewhere.
Currently indexed [over 6,244 birth & 16,191 death notices]:
January - May 19, 1976; January 1977 - September 25, 1979.
[Due to a labour relations dispute, The Montreal Star suspended publication from June 14, 1978 to February 11, 1979]
I would be glad to do look-ups in my index. If an entry is found, I will provide the date the notice appeared in the newspaper. You will then have to contact a library that owns microfilm of the Montreal Star in order to obtain a photocopy of the relevant notice.
To learn if there is a notice indexed for a particular individual, send an e-mail to: firstname.lastname@example.com
Please provide as much information as possible, including full name, maiden name, name of spouse and/or parents, etc.
Remember, only January - May 19, 1976; January 1977 - September 25, 1979 is indexed. Please check back for updated information.
Last updated: May 8, 2013


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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's personal aide is leaving the White House and will rejoin his campaign.
John McEntee served as the president's personal assistant. He was one of a shrinking group of campaign aides still working in the turbulent West Wing.
Trump's 2020 Republican campaign announced Tuesday that he will serve as a senior adviser for campaign operations.
Trump's White House has seen a rash of exits recently. Trump announced Tuesday that he had ousted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Trump's top economic adviser Gary Cohn left recently amid internal debate over Trump's plans for tariffs.


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What does the delicious piece of tuna sashimi you are about to pop in your mouth have to do with microfinance and alleviating poverty in Ghana? Perhaps more than you would expect.
At a recent staff meeting at the Christian Rural Aid Network (CRAN), one of Kiva's Field Partners, a loan officer from the Elmina branch said that the recent ban on light fishing was affecting their loan disbursements and repayments from some clients. My ears perked up.
Elmina is a major fishing hub in Cape Coast. The government recently passed a law to ban the use of powerful lights at night and other harmful practices such as the use of cyanide or dynamites and small-mesh nets to fish (Light fishing and the use of small-mesh nets usually entrap small fish which haven't had the chance to mature). This has of course, led to howls of protest from some fisher folk. However, there are many others who recognize this as a commendable and brave move by the Ghanaian government to save the fishing stocks – and livelihoods of those in the industry – over the long run.
But the problem of overfishing also comes from across the seas: for decades, illegal fishing by European and Asian trawlers has depleted West African fishing stocks. Whilst the Ghanaian government has sold access rights to foreign fleets to fish in deeper waters (at least 30m) in exchange for much needed foreign exchange and revenue, many trawlers circumvent these rules by sneaking into shallower waters at night, destroying coastal habitats and local fishers' equipment; or using illegal (and destructive) fishing methods, such as pair trawling (a very efficient method of trawling, using two boats). Pitted against these mammoth vessels with superior technology, the majority of Ghanaian fishermen don't stand a chance in their canoes… and neither do the fish.
"Cape Coast's slave-trading days may be long gone, but the historic town is no stranger to modern exploitation."
- Pirate Trawlers Gutting Ghana's Fishing Industry, The National
It is estimated that foreign trawlers illegally harvest US$1 billion worth of fish every year from West Africa. These nations lack the capability to patrol their waters.
The impact on the Ghanaian people
The fishing sector accounts for 5 per cent of Ghana's Gross Domestic Product and fish provides Ghanaians with 60 per cent of their protein intake. It was once considered a major regional fishing nation, exporting US$56 million worth of fish in 1996. Today, supply has fallen behind domestic demand and the country is a net importer of fish.
Some fishermen now sell food to foreign trawlers in return for fish.
With 10 per cent of the population – 2.2 million people – employed in this sector, the failure of the fishing industry will have very serious consequences for the country. Over the years, there have been fewer and fewer jobs in fishing and peripheral sectors. Many unemployed fishermen have moved to cities to look for employment, but the jobs that they are suited for are far and few between. In the region, smaller catches have been blamed on immigrant fishers, leading to violence.
Further, the low fish supplies have been cited as a key reason for the poaching of bush meat and the extinction of many bush animals.
Back to Kiva…
Some of the borrowers I recently spoke to are fishmongers. Many are struggling to earn a decent income (and repay their loans) because supplies of fish from Elmina market have dwindled after the recent ban. These women have to travel further to other markets to buy fish, which is costing them more in terms of both time and money.
For CRAN in particular, it used to provide over 50 per cent of their loans to the fishing industry, but over the years, it has diversified its exposure to other industries. Now the fishing sector represents 5 per cent of its loan portfolio.
George Tokpo, Director for Operations at CRAN, is confident that the current ban is causing only a temporary blip in the Elmina fishing industry and people will start fishing again, using more sustainable methods. For now, CRAN is reducing the number of loans to the fishing sector in Elmina until the situation returns to normal, ie. when the fishermen get back out to sea again.
Enforcement of the recent bans on poor fishing practices has been strict and swift. Whilst unpopular in some quarters, the government's vision for long term sustainability of the fish stocks – and the livelihoods of those in the fishing and related industries – is extremely laudable (perhaps more so than the efforts, or lack thereof, of many foreign governments). The challenge now is to provide local fishermen with better ways and technologies for tracking and catching fish; and ensuring that the bounty of Ghanaian waters benefits the Ghanaians, and is not plundered by others.
Some food for thought before you bite into your sashimi.
Facts & Figures
- Canoes or artisanal fleets provide 70 per cent of total fish requirements
- Fishing supports employment for 10 per cent of the population (or 2.2 million people) and 60 per cent of women, directly and in peripheral industries.
- The growth rate for fishing sector was -2.3 per cent in 2009. In 2008, the grow rate was 10 per cent.
- Almost half of the mammal species in land reserves are now extinct because of illegal poaching.
Sources and Resources:
- The decline of a regional fishing nation: The case of Ghana and West Africa
- Ghana News: Fishing sector of economy recorded negative growth in 2009
- Ghana Web: Addressing The Challenges In The Fishing Industry In Ghana
- The National: Pirate Trawlers Gutting Ghana's Fishing Industry
- The Challenge for Africa by Wangari Maathai
- The End of the Line
Mei-ing is a Kiva Fellow in Cape Coast, Ghana, working with the wonderful team at the Christian Rural Aid Network (CRAN), a Kiva Field Partner. She loves sashimi but will do her best to find out which sustainable fish to eat.
Find out how you can make a loan or how to become a Kiva Fellow.
To lend to CRAN's borrowers, join the CRAN lending team


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The Interdisciplinary Practice and Reflection (IPR) requirement ensures that all IAS students complete at least one course that requires an advanced research, creative, or experiential learning project before they graduate. IAS courses meeting this requirement are low-enrollment and high-impact. They typically involve close engagement with a faculty member and assume prior study in the area. These courses allow students to complete a project that draws on their academic interests and furthers their life ambitions. The project might be a seminar paper in a particular area of study; an academic internship in a relevant field; a service-learning project that builds on the student's academic work; a study abroad opportunity; an art and media project or production. Courses that satisfy the IPR requirement ask students to reflect on the value, challenges, and effectiveness of their work in relation to their undergraduate education as a whole.
*All IAS students must complete at least 5 credits of IPR. This requirement can be satisfied by one 5-credit course or multiple lower-credit courses. Students should talk with faculty members in their major and consult their degree webpages as they decide which of the courses listed above fit best with their academic training and life goals. Because artifacts produced in these courses are ideal for inclusion in students' capstone portfolios, the IPR requirement should be satisfied prior to BIS 499. Many of the courses listed above have prerequisites, applications processes, priority registration for specific majors, or other requirements for enrollment. Please check the IAS website and course catalog for details.


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We've lost a lot of icons recently -- but no matter what NBC says, Betty White isn't one of 'em!
During a report yesterday morning at Forest Lawn Cemetery, "Today's" Michael Okwu listed the "Golden Girl" as one of the celebrities already buried there.
Meredith Vieira corrected him -- he probably meant Bette Davis.
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The United States already has its own saints, men and women of great holiness and distinction such as Elizabeth Ann Seton, John Neumann, Frances Cabrini and Katherine Drexel. They represent the causes of education, missionary work, outreach to Native American Indians and ethnic minorities and a thousand other worthy apostolates. But do any of them embody the spirit of the whole church in America? The recent official opening of the cause for sainthood of Isaac Thomas Hecker, the founder of the Paulists, offers the possibility that he may someday be a patron of the United States.
Hecker, a classic American religious seeker who (after becoming Catholic at age 41) sought the conversion of the United States to the Catholic faith, was the champion of an attractive though controversial proposition: Americans have much to learn from the church, and the church can likewise learn from the United States. For centuries in this country, many church members saw themselves as Catholics who happened to be American, willing to live in physical and psychological ghettos. In recent decades, we have seen much of the opposite: Americans who happen to be Catholic, who have become part of the mainstream of American life but unwittingly sacrificed much of what makes Catholicism distinctive. We live, love and votethe pundits tell usjust like other Americans.
Hecker would have found both options anathema. His thought and actions propose a church that is both fully Catholic and wholeheartedly American, preaching the Gospel in constant recognition of our unique circumstances. Surely Americans understand democracy a little better than Rome. Our economic and social traditions also encourage a level of transparency that the church has been only slowly, sometimes painfully, embracing. The Catholic Church also has much to teach American society, including its venerable teachings on the sanctity of human life and the necessity of economic justice for all.
In recent years, growing recognition of Heckers personal holiness and important contributions to the faith have trumped concerns from another century about his orthodoxy, and Cardinal Edward Egan of New York noted at the ceremony on Jan. 27 opening Heckers cause, that he was a saint like us: a saint who has suffered, a saint who made his way through life bearing crosses with a tremendous faith. (Readers seeking a comprehensive account of Heckers life and influence might profit from David J. OBriens Isaac Hecker: An American Catholic.)
My personal devotion to Hecker is that much stronger because of the crosses he bore, including his dismissal from the Redemptorists, battles with depression, years of spiritual struggle while he suffered from the leukemia that eventually killed him and, perhaps most touching, his fear that his intense mystical visions might be nothing more than a symptom of insanity. His life does not lend itself easily to hagiography, but his faith in God through such trials is a powerful testament to the rewards of perseverance in the spiritual life.
At the end of January, Hecker was declared a Servant of God. Beatification is the next step, with official acknowledgment of his sainthood likely to follow. Only in the rarest of circumstances do these canonization processes take anything but decadessometimes centuriesto reach their completion, so it is unlikely that many of us will live to see his sainthood officially recognized. Nevertheless, we may all still hope that by that late date we will have long since met this great American saint face to face.


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New to this forum and I wanted to say hello
There is a lot of knowledge, information and experience on this forum.
I have been around this industry since I was a kid...that was a long time ago.
I'm looking to purchase the LA software and become affiliated with some of you folks, and if there is anything I can do please let me know.


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Featured News
Register here for National Social Work Month activities at Evangel
January 25, 2013 | Chase Replogle
In honor of National Social Work Month, area social workers and human service professionals are invited to two special events on the Evangel University campus during the month of March.
Both of these activities are free, however separate registration is required for each event.
Ethics seminar
The Evangel University Social Work Program and Missouri State University School of Social Work will host a seminar titled Ethics: From Theory to Process on Friday, March 1, from 1-4:30 p.m. in Trask Hall 101. This seminar is designed to meet the 3-hour ethics licensure requirement for licensed clinical social workers. All local human service professionals are invited and encouraged to participate. Attendees will be awarded three contact hours.
On-site registration will begin at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, March 1, or participants may pre-register online.
The keynote speaker will be Dan Sontheimer, the chief medical officer at Cox Health.
The Evangel University Social Work Program and Missouri State University School of Social Work, along with the AIDS Project of the Ozarks, will sponsor a luncheon on Wednesday, March 27, from 12-1:30 p.m. in the Joust West Conference Room at Evangel University.
The event is free, and all area social workers are invited to attend.
Those interested in the luncheon must RSVP by Friday, March 22. Register online now.
For more information about either of these events, contact Melissa Summerville in the Evangel University Social Work Program office at 417-865-2815, ext. 8622.