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The Hanasaari Conceptual Model for Occupational Health Nursing
It was perhaps a breakthrough in 1988 when NIVA (The Nordic Institute for Advanced Training in Occupational Health) and Kitta Rossi from the Institute of Occupational Health in Finland arranged an International Workshop at the Finnish town of Hanasaari. Under the unique skills of Ruth Alston U.K. a dynamic conceptual model emerged. Another workshop arranged by the same group took place in Aspenas , Sweden in 1992 and included delegates from the then newly independent Baltic States , Iceland , Switzerland and Africa.
The Hanasaari Conceptual Model
The Total Environment Concept
The general environment system, which incorporates health and safety aspects, is represented by the large outer circle-a global concept. Within the outer circle the influences, which have global effects, which in turn may affect health, are represented by economic, political, social, ecological and organisational factors. These are interesting areas for practice and education innovation in occupational health nursing.
Man Work and Health Concept. This is represented by the man, work and health triangle and operates within the total environment, aspects of the total environment having a significant (although indirect) effect on workplace health. Political and social polices for example will either expand or contract the development of occupational health. Organisational cultures and strategies may exert a stronger more direct influence on the man, work, and health triangle
Occupational Health Nursing is presented in the centre of the model. Flexibility was interpreted as being proactive rather than reactive. Flexibility is represented by a curving circle of arrows, which exerts influence and develops the concepts identified, ultimately improving the health of people at work and affecting the health of communities outside the workplace, in the total environment. The outward proactive approach may influence politically, socially, economically and ecologically particularly if Occupational Health Nurses raise the level of awareness of their real contribution to health issues in a wider environment.


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As the largest urology group, we provide you with the most comprehensive range of treatments, expertise, and collaboration.
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Urology San Antonio's collaborative culture means that patients facing complex urologic concerns see the doctor who is the most experienced in treating their condition.
Our subspecialists develop incredible expertise in different aspects of urologic care and can offer patients treatment options and guidance not commonly seen in a community urology practice.

subset: commoncrawl


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28 Gauge/.50cal Gun Cleaning Bore-tips® by Swab-its®
- A case contains (12) bags of Bore-tips® - each bag containing (3) Bore-Bore-tips®
The .50cal is one of the most versatile Bore-tips; equally prepared to handle rifles, pistols as well as .50cal muzzleloaders and 28ga shotguns. These tough, reusable foam tips are engineered for 100% bore contact; spreading fluids more evenly than mops and patches without lint or fibers. Their non-abrasive foam allows them to be run in both directions, while their absorbency requires less solvent/lubricant. Washable and reusable, they affix to a standard shotgun rod with 5/16-27 threading. So, whether you're a skeet shooter, muzzleloader or have that Desert Eagle in your gun safe, the .50cal Bore-tips can handle it.
- A bag contains 3 Bore-tips®
- Each tip can be used multiple times and should substantially outlast a similar priced bag of patches.
- Washable and reusable
- Lint-free and fiber-free
Payment & Security
Your payment information is processed securely. We do not store credit card details nor have access to your credit card information.


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The eclipse of the Labour Party by must now be reckoned more likely than not. Future historians will look back on the years between 1924 and 2017 as the Labour era, the period when a trade union-based party was one of the big two. But, like the Whigs and the Liberals before them, the People's Party now face being displaced as the main force on the Centre-Left.
That's not to say that Labour will disappear completely. There is still a Liberal Party, representing those who rejected the 1988 merger with the SDP, clinging on in parts of Liverpool. There is even, incredibly, a continuity SDP, created by refuseniks on the other side, with a handful of members in East Yorkshire. Something calling itself the Labour Party will be with us for a while yet. But the party's life force is ebbing.
Think about it. All the indications are that, however badly he does, Jeremy Corbyn will refuse to step aside, making a schism inevitable. Even if he is somehow eased out, the electorate that chose him will remain in place. And that electorate – the mass of Momentum agitators – could not have made clearer that it does not care about winning general elections. Even as Labour slides in the polls, its activists remain focused on purging Blairites.
From the outside, Labour's behaviour seems almost suicidal. But that's because we're not looking at the personal incentives of the various actors. Just as Richard Dawkins showed that apparently self-destructive behaviour in animals can be understood once we grasp that the gene, rather than the organism, is the unit of selection, so we need to identify the motives of the individuals who make up the Labour Party.
Corbyn is, as it were, the ultimate selfish gene, content to allow the host organism to perish for his benefit. His supporters don't regard 28 per cent support in the polls as calamitous. They regard it as a vast improvement on the one or two per cent that has until now been the ceiling for Trotskyist parties. They have never been especially interested in Parliament, which their doctrines teach them to regard as a bourgeois institution. As they see it, the revolution is advancing through an essentially extra-parliamentary movement that just happens to have some MPs attached.
The motives of those MPs could not be more different. First, and most obviously, they want to keep their jobs. That doesn't just mean holding their seats next month; it also means avoiding deselection at the hands of Momentum when the new constituency boundaries kick in.
The longer I have spent in politics, the more I have realised that the lobby correspondents' view of the world is more accurate than the leader writers'. Preferment, sadly, almost always trumps principle. What was it that led to the formation of the SDP in 1981? Not, as high-minded historians claim, differences over unilateralism or the EEC, but incumbent Labour MPs' fear that they would be subjected to mandatory reselection. Exactly the same fear will almost certainly cause a split after polling day.
So much for Labour activists and Labour MPs. What of Labour voters? Let's apply the same Freakonomicsprinciple (or, as we might more pretentiously say, the same Namierite method) and ask what their incentives are. Most traditional Labour voters want what the Labour Party used to be: a party that was economically interventionist and committed to wealth redistribution, but also patriotic and hard-headed about immigration and crime. While no party exactly matches that combination, it seems clear that Theresa May's Conservatives approximate it more closely than Jeremy Corbyn's Labour. Many Labour voters, especially those whose habits were broken during the Brexit referendum, when they found themselves backing a campaign led by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, will now switch.
Labour MPs, Labour activists and Labour voters now occupy three circles that barely overlap. That is what makes a split inevitable. And that is what is behind all this breathless Blairite talk about how Emmanuel Macron won, as Peter Mandelson puts it, "by leaving his party, not despite doing so". (New Labour types have always been unusually susceptible to European fashions.)
Even if the moderates could somehow recover control of the party – with its brand, its title and, not least, its trade union links – the problem would remain. These are not friendly times for parties of the traditional Left. It is often pointed out that, of the eight men who have led Labour over the past 40 years, seven failed to win a general election. But the decline of the established Left is a Europe-wide phenomenon. The French Socialists came fifth in the recent Presidential election, with 6.4 per cent; the Dutch Labour Party seventh in the general election with 5.7 per cent.
Parties designed for an age of mass industrialised workforces struggle for relevance when more and more of us are self-employed. Steam railways made mass movements feasible; broadband tilts the balance back from the producer to the consumer.
A new force will eventually emerge on the British Left. In this, as in any country, a chunk of the electorate is looking for a party that stands, essentially, for an activist state. But it now seems all but certain that that party won't be Labour.
In many ways, this saddens me. I wrote here last August that Britain had been unusually lucky in the temper of its chief Leftist party. Unlike the revolutionary socialist parties on the Continent, I observed, Labour was rooted in brass bands and the temperance movement, in working men's libraries and Nonconformist churches. On top of which, I feel for some of my Labour friends, public-spirited (if wrong-headed) parliamentarians who suddenly find themselves being howled down at party meetings by members they have never seen before.
Still, the quicker the reconfiguration happens, and the sooner we get back to normal two-party politics, the better for everyone. We Conservatives need a decent opposition. So, Heaven knows, does Britain.


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Project Description
Studio Level Eleven
The Brief
This was an interesting job. The brief was to take an existing website (one that I had previously made for the business) and revamp it for the new owner. Change of colours, name, logo, settings etc. There was a lot more to it than you might figure. This was to be Stage 1 of the project. Stage two is coming soon, which will be a much deeper analysis of the businesses needs and focus, and
there will likely be deeper structural changes and a more refined redesign.
Our Design Approach
As this was essentially just a rebranding exercise, the design approach was dictated by the logo and existing colours of the business. Essentially, most of the design choices had been already made in the previous build, and at this point the business just wanted to get on their feet as quickly as possible with the website.
Here is  screengrab of the previous site:
The Results
The previous site was one of my favourite ever websites that I had built, so I knew the design would handle a transition pretty well. Overall, I am now very keen to get on to Stage 2 of the build, as the website needs a more focused approach and could benefit from a refresh of some design elements. But all in all, it was an interesting challenge to transform a built website into another brand but essentially the same business, in a short time frame and to a tight budget.
Check the site at http://www.studioleveleleven.com.au


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The Transmedia Zone is a community focused incubator for innovation and reative experimentation in storytelling across entertainment media platforms.
The TZ Supports storytellers, creators, artists, and innovators with a strong unique and authentic point of view, and a clear mission and deserie to develop new and exciting media experiences. At TZ, innovation takes many forms and in our context, it can mean:
- Using new platforms
- Remixing or reimagining traditional storytelling formats
- Reaching new audiences
- Creating new platforms to support storytelling
Digital Creators / E-Sports (Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, etc.)
Story Centred Tech (apps/platforms/products)
TV/Web Series
Journalism/Live Journalism
Video Games
Interactive Theatre Experiences
Innovation in Music
Something yet to be invented that you're making right now...
Is it moving forward the art of storytelling and entertainment? Then, yes.
TZ is a place for the next wave of entertainment media and storytelling projects. To us, "innovative" doesn't just mean technological advances.
Are you serving an underrepresented community?
Are you taking a new approach?
Are you making it easier to bring new and important stories to the forefront?
And if you're a changemaker in the music industry, you'll be a great fit for our Music Den.
TZ Selects:
- Year round
- Fill out your application and get invited to our bi-monthly pitch day for an interview/presentation
TZ Summer or Winter:
- Our 6 week personalized cohorts bringin the most innovative entertainment projects and founders together
- Winter - February/March
- Summer - July/August
TZ Student League:
- The way TMU storytellers and media changemakers can collaborate and join the TZ, Music Den, and Innovation Studio community
Our incubator is for all Canadian storytellers. For our bespoke zone learning approach to be the most effective, we need folks from all ages, backgrounds, education levels, and viewpoints.
Downtown Toronto Work & Meeting Space
Community Support
Funding Workshops
Access to Talent
Radio/Podcasting Studios
Market Insight and Research
Entrepreneurship 101 Sessions
Commes & Media Training
Brand Storytelling
Discounted Conferences
Access to HQ, the Innovation Studio's event and performance space
Dedicated Desks, Board Rooms, and a Creative Storytelling Meeting Room
Plus, access to free resources from TMU, such as: Radio Studios, the Equipment Distribution Centre, Adobe Creative Cloud, Autodesk, and more!
"I just wanted to say how much I've enjoyed the past two years being in the Transmedia Zone. It literally kept me sane during the trash fire of 2020. And I'm really grateful for the thoughtfulness, genius and empathy"


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From the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office... Belmont Ridge Road south of the W&OD Trail Crossing is closed in both direction due to a two vehicle crash. 11:50 a.m.
Update: The crash at Belmont Ridge Road South of the W&OD Trail is cleared and the road is now open. (2:38 p.m.)
Friday, October 26, 2007
Road Closure
Posted by Loudoun County Traffic at 11:57 AM
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It's even more offensive that she chose to insult Americans while in India.
She needs to shut her damn mouth.
She is pathetic and she lost.
Move on, Hillary.
Look at the video below.
Russians hacked Hillary Clinton's flip flops
Is she drunk again?
That's her legacy now, a big old public drunk who rants and raves.
One more time, let's look at the big old drunk.
#BREAKING: Hillary Clinton falls down the stairs in India, twice.
One more time, look at the big old drunk.
Hillary Clinton's health continues downward spiral.
Her family needs to stage an intervention already.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Monday, March 12, 2018. More Christians dead in Iraq, the Ministry of Interior tries to spin murder as theft, Hayder al-Abadi doesn't appear to grasp that he's in violation of Iraqi law, ISIS apparently did not hear that Hayder had pronounced them defeated because they staged multiple attacks across Iraq today, and much more
Let's start with nonsense and then we'll go to California.
Let's start with nonsense and then we'll go to California.
No, Joost, it was not words by Henri that made the Kurds hold their referendum.
They did it because they wanted to -- that's why you had over 95% of the voters voting in it.
You don't like it.
We get that. The whole world gets it.
You failed to stand for freedom. You failed to stand for self-determination.
Now you want to come along and call others fools?
Put your head back up your ass cause no one else is licking your crap today.
You should be ashamed of yourself. You are part of the US establishment. As such you are a part of long history of lying to the Kurds and turning your back on them.
That's what's happened repeatedly since the days when Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State. We've demonstrated that here repeatedly by citing the so-called unpublished Pike Report. The Church Committee? Most of us know about that. Congress' Pike Report, not so much.
The US government has repeatedly used and abused the Kurds and their trust.
That after decades of being told not now, the Kurds decided to hold a referendum -- a non-binding referendum whose only purpose was to officially determine the will of the Kurdish people? That that referendum offends you?
Like I said, stick your head back up your ass -- your the only one licking that flavor.
How typical of an imperialist to gets his panties in a wad over a group holding an election to determine the will of the people. Kurds are not your children -- they're not children at all, Joost. They will defend themselves and they will determine for themselves. Go home, Bwana, and take your superior attitude with you.
Moving to California where we can move into the 21st century with Kevin de Leon or we can stay in last century with elderly Dianne Feinstein. Yes, she's too old to be in the Senate. Yes, she needs to go. Yes, she supported the Iraq War.
Kevin is change.
I'm running for the U.S. Senate because you deserve a seat at the table.
Please join my campaign: kevindeleon.com/signup
What an incredible privilege to spend this afternoon with @UCSBdems to talk about our shared values, and our vision for the future of California. Took me back to my freshman days on the @ucsantabarbara campus!
We are in mourning over horrific tragedies across California this morning. In #Yountville yesterday the lives of three brave women ended in an act of senseless violence. Our heartfelt prayers are with the victims' loved ones this morning.
In June, California will hold a primary. For the US Senate, the two top vote getters in the primary will advance to the November general election. Party identification will not matter. Were the primary today, the two advancing would be Kevin de Leon and Dianne Feinstein.
Let's turn to Iraq's elections.
They are scheduled to be held May 12th.
Interesting developments? Let's look at some of the major players.
ALSUMARIA reports that Moqtada al-Sadr says elections are necessary to protect Iraq and that all voters should participate.
His Eminence Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr (Odeh Allah)
Calls to save Iraq from the corrupt votes of his beloved in the parliamentary elections: "Save Iraq your votes, lovers of the homeland or else lost in the hands of corrupt
Shi'ite cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr is teaming his party with the Communist Party.
Not all are pleased with Moqtada's move -- as noted in this series of Tweets.
Supporters of a black-turbaned Shia cleric are seeing red in the run-up to Iraq's May elections thanks to an unprecedented alliance with the once-powerful communist party.
Populist preacher Muqtada al-Sadr has defied his clerical rivals and opted to campaign for the May 12 poll alongside former enemies, Marxists who demand a secular state.
"This alliance is a first in Iraq," said Ibrahim al-Jaberi, a Sadrist official. "It's a revolution by Iraqis who want reforms — both secularists, like the communists, and by moderate Islamists."
Jaberi, a 34-year-old cleric who sports a red beard along with his black turban and gown, heads every Friday to central Baghdad's Tahrir Square to address hundreds of anti-government protesters.
AL MADA notes the partnership is "unprecedented" but not surprising because for the last two years the two groups have been among those turning out in Baghdad's Tahrir Square for the last two years to protest the government corruption. Moqtada's group AL Ahrar and the Communist Party are two of the six components making up the Alliance for Reform. Nadia Nasser explains, "Our goal is to change the officials who have ruled us for 14 years. I am fed up with corruption. I am in favor of this alliance because I want to see new faces" in government.
Moqtada is one of many Shi'ite leaders. Amar al-Hakim is another one and, over the weekend, he got press for showing leadership. As NINA has reported, Amar has encouraged voters to back candidates they feel have the best vision for the country and told young people that they will be responsible for building the Iraqi state.
Meanwhile, in the KRG, Goran (Change) is the political party created with CIA seed money. NINA reports that they are calling for all citizens to register to vote and to update their contact information. In the last election cycle, Goran proved to be a major player coming in second only to the KDP which is headed by Massoud Barzani.
Today marks the 48th year anniversary of the March 11, 1970 agreement between the Iraqi government and Kurdistan, an agreement which granted the Kurds some of their rights. (1 of 3)
The March 11 agreement along with other legal agreements between Kurdistan and the central government in Baghdad culminated in the 2005 Iraqi Constitution. Alas, they have collectively failed to grant legitimacy to the concept of partnership. (2 of 3)
This duration of the past 48 years since that agreement has undergone a systematic period of oppression against the Kurds from chemical bombardment to the Anfal genocide. Unfortunately the government in Iraq continues to deliberately neglect the principle of partnership. (3 of 3)
Barzani is not the only one objecting to the budget. Saturday, THE FINANCIAL TRIBUNE reported:
The International Monetary Fund, which controls Baghdad's access to over $5 billion in international loans, has come out against Iraq's recently-passed 2018 budget, in large part due to the decrease of the share allocated to the Kurdistan region.
"The budget is not satisfactory because we think it's not enough to maintain macroeconomic stability in Kurdistan, which is an important region of Iraq," Christian Josz, deputy division chief of the IMF's Middle East and Central Asian department, told Iraq Oil Report, Kurdistan24 reported.
Iraq's adherence to regulations in the IMF's Stand-By Arrangement acts to free up $5.34 billion in international loans. It also indirectly allows Iraq to access billions more, due to the positive effect on the confidence of investors and businesses that IMF partnership carries.
If Baghdad fails to reach specific economic and governance benchmarks laid out in the SBA, the IMF can cite non-compliance to put the agreement, and therefore billions of dollars for Iraq, on hold.
Turning to forever thug and former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. Over the weekend, ALSUMARIA reported that State of Law is trying to kill rumors that Nouri al-Maliki is rejecting Hayder al-Abadi as prime minister. Nouri is the former prime minister and forever thug. Hayder replaced him as prime minister in late 2014. Nouri has, to this day, refused to move out of the prime minister's home. Nouri has been plotting to return as prime minister. Last month, some outlets insisted that Nouri was not interested in another term as prime minister. If he were to become prime minister, it would be his third term. The ALSUMARIA report quotes a State of Law official stating that Nouri believes the people -- only the Iraqi people -- have the right to determine the prime minister. That's laughable when you consider that Nouri lost in 2010 and that Barack had US officials negotiate The Erbil Agreement which gave Nouri his second term. Nouri wants back in to the post and his minions are wasting everyone's time pretending otherwise.
Nouri's State of Law is also in a tizzy over the candidates. In previous elections, Nouri's been able to use the Accountability and Justice Committee to weed out candidates he didn't want to run but ALL IRAQ NEWS reported State of Law is objecting to the list of candidates.
Nouri objects to a great deal -- mainly, he objects to the truth.
As noted in Friday's snapshot, Laura Rozen filed a ridiculous story -- that ignored far too many public details. If she thought Nouri al-Maliki was going to be pleased with her reticence, she was wrong. Even ignoring everything, she's still angered him. ALL IRAQ NEWS notes that Nouri has called her report "false" and stated she did not know her facts. NINA includes Nouri's remarks that the deal was cancelled by the government in 2012. Both NINA and ALL IRAQ NEWS note that it was the corruption perception -- the Parliament's perception that the deal was corrupt -- that killed the deal.
Please note that ALL IRAQ NEWS and NINA do a better job reporting on the corruption in their reports today than Laura did on Friday -- and Laura used a lot more words and sentences. Please note that the most deadly country for journalists in 2017 was Iraq. These were not foreign journalists being killed. And yet even living under that threat, Iraqis are turning out better journalism than American Laura Rozen who is not in Iraq.
Hayder al-Abadi replaced Nouri as prime minister when Barack Obama installed Hayder in the fall of 2014. Hayder wants to be prime minister for a second term.
He was supposed to be fighting corruption . . . but he wasn't.
So what does he have to show for it?
Not much.
He claims to have defeated the Islamic State.
As noted in Friday's snapshot, Laura Rozen filed a ridiculous story -- that ignored far too many public details. If she thought Nouri al-Maliki was going to be pleased with her reticence, she was wrong. Even ignoring everything, she's still angered him. ALL IRAQ NEWS notes that Nouri has called her report "false" and stated she did not know her facts. NINA includes Nouri's remarks that the deal was cancelled by the government in 2012. Both NINA and ALL IRAQ NEWS note that it was the corruption perception -- the Parliament's perception that the deal was corrupt -- that killed the deal.
Please note that ALL IRAQ NEWS and NINA do a better job reporting on the corruption in their reports today than Laura did on Friday -- and Laura used a lot more words and sentences. Please note that the most deadly country for journalists in 2017 was Iraq. These were not foreign journalists being killed. And yet even living under that threat, Iraqis are turning out better journalism than American Laura Rozen who is not in Iraq.
Hayder al-Abadi replaced Nouri as prime minister when Barack Obama installed Hayder in the fall of 2014. Hayder wants to be prime minister for a second term.
He was supposed to be fighting corruption . . . but he wasn't.
So what does he have to show for it?
Not much.
He claims to have defeated the Islamic State.
It seems #ISIS is not finished in #Iraq Mr. @HaiderAlAbadi. It was too early to announce the 'victory'. But fears from 'losing' votes in the up coming elections turned the table up-down.
And if he defeated it, as he claims, why hasn't reconstruction taken place?
After the defeat of the Islamic State group in Iraq, residents returning to cities like Mosul are finding only rubble and ruin.
Here's the thing about "rubble and ruin," it's unacceptable.
That's not my judgment as an American citizen. That's per Iraqi law.
KITABAT notes that Iraqi law requires for Mosul and other areas to be immediately rebuilt, for the prime minister to use emergency funds and/or transfer funds out of ministry budgets, and that all non-essential projects stop as the national government directs its funds and focus to the areas in need. This is the law and it has not happened. Hayder's in violation of Iraqi law and failing the people of Mosul, of Anbar Province and other areas that have supposedly been 'liberated' from ISIS>
And there's also the fact that, as KITABAT notes, approximately 11,000 residents of Mosul remain missing -- feared dead from ISIS.
ALSUMARIA reports that dozens (looks like hundreds from TV footage) have turned out in Dhi Qar to protest the lack of water and they are saying this is brought on by government corruption. In addition, dozens of members of one tribe -- al-Niaz -- protested in Dhi Qar over the government seizure of their land. These demonstrations follow the protests in various parts of Iraq over the weekend -- protests by farmers who state they must be paid. ALSUMARIA notes that a protest took place in al-Zubayr (Basra Province) -- city workers protesting that they have not been paid for over two months now and young adults protesting to demand jobs. And ALMADA reports that the Turkmen are calling on Hayder al-Abadi to guarantee their protection in Kirkuk. Make the demands before the election because history has demonstrated that the incumbent prime minister only listens before the voting takes place.
Majid al-Khafaji (KITABAT) attempts to explain the mind set of those who are pessimistic about the upcoming elections because each election cycle (since the 2003 US-led invasion) has urged participation and promised change but nothing has ever changed. They doubt that, even if corruption had actually ended, fair elections would even be possible and they also point out that each of the elections held in post-invasion Iraq has been accompanied by those in power claiming that the elections suffered from forgery. In addition, they feel that foreign players who have intervened in Iraq will not allow free will and national sovereignty to be achieved. He notes a belief that there is no point in participating in the elections -- not even "national duty" -- since there is nothing national about the elections and that the outcomes are already decided. He also notes the feeling that Hayder al-Abadi is attempting to blackmail people into voting -- insisting that no ration card will be issued to any family head who does not register for a voter card.
Other seem more optimistic about the upcoming elections.
His Beatitude Patrarich Louis Sako (Patrarich of #Babylon of the #Chaldeans) asks Chaldeans everywhere to register to vote in the upcoming #Iraq elections to be held on May 12, 2018.
ALSUMARIA reports a body was found dumped in the streets of Husseinya, that a truck driver was shot dead on the highway between Kirkuk and Baghdad, and an attack on the border between Salahuddin Province and Diyala Province left one Iraqi soldier injured. (The provincial council in Diyala has repeatedly stated that their shared border leaves their safety at risk.) Nehal Mostafa (IRAQI NEWS) adds that, "Two soldiers were wounded in a blast caused by a bomb that was placed by Islamic State, near Fallujah dam, south of the city, a security source from Anbar police said on Monday."
Saturday, we noted: "In addition, Mewan Dolamari (KURDISTAN24) reports, 'A Christian doctor and two members of his family were killed in a home invasion after being stabbed by unknown assailants in Baghdad on Friday, security sources said'." It was two doctors and the female doctor's mother.
When we have faces of the dead, we should always note them.
Their loss is devestating to our already persecuted nation. #Baghdad #Iraq #Assyrians
Wael Grace (AL MADA) reports that the male doctor was 61-years-old and he and his wife (also a doctor) had left Iraq for the United States after the 2003 US-led invasion but had returned. Due to safety concerns, the doctors and her mother were planning on again returning to the US and had even packed their bags for the upcoming trip according to neighbors. Grace notes that a Sabean jeweler had been kidnapped and his corpse dumped in the streets two days prior to the murders of the doctor and his family. Grace notes that 75% of Christians have left Baghdad and that over 1,000 have been killed across Iraq in the last years.
Mazen Younis Razouqi is the only Christian member of Baghdad's Provincial Counil and he stated that the attacks took place late Friday and that on Saturday the neighbors saw the bodies dumped in front of the home, in the garden. He notes that ten days prior another Christian was killed in Baghdad -- he was shot dead by men in a car and on a motorcycle and that the man's body was in the street for two hours before the police arrived.
Sabeans are said to be blackmailed and harassed when they go to the Baghdad police to report crimes and threats.
The government doesn't care about the religious minorities -- they've allowed militias to attack them throughout the US occupation of Iraq. And they continue to do so. NINA reports that the spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior, Saad Maan, insisted on Iraqi TV today that the murders were the result of an attempted theft -- apparently, 3 were killed for a flat screen Sony? Is that the lie that's going to be told? NINA's report also notes that Ayad Allawi sent condolences to Louis Sako (Chaldean Patriarch of Iraq) and to Archbishop Mar Afram Yousef (who heads the Syriac Catholic Diocese in Baghdad).
NINA also reports that Father Louis Sako has declared a day of mourning due to the three murders and the murder of Samer Salah al-Din. ALL IRAQ NEWS notes that Speaker of Parliament Salim al-Jubouri has declared that the murder of the Christians is an attempt to destroy any national unity and that the murders are a serious threat which must be addressed.


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They just unveiled their new logo. See the Yahoo! story.
Companies update their logos from time to time, and the changes, as long as they don't completely change the logo, are considered to be part of the continuous use of the logo. For example, the little girl carrying the spilling salt on the Morton Salt container has undergone wardrobe and hairstyle changes from her debut appearance in the early part of the 20th Century. Even with the changes, the mark is deemed to have been in continuous use since the spilling salt's introduction.
Starbucks is following suit; they have modified their logo four times in the last 40 years, yet their logo is deemed to have been in continuous use.


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The Ghost of Rudy Past
For Giuliani, the real threat Bloomberg may pose is in the primaries.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
So Nice, They Named It Twice: If you think you've had a long week, be glad you're not Rudy Giuliani. On Tuesday, his top Iowa adviser left to become Bush's OMB director. He had to dump his South Carolina campaign chair, who was charged with cocaine possession and distribution. But for Giuliani, those headaches paled alongside the week's most excruciating spectacle: seeing his successor, Michael Bloomberg, grace the cover of Time and leave the GOP to plot an independent bid for President. Even if Bloomberg ultimately decides not to run, Giuliani may already be the Bloomberg campaign's first victim.
For Giuliani, the Bloomberg boomlet is bad news on every level. First, Bloomberg joins Fred Thompson in sucking up much of the oxygen that Giuliani's campaign needs to keep breathing. In most national and statewide polls, Giuliani's lead is slipping or has disappeared altogether. While Bloomberg explores how many billions it might take to buy an election, Giuliani suddenly finds himself in no-man's land, as a frontrunner who can't buy a headline.
On Wednesday, Giuliani gave a speech detailing the first of his "12 Commitments." Granted, no one should make too much of a commitment ceremony with Rudy Giuliani. But the plan he offered on fiscal discipline wasn't bad. The national press chose to write another day of stories about Bloomberg.
The second burden is personal. Giuliani is famously selfish about sharing the limelight. He once fired his police chief William Bratton for appearing on the cover of Time. Giuliani's attitude was, "That's my job!" Now a man he thinks he picked for mayor has done it again. Far from firing him, Giuliani has to sit there and read all about it.
Most speculation about Giuliani and Bloomberg has focused on the general election, and the marquee prospect of a Subway Series between two New York mayors and a New York senator. But for Giuliani, the real threat Bloomberg may pose is in the primaries.
Unlike most presidential candidates, who tend to embellish their hometown roots, Giuliani's campaign depends on making Republican-primary voters forget every aspect of his past except 9/11. His Web site calls him "a strong supporter of the Second Amendment," not a Brady-billing assault-weapon banner. He's not from the "abortion capital of the world"; he's for parental notification and decreasing abortions. Gay rights? He's such a traditionalist, his record boasts more straight marriages than any other candidate.
Giuliani's Escape from New York was already tough enough, but Mayor Mike makes it nearly impossible. Bloomberg is the Ghost of Rudy Past—a constant, high-profile reminder of the cultural distance from the South Carolina lowlands to the New York island.
When Bloomberg launched his gun-control crusade, he gave it a name that sounds like the headline from a GOP rival campaign's oppo piece on Giuliani: "Mayors Against Illegal Guns." For conservatives, the same accomplishments the national media loves about Bloomberg are the first signs of the Trilateralist Apocalypse: From penthouses in Manhattan, they'll come for your guns; then they'll snuff your tobacco; and in a final blow to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they'll take away your God-given right to trans-fats.
Mitt Romney looks disingenuous enough pretending that he saw Massachusetts and tried to stop it. Giuliani has no excuse. His last act as New York City mayor was to urge his people to elect Bloomberg to succeed him. Watching Bloomberg quit the party only reminds conservatives of their primal fear about Giuliani—that the GOP is not an article of faith but a way station of convenience.
You can take the mayor out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the mayor. The more coverage Bloomberg gets, the more his allies will compound the impression that one Hizzoner looks like another. In yesterday's Washington Post, Al Sharpton described Bloomberg with one of those only-in-New-York images:
"A girl in high school catches you looking at her and she starts wearing nice dresses," Sharpton says. "It doesn't mean she is going to date you. But she's at least teasing you, so it really increases your hope. This is a serious tease."
Sharpton just confirmed what they already thought down in South Carolina: Every New York mayor's a cross-dresser. ... 2:14 P.M. (link)
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
The Simple Life: Cyborgs have all the luck. For the wife of a soulless android, Ann Romney seems remarkably down-to-earth. In the captivating new campaign video, "Ann Romney, Christmas 2006," she comes across as funny, honest, and refreshingly normal. So normal, in fact, you almost forget that she's narrating one of the strangest bits of campaign theater ever produced—a 13-minute behind-the-scenes look at Mitt Romney consulting his family about whether to run for president.
The pretext for the video is absurd. Watching the Gore family debate the pros and cons of a presidential run might make for genuine drama. But the only Oscar that Romney could win is for Best Animation. He looks like he made up his mind 40 years ago, then built a family to consult about the decision.
The consultation itself is also creepy. The Romneys talk about how to protect the family's privacy, in a conversation filmed to post on the Internet. In the closing scene, Mitt Romney sits on the couch with a legal pad, dutifully taking notes as he asks his multitude of sons and daughters-in-law "to go around the room and list the reasons to do it and not to do it," and later, "How do you minimize the downsides?"
Son Matt tells his father, "I know you're not just taking notes because there's a camera here." It's a strange, self-conscious admission: Clearly, Romney is just taking notes because a camera is present, and his family is helping. They seem to think The Truman Show was about a president.
Reality shows don't lie, and Mitt Romney quickly emerges as the least interesting member of his own family. Ann marvels at his energy and hard work. He shovels snow! He washes dishes! He takes notes!
His speaking role is awkward and mercifully short. He soldiers through grace, commemorating the birth of Jesus and managing to avoid the looming evangelical-Mormon split over His return by not adding, "See you in Missouri!"
With its ridiculous premise, creepy intimacy, and hollow candidate, the Romney video ought to be unbearable to watch. But the opposite is true. When the camera's not on Romney, the video is irresistible. It's like watching a reality show set in the 1950s—in color. It's as if Jerry Mathers discovered a lost episode of Leave It to Beaver in which Ward Cleaver asks June, Wally, and the Beave whether he should challenge Vice President Nixon for the Republican nomination.
Individually, the Romney boys are as dull and wrinkle-free as their father. But put all five of them in one living room with their five wives and 10 children, and the Five Brothers' very sameness is hypnotic. The odds against having five boys in a row are 31 to 1. Five boys even more frighteningly wholesome—and shallow—than their father must be the result of extraterrestrial intervention or human cloning.
The Romney campaign released the video to coincide with Father's Day. (Over to you, Rudy and Andrew Giuliani!) But the real star of the Guy Smiley Family Hour is Ann Romney. She's something those other 1950s shows like Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver lacked: a compelling female character. She has a winning laugh, and unlike her husband, seems to believe what she's saying.
Ann brings the trademark Romney can-do spirit to bear on ordinary subjects, like the chore assignment wheel she uses for family gatherings (but often has to do all by herself). While others worry about their carbon footprint, she makes clear that without paper plates she could never survive the holidays. She points to a hopelessly cluttered kitchen counter she cleaned not five minutes earlier, but doesn't mind tidying again. When she admits with a giggle that for Christmas dinner she cooked the sweet potatoes in Boston and brought them with her in Tupperware on the airplane, it becomes clear that Ann Romney would have run circles around her husband in business school.
She utters a few canned lines about her husband as "a problem solver." But she also volunteers that back in high school, he was once a troublemaker. She and Mitt were arrested and "got put in the paddy wagons" for sliding down the hill on ice blocks. This, too, appears to be a hereditary trait on Planet Romney: The video shows Romney grandchildren on a mattress, repeatedly sliding down the family staircase.
Tagg Romney gets the last word, promising his father that "if you don't win, we'll still love you," but adding with aw-shucks, Beaver Cleaver impertinence that "the rest of the country may think of you as a laughingstock" when it's over. Even in this fake reality show, both the love and the laughingstock ring true. ... 6:27 P.M. (link)
Thursday, June 14, 2007
No Idea: In the latest Rasmussen robo-poll, pre-release candidate Fred Thompson pulled into a tie with Rudy Giuliani at 24 percent. That makes Thompson the fourth Republican candidate to lead a national, New Hampshire, or Iowa poll in the last three weeks. The race is so fluid that a fifth potential front-runner, Newt Gingrich, is giving up Spanish and switching to French.
Seven months before the Iowa caucuses, polling and news organizations are cranking out an average of four nationwide and two state polls each week. Pollsters and journalists alike warn not to read too much into early polls, then read into them whatever they want.
This week, a CNN/WMUR poll in New Hampshire shed new light on how silly the media's polling obsession has become. The poll's sample size of 304 likely Republican primary voters was sketchy enough. A poll that small has a +/- 5.3 percent margin of error, which means the apparent leader (Romney, with 28 percent) is actually in a statistical dead heat with two who seem far behind (McCain and Giuliani, each at 20 percent), who in turn do not have a statistically significant lead over the man in fourth (Thompson, with 11 percent).
At first glance, the poll results imply that 92 percent support one of the GOP candidates, and only 8 percent "don't know yet" who they'll vote for. But on further inspection, the numbers are closer to the reverse. Of those 304 voters surveyed, a grand total of 18 say they've "definitely decided" to vote for their candidate. That's 6 percent. Given the +/- 5.3 percent margin of error, it's possible that nobody in New Hampshire has made up their minds. Another 37 percent say they're "leaning" to a candidate.
But the overwhelming majority of New Hampshire Republicans give an answer that puts the whole concept of "margin of error" to shame. According to the poll, 57 percent of likely Republican primary voters admit they have "no idea" who they'll for in the primary. With news organizations bombarding us with half a dozen polls a week, it's good to know they've got the margin of error down to just +/- 57 percent.
While its numbers are flimsy and meaningless, the CNN/WMUR poll may be the most revealing portrait of the Republican presidential race so far. If there's one principle that still unites Republicans these days, it's that they have no idea which presidential candidate to support. (The warning holds true for Democrats as well, although the CNN/WMUR poll found that a majority of likely Democratic voters had either decided or were leaning to a candidate.)
Of course, some flinty New Hampshirites go out of their way to remain undecided, so they can get candidates to help out around the house. But there's a big difference between flinty and clueless. The people of New Hampshire have had a front-row seat on this race for the past six months. If only one New Hampshire voter has chosen a candidate for every 10 who have no idea, that doesn't say much for the GOP field—and underscores why the press should forget the polls in favor of worthier obsessions.
The shrugs aren't just coming from New Hampshire. In last month's Des Moines Register poll, 87 percent of Republicans expressing a preference said they might change their minds.
For years, news organizations have offered margin of error as the standard polling disclaimer. In the future, they should routinely report the more revealing percentage of voters who have no earthly idea whom they'll actually vote for.
Naturally, among the 57 percent of New Hampshire voters who have no clue whom they'll vote for, the race is a toss-up. Romney is at 22 percent, McCain at 21 percent, Giuliani at 18 percent. For that subgroup, the margin of error is +/- 7.5 percent, so Fred Thompson is in the hunt with 12 percent.
But here's what makes polls so misleading: Just because voters are clueless doesn't mean they're undecided. Only 14 percent of those who have "no idea" who they'll vote for in January "don't know yet" whom they'd vote for if the primary were held today.
That explains how Republicans could manage to have four front-runners in three weeks. Asked if the election were held today, voters are willing to take a stab at it. But as for how they'd vote if the election were held the day after tomorrow, Republicans echo the Magic-8 ball: Ask again later. Pollsters are standing by to do just that. ... 11:11 A.M. (link)
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Rabbits and Ferrets and Panda Bears – Oh, My!: Who says bipartisanship is dead? At last week's presidential debates, Rep. Tom Tancredo and former senator Mike Gravel reached across party lines to find a strange piece of common ground – agreeing that English ought to be America's official language. Gravel knows French, and Tancredo thinks Miami is a third-world country. But both men speak fringe.
Mitt Romney's tongue is a little more forked. His initial campaign strategy was to run against France. But among conservative primary voters, hating the French is yesterday's news. While Romney still decries Democrats as French socialists for old times' sake, he has learned to talk tough on immigration. He, too, believes English should be America's official language – except in his own political advertisements aimed at Hispanic voters in Florida. In Tuesday's debate, Romney said:
"I'm not anti-immigrant. I love immigrants. I love legal immigrants coming to our country. I'm happy to communicate to them, and I hope they vote for me. … I'm going to reach out to them in any language I can to have them – have them vote for me."
Memo to rival GOP campaigns: Mitt Romney has flipped again on immigration. Now he's for giving non-citizens the right to vote (for Romney).
No wonder John McCain feels lonely on this issue. He talked movingly about the Hispanic names on the Vietnam War memorial. Romney's idea of courage is being able to mislead voters in any language.
With the collapse of the immigration bill, the Republican field may discover that running against illegal immigrants is yesterday's news as well. For voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, the threat of action in Washington was more frightening than any real threat from the borders.
If, like France, Latin America begins to fade as the fall guy on the campaign trail, what foreign peril will right-wing voters chase next? Fred Thompson has already found one – China.
Thompson changed his tune on immigration as rapidly as Romney, attacking the bill on the grounds that "we're in a nation that is beset by suicidal maniacs" – apparently an all-purpose reference to terrorists, immigrants, and any legislator attempting to work with the Bush administration. Last week, Thompson opened a new front, telling the National Restaurant Association that to support its energy habit, China is "making deals with every bloodthirsty dictator they can." Soon, he'll start rewriting his own history to suggest that the only campaign finance reform he supported was for China.
At the Democratic debate, Bill Richardson raised the prospect of pulling out of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He won't find many takers, given the failure of the 1980 boycott. But it does suggest a cheap applause line for Thompson and other Republicans: If Mitt Romney did so much to turn the Olympics around, what are they doing in China?
There are plenty of good reasons to make China an issue in 2008. Bush will be gone soon, but the money he borrowed will complicate our relationship with the Chinese for years. As a full-service bank, China even wrote Bush's climate change policy. At a time when the planet needs China to go green, the Bush deficits set a different course: Green goes to China.
Unfortunately, Thompson has yet to offer any more answers to the China question than Bush did. The next President will have to curb our financial dependence on our biggest strategic competitor, convince that superpower as well as ours to curb a dangerous appetite for carbon, toughen enforcement of trade laws, and rally Americans to study harder, learn more, and work harder to keep pace with the competitive challenge.
At the very moment we ought to be summoning the will to outrun China, the Chinese are once again conspiring to sap our strength. Hours after Fred Thompson and Bill Richardson rattled their sabers, Chinese sympathizers in our midst made a surprise announcement: The panda at the National Zoo may once again be pregnant.
Coincidence, or well-orchestrated distraction? For years, zoologists have told us how hard it is for captive pandas to reproduce. But Mei Xiang gave birth less than two years ago. The Chinese were set to repossess her last cub, Tai Shan – code name "Butterstick" – on its second birthday next month, but to avert bad publicity, China let us negotiate a contract extension. Now, with the motherland in desperate need of a public relations boost, Mei Xiang miraculously had no trouble at all getting pregnant.
Zoologists attribute the feat to improved panda sperm – from Gao Gao, another China native stationed in San Diego. But you don't have to be a good shepherd to know that pandas have been China's most effective American infiltrators for more than three decades.
Once the right-wing base finds out, of course, the China debate can only go in one direction. McCain has more pets than he can count, but the other candidates are out to bag their limit. Romney shot rabbits. Giuliani dissed ferrets. The next TV series to pilot on the GOP trail is bound to be, "Fred Thompson: Panda Hunter." ... 7:49 P.M. (link)
Monday, June 4, 2007
Smiley Face: For decades, political consultants have dreamed of creating the Bionic Candidate, who could instantly become whatever voters want. Over the years, plenty of politicians have been willing to believe whatever the electorate wants them to believe. But mad political scientists have searched in vain for the extraterrestrial alloy that would enable a politician to transform his physical appearance so that voters could literally see what they wanted to see.
The search is over. Despite what his critics say, Mitt Romney is not just another shameless political opportunist who changes his views to match his audience. Nor is he just a scheming cyborg who can immediately spot the second-most ambitious pol in the room. Romney has a unique, superhuman capacity that transcends both those more pedestrian political talents. When people look at him, he can actually make them think they see someone else.
When Slate first proposed a Mitt Romney Look-Alike Contest, we expected a handful of entries converging around the usual suspects like Wink Martindale. Instead, scores of readers entered—and judging from the entries, Romney has even more alter egos than he has had positions on abortion.
For many readers, Romney is like Fred Thompson—a familiar, if somewhat ridiculous, figure from network TV. Reader Sharon Kelly sent photos of Romney as Henry Winkler. Howard Zilbert and Wade Williams think he's Carol Burnett sidekick Lyle Waggoner. Matt Bauer and EA Dyson manage to see Matthew Fox, who plays Jack on ABC's Lost. Mark Johnson reaches back into the archives to see Tony Franciosa, who starred in Fame Is the Name of the Game. To Chris Mishler and Timothy Carroll, he's Ted Danson—which is all the more remarkable when you try to imagine Mitt Romney in a bar where everybody knows your name.
Other entries show Romney's extraordinary range. Several readers saw an anchorman, but never the same one: Ron Burgundy, Brit Hume, Tony Snow. Others saw diverse figures from science fiction, like Data from Star Trek and Michael Rennie, who played Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still.
In fact, Romney is becoming synonymous with double vision. One reader couldn't decide whether Romney looked like Laura Bush or "an ad for men's hair coloring." A few saw a president: Richard Nixon in his final days or Bill Pullman in Independence Day. One man's Lucifer (no image available) was another man's Charlton Heston.
Romney is having mixed success selling himself as a superhero who will save the world from France. Some readers see a resemblance to Bruce Wayne or Mr. Fantastic of The Fantastic Four. Jay Shuck sees Romney as a more comic authority figure: the Ranger in Yogi Bear.
But the two most common categories of entries were perhaps the most insightful: pitchmen and puppets. Kevin Miller sees the lying car salesman Joe Isuzu. Michael Stewart thinks Romney looks like Count Chocula. Sandy Fabian was unfair to suggest Rudolf Hess but came closer with the Brawny Paper Towel guy.
The most impressive entry comes from Laura (presumably not Bush), who took the trouble to showcase Romney as the 1970 Talking Ken doll, which was sold with a strikingly Romney-esque marketing slogan, " I Say Many Different Things!"
In terms of sheer physical resemblance, however, the edge goes to the puppets. The runner-up is Kerry Joyce, who likens Romney to Jeff Tracy, star of the 1960s British remote-control marionette show, The Thunderbirds. The BBC cult page describes Tracy the way many on the right would describe Romney, as "the ultimate puppet superhero."
First prize goes to four readers, who will take turns sharing a copy of L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth. Matthew Williams, Lars Thomas, fellswoop13, and madeiros33 looked at Romney and saw the same iconic figure: Guy Smiley of Sesame Street. As a puppet and "everybody's favorite game show host," Smiley is Mitt Romney. It takes more than a pretty face to look like Mitt. It takes a pretty face that's flexible and easily manipulated. ... 6:35 P.M. (link)
The Mitt Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Two weeks ago, Mitt Romney was surging toward the Republican nomination, pulling into the lead in two polls in Iowa and three in New Hampshire. Then, the man couldn't recognize Ralph Reed at his own fund-raiser. In the latest American Research Group poll, Romney is second behind McCain in New Hampshire and third behind McCain and Giuliani in Iowa. Perhaps voters are sending Romney a message: We thought you were someone else.
In an amusing attempt to contain the damage from not being able to tell Ralph Reed from a hole in the wall, the Romney campaign told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that it had the case of mistaken identity all wrong. The newspaper had reported that Romney saw Ralph Reed across a crowded room and called him Gary Bauer. But campaign spokesman Gail Gitcho gave the paper a different story:
According to Gitcho, Romney mistook Reed for South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, with whom he'd just met, and not Gary Bauer, as our sources recalled.
Gary Bauer is a friend of Romney and has been a guest in his home, so he wouldn't mistake him for Reed, Gitcho said.
That explanation will come as a great relief to Gary Bauer, who probably doesn't like being mistaken for Ralph Reed any more than I do. But it doesn't do much for Romney. With his thick eyebrows and 5 o'clock shadow, André Bauer doesn't look at all like the baby-faced Reed. If there's one thing worse than going to a state Republican convention thinking all Christian operatives look alike, it's going to Georgia thinking all white Southerners look alike.
Camp Romney might have a better case if their candidate hadn't seen André Bauer in years. But their excuse is that Romney couldn't remember the man because he had just met with him.
This would be a serious, if sometimes comical, handicap in the White House, because presidents have always just met with someone. Bush got in enough trouble talking about what he saw when he looked in Putin's heart. Imagine the repercussions if an American president came away from bilateral talks with the Russian leader saying he'd never met the man, or saw Putin across the room at the G8 and shouted, "Nick Sarkozy!"
Will Rogers said he never met a man he didn't like. Romney's campaign says he never met a pol he didn't forget.
In the meantime, the poor fellow has to endure at least another eight months of just having met people on the campaign trail. Other candidates have their own worries now that the Fred has landed. But Romney's programmers can't possibly have anticipated that taking over the planet would involve a race against two men named Thompson.
Faceless multitudes of Slate readers have already responded to the Mitt Romney Look-Alike Contest, the winner of which will be announced on Monday. Reader M. H. Dunlop wrote in to suggest that "Romney suffers from 'face blindness,' sometimes called prosopagnosia, which appears to be, or is claimed to be, an inherited defect." Two decades ago, neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote about another form of agnosia—or "nonknowledge"—in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.
More likely, Romney's brain simply uses a different classification system than we do. André Bauer and Ralph Reed may not look alike, but their differences are mostly skin deep. Both are ambitious upstarts who ran for lieutenant governor, a job that is all prospects and no power.
Bauer won, so he gives us an insight into the kind of lieutenant governor Reed might have been. One of Bauer's main responsibilities is giving annual writing awards to fifth- and eighth-graders. The contest rewards originality but insists that in order to win, "close attention should be given to punctuation, spelling, grammar, and neatness."
If Ralph Reed entered his famous e-mail to Jack Abramoff—"I need to start humping in corporate accounts!"—whatever points he might gain for creativity, he would lose for punctuation and sloppiness. Bauer's own work wouldn't even be eligible. On his official Web site, he writes, "Let us all congratulate this years winners, they have written inspiring works."
On the same site, Bauer's description of his press page could easily be mistaken for the story of Reed's life: "A collection of press releases, my beliefs, my life and official photographs." In other words, it's hard to tell where the press releases stop and the beliefs begin. Those are two faces Mitt Romney can recognize. ... 1:40 P.M. (link)
Friday, May 25, 2007
A Ralph By Any Other Name: From the start of his presidential bid, Mitt Romney has seemed unsure of his political identity. As governor of Massachusetts, he embraced the right to choose, paved the streets with health care, and hired illegal immigrants to mow his lawn. After climbing into the phone booth of the Republican primaries, however, mild-mannered Mitt emerged a new man—lifetime NRA member, xenophobe, pro-life, and anti-rabbit.
Mitt Romney is the Jay Gatsby of American politics—a fiction within a fiction who was born in the Midwest, made his fortune in the East, and never stops reinventing himself to impress those he meets along the way.
It turns out that in one respect, at least, Romney is consistent: He's as unsure of other people's identities as he is of his own. Last week, Romney saw Ralph Reed across a crowded room and called him Gary Bauer. But longtime Romney watcher Seth Gitell writes that it wasn't the first time. Romney made an eerily similar mistake during his 2002 governor's race, mixing up two of his general-election opponents in a televised debate. Romney got into an exchange about bilingual education with the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein. His first words to Jill were, "Carla, I agree."
"Carla" was the name of the Libertarian candidate, Carla Howell. She didn't look like Jill, or think like her, either. As Gitell wrote at the time in the Boston Phoenix, "Romney's faux pas seemed to suggest a candidate who could not be bothered to listen to the differences between the Greens and the Libertarians."
To Romney, not only all Christian conservatives look alike, but all women look alike, too. The cyborg programming must be even more primitive than we thought.
All campaign long, Romney has seemed like a serial identity thief. But perhaps he's really a serial identity jumbler. Legal and illegal, one-time and lifetime, pro-choice and pro-life—these normally bright-line distinctions aren't easy for the identity challenged. We don't criticize the color blind for not being able to tell the difference between green and orange. Should we be so quick to call a man a flip-flopper when he can't even tell one opponent from another?
Memorial Day can be an ordeal for the politician who can't remember—in this case, who he is, what he stands for, where he comes from, and to whom he is speaking. As a special tribute to his special challenge, Slate is proud to announce the Mitt Romney Look-Alike Contest. Other candidates look in the mirror and see the next president. When Mitt Romney looks in the mirror, he sees yet another face whose name he can't quite place.
What person comes to mind when you look at Romney? Some bloggers think he looks like Wink Martindale. Slate's separated-at-birth team came up with a host of other suspects, from Stone Phillips to Ricardo Montalban. Send your entry to email@example.com. The winner gets a copy of Romney's favorite book, Battlefield Earth, by L. Ron Hubbard—or, as Mitt likes to call him, "Tom." ... 3:17 P.M. (link)
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Stranger in a Strange Land: For someone who suddenly likes to pick on foreigners, Mitt Romney is an awfully recent immigrant himself. If you want to know just how foreign Romney is to the conservative circles he now frequents, read the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's account of his fund-raiser last week during the Georgia Republican Convention:
Romney gestured to Ralph Reed and said, "Why it's good to see Gary Bauer here." Romney then caught himself. "Oh, I'm a little mixed up here," he said. But Romney still couldn't place Reed's face—and had to move on.
It's bad enough that in his rush to convert to conservatism, Romney forgot he was pro-choice, had hired illegal immigrants, and never hunted. Now the man can't even keep track of his religious-right has-beens.
The Christian right was built in large part on resentment that Eastern elites think all evangelicals are alike. This confirms their worst fears—that even the Republicans from Harvard are in on the conspiracy.
To be sure, politicians shouldn't be expected to remember every person they meet. For example, here's a photograph of another Georgia Republican, Rep. Phil Gingrey, who appears to have put on a fake mustache simply to confuse Romney.
But mistaking Ralph Reed for Gary Bauer at your own fund-raiser is like going to a Star Wars convention and mixing up Luke Skywalker and Yoda. Bauer is short, bug-eyed, and tight-lipped. No one noticed his 2000 primary bid until he fell off the stage at a pancake-flipping event in New Hampshire. Reed is lanky, with narrow, shifty eyes and a big, plastic grin. In fact, Reed's eye/grin ratio bears a much stronger resemblance to Romney's own features. At first glance, you'd think Romney and Reed would know each other well from their time together as cyborgs taking orders from the distant, politically ambitious planet that sent them.
Anybody can confuse two people who look alike. Confusing two people who look different but think alike is a far more revealing error. First, it tells us Romney hasn't spent much time around either Ralph Reed or Gary Bauer. That's the good news. The bad news is that it increases the chance that Romney might be a cyborg, after all.
Politics is a people business, so most politicians file people in their minds by face, name, and place. None of those apply in this case (what would Bauer, who lives in Virginia, be doing at a Romney fund-raiser in Georgia?). That means Romney must use a different, bloodless classification system. When he studies his conservative flashcards, Romney files people by type. Bauer is a true believer, while Reed is a shameless opportunist—but to Romney, they're interchangeable evangelicals with the same carbon dating.
Of course, the episode raises other questions, like what was Ralph Reed doing at a Romney fund-raiser? Giuliani helped him in his losing race for lieutenant governor, a career move that worked out less well for Ralph than for Rudy. Yet the day before Romney forgot his name last week, Ralph went on the Christian Broadcasting Network to shill for Romney and Giuliani in equal measure. Reed dodged a question about whether his phone was ringing off the hook, but said, "I have friends who are running for president, and I talk to my friends."
I've come to terms with being mistaken for Ralph Reed. But I draw the line when the same person who gets confused with me starts being confused with Gary Bauer. I could live with Jack Bauer, or even Eddie.
Ralph Reed should know a phony when he sees one. Friends don't let friends call them Gary. ... 2:15 P.M. (link)
Monday, May 21, 2007
Tale of Two Cities: Week before last, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani flew to Houston to tell conservatives at a Baptist college his latest stand on abortion. The same day, his successor, Mike Bloomberg, flew to Houston to give a very different speech—telling business leaders what the United States needs to do to save energy and stop climate change.
Both appearances were rich in political symbolism and irony. New York and Texas have long been on opposite sides of the blue-red divide, disagreeing on 11 of the first 14 presidential elections after Texas became a state, as well as all five since 1988. New York magazine called its hometown the "Abortion Capital of America." Houston is the energy capital of America, if not the world. Bloomberg's choice of venue made more sense than his predecessor's. Nearly half a century after JFK went to Houston to promise Protestants he wouldn't take orders from the Vatican, Giuliani asked the Baptists' forgiveness for not doing the pope's bidding.
If crossing paths in Houston was a coincidence, it was a revealing one. Giuliani's never-ending stumbles over such an obvious hurdle as abortion suggest that he has approached his campaign with insufficient seriousness. By contrast, Bloomberg's calculated bids for attention on climate change, education, and guns give every indication that his unannounced campaign for the presidency is running on all cylinders.
As a shadow candidate, Bloomberg is running the campaign Giuliani should have run, as a pragmatist who helped a big city take on big problems. Earlier this month, Bloomberg launched a Web site that outlines his stands on the big issues in greater detail than Giuliani can provide after five months in the race.
To add insult to irony, a Bloomberg candidacy is predicated on candidates twisting themselves into the very pretzels that Giuliani has already become. In an Air America interview with Mark Green, the man he beat, Bloomberg points out that a third-party candidacy only works if the first two parties both fail to offer a compelling choice. He admitted that when the primaries are over, "[t]he public may not feel that they don't have any choice."
In the end, the two parties aren't likely to give Bloomberg a big enough opening to win. Part of the reason that Giuliani, McCain, Romney, and Fred Thompson are struggling to claim the conservative mantle is that they're closet pragmatists by their party's standards. Apart from Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic field doesn't even have an ideologue. The energy speech Bloomberg gave in Houston is one that many Democratic candidates have already given.
In that respect, the prospect of a Bloomberg candidacy can do more good than an actual one. Any prospective third-party candidate has to consider the nightmare of becoming the next Ralph Nader, who siphoned off just enough votes to make sure none of his ideas could ever happen.
The greatest power of a third party is its gravitational effect on the other two. To have that kind of impact, Bloomberg doesn't even have to run. The most successful third-party candidacies—Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, Ross Perot in 1992—did less to determine the winner than to shape the debate. Woodrow Wilson and Bill Clinton would have won those elections anyway. But Roosevelt made Wilson earn a progressive mandate, and Perot inspired Clinton to put more emphasis on deficit reduction and reform.
Like most billionaires, Bloomberg is a firm believer in the power of markets. If market forces work in politics, his lurking presence on the sidelines should be enough. In the midst of the silly season, when some partisans are raising their hands to deny reality, the sword of Bloomberg is a useful reminder that when the primaries are over, the earth will be round again and reality will go back into effect. ... 1:38 P.M. (link)
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Don't Know Much About History: Hillary Clinton just asked supporters to choose her campaign song, but Republican candidates already agreed on theirs. Perhaps the next debate will feature a barbershop quartet of Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, and Mitt Romney singing:
Don't know much about history/ Don't know much biology/ Don't know much about a science book/ Don't know much about the French I took.
To be fair, the Republican race is a particularly difficult kind of history test. In order to pass, a GOP candidate must persuade Americans to miss the '80s, fear the '90s, and start the current decade over without Bush. For some, like Romney and Giuliani, traveling back to the Reagan era has the additional benefit of rewinding past all the positions they've taken in years since.
Once again, Republican candidates and the American people are headed in different directions. The National Assessment of Educational Progress reported yesterday that while political leaders are doing their best to ignore history, young people are doing much better at it.
The educational standards movement appears to be paying off. Between 1994 and 2006, the number of fourth-graders performing at or above basic level in U.S. history jumped from 64 percent to 70 percent. Civics scores went up, too. Jay Mathews of the Washington Post points out that scores even rose among high-school seniors, who hadn't improved in any subject in the past eight years.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings was quick to attribute the progress to No Child Left Behind, glossing over the inconvenient fact that fourth-grade history scores rose slightly faster between 1994 and 2001 than in the years since NCLB was passed. In any case, if young Americans are making progress on these two subjects, Spellings' boss deserves the credit. At last, President Bush may have found the perfect excuse for his failures at home and abroad. The Imperial Presidency isn't a way to abuse power—it's a way to teach civics. Never mind Iraq's failures as a war—it has been a great history lesson.
If anything, the Bush administration might well be accused of teaching to the test. The NAEP report says that to perform at basic level in history, fourth-graders must be able to "interpret a presidential quotation." Give Bush credit—he has been quizzing those kids every day.
While Mickey Kaus may be despondent about where the Senate is headed on immigration, he should take heart that the next generation aces the issue. On the civics test, 75 percent of all fourth-graders correctly answered that noncitizens can't vote. If Monica Goodling were still around, those 9-year-olds would be made U.S. attorneys.
The nation's eighth-graders showed no progress on civics, but we can't fault Bush for trying. Consider this question from the eighth-grade test:
Teresia is a small country that has been invaded by its neighbor Corollia. The king of Teresia is a long-standing United States ally who has been living in exile since the Corollian invasion. Teresia is an important exporter of uranium; it sends most of its supply to members of the European Union. The king appeals to the United States and the United Nations for military help in driving Corollia from his country.
Identify two pieces of information NOT given above that you would need before you could decide whether or not the United States military should help Teresia. Explain why each piece of information would be important.
C'mon, kids! How many countries does the president have to invade before you start getting the right answer?
Only 13 precent of eighth-graders had an "acceptable" response, which is even lower than the president's own ratings. Just 3 percent of the responses were "complete"—so Bush is not the only one.
Bush can take some comfort as well from the sample answer in the NAEP report. That particular eighth-grader outperformed Bush by asking to know more about Corollia's motives and allies. But the student didn't ask anything about whether Teresia was really exporting uranium.
Of course, President Bush may be a great teacher, but how would he do on the test? The past six years have trained him well for one measure of basic fourth-grade achievement: "Students should know that the world is divided into many countries." Bush has spent enough time around the Coalition of the Unwilling to know that.
But other NAEP standards might be harder to meet. In civics, fourth-graders at the basic level should be able to "recognize that the president is an elected official" (somewhat more difficult since 2000) and "identify an illegitimate use of power" (which may have been Lynne Cheney's real objection to these standards all along).
The advanced achievement level for fourth-graders is harder still: "Given age-appropriate examples, they should recognize differences between power and authority and between limited and unlimited government." And there's just no getting past the section, "What Fourth-Graders Know." A "proficient" fourth-grader can name the two political parties. But to be considered "advanced," a fourth-grader must be able to "identify the legislative branch." By that standard, this administration could be stuck in grade school for a long time. ... 3:57 P.M. (link)
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Hear Me Roar: These are tough times for the newspaper business, so editors everywhere should be grateful to Slate's parent company, the Washington Post, for an ingenious cost-saving measure—the reusable headline. Saturday's Post carried a story entitled, "Giuliani Tries To Clarify Abortion Stance." No matter how many times Giuliani addresses the subject, it's the only headline any newspaper will ever need.
The savings don't stop there. Today, the Post's Dan Balz was able to recycle Saturday's lede for his curtain-raiser on tonight's debate: "Much of the focus [is] likely to be on former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and his continuing effort to extricate himself from a controversy over his position on abortion."
This weekend, Giuliani was busy clarifying his abortion stance on Fox News Sunday. "Let's start with abortion and any confusion that remains about where you stand," Chris Wallace began. The more Giuliani tried to extricate himself, the more he had left to clear up.
Wallace asked, "Most Americans would feel passionately one way or the other. Why are you so indifferent to such a deeply held issue?" Giuliani insisted, "I'm very, very passionate about the issue." He proved how much he cares about abortion by repeatedly referring to the landmark case as "Roe against Wade." Moments later, when Wallace asked him if he'd be upset if Roe were overturned, Giuliani showed all the passion of Mike Dukakis. "I don't think it's a question of being disappointed or being happy about it," he said. Vive l'indifference!
On Friday, Giuliani tried to recast his views on abortion and guns as a profile in courage. On Sunday, he once again made clear that he was brave enough to pander. He promised not to change the pro-life Republican platform. He affirmed his support for abortion limits he used to oppose. He promised conservatives what they want most on abortion—strict constructionist judges. And as an example of what he means by judges not legislating from the bench, he praised the D.C. Circuit's recent decision to overturn a 1939 Supreme Court precedent on the Second Amendment.
Giuliani did manage to clarify one issue on Sunday. In fact, he offered what may be the single most definitive statement of his campaign so far: "I'm not a woman."
Wallace wasn't even trying to clear up any confusion on that score. Giuliani just wanted to show that his passions on the abortion issue only go so far:
"I believe abortion is wrong. I believe, as a personal matter, if it were my personal choice — and of course, it will never be my personal choice. I'm not a woman."
It's hardly news when a thrice-married man clarifies his stance that he is not a woman. But Giuliani went further, volunteering that he will never be a woman. Fox viewers can rest assured: Some options are off the table.
Yet just a few sentences later, Giuliani threw even that certainty into some doubt, telling Wallace:
"If you said to me, as a woman, 'I have an equally strong view of this as you do' … I would support that."
The strict constructionist reading of "If you said to me, as a woman" is clear: Giuliani thinks he's a woman. Another flip-flop! But a more liberal interpretation might reach the opposite conclusion: Giuliani thinks Chris Wallace is a woman.
No wonder Giuliani is losing the Republican base. He has done so many Inner Circle productions, he thinks "fair and balanced" is Rosalind in As You Like It—a man playing a woman playing a man playing a woman.
Either way, Giuliani's second point is as confusing as the first. Giuliani says he would happily defer not just to Chris Wallace but to any other woman who has "an equally strong view of this" as he does. Yet as Wallace demonstrated at the outset of the interview, it would be hard to find anyone in either gender as indifferent to the subject as Giuliani.
Despite his incredibly bad week, Giuliani still leads national polls. But in the more sophisticated political-futures markets, Giuliani shares are in free fall. Between Thursday and Monday, he dropped from 31 to 27 on Intrade, while McCain jumped from 23.5 to 29.5.
If this is clarity, the Giuliani campaign can't afford much more of it. On Mother's Day, the mayor made clear he is not now nor never will be a woman. Within hours, his stock plunged 5 percent. ... 12:59 P.M. (link)
Friday, May 11, 2007
Multiple Choice: In 1960, JFK went before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association to put the Catholic issue behind him. Today, Rudy Giuliani spoke at Houston Baptist University in yet another attempt to put the abortion issue behind him. JFK wanted to prove that in America, there is no religious test to become president. As he labors to explain his ever-changing heart on choice, Giuliani seems determined to prove that there is no history test, either.
Giuliani is not alone. Mitt Romney doesn't want a religious test or a history test. His about-face on abortion is even less convincing than Giuliani's. Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, and Tom Tancredo, who don't believe in evolution, want to prove there's no science test. All the Republican candidates are supply-siders, hoping to prove there's still no math test.
As a last resort, Giuliani now wants to turn his abortion stand into a badge of honor. The press will give him credit for setting up a showdown with social conservatives. Today's Times gave the Giuliani campaign the headline they want: "Can the G.O.P. Accept Giuliani's Abortion Stance?" But Giuliani's abortion stance is such a muddle, the issue is not whether a pro-choice candidate can win in a pro-life party. It's whether a campaign predicated on leadership can survive a candidate who has already said he was for Roe before he was against it.
Emily Bazelon made a good case for why voters have a right to judge Giuliani's presidential bid by his disastrous home life. Here's another reason: His presidential bid is rapidly starting to mirror his disastrous home life. Giuliani seems to have the same attitude toward his abortion positions that he has shown toward marriage—who's counting?
The Times offers a helpful interactive timeline of "Giuliani on Abortion." In 1989, he was for public funding. In 1993, he called choice a constitutional right. In 2000, he opposed a ban on late-term abortions. Last month, he divorced himself from his previous stands on public funding and late-term. This month, he sought to annul his position on choice as a constitutional right. Now he's of three minds: Abortion is "morally wrong," women should be able to make their own choice, and so should conservative judges.
Giuliani's decision to buck his party on abortion would be refreshing and courageous, if he hadn't already tried so hard to have it both ways on the issue. He tells conservative audiences not to worry about his pro-choice record because he personally "hates" abortion and will appoint judges like Scalia, Roberts, and Alito. He boasts that during his tenure as mayor, abortions dropped 16 percent—but doesn't mention that abortions nationwide dropped 15 percent over the same period or that New York City still has an abortion rate three times the national average.
The Giuliani campaign trotted out the perfect man to vouch for the mayor's credentials: Steve Forbes, who was pro-choice in his first presidential bid and pro-life in his second. "Thanks to Giuliani's success on welfare reform, where rolls were cut 60%, the abortion rate in New York City fell faster than the national average," Forbes told RealClearPolitics. "Rudy may be pro-choice—and I happen to be pro-life—but the policies he pursued help the pro-life cause."
Welfare reform has done a great deal to promote work, demand responsibility, and reduce poverty, but even ardent proponents like me have trouble crediting it with short-term reductions in abortion. Most conservative welfare reformers had the opposite worry—that a concerted effort to reduce illegitimacy might cause a spike in abortions. During the 1996 welfare reform debate, Senate Republicans rejected House plans to deny benefits to unwed teen mothers and cap benefits for mothers who had additional children on welfare for that very reason—Catholic conservatives feared those provisions would make abortion go up. A plan to reward states for reducing out-of-wedlock births was rewritten to deny the bonus to states where abortion rates increased at the same time. Of course, Giuliani urged Clinton to veto the 1996 welfare reform bill, so don't be surprised if he now claims his moral opposition to abortion as the reason.
Why does the choice issue so often manage to turn grown men into pretzels? Conservative doubts over Giuliani's abortion position were hardly a surprise attack. Yet judging from his halting response so far, the same man who knew just what to do on 9/11 would have been stumped for months if al-Qaida had simply sent him a NARAL questionnaire.
Charles Krauthammer says the fault is with Roe, not Giuliani. But that's letting him off the hook too easily—akin to Giuliani saying, "the court made me do it, and the justices I appoint may or may not undo it." Rich Lowry of the National Review offered a more persuasive explanation of Giuliani's troubles with the issue: "One of the big ironies for him is he doesn't care about abortion." If Giuliani had the courage to say that, we might start to believe him. ... 3:23 P.M. (link)
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Mood Ring: If malaise, like revenge, is a dish best served cold, the Bush administration is keeping Republicans exceedingly well-fed. In the latest Newsweek poll, the president matched Jimmy Carter's record low with a 28 percent approval rating. It took Richard Nixon a quarter-century to have Seven Crises. For George W. Bush, seven crises is a pretty good week.
Republican presidential candidates are trying their hardest to look on the bright side. At last week's debate at the Reagan Library, the field mentioned optimism more often than bin Laden. Giuliani chanted the word four times—three times in a single answer. Bush's favorite word, resolve, didn't come up once.
Republicans may be right to miss Reagan—not because his policies worked, but because the country has so soured on their party that only an actor could still put on a happy face. That's the role many Republicans have scripted for Fred Thompson. They don't much care what he stands for, provided he can cheer Republicans up.
If that's his goal, Thompson got off to an odd start in an address to Orange County conservatives this weekend. Jonathan Martin, who covers Republicans for the Politico, said Thompson's speech was "low key and at times meandering." Robert Novak, conservatism's biggest grump, called it "a downer." (Ironically, the best part of Thompson's speech was his joke that he'd spent the whole night trying to keep Novak from seeing his notes.)
Far from helping Republicans escape their despair, Thompson couldn't stop reminding them of it. "We've had our ups and our downs," he said, insisting that the party's post-Watergate gloom wasn't as bad as it seemed at the time. He warned that we're "even hearing that old malaise talk we used to hear," then indulged in some, noting that there's "some concern that maybe we're slipping away like all the great powers have."
Thompson echoed another actor-turned-politician by repeatedly borrowing Arnold Schwarzenegger's trademark tic, "and things of that nature." He closed his speech by inadvertently giving a good impression of Reagan's famous "Highway 1" closing statement in the second 1984 debate. In Thompson's rambling story, a group of sixth-graders in North Hollywood asked him why he went into politics. The question made him think back to Washington, Lincoln, the Revolutionary War, and our common heritage. The answer: not clear.
But the award for most surprising performance by an anecdote in a supporting role goes to two other historical cameos in Thompson's speech. In a rare turn for the 2008 Republican campaign trail, Thompson praised Wendell Willkie, the Republican nominee who lost the 1940 election in a landslide but became one of FDR's most important allies.
More remarkably, Thompson went out of his way to stick up for perhaps the greatest wimp of the 20th century: Neville Chamberlain. The Bush administration has spent the last six years trying to tie Democrats to Neville Chamberlain. Don't even ask how he got there, but Thompson was working off a different set of talking points. He didn't defend Chamberlain's record, but he did paraphrase Churchill's eulogy to say, "Neville Chamberlain marched in the ranks of honor."
Perhaps that was Thompson's indirect way of saying something nice about Bush. The next line in Churchill's eulogy fits Bush even better: "It fell to [him] in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man." More likely, Thompson was just making the noble point that compared with politicians today, Churchill was a class act.
In any case, it's a modern political first: Fred Thompson could go down in history as the only presidential candidate in either party to put in a good word for Neville Chamberlain.
Could this be the future of conservatism? Will Republican candidates try to prove they're not the next George W. Bush by leaving open the possibility of being the next Neville Chamberlain?
In 2000, Bush invented compassionate conservatism to distance himself from Newt Gingrich. The GOP's challenge is even greater in 2008, but Thompson may have found the answer: appeasement conservatism. With a Republican Party that loses elections as gracefully as Willkie and loses wars as pre-emptively as Chamberlain, America will forget the Bush presidency ever happened. ... 1:54 P.M. (link)


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An integrated circuit is a semiconductor wafer on which thousands or millions of tiny resistors, capacitors, and transistors are fabricated. Sometimes called a chip or microchip. The invention of the integrated circuit made technologies of the Information Age feasible. ICs are now used extensively in all walks of life, from cars to toasters to amusement park rides. Integrated circuits (ICs) are self-contained circuits with many separate components such as transistors, diodes, resistors and capacitors etched into a tiny silicon chip.
Related Journals of Integrated circuit
Journal of Physical Chemistry & Biophysics, Journal of Electrical & Electronic Systems, Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing, IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium, IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems, Journal of Integrated Circuits and Systems, Proceedings of the Custom Integrated Circuits Conference.
Journal of Lasers, Optics & Photonics received 279 citations as per Google Scholar report


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I'm assuming your going for a realistic representation here are some things I noticed. Going left to right. I used a side pic to better show off the angle
1 - The side Picatinny rail is missing the 2 bolts holes and separation that mount it the the weapon
2 - The beginning or the bolt slider is missing the circle lock position
3 - The saftey and ROF switches aer different on the left and right side. Your model has the right side on the left, since I cannot see the opposite side I cannot say what is going on there
4 - The hand grip is lower and a lot more dense with the texture
5 - The folding stock loops are in the wrong position and the wrong shape, they should be higher and almost half a circle
6 - Missing the numbers for the extendable stock
7- The rear stock should be much thicker and higher then it currently is, also missing the bolt under the strap holder. The Rear stock also has a beveled edge coming from top and down and see you can the crease before the number 6. You are also missing the ridges on the front side of the stock
Some general issues are the edges along the trigger guard and receiver are very sharp and look very low poly like the edges were missed in the bake or something


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Not only was their music the most amazing of all time, but so were their album covers. As well as the iconic cover of the popular album 'Revolver', this album cover design is one of the famous covers from The Beatles.
As many people know, this photo has drawn a whole bunch of fans to the road to make their own version of this photo.
The reason why the public and fans of The Beatles, including myself, love this album cover so much is because it gives a vivid impression of what a casual picture of their lives may look like: walking across the street under dazzling sunshine in the middle of the day. It's interesting that McCartney has no shoes for a reason unknown.
Furthermore, the confidence of this world-famous rock band was revealed by their facial expression and posing, as well as something unusual on its front cover: neither the artist name nor the album title were shown. Sure, why did they need that?
With a gloomy sky, dark grass full of teddy bears, and the curious title 'Uprising', the cover expresses a sense of humour.
This is one the most attractive album covers of English rock band Muse. The creative idea was thought up by talented designer, Storm Thorgerson, who has created a tonne of brilliant music album covers in the U.K. Interestingly, the fame of most ingenious and artistic album cover designers usually revolves around rock band albums. They are, usually, more creative and intend to let people's imagination run wild.
The strong contrast between the idea of teddy bears and the dusky background makes an amusing and mysterious combination. Are they heroic fighters who are going to overthrow a regime of some sort? Where is the bright earth's atmosphere, running kids and emerald lawn that are more commonly associated with teddy bears?
Did you ask those questions too? That's why I love this cover.
This is a piece of enjoyable design involving abstract concepts. I am neither an avid fan nor an expert on classical music, but for a classical music album, I think this one is really innovative.
A couple of years ago I accidentally saw it online when I was searching for elements for my design module project. For obvious reasons, this outstanding design caught my eye.
It's true that when it comes to classical music albums, abstract illustrations are commonly used on the front covers. However, not all of them are harmonious and delicate like this one.
To be honest, I have no idea what the music inside is about, or the name of the man on the cover. Nevertheless, I am pretty sure he is a great musician or composer. But what I do know for certain is that if I could handed artwork like this to my design tutor, I would definitely get the best grade in my class.