text:
Daily Readings for Thursday, May 18, 2023
- Morning Psalms 47; 147:12-20
- First Reading Ezekiel 1:1-14, 24-28(b)
- Second Reading Hebrews 2:5-18
- Gospel Reading Matthew 28:16-20
- Evening Psalms 68; 113
Morning Psalm 47
1 Clap your hands, all you peoples;
shout to God with loud songs of joy.
2 For the LORD, the Most High, is awesome,
a great king over all the earth.
3 He subdued peoples under us,
and nations under our feet.
4 He chose our heritage for us,
the pride of Jacob whom he loves. Selah
5 God has gone up with a shout,
the LORD with the sound of a trumpet.
6 Sing praises to God, sing praises;
sing praises to our King, sing praises.
7 For God is the king of all the earth;
sing praises with a psalm.
8 God is king over the nations;
God sits on his holy throne.
9 The princes of the peoples gather
as the people of the God of Abraham.
For the shields of the earth belong to God;
he is highly exalted.
Morning Psalm 147:12-20
12 Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem!
Praise your God, O Zion!
13 For he strengthens the bars of your gates;
he blesses your children within you.
14 He grants peace within your borders;
he fills you with the finest of wheat.
15 He sends out his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
16 He gives snow like wool;
he scatters frost like ashes.
17 He hurls down hail like crumbs —
who can stand before his cold?
18 He sends out his word, and melts them;
he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow.
19 He declares his word to Jacob,
his statutes and ordinances to Israel.
20 He has not dealt thus with any other nation;
they do not know his ordinances.
Praise the Lord!
First Reading Ezekiel 1:1-14, 24-28(b)
1In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. 2On the fifth day of the month (it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin), 3the word of the Lord came to the priest Ezekiel son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was on him there.
4As I looked, a stormy wind came out of the north: a great cloud with brightness around it and fire flashing forth continually, and in the middle of the fire, something like gleaming amber. 5In the middle of it was something like four living creatures. This was their appearance: they were of human form. 6Each had four faces, and each of them had four wings. 7Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf's foot; and they sparkled like burnished bronze. 8Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. And the four had their faces and their wings thus: 9their wings touched one another; each of them moved straight ahead, without turning as they moved. 10As for the appearance of their faces: the four had the face of a human being, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle; 11such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above; each creature had two wings, each of which touched the wing of another, while two covered their bodies. 12Each moved straight ahead; wherever the spirit would go, they went, without turning as they went. 13In the middle of the living creatures there was something that looked like burning coals of fire, like torches moving to and fro among the living creatures; the fire was bright, and lightning issued from the fire. 14The living creatures darted to and fro, like a flash of lightning.
24When they moved, I heard the sound of their wings like the sound of mighty waters, like the thunder of the Almighty, a sound of tumult like the sound of an army; when they stopped, they let down their wings. 25And there came a voice from above the dome over their heads; when they stopped, they let down their wings.
26And above the dome over their heads there was something like a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was something that seemed like a human form. 27Upward from what appeared like the loins I saw something like gleaming amber, something that looked like fire enclosed all around; and downward from what looked like the loins I saw something that looked like fire, and there was a splendor all around. 28Like the bow in a cloud on a rainy day, such was the appearance of the splendor all around. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.
When I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of someone speaking.
Second Reading Hebrews 2:5-18
5Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. 6But someone has testified somewhere,
"What are human beings that you are mindful of them,
or mortals, that you care for them?
7 You have made them for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned them with glory and honor,
8 subjecting all things under their feet."
Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, 9but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
10It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, 12saying,
"I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters,
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you."
13And again,
"I will put my trust in him."
And again,
"Here am I and the children whom God has given me."
14Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. 16For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. 17Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. 18Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.
Gospel Reading Matthew 28:16-20
16Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
Evening Psalm 68
1 Let God rise up, let his enemies be scattered;
let those who hate him flee before him.
2 As smoke is driven away, so drive them away;
as wax melts before the fire,
let the wicked perish before God.
3 But let the righteous be joyful;
let them exult before God;
let them be jubilant with joy.
4 Sing to God, sing praises to his name;
lift up a song to him who rides upon the clouds —
his name is the LORD —
be exultant before him.
5 Father of orphans and protector of widows
is God in his holy habitation.
6 God gives the desolate a home to live in;
he leads out the prisoners to prosperity,
but the rebellious live in a parched land.
7 O God, when you went out before your people,
when you marched through the wilderness, Selah
8 the earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain
at the presence of God, the God of Sinai,
at the presence of God, the God of Israel.
9 Rain in abundance, O God, you showered abroad;
you restored your heritage when it languished;
10 your flock found a dwelling in it;
in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy.
11 The Lord gives the command;
great is the company of those who bore the tidings
12 "The kings of the armies, they flee, they flee!"
The women at home divide the spoil,
13 though they stay among the sheepfolds —
the wings of a dove covered with silver,
its pinions with green gold.
14 When the Almighty scattered kings there,
snow fell on Zalmon.
15 O mighty mountain, mountain of Bashan;
O many-peaked mountain, mountain of Bashan!
16 Why do you look with envy, O many-peaked mountain,
at the mount that God desired for his abode,
where the LORD will reside for ever?
17 With mighty chariotry, twice ten thousand,
thousands upon thousands,
the Lord came from Sinai into the holy place.
18 You ascended the high mount,
leading captives in your train
and receiving gifts from people,
even from those who rebel against the LORD God's abiding there.
19 Blessed be the Lord,
who daily bears us up;
God is our salvation. Selah
20 Our God is a God of salvation,
and to GOD, the Lord, belongs escape from death.
21 But God will shatter the heads of his enemies,
the hairy crown of those who walk in their guilty ways.
22 The Lord said,
"I will bring them back from Bashan,
I will bring them back from the depths of the sea,
23 so that you may bathe your feet in blood,
so that the tongues of your dogs may have their share from the foe."
24 Your solemn processions are seen, O God,
the processions of my God, my King, into the sanctuary —
25 the singers in front, the musicians last,
between them girls playing tambourines:
26 "Bless God in the great congregation,
the LORD, O you who are of Israel's fountain!"
27 There is Benjamin, the least of them, in the lead,
the princes of Judah in a body,
the princes of Zebulun, the princes of Naphtali.
28 Summon your might, O God;
show your strength, O God, as you have done for us before.
29 Because of your temple at Jerusalem
kings bear gifts to you.
30 Rebuke the wild animals that live among the reeds,
the herd of bulls with the calves of the peoples.
Trample under foot those who lust after tribute;
scatter the peoples who delight in war.
31 Let bronze be brought from Egypt;
let Ethiopia hasten to stretch out its hands to God.
32 Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth;
sing praises to the Lord, Selah
33 O rider in the heavens, the ancient heavens;
listen, he sends out his voice, his mighty voice.
34 Ascribe power to God,
whose majesty is over Israel;
and whose power is in the skies.
35 Awesome is God in his sanctuary,
the God of Israel;
he gives power and strength to his people.
Blessed be God!
Evening Psalm 113
1 Praise the LORD!
Praise, O servants of the LORD;
praise the name of the LORD.
2 Blessed be the name of the LORD
from this time on and forevermore.
3 From the rising of the sun to its setting
the name of the LORD is to be praised.
4 The LORD is high above all nations,
and his glory above the heavens.
5 Who is like the LORD our God,
who is seated on high,
6 who looks far down
on the heavens and the earth?
7 He raises the poor from the dust,
and lifts the needy from the ash heap,
8 to make them sit with princes,
with the princes of his people.
9 He gives the barren woman a home,
making her the joyous mother of children.
Praise the LORD!


text:
Ballop Aquafit Pizzi Skyblue Kids
This variant is currently sold out
The Aqua series are equipped with Aqua Soles for excellent traction and fast drainage. Light, flexible and durable. They are perfect for all your water and outdoor sports and activities. Upper: As a quick-dry DR knit LT Spandex, it can be stretched into 360 degree and no trouble in any water or outdoor activity. Water repellency and fast-dry function makes it worry-free for odour. Aqua-sole: 2-colour rubber sole with wire mesh drainage holes for fast drainage and quick dry; Octopus suctions cups for excellent traction on wet surfaces. Heel intension holds heel tightly during activities and increases the durability. Insole - EVA with POLY-MESH with soft cushioning and drainage functionality. Textile 3-D printing, materials and parts passed REACH TEST for being non-toxic and eco-friendly. Elastic opening and streamline fit help keep the sand out.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The idea of taking photographs at night can be counterintuitive to the novice photographer. After all, photography is an art, a craft, a technology that is wholly built on light. Film or digital, it doesn't matter: we need light to make a photograph—it is as simple as that.
Night, of course, by very definition lacks the pervasive light of day, and therefore doesn't seem like a good time for photography. In the broadest sense, this intuitive understanding of light and its importance to photography is absolutely correct. Night does represent a more challenging time to take pictures, because we lack all those wonderful photons barreling down from the sun and reflecting off everything interesting and into our waiting lenses.
However, note that I said "challenging" but not "impossible." Indeed, nighttime photography is not only possible; it is wonderfully ripe for creative expression and can help you create genuinely unique looks in your work.
The Night in General
Take a moment, tonight, or whenever you have a chance, and go outside into the darkness long after the sun has gone down. Really open your eyes and observe, noting all the differences, all the unique things that set night apart from day. It is as simple as the lack of sunlight, but infinitely more complex than that breezy statement would suggest.
Pay attention to the way the shadows have deepened and pooled, how colors are muted or rendered differently by the artificial light of streetlamps or the exposed bulb on your backyard porch. Notice how things feel, how significant just changing the time of day can be. That old oak tree that seems so friendly and comforting in the day can turn into a gnarled, malevolent specter at night. Or a car that during the day is simple and boring might become a gleaming chariot in the darkness. The possibilities are endless.
The City at Night
Cities are wonderful engines of creative possibility for the nighttime photographer. We lose the sunlight, but we gain thousands (or millions) of individual points of artificial light of every different color and tonal quality. We can (literally and figuratively) view our city in an entirely new light. The old and staid can become fascinating again as the changes in lighting shift the shadows and alter the textures and wring out, or completely change, the colors.
And all these bright points of artificial light give our cameras something to gather and turn into a photograph.
Great. So…What Do I Do?
I'm going to try to distill my experiences from my nighttime cityscape photography outings into a series of recommendations, aimed at giving you the best possible chance to get that shot, the one you really want, full of color and deep shadows and crazy lighting that showcases your city in a whole new way.
Bring the Right Gear
I'm not going to categorically deny that you can take great nightscapes with a compact digital camera. I will say that using a point and shoot is going to make getting that fantastic image of your dreams a lot harder.
I recommend the following:
• Tripod, sturdy but lightweight enough for you to carry around easily
• Remote shutter release
• Relatively fast wide angle lens (the wide angle part is optional, but what I recommend to get the most dramatic shots of the architecture and streets of your city)
• Lens hood (to reduce lens flare from outside-the-frame light sources)
Note that I didn't say "flashlight." This article assumes you are in the city, which, barring unforeseen power outages, should have light enough for you to see by and make your way around. That may vary by city, however, so bring a flashlight if you feel you'll need one, or if you plan on doing "light painting" with it.
Know the Gear You Brought
Things will be dark. It's nighttime. So make sure you know how to operate your DSLR in minimum light and with little fuss. If your camera has the ability, make use of custom modes to have your settings in place and ready to go ahead of time. Also be able to fit your remote shutter cable onto your camera, and your camera onto your tripod, in the dark (and both of those back off again).
Going further, try to get to know your lens(es) and your camera with regard to how they behave in low light. Some DSLRs are better at autofocusing in dim light than others; you may need to manually focus for best results if the AF ends up endlessly searching (alternatively, point the camera the moon or some other distant light, let AF put the focus at infinity, recompose and shoot). DSLRs will also vary a great deal on how well they handle high ISO values and/or very long exposures (in terms of the level of noise in the resultant image). If you are looking to capture fast action in freeze-frame in a nighttime shot, you will inevitably need a high ISO level and probably a very wide aperture lens. Remember, a tripod can hold your camera solid and in place, but it has no effect on the movement of the subject matter.
This brings us to:
Know What You Want
Are you looking for a freeze-frame in the darkness? This is going to be tough – a technologically demanding task for your camera. You'll have to set the ISO quite high and have a "fast" lens (one with a wide aperture, as noted above, like f/2.8 or f/1.7, etc). The result will necessarily have a very shallow depth of focus with potentially a lot of noise – things to keep in mind as you are shooting. You will also need a high ISO and fast aperture if you are trying to shoot handheld (without a tripod), something that is very possible, especially with newer, less noisy digital cameras, but be prepared to have do noise reduction in post!
If, instead, as is more commonly done, you want to create light trails from passing cars or use long exposures to really capture the fantastically different nighttime lighting, you can get away with using much lower ISO (e.g. 100) and a smaller aperture (f/8, for example) to enlarge your depth of field and minimize the ISO-induced noise. This will mean, commensurately, a longer exposure time: the shutter will remain open longer, letting those light trails form and also filling the frame with more detail as more photons are gathered by the imaging sensor. Bear in mind, however, that most DSLRs have an automatic shutter time cutoff of 30 seconds, so if you need longer to get a proper exposure you'll need to know how to use the Bulb mode on your camera (where the shutter speed is determined by how long you hold down the shutter release button). In either case, you will need a tripod, because the exposure time will be much too long to keep still when hand-holding.
Also, keep in mind a fact of all digital sensors (so far): the longer the shutter is open, the more noise creeps up, regardless of ISO setting. To combat this you can set your camera to apply in-camera noise reduction. Many DSLRs do this automatically on longer exposures, and usually the time it takes to apply the NR is equivalent to however long the shutter was open. This is important to remember when you are out and about, because it means your camera is unusable for however long the NR is being applied.
Know Your City
Every city is different, in layout, points of interest, people and the overall character, and all of those elements (except the layout) change, sometimes drastically, when night falls.
You should be at least decently knowledgeable about the city you are attempting to shoot in before you make an excursion at night – or, at least, be with someone who does know. Big cities present nearly endless opportunities for architectural and artistic delights, delights that change and morph and become radically different when no longer lit by the sun, but by artificial lights. However, big cities can also be more dangerous, particularly at night, and especially for a photographer who is lugging around two to ten thousand dollars (or more) worth of equipment with them.
Therefore, for reasons of safety and for practicality, get to know your city before you tromp out with DSLRs hanging around your necks, tripods in hand and release shutter cables dangling. Go out in the day and get to know the streets and where the interesting buildings and parks and monuments and statues are; go out at night, without your camera, and see how all of those things look in the light of night.
Then, when you do take all your equipment out for the shoot, make sure to keep your eyes open. Be cognizant of your surroundings. Walk confidently, even assertively, so as not to be pegged as a tourist, mark or target for potential predators. Work in a group, or at least go with one other person who can watch your back, even if that other person is not a fellow photographer.
Or, do as I often do: go at times when most of the rest of the city is asleep. There are such times, even in those big cities that "never sleep." When? I've found early—and I mean really early—Sunday mornings are the quietest possible times to tramp around the downtown. At 3:30 or 4:00 AM, after bar-close but well before sunrise (for most of the year), the night is just as dark and the light just as good—unless you are trying to shoot nightlife and people and cars, rather than architecture and light and shadow.
Shooting in the early morning also lets you capture a series that progresses from a pure black sky (or one with the moon and stars) to one of deepening purples and blues as the sun begins to rise, and finally gives you a chance to partake in the Magic Hour of sunrise itself. Yep, it means an early morning on a Sunday, but it's the best time to go out if you want to encounter as few people as possible.
Know the Weather
Another important consideration in nightscape photography is the weather.
Cities at night can look absolutely amazing after a downpour has left the roads wet and gleaming with columns of reflected light. Snow can render a city almost post-apocalyptic at night, blanketing everything and colored by the lights of storefronts and parking lamps. But rain and snow, as they are coming down, are not great for cameras or lenses (or photographers, for that matter) if you aren't probably prepared.
So be aware of what the skies are doing, and plan ahead. If it's going to rain, bring waterproof clothing for you and protection for your camera. Watch the weather reports on the night you want to go out and see if you can time it so you hit the streets just after the rain has stopped, so you capture all the magical wetness without it fouling up your camera or lens. If it's snowing, be prepared for the cold and, again, protect your gear.
Nighttime cityscape photography can be a fantastic avenue for creative expression, and a way to make your images pop with unique feeling and life. The light and the shadow behave differently without the sun overhead, and the world, as a result, changes in tone and mood and expression. Streets turn black and shiny and are broken by orange circles of light from streetlamps. Shadows pool in alleys and the corners of buildings, and are stretched into new, looming figures and shapes by the bright light from a gas station or convenience store.
As a photographer, out at night in the city, the most important thing to remember is to stay safe. After that, keep your eyes open and your imagination working, and go after those amazing low-light shots. Try new things, bend and break the rules, have fun, and let the magic flow.
You might be surprised just how much you like what you come home with.
Table of contents
Architectural Photography
- Nightscapes: Photographing the City at Night


text:
1954 Service Contract for TV
I was rooting through some of the files in the basement when I ran across this Dec. 17, 1954, receipt for the service contract for our Zenith T.V. from C.F. Hopkins Hardware Co. in Marble Hill. Unfortunately, I haven't found the actual bill of sale.
Not only did we get the TV, but it came with an All Channel Alliance Rotor, and a Winegard antenna atop a 20-foot mast.
Only Dad Could Touch It
I'm pretty sure I was well into my teens before I could adjust the antenna rotor outside Dad's supervison. It made cool sounds while the antenna was swinging around. Sort of a "Clunk, Clunk, Clunk." If it started buzzing, that meant that it was locked up and you had to press a reset button on the back or bottom.
How did we survive with one TV?
When I think back on it, we managed to survive for decades with only one television set, and it was located in the basement. Here's a link to the folks who are watching it.
Our Eyes on the World
That old Zenith brought us entertainment and the news of the day.


text:
About ICE London 2024
Ice is back!
The place the world of gaming goes to do business will welcome the entire industry, where 45,000+ trailblazers will gather to network with leading international decision-makers, regulators, operators and innovators across all gaming sectors and verticals, over three days of expansive business opportunities.
ICE is the biggest global showcase of the very latest and innovative technologies and opportunity providers, home to 600+ global brands providing FIRST access to products and services designed to enhance your growth potential in 2024.
Exhibiting at ICE London 2024?
Are you wanting to exhibit at ICE London 2024 this year? Get in touch with our expert team today and we can guide you along through the process from the initial design right down to the final day of the event. Our exhibition stand design team will work with you to create an eye catching design that will no doubt attract visitors to your stand, we'll offer extra boosts to your stand such as hanging structures, creative flooring and even interactive stations that could improve the engagement of passers by. Build a fully bespoke exhibition stand or choose a great value exhibition stand package for ICE London 2024 today and we'll bring it to life. Whether it's your first time exhibiting at the event or your 4th, we're here to help all those who are attending and showcasing their work or business. Get in touch with the team here at Expositionists today and discover a wide range of exhibition stand solutions that could greatly improve your chances of creating new business and relationships.
If you're looking for further inspiration why not check out the Expo Gallery?


text:
State Representative John A. "Tony" Miscikoski, of Torrington, known by many as "The Father of the Lottery," believed that a state lottery could provide substantial benefits to the residents of the state. Each year for nearly a decade, Miscikoski presented legislation to authorize lottery sales. Miscikoski's dream became a reality in 1971, and the Connecticut State Lottery came into being.
Click here for printer friendly version.


text: We are looking for a Content Writer to join our team and enrich our websites with new blog posts, guides and marketing copy. Content Writer responsibilities include conducting thorough research on industry-related topics, generating ideas for new content types and proofreading articles before publication. If you're familiar with producing online content and have an eye for detail, we'd like to meet you. Feel free to share samples of your work or portfolio of your published articles, along with your application. Ultimately, you'll deliver quality writing pieces that appeal to our audiences, attract customers and boost brand awareness.


text:
Working Model 2D
2D Dynamic Motion Simulation
Working Model is the best selling motion simulation product in the world. Confirm your design with powerful analytical tools.
- Test multiple versions of your design
- Fast run-analyze-refine cycle helps to optimize designs before building physical prototypes
- Reduce physical prototyping
- You are in total control of the simulation environment
- Quickly build, run, and refine simulations with pre-defined objects and constraints
- Run, stop, reset, single step, or pause the simulation at any time
- Analyze your latest design by measuring force, torque, acceleration, etc. acting on any object
- View output as vectors or in numbers and graphs in English or metric units
- Import your 2D CAD drawings in DXF format
- Input values from equations, sliders and DDE links to MATLAB and Excel
- Simulate non-linear or user events using a built-in formula language
- Design linkages with pin joints, slots, motors, springs, and dampers
- Create bodies and specify its mass properties, initial velocity, electrostatic charge, etc.
- Simulate contact, collisions, and friction
- Analyze structures with flexible beams and shear and bending moment diagrams
- Run or edit scripts to optimize simulations, document models, and more
- Record simulation data and create graphs or AVI video files for playback
- Create visually appealing presentations by attaching pictures
The world's most popular CAE tool, Working Model is a conceptual design tool that allows you to create simulations that replace vague, time consuming, inaccurate back of the envelope calculations. Working Model has been adopted by thousands of professional engineers to create and analyze real-life mechanical systems. It has been designed from the ground up to optimize performance on Microsoft Windows systems. Working Model includes automatic collision detection and responses for NURBS geometry. Our latest release also includes such popular scripts as Flexbeam, Shear and Bending Moment, and Pin Friction. These scripts have been customized to expand your use of Working Model.
At every stage in the product development cycle, Working Model lets you do more. What used to take days now takes hours, giving you more time to do the job, and saving your company money. In fact, many of our customers say that Working Model paid for itself the first time they used it.


text: You're almost done. Just enter your address, click submit, and print the prepaid shipping label. When we receive the calculator we will test it, check that it matches your description, and process your payment within 24 hours. Checks and Money Orders usually arrive within 2-4 business days. PayPal payments are processed within 1 business days - be sure to include your PayPal e-mail address. How do you want to get paid?


text:
Paycheck Protection Program Loan Forgiveness Best Practices
Whether the impact is on a global, national, or individual industry level, this pandemic is already changing the way businesses are operating on a day-to-day basis. As we venture past the peak of the pandemic, businesses are going to have to adapt to the new world in which they reside in order to survive. The Paycheck Protection Program loan has become a lifeline for small businesses. Some of these loans may even be forgiven if businesses meet certain criteria. These criteria include: making sure your business truly qualifies for the PPP funding, at least 75% of the funds must be used for payroll expenses, and use the rest for eligible expenses. This article discusses some best practices for qualifying for loan forgiveness.
To view this article, click HERE to access the original content.


text:
Friday, November 30, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Legislators Must Oppose a Carbon Tax
By Alan
One of the
most disturbing pieces of news has been the way some Republicans in Congress
have gone wobbly on the greatest hoax of the modern era, global warming or
climate change or whatever other name is being applied to it as the effort to
impose an insane tax on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is getting a push.
briefly examine the facts:
never was any global warming if you apply Al Gore's definition—"The Earth has a
fever." There was no dramatic increase in the Earth's overall temperature at
the end of the mini ice age that ended in 1850 after some three hundred years
of significant cooling. An increase of about one degree was sufficient to
produce warming.
dioxide plays NO role whatever in the increase or decrease of the Earth's
overall temperature. The single determining factor was and is the SUN. The
seasons reflect the Earth's circumnavigation of the Sun, warming in the spring
and getting colder in the winter.
dioxide represents 0.033 to 0.038 percent of the Earth's atmosphere. By
contrast, nitrogen represents 78.084 percent, oxygen is 20.94 percent, argon is
0.934 percent, and trace elements represent 0.002 percent.
dioxide is not a warming gas. It is a cooling gas.
There is
no "consensus" among scientists that the Earth is warming or that CO2 plays a
role in this alleged, utterly false claim.
There has
been no warming for some sixteen years since the Earth entered a natural
cooling cycle.
dioxide is vital to all life on Earth. It is the "food" that all vegetation
requires for growth. In greenhouses, CO2 is pumped in to stimulate growth.
Without vegetation in the form of crops, all other life on Earth dies. Seeking
to reduce CO2 emissions is an idiotic idea.
so-called greenhouse gas emissions was originally a scheme to enrich those selling
"credits" to do so in various exchanges, many of which have since ceased to
operate. The carbon tax has a lot of appeal to a dead broke U.S. government. Raising tax rates and revenues allows the government to continue ignoring the larger problem of debt.
happens when government entities, federal and states, get more income? In
general they waste it. Or they allocate it to pay for the benefits, pensions,
and healthcare of civil service union employees. Most such obligations are
under-funded these days due to their size.
One of the
most famous lobbyists against raising taxes, Grover Norquist, a man who has
bound Republican lawmakers in Congress to a pledge against draining more money
out of the economy, was required to deny reports in the National Journal that
he advocated a "carbon tax swap.". Meanwhile, the Competitive Enterprise
Institute has sued the Treasury Department for failure to be more transparent
about any deliberations it has engaged in regarding a carbon tax.
Republicans allow the door to "climate change" to crack open, this utterly
baseless tax will be on its way to being law and, like the income tax, will
grow to such proportions that it will suck the life out of the nation's
economy, if there is an economy.
It has no
basis in science and even a simple understanding of economics and history tells
us that it is one of the worst ideas ever put forth. In a recession, you lower
taxes, not increase them in order to get more money circulating. In a recession
you find ways to encourage job creation, investment, and saving.
November 13th The Institute for Energy Research released a study
that demonstrates the many ways a carbon tax is plagued by theoretical and
practical problems. "Conservative proponents of the free market, of all
analysts, should be wary indeed of any plan to introduce a new carbon tax in
the name of promoting economic growth," warned IER Senior Economist Robert P.
put, "The U.S. government, acting unilaterally, cannot significantly slow
global carbon dioxide emissions." Other nations will continue to rely on
coal-fired utilities to produce the electricity they need to maintain and
expand their economies. China is a major factor as is India and all others.
Only France that relies on nuclear energy would be exempt.
"Federal and state governments already have in place many policies that
discourage carbon-intensive activities and encourage alternatives such as
gasoline taxes, CAFÉ standards, renewable energy mandates." None of these
incentives combined have had any significant impact on reducing CO2 and none of
them make the least sense at all. Renewable energy is the most inefficient,
impractical and unreliable forms of energy production.
has just introduced the first tax on emissions and California has been bleeding
citizens, industries and businesses for years as life there becomes
economically unsustainable.
So, one
can only pray that conservative legislators do not fall prey to the desperation
and depression that has followed the reelection of President Obama who has been
speaking, as usual, out of both sides of his month about climate change.
climate changes. It has for 4.5 billion years. Humans, a relatively new species
on Earth, do not have any control over the climate which is measured in
centuries or the weather which cannot be accurately predicted more than two
weeks to a month in advance.
anything about "global warming" is the equivalent of Indian rain dances. It may
make people feel that they are influencing the climate, but all they are doing
is dancing in a circle to the sound of drums.
© Alan
Caruba, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
The Middle East Minefield
By Alan Caruba
I often
wonder whether Americans really care about the outcome of events as
regards Israel. I know that a segment of American Jews are concerned and that
evangelical Christians may care even more.
I can't escape
the feeling, though, that other than the horror of an Iranian nuclear missile
blowing up Israel and killing its citizens (both Jewish and Muslim), that most Americans are not that committed to its survival. I suspect that
most Europeans are even less committed.
I cite Israel because of the hostility of
all others in the Middle East, but they may not be as hostile as things appear. Israel is a major
deterrent to Iran's ambitions.
Things are
never what they seem in the Middle East.
The major
actors in this are the U.S., Turkey, and Egypt. The main benefactor would be
Saudi Arabia whose oil fields are within the range of Iranian missiles. The
Russians are part of the picture because they do not want to lose a key Syrian
port for its naval ships, but Russia, too, is a major oil producer and anything
that might harm its interests is seen as a bonus.
After 9/11
when the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were attacked Americans supported an
energetic response, but after George W. Bush committed troops to Afghanistan
and Iraq it wasn't long before Americans decided it was a bad idea. Too many
memories of Vietnam along with too much cost in blood and treasure took the
edge off of the reprisal in Afghanistan or the deposing of Iraq's Saddam
Hussein. Iraq is an oil producer as well, but is now allied with the Iranians
where its president found sanctuary during Saddam Hussein's reign of terror.
Trotsky, an associate of Stalin, once said, "You might not be interested in
war, but war may be interested in you." Wars occur in various ways, deliberate
and accidental, but it is the latter that would seem the case these days in a
Middle East where Hamas engaged in a lengthy barrage of rockets and then acted
surprised that Israel responded, killing a number of their top people and
inflicting a lot of damage in Gaza.
Hamas was
acting under the orders from Iran. The president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, a
leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, brokered a cease fire deal, but also decided
he wants to be the next dictator of Egypt. Who saw that coming? The Egyptians
had risked life and limb in Cairo's Tahrir Square to depose Hosni Mubarack and
then turned around and voted Morsi into office.
What were
they thinking? Why didn't they embrace a more secular leader? The answer is
that Islam is everything in the Middle East. Muslims cannot change and it is
foolish to think they will. If you loved the seventh century, you will love the
Middle East.
Egypt is
important to the U.S. What happens there determines much of the direction the
Middle East takes. That explains why the Obama administration wants to forgive
a billion in debt and to throw another billion or more at Morsi by way of
enlisting him to act as a counter weight to Hamas. On Nov 24 Iranian president
Mahmud Ahmadinejad was on the phone to Hamas's Ismail Haniya and with Jihad
Islami leaders to assure them they would be receiving munitions to refill their
Obama has agreed to send U.S. troops to Egypt's Sinai to interdict the arms
smuggling routes through the desert to Gaza. Indeed, it was this offer that is
said to have gotten Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu to back off a ground
invasion, but in this three dimensional game of chess, Israel, Egypt, and
Turkey are all working with the U.S.
The U.S.
Navy has been busy throughout the brief conflict and earlier. For years it has
taken up permanent residency off the coast of Iran and in the Persian Gulf.
Other elements are presently positioned off the coast of Syria where their
Russian counterparts can also be found.
Assad has made Turkey very nervous. Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus want to keep
him alive. Turkey borders Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and is in proximity of Russia,
bordering Georgia. It has its hands full just tending to the thousands of
Syrians that have fled there. The U.S. is providing Turkey with Patriot
missiles and AWACs, manned by U.S. military, and that could become yet another
None of the
nations involved want a really big war to break out.
The wild
card is Israel whose very existence is threatened by Iran. The U.S. is doing
what it can to avoid that. So far the cooperation is working. If Iran announces
it has nuclear weapons or Israeli intelligence determines that's the case, all bets are off.
The major
beneficiary of all of this is Saudi Arabia and, as the leader of the majority
Sunni Muslims worldwide, it has no love for Shiite Iran. In effect the U.S.
intelligence capabilities and its military have become its mercenary army,
eliminating Saddam Hussein, standing aside when Mubarak and Gaddafi fell and now working to eliminate Bashar Assad.
The U.S. doesn't mind working with dictators, so long as they are "our" dictators, friendly to our interests.
© Alan
Caruba, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
The U.S. is Blocking Energy Wealth and Jobs
By Alan Caruba
What if I
told you that the government was blocking America's prosperity in the form of
enormous untapped energy reserves that represent wealth and jobs that would
once again put America on the path to fiscal security and growth?
Matt Vespa, on CNS.com reported that the International Energy Agency released a
report that said the United States has the capacity to outpace Saudi Arabia as
one of the world's leading producers of oil. It projected that the U.S. could
become a net oil exporter around 2020. It could become entirely
Even so,
the Obama administration just moved to cordon off 1.6 million acres estimated
to represent one trillion barrels worth of oil in the name of conservation. At
the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency is moving to so encumber
hydraulic fracturing—fracking—with so many regulations it will thwart increased
use of this extraction technology that has been safely in use for decades.
As Dan Kish,
Senior Vice President for Policy at the Institute for Energy Research, warns,
there is a major government effort "to federalize hydraulic fracturing
regulation" which is already being done by states "in a very professional and
knowledgeable way. Take fracking away, the oil and gas production drops."
For years,
through many administrations, the federal government has been doing everything
in its power to restrict drilling domestically and off-shore where billions of
barrels of oil remains untapped. In October, a Wall Street Journal editorial
noted that "The latest example is the Interior Department's little-noticed
August decision to close off from drilling nearly half of the 23.5 million acre
National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska."
As far
back as 1976, Congress designated the Reserve a strategic oil and gas stockpile
to meet the "energy needs of the nation", but oil and gas that is not extracted
meets no needs. It keeps the nation dependent on imported oil and gas. In an
August 22 letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar from the entire Alaska
delegation in Congress called it "the largest wholesale land withdrawal and
blocking of access to an energy resource by the federal government in decades."
that "Most of the other 11.5 million acres are almost indistinguishable from
the acreage owned by the state that is being drilled safely nearby" the Journal
pointed out that drilling on privately owned land has seen North Dakota pass
Alaska as the second highest oil-producing state behind Texas."
to the Congressional Research Service, "The federal government owns roughly
635-640 million acres of the land in the United States. Four agencies
administer 609 million acres of this land; the Forest Service in the Department
of Agriculture, and the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and
Fish and Wildlife Service, all in the Department of the Interior." The Bureau
of Land Management manages 248 million acres and is responsible for 700 million
acres of subsurface mineral resources.
Mostly by
stealth, more and more privately owned land is being purchased by the federal
government. In September 2011, Audrey Hudson, writing for Human Events,
reported that "The Obama administration is spending $35 million to buy 30,000
acres of private property across the U.S. this year to make permanent homes for
mice, fairy shrimp, mussels, prairie bushes and beetles. Those are just some of
the 70 critters and plants to benefit from the land purchases in a dozen states
as part of the government's habitat conservation plans for endangered species."
Rob Gordon of The Heritage Foundation, Hudson reported that "The federal
government already owns more land than Germany, France, the United Kingdom,
Spain, Italy, and Poland combined." The Endangered Species Act is just an
excuse to secure ownership of more land and, in particular, to restrict
development of every description from housing to hospitals.
Instead of
a future in which our oil and gas reserves could unleash all manner of economic
growth and the generation of thousands of new jobs, Ben Wolfgang, reporting in
the November 22 edition of The Washington Times, "The drilling process that has
brought the U.S. energy independence within reach faces renewed scrutiny from
the Obama administration and an uncertain future in many states."
month, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release a draft of
its long-awaited report on suspected links between water pollution and
fracking, which uses huge amounts of water, combined with sand and chemical
mixtures, to crack underground rock and release trapped oil and gas." Fracking,
however, occurs well below underground water levels and has been shown to have
no effect on it.
What we
are witnessing is the deliberate effort by the Obama administration, in concert
with earlier administrations, to deny the economic benefit of tapping the
nation's vast reserves of oil and gas domestically and off-shore. This was
evident, as well, in the President's decision about the XL Keystone pipeline on
the grounds that it threatened aquifers if allowed to proceed. Thousands of
jobs were lost in that single decision with no evidence of the truth of the
As the
nation sinks further into economic decline and default, it is obvious that the
nation's energy sector is being thwarted at a time when it holds the promise of
lifting it out of growing unemployment, higher energy costs, and the drumbeat
of utterly false environmental claims about greenhouse gas emissions.
© Alan
Caruba, 2012
Monday, November 26, 2012
What the Political Gurus Kept Telling Us
By Alan
the year leading up to the November elections, I had a friend who called
regularly for reassurance that whoever the Republicans nominated would defeat
Obama. I began to keep a file of what the political commentators had to say on
the subject. Suffice to say, I ended up convinced that Romney could not lose.
An article
by Mark Knoller, CBS News White House correspondent, on December 31, 2010 is a
good place to start. "No numbers in the year just ending are more consequential
for President Obama than the results of the midterm elections. His party lost
seats in the Senate and its majority in the House." Like many, I concluded that
Obama's reversal of fortune would be reflected in 2012.
By April
2011, however, a Wall Street Journal article noting that Mitt Romney was the
early front-runner for the Republican nomination reported that "Some 43% of
1,000 adults polled said they would probably vote for Mr. Obama, versus 39% who
said they would likely vote Republican, a five-point lead that is unchanged
from February." I should have paid more attention, but didn't. I would have
voted for the GOP candidate if he was Charlie Sheen.
I paid
close attention to Karl Rove's weekly commentaries in The Wall Street Journal.
This is the man George W. Bush called "the architect", crediting him for his
reelection. In late June he wrote, "President Barack Obama is likely to be
defeated in 2012…The reason is that he faces four serious threats. The economy
is very weak and unlikely to experience a robust recovery by Election Day. Key
voter groups have soured on him. He's defending unpopular policies. And he's
made bad strategic decisions."
A week
later Rove was giving advice to the GOP on how to avoid losing the election,
noting that many who voted for Republicans in the midterms "still like Mr.
Obama personally." He advised the GOP nominee to avoid questioning Obama's
"motives, patriotism, or character." For many Republicans, however, that was the central issue. Rove also
warned that "Republicans also must not confuse the tea party movement with the
larger, more important tea party sentiment."
By July
2011, Charles Krauthammer was challenging Obama to "Give us one single
structural change in entitlements." Adding that Obama offered nothing regarding
what is now called "the fiscal cliff". Krauthammer lamented that "The
Republicans are being totally outmaneuvered" on issues regarding the economy
and tax reform. He was right.
That same
month, in the National Journal, Josh Kraushaar said "The race for president
isn't a national contest. It's a state-by-state battle to cobble an electoral
vote majority" noting that polls regarding the president's popularity did not
bode well for him. "In every reputable battleground state poll conducted over
the past month, Obama's support is weak." Oh, yeah?
By August
2011, Newsmax was reporting that "AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told
reporters the nation's largest labor federation will scale back their
involvement with the Democratic Party in advance of the 2012." Oh, wow, I
thought. Is labor deserting Obama? Turns out they weren't. They were knocking
on doors, giving out Obama campaign literature, registering voters, going into
neighborhoods—black and Hispanic—that Republicans avoid.
In early
November 2011, prior to the Iowa caucuses, Rove wrote "Obama's prospects look
perilous" adding that no president has won re-election since 1989 when people
told pollsters that the nation was on the wrong track and based on a Gallup
poll "no president has been re-elected a year after having a job-approval
rating as low as Mr. Obama's today—43%--since Gallup began asking the question
in 1945."
election was just a year away. January 2012 began with a Washington Times news
article noting that "Congress ended its least-productive year in modern history
after passing 80 bills—fewer than during any session since year-end records
began being kept in 1947." Did it matter to voters? Apparently not.
February 2012 Wall Street Journal columnist, Daniel Henniger, noticed something
else and wrote about it in "Obama's Maddening, Winning Speech." "Mr. Obama may
not know much about the private economy, but he knows a lot about the uses of
human anxiety. Proposing to replace his own bad economy with a virtual
substitute 'built to last' allows Mr. Obama to place himself outside the White
House and on the street making common cause with the genuine economic anxieties
of the American people." Perceptively, he wrote, "If we know nothing else about
Barack Obama it is that he can play 'hope' like a Stradivarius."
In a June
2 commentary, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd noted that "On Friday, an
ugly job market report led to the stock market's worst day of the year", but
that Obama seemed to have dodged that bullet by telling a crowd in Golden
Valley, Minnesota, "our economy is still facing some serious headwinds." By
that time, Romney was hammering away at his campaign theme of jobs, jobs, jobs.
By August
8, Karl Rove was telling readers that "Wednesday's Gallup poll had President
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney essentially tied, with Mr. Obama at 47% and Mr.
Romney at 48%. That's good for the challenger…historically, undecided voters
tend to break late for the challenger." In September Rove said that "youthful
enthusiasm for Mr. Obama has waned. In October 2008, 78% of voters 18-29 told
Gallup they would definitely vote that year. Now it's 58%." The youth vote went
to Obama. So did single women, blacks and Hispanics.
September, Dick Morris, former President Clinton's political guru, was telling
people "Republicans are getting depressed under an avalanche of polling
suggesting that an Obama victory is in the offing. They, in fact, suggest no
such thing!" Like Rove, he pointed out that "the undecided vote always goes
against the incumbent." Both were clinging to this mantra of former elections.
November 6th, in a sharply divided nation of voters, a sufficient
number reelected Barack Obama. Many Republicans, it seemed, stayed home.
back, Daniel Henniger, wondered if "business experience is now a political
liability." He thought that "Mr. Obama's passage of such a monumental social
entitlement as the Affordable Care Act with zero bipartisan votes displayed
muscle but was madness for our political system."
Republicans' self-inflicted wounds, however, pale against the willingness of an
American president to use his office to blow up the country itself," said
Henniger. He'd been more right than wrong throughout the long campaign with its
uninspiring party conventions and unremitting economic bad news.
In the end
it didn't matter to the Obama voters.
I always
wondered how Franklin D. Roosevelt kept being reelected throughout the Great
Depression years of the 1930s despite little success turning the economy
around, but much success creating Social Security and other programs that put a
few dollars in people's pockets. When World War II began for America on
December 7, 1941, the voters kept the incredibly popular president in office
until he died in 1945.
something to be said for popularity. It trumps competence in American politics.
© Alan
Caruba, 2012
Sunday, November 25, 2012
UN Climate Change Thieves Gather in Qatar
Alan Caruba
previous gatherings of the Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change, the 18th one occurring in Doha, Qatar between
November 26 and December 7 is likely to shun media coverage of their schemes
to enrich participants who want massive transfers of money from developed to
undeveloped nations. Thieves work best in the dark.
are the folks who came up with the Kyoto Protocols that were intended to
reduce "greenhouse gas" emissions, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), in order
to save the Earth from becoming a crispy desert as the result of global
warming. Adopted on December 11, 1997, the protocols set "binding targets for
37 industrialized nations and the European community with the goal of
reducing 1990 levels of CO2 over a five-year period 2008 to 2012." Two
major emitters, China and India, were exempted from the Protocols, thus
rendering it even more idiotic than it already was.
UN explained this, saying "Recognizing that developed countries are
principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the
atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the
Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of
'common but differentiated responsibilities.'" In other words, developed
nations have more money and any "industrial activity" must be punished for
causing "global warming."
problem for the Protocols was that the United States Senate unanimously
rejected to signing on to this hoax. Then, in 2009, the exposure of emails
between the "scientists" responsible for the data the UN Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was putting out to scare the pants off of
everyone about "global warming"—since dubbed Climategate—revealed they were
not only rigging the computer models, but were increasingly worried that the
planet had entered a new, perfectly natural, cooling cycle.
It is worth noting that, in 2011, Canada,
Japan and Russia announced they would not take on further Kyoto targets. The Canadian government invoked Canada's
legal right to formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on December 12 2011.
Having initially committed to cutting its greenhouse emissions to 6% below
1990 levels by 2012, Environment Minister Peter Kent had earlier cited
Canada's liability to "enormous financial penalties" under the
treaty unless it withdrew. Smart people those Canadians, leading the way for
Japan and Russia to depart as well.
Kyoto Protocols were an international deception perpetrated by the UN. The
Earth has been cooling for the past sixteen years. Carbon Dioxide has
nothing—zero—to do with the planet's temperature and all warming comes from
the Sun.
so, representatives to COP 18 are gathering to create a "Green Climate Fund"
for the same purpose that existed in 1997.
long ago Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change, was interviewed by Elizabeth Kolbert of Yale
Environment 360, and it appeared in the Nov 21 edition of The Guardian, a British
newspaper. She babbled on about "the inevitability of world economies making
the transition to a low-carbon future" and "the need for politicians to feel
the same urgency as climate scientists about the threats posed by global
we have seen, there are bad climate scientists who rig the computer models
representing a huge rise in the Earth's overall average temperature and there
are good climate scientists who have waged a long and increasingly successful
effort to debunk the greatest hoax of the modern era. The bad ones profit
from the grants and other financial support they receive. They good ones are
defamed as "skeptics" and "deniers."
1992, Al Gore launched his global warming career and road to riches with a
book, "Earth in the Balance." Among his more insane recommendations was the
elimination of the internal combustion engine within twenty-five years. Those
engines can be found under the hood of the millions of cars that are a very
popular form of transportation.
Arnold, Executive Vice President of the Center for the Defense of Free
Enterprise, recently cited a report by the Virginia-based Science and
PublicPolicy Institute—a leading opponent of global
warming—regarding the complete futility of any effort by the U.S. to reduce
CO2 emissions. Its author, Paul Knappenberg, based his assumptions on an IPCC
report spelling out a scenario in which "the U.S. as a whole stopped emitting
all carbon dioxide emissions immediately." He found that "the ultimate impact
on projected global temperature rise would be a reduction or a 'savings' of
approximately 0.08 degrees Centigrade by the year 2050 and 0.17 degrees
Centigrade by the year 2100"; results that would be negligible.
noted that "not only do the rest of the world's new emissions completely
replace ours in just 6.6 years, but China's growth alone replaces them in
less than 11 years."
you want to know about the Earth's "balance" than it is useful to know that
the release of carbon dioxide comes in part from its several hundred active
volcanoes, from forest fires, and from the many animals, including humans,
who exhale it. Without CO2, every tree, every blade of grass, and all the
crops of the Earth would die and, shortly thereafter, all human and animal
life would die as well. The Earth balances CO2 emissions with carbon sinks
that absorb and release it as they have done for much of its 4.5 billion
years of existence.
there was any truth to the claim that CO2 is heating the Earth, one would have
to ignore all of its previous ice ages that were followed by natural warming
periods, including the most recent mini-ice age from about 1300 to 1850.
addition to COP 18, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is about to
unleash an avalanche of new regulations all aimed at reducing CO2 emissions
by everything from utilities to major industries, as well as smaller ones
such as your local bakery. The "science" the EPA cites is totally bogus. It
will close many of the coal-fired utilities that produce the bulk of the
nation's electricity. Inside of a decade the EPA may put them all out of
are vast forces, all masquerading as "saving the Earth", at the international
and national level that are seeking to wreck all the technological advances
the people of the Earth take for granted and the citizens of the United
States need to survive. That's all you really need to know about COP 18 and
the EPA.
Alan Caruba, 2012
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Fear, Everywhere, Fear
By Alan
If my
emails and the headlines I am reading indicate anything, there is widespread
fear among Americans that something terrible has occurred with the reelection
of President Obama. Not all Americans, though. Those who voted for Obama appear
to remain oblivious despite the threat of a "fiscal cliff" or the new taxes in
Obamacare that will kick in on January 2nd.
We have a
Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy, Geithner, calling for an end to debt
ceilings, apparently believing that America can continue to borrow money to pay
for the interest on its escalating debt, now pegged at $16 trillion and growing
daily. The U.S. borrows $4 billion a day. Anyone with a credit card knows that
their payments increase as they struggle to deal with their personal debt. Eventually
they either declare bankruptcy or turn to companies that negotiate a payment to
release them.
If America
was to default on its debt, the dollar, already in free fall, would be worth
nothing. We would be bartering shiny beads and anything else to buy food and
other necessaries. We would become Zimbabwe where you need a million of their
dollars to buy a loaf of bread.
recently on her Fox Business blog, Gerri Willis spelled out the huge rise in
taxes Americans are facing. "All told, next year,
total taxes will go to almost 50% for the middle class; the very group that the
president says he wants to protect. That means 50 cents out of every dollar
earned has to go to the government. Half of everything will go to an entity
that didn't earn that money, and shouldn't be entitled to all that dough."
What kind
of madness is it that the Teamsters union would impose such senseless rules
that it would weaken Hostess to the point of bankruptcy, preferring to let the
company die rather than to protect the jobs of 18,500 bakers? Other unions are
engaged in attacks on a weakened economy. What kind of nation is it that its
government employees are lobbying Congress to not only increase their pay, but
to exempt them from the impact of the spending cuts scheduled to kick in?
There is a
full-scale attack on the privacy Americans have taken for granted, protected by
the fourth Amendment that says "The right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures, shall not be violated…"
November 14th, the Heritage Foundation asked "Do you trust the
government with your computer?" The government has had "13 breaches and failures
of its own cybersecurity just in the last six months." Even so, "the President and his allies in the
Senate are pushing forward to regulate America's cyber-doings, without any
clues about how much this will cost or how it will work."
"It has
become the norm with this President—if Congress fails to accomplish his
objectives, he goes around it with executive orders and federal regulations.
He's doing it again. Congress did not pass the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 before
the election, so the President has issued a draft of an executive order to put
much of that legislation in place without lawmakers voting."
This is
the very essence of tyranny and the President has had four years to perfect it.
Are conservative think tanks the only ones paying any attention? It would
appear so.
A new
proposed law in the Senate would strip Americans of any privacy as they
communicate with one another by email. A vote for the law would allow warrantless access to American's email
and is scheduled for a vote shortly. It would allow 22 federal agencies as well
as state and local law enforcement to access one's emails with nothing more
than a subpoena. This is totally unconstitutional.
$16 trillion in debt, the government is looking for ways to take over the $3
trillion that is held in private retirement plans such as 401(k) plans and
IRA's. A recent hearing by the Treasury and Labor Departments addressed the
nationalization of the nation's pension system. The director of the National
Senior's Council, Robert Crone, warns "It is clear that this is the first step
towards a government takeover. It feels just like the beginning of the debate
over health care and we all know how that ended up."
As we move
closer to an Electoral College vote confirming Obama's reelection,
whistleblowers are coming forth in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere to reveal that
significant voter fraud was a contributing factor, but it receives little or no
media coverage. One must ask how 99% of votes in Philadelphia districts went to
Obama and ask why nothing is being done to investigate this and other offenses
such as the 141.1% of the vote recorded in Florida's St. Lucie County. That is
statistically impossible, but it robbed Rep. Allen West (R) of his seat in
This isn't
government. It is gangsterism. It is "the Chicago way."
monster Homeland Security Agency just graduated its first class of FEMA Corps,
kids aged 18-24, recruited from the President's Americorps volunteers, that
will become a full time, paid standing army. Fears of FEMA camps abound and in
the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, people seeking shelter and food were herded
into one that resembled a concentration camp of the Nazi regime and told not to
use various means of communication to contact the media or outside community.
They went from hurricane victims to prisoners of the government.
In so many
ways, the freedoms protected by the U.S. Constitution are in danger of
disappearing along with the separation of powers it requires.
wonder that citizen's petitions from a growing number of states are called for
secession. Or that governors are refusing to set up the Obamacare exchanges
required by a law that has taken control of twenty percent of the nation's
economy; their budgets held hostage to Medicaid.
On an
individual level, people who have jobs are fearful of losing them. College
graduates are fearful of the huge debt they carry for the loans they received.
People wonder if they can afford to get married. Married couples fear the cost
of having another child. Homeowners fear not being able to pay their mortgages.
Seniors fear that their savings won't last as they live longer.
There is
ample reason to fear not only the collapse of the nation's economy, but the
loss of liberty in America.
© Alan
Caruba, 2012
Friday, November 23, 2012
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Gaza Déjà Vu
By Alan
everyone welcomes a cease fire between Hamas in Gaza and the Israelis, no one
should expect it to last very long or that relations between the two will
change. In point of fact, the Israelis struck a bargain with terrorists, not
a nation-state.
on the cease fire, David Singer, a lawyer, noted that "The document is not an
Agreement, but merely an Understanding" and that "the parties to the
Understanding are not specifically identified, nor has the document been signed
by any parties that are supposed to be bound by the Understanding." At best,
the "Palestinian factions" who have the greatest interest in attacking Israel
are not a party to the cease fire, nor is al Qaeda or Iran for whom Hamas is a
proxy in Gaza as Hezbollah is one in Lebanon.
Israel has
merely bought some time in which to determine what it will do next. Time is
running out, not just in Gaza, but with regard to Iran's nuclear program,
deemed by observers to be mere months from being able to put a nuclear warhead
on a missile and send it hurtling toward Israel to kill millions of its
citizens and essentially destroying it as a viable nation.
If there
is any good news out of the recent conflict, it is that its "iron Dome" defense
system against rockets worked remarkably well. The bad news is that its enemies
have learned that it can be overwhelmed if enough rockets are fired at the same
time. Moreover, Iranian rockets have the capacity to hit Tel Aviv and
Pipes of the Middle East Forum had some reflections on the Hamas-Israel
hostilities, noting that "The old Arab-Israeli wars were military clashes; the
recent ones are political clashes. The wars of 1948-49, 1967, and 1973 were
life-and-death struggles for the Jewish state. But the wars of 2006, 2008-09, and
now 2012 are media events in which Israeli victory on the military battlefield
is foreordained and the struggle is to win public opinion."
In the
U.S. evangelical Christians are the largest group of supporters for Israel.
Among those with far less sympathy for Israel are a significant percentage of
Democrats and the first term of the Obama administration made it clear that the
President is no friend to Israel. At one point he called for a return to the
1967 borders and opposed housing construction in Jerusalem. Dispatching
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to engineer a cease fire ensured that the
U.S. would not be drawn into the conflict.
Many have
expressed surprise that Egypt would take a significant role as a mediator, but
few missed the fact that the U.S. was in a position to withhold $1.5 billion in
foreign aid to Egypt whose economy is in serious trouble. Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's president has been traveling
far and wide in the Middle East to secure aid, including from the Saudis, a
leader of the Sunni majority of Islam, and always the hidden hand influencing
events in the region, as well as the nation most fearful of the Shiite nation
Morsi has been walking the thin edge of a sword and a November 21 New York Times article spelled It out:
Morsi has been walking the thin edge of a sword and a November 21 New York Times article spelled It out:
Read More..."Both sides in
the conflict appear to be testing Egypt's new leader. Hamas, the Islamist
Palestinian offshoot of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, is wondering how much
support it may draw from its ideological cousins now that they control the
Egyptian state, while Israel's hawkish leadership seem to probe the depth of
Mr. Morsi's stated commitment to the peace treaty as well."
"For Mr. Morsi, the test is forcing him to reconcile
conflicting elements of his own persona: as the Islamist firebrand who has
denounced the Israelis as 'vampires' for killing Palestinian civilians and
lauded Hamas for resisting an illegal occupation, but also as the newly elected
president promising stability, economic revival and friendly relations with
Israel's Western allies."
Despite the Times reference to "an illegal occupation",
the fact is that Israel withdrew from Gaza in a "land for peace" effort that
has clearly failed. Israel does not illegally occupy land that is rooted in the
millennia of its existance.
Dr. Pipes reflected on the timing of Hamas's ramping up
of rocket attacks on Israel that had been going on for months. He conjectured
that the last attacks were to "test the waters in the aftermath of Barack
Obama's reelection", to "rouse public opinion against Israel and make it pay a
price internationally", "refute accusations by Palestinian Islamic Jihad that
it has abandoned resistance", and remind the Palestinian Authority, as it seeks
statehood at the United Nations, who controls Gaza."
The effort of Fatah, based in the West Bank after having
been driven out of Gaza, to secure statehood went nowhere in the U.N. Indeed,
the so-called Palestinians have never had anything but rhetorical support and
have been dependent on a U.N. refugee agency for actual support. They
constitute the oldest unresolved refugee population in the world.
In August 2010, The New York Times reported on a survey
by Al Arabiya television network in which "a staggering 71 percent of the
Arabic respondents have no interest in Palestinian-Israeli peace talks."
noted that "For example, it was common knowledge that the May 1948 pan-Arab
invasion of the nascent state of Israel was more a scramble for Palestinian
territory than a fight for Palestinian national rights" and that "from 1948 to
1967, when Egypt and Jordan ruled the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the
West Bank, the Arab states failed to put these populations on the road to
So, yes, while it's a good thing that the rockets are not
flying, the "Iron Dome" proved successful, and the Israeli Air Force was able
to kill some of the militant leadership and degrade its arsenal and ability to
proceed to some degree, the current cease fire is a largely meaningless
What remains to be understood is the unremitting
hostility to Israel that exists throughout the Middle East and globally where
anti-Semitism has existed for centuries. The Israelis have merely bought some
time until the next attacks.
The wild card remains Israel's need to attack Iran's
nuclear and military facilities. Only by inflicting major damage will Israel
have any chance of survival. Long a nuclear nation, Israel must stop Iran from
becoming one.
© Alan Caruba, 2012
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Memories of Thanksgiving's Past
By Alan Caruba
Thanksgiving Day I will dine alone. I will think about what I have to give
thanks for—my health, the fact that I have seen 75 Thanksgiving Days come and
go, a life with few regrets—but my day will be a sad one, not for
myself, but for my nation.
I have
always been an optimistic person, but that optimism has been drained by four
years of Obama's regime and the prospect of four more. It is compounded by a
Congress that has steadily marched toward turning America into a European
socialist economy now on the brink of financial collapse and, worse, by a
nation that has abandoned many of the values and shared beliefs that made it
great; a beacon of freedom for those who chose to come here, a superpower
following World War II, a compassionate and largely tolerant nation.
I mark its
long decline from the 1960s when the sons and daughters of a generation that
had worked hard and followed the rules thought it was cool not to believe
"anyone over thirty", and, in 1967, adopted Timothy Leary's drug-induced advice
to "Turn on, tune in, drop out." He was speaking at a "Human Be-in" gathering
of 30,000 "hippies" in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.
generation is now in charge of the nation, has long since debased the nation's
educational system, comprises the membership or supporters of countless
"environmental" organizations, and voted for Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and
They believe that the Republican Party is composed of "old white men",
and that government is all about "entitlements." When I was a lad, we used to
admire, respect, and even elect old white men.
From the
earliest years of the last century, the nation began to adopt a lot of
progressive ideas such as the income tax, the Federal Reserve, support for the
union movement, and, in general, class warfare.
childhood years were those in which the nation defeated two totalitarian
threats to freedom and liberty in Europe and in Japan. By my teenage years in
the 1950s all manner of technologies we take for granted emerged to make life
so much easier and more entertaining. My Mother used to hang the wash on
clotheslines to dry. Summers meant heat and mosquitoes.
was the radio and a Saturday movie matinee. Then came washing and drying
machines, air conditioning, television, pesticides that suppressed the mosquito
population and killed the legions of ants, cockroaches, and termites that
spread disease and damage homes. There were medical breakthroughs that ended
the scourge of polio and provided relief from other diseases.
Christmas, and other national holidays were joyous times; particularly the
Fourth of July and the respect for fallen heroes expressed on Memorial—now
Veterans—Day. There were symbols of these holidays that were proudly displayed,
but now we live in a nation where atheists protest the cross and the crèche in
the public square, where prayer is banned in schools, and where even displaying
the flag evokes protests, but burning it is deemed free speech.
strove to repair the ills of the past. A hundred years past the Civil War, the
civil rights movement, amidst marches and riots, they secured legal guarantees
for African-Americans, formerly called Blacks or Negroes. Despite those laws,
the Black community in America has remained mired in social pathologies seen in
their crime rates, their school drop-out rates, their drug problems, and their
broken families. The good news is that many Blacks have overcome obstacles to
achieve success in various sectors of life in America. They did it the
old-fashioned way, through education and hard work.
On June
28, 1969, a group of men at a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village
called the Stonewall Inn grew angry at the harassment by police. They took a
stand and a riot broke out. It was the beginning of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual
and Transgendered movement that has since infiltrated our school systems and is
demanding same-sex marriage nationwide. They are a distinct minority.
In 1973 the Supreme Court decided that abortion was a
woman's right. The pharmaceutical industry would introduce "the pill" and the
nation's morals shifted in a dark direction.
Around my family's dinner table on earlier Thanksgivings
these events were discussed. My parents were Democrats and liberals, early
supporters of the United Nations, and not given to racial intolerance.
Both were the children of immigrants. My father was of
Italian heritage and my Mother's father was a Russian. Her response was to
learn how to prepare all of my Father's favorite dishes and it grew into a
career teaching haute cuisine and authoring books. She became internationally
famed for her knowledge of wines; the first woman to become a member of the
board of the Sommeliers Society. In his day, my Father was one of the youngest
men to become a Certified Accountant in New Jersey.
In 1942 they had moved from Newark to a suburban town of
Maplewood, well known for its excellent educational system. An older brother
would follow in his father's footsteps, join his firm, and marry. I would
become a journalist and then a public relations counselor. My parents and I
would live there for 62 years, participating in the life of the township. After
they died the rising property taxes prompted a move to a rental complex in an
adjacent community after the house was sold.
All around us, the nation drifted into a moral decline, best
seen perhaps in the drug culture, but also in what passed for entertainment.
Pornography became a pastime. Sex and violence, always a mainstay of films,
became more blatant. Television sitcoms went from the fun of watching the "Dick
Van Dyke Show" to the coarse humor of "Married With Family" and to current
offerings that feature casual sex, gay families, and general vulgarity.
Politics, always a blood sport in America, has degenerated
into the present gridlock. America drifted into wars in Vietnam and the Middle
East. Communism took over China. The Soviet Union collapsed. And the world
witnessed the rise of militant Islam.
In the span of my life we went from Pearl Harbor to 9/11. We
went from the Great Depression to an economy that is barely recovering or even
growing. It is stagnating.
In 2008, America elected its first Black President, a man
whose personal biography was a carefully crafted fiction and whose personal
paper trail remains hidden from public review. A war hero and longtime Senator,
John McCain, and in 2012 a successful venture capitalist, Mitt Romney, were
both defeated by a combination of white guilt and class warfare. Both
Republicans were labeled "old white men", as if their long history of service to
their nation meant nothing.
On this Thanksgiving Day, an estimated 23 million Americans
are unemployed or have stopped looking for work, 47 million are on food stamps,
and millions receive some kind of government payments from Social Security
and/or Medicare/Medicaid; programs going broke along with the rest of the
economy. Dozens of other government programs dispense public funds, most of
which must be borrowed.
We will watch the Macy's parade and football games. We will
gather with our families. We will hope that Congress and the White House can
avoid a "fiscal cliff." We will find things for which to give thanks, but the
reality is that an America that credited both God and our own self-reliance has
been abandoning the values and beliefs that made it great for a long time.
There is one prospect—I told you I was an optimist—that may
turn the economy around. It is the enormous reserves of natural gas and oil
that will be tapped via fracking in the years immediately ahead. America can
become energy independent and an exporter of gas and oil. Coal, too, if it is
still being mined. This would generate billions for the nation's economy. It
will, however, also allow the federal government to grow larger.
© Alan Caruba, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
A Hurricane of Global Warming Lies
By Alan
At his
recent press conference, President Obama, in response to a question, said "You
know, as you know, Mark, we can't attribute any particular weather event to
climate change. What we do know is the temperature around the globe is
increasing faster than was predicted even ten years ago." That is a flat out
lie. The temperature of the Earth has been cooling for at least sixteen years.
devastation that Hurricane Sandy wrought defies the imagination, particularly
for those on the East Coast where so much destruction was inflicted. It
mirrored 2005's Hurricane Katrina and it is only natural for people to believe
there has been an increase in hurricanes striking the U.S. homeland, but there
2009's "Climategate" that revealed that global warming is a hoax, many still
believe it exists. In a letter to Fred Upton, the Chairman of the House
Committee on Energy and Commerce on November 11th, meteorologists
and climatologists joined to warn that "Global warming that has not actually
occurred can scarcely have contributed much to vast destruction wrought by
Dr. Bill
Gray, the nation's expert on hurricanes, was joined by Dr. Willie Soon, Prof.
Fred Singer, and Lord Christopher Monckton, a science advisor to Britain's
former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, to say that "Hurricane Sandy was a
freak storm, not the type of extreme weather event that climate scientists have
said will become more frequent and more severe if we fail to reduce emissions
of carbon dioxide."
almost 16 years without global warming, there are still a few who implausibly
try to blame this non-existent global warming for causing various
weather-related disasters in the past two or three years." The letter advised
against holding hearings on the recent hurricane. "With the election behind us,
we will have an opportunity to begin again and give this matter the attention
it deserves—none at all."
Writing in
Forbes magazine, James Taylor, the Heartland Institute's editor of Environment
and Climate News, spelled out the actual record of hurricane activity in the
decades prior to the global warming hoax which began in the late 1980s and
National Hurricane Center (NHC) provides information on major U.S. hurricanes
during the past 100-plus years. According to the NHC, 70 major hurricanes
struck the United States in the 100 years between 1911 and 2010. That is an
average of seven major hurricane strikes per decade."
In all the
decades back to 1961, the 100-year average remained intact with major
hurricanes ranging from as few per decade as four and as many as seven. Not a
single decade varied from this.
In the
decades since the 1980s when alarmists began warning of a major increase in the
overall temperature of the Earth, claiming it would trigger major weather
events like hurricanes, nothing changed. In the decades in which carbon dioxide
emissions were said to be the cause, the average remained the same.
examined the preceding 50 years before "the alleged human-induced global
warming crisis." He spelled out the data from 1951 to 1920 that reveals that
the 100-year average was unchanged.
the global warming claims "during the past four decades, the time period during
which global warming alarmists claim human-induced global warming accelerated
rapidly and became incontrovertible, the fewest number of major hurricanes
struck during any 40-year period since at least the 1800s."
In the
first two years of this current decade "exactly zero major hurricanes struck
the United States."
this, the calls for carbon taxes are being heard; taxes that would affect all
industry and businesses nationwide. Such a tax, already in place in California,
would drive large scale manufacturing out of the nation and take with them
hundreds of thousands of jobs. It would impact the nation's utilities and drive
up the cost of electricity, the life blood of the nation.
Americans do not wake up to this threat, do not realize that hurricane activity
has not increased, and realize, too, that the Earth has been in a cooling cycle
since 1998, they will fall victim to the vast matrix of environmental
organizations, government agencies, and the mainstream media that continues to
spread alarm in the name of global warming and climate change.
© Alan
Caruba, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)


text:
Our Haynes Dental & Implant Clinic orthodontists are expertly trained to craft the most comfortable mouthguard for your needs, whether to protect your mouth from sports injury, or if you suffer from bruxism.
From how to deal with dental phobias, to advice on common dental conditions, how to keep teeth in top shape and your breath fresh, our Haynes Dental & Implant Clinic team can help with all your queries on general dental care and advice.
At Haynes Dental & Implant Clinic, general dentistry is the foundation of what we do. Whether you'd like a routine check up, are interested in hygienist services, or need an emergency appointment, we can help.
Portman Dental Care Awards


text:
"Sampling eCommerce Data from the Web: Methodological and Practical Issues", JSM, Minneapolis, MA, Proceedings of the American Statistical Association, Statistical Computing Section [CD-ROM], 2005.
JSM2005 Web_sampling .pdf (94.5 KB)
, "Price Formation and its Dynamics in Online Auctions", Working Paper RHS 06-003: Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, 2004.
, "Price Formation and its Dynamics in Online Auctions", Decision Support Systems, vol. 44, pp. 641-656, 2008.
DSS 2008 Price Dynamics.pdf (674.41 KB)
, "One-Way Mirrors and Weak-Signaling in Online Dating: A Randomized Field Experiment", Management Science, vol. 62, issue 11, pp. 3100-3122, 2016.
, "Measuring Consumer Surplus on eBay: An Empirical Study", Working Paper RHS-06-053: Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, 2007.
, "Consumer Surplus in Online Auctions", Informations Systems Research, vol. 19, issue 4, pp. 400-416, 12/2008.
consumerSurplusOnlineAuctionsRevised ISR-2006-181-R2-Final.pdf (486.44 KB) Tracking Consumer Savings on eBay — bits.blogs_.nytimes.pdf (84.05 KB) Study shows eBay buyers save billions of dollars.pdf (87.47 KB) Report_ eBay Sales Prices Wildly Low — www.wired_.pdf (102.03 KB)


text:
Edinburgh: the enchanting city
Welcome to Edinburgh, Scotland's crown jewel perched ever so proudly on its rocky peak. It's a city with two faces—medieval and modern.
Emblem of the city and visible for kilometres around, Edinburgh Castle dominates the banks of the Firth of Forth and has a view of the far-off North Sea. It is the spectacular heart of Old Town, a neighbourhood built in the Middle Ages, with narrow winding streets, monuments, historical squares, and colourful pubs. On the opposite bank is the altogether different and more modern New Town with its 18th-century architecture, lined with Georgian facades and Victorian houses. This lively area is full of chic boutiques, fashionable restaurants, teashops, theatres, and nightclubs, plus some beautiful gardens, including the resplendent Royal Botanic Garden.
Throughout the year, Edinburgh radiates charm and mystery: dark and stormy in winter, dazzling in spring, a balmy seaside resort in summer, and wild in the autumn. Culture reigns in this dynamic city, which has many museums, historical buildings, galleries and internationally recognised festivals. It is best explored on foot, getting gloriously lost in its historical streets. Tales and legends have shaped the city, and its ghosts are still very much at home here. In fact, it has more cemeteries than any other city in the world…
Facing the sea is the long and sandy Portobello Beach. A few kilometres further north, the sea air of Leith attracts many artists, galleries, and restaurants. This is the fashionable destination for hipsters and foodies, who enjoy the several Michelin-starred restaurants and, of course, its Scotch whisky and craft beers. Still have a little free time? Explore the captivating surrounding countryside and then pop over to Glasgow!
*Todos os valores estão em EUR. Estão incluídas taxas e suplementos. Não é aplicável taxa de reserva. Os preços apresentados poderão variar consoante a disponibilidade da tarifa.
The weather forecast information is provided by World Weather Online. Air France-KLM is not responsible for the reliability of this data.
© Text and photography courtesy of EnVols


text:
The young man held the medication in his hand — and considered using it to end his life.
But then he "put it down and said, 'No. I need help,'" before heading to a Laredo, Texas, emergency room, said Kimberly Gallegos, who at the time earlier this year was a mobile crisis worker for a local mental health center.
Gallegos was helping evaluate whether the patient, a Latino in his early 30s, should be immediately hospitalized or could go home safely until seeing an outpatient doctor.
He returned to the home he shares with his mother and a sibling. The family agreed to lock up the medication — which belonged to a family member — and watch out for any problematic behaviors and other warning signs of suicide, Gallegos recalled.
The man's experience illustrates a "suicide paradox," experts say. Even though Latinos face economic disadvantages and other stress in their lives, their suicide rate is about one-third that of non-Hispanic whites, both in Texas and nationally.
Experts attribute the relatively low suicide rate among Latinos to the culture's strong family and community support systems, which appear to provide some degree of protection.
"It definitely did make me feel a lot more comfortable knowing that now that the family was aware of what he was going through and experiencing, that they would be a lot more vigilant with him," Gallegos said.
In Texas, the suicide rate among non-Hispanic whites has been steadily increasing during the past 16 years, from 13.4 deaths per 100,000 residents in 2000 to 19.2 deaths per 100,000 in 2016. Meanwhile, the rate has remained largely unchanged among Hispanics, with 6.7 suicides per 100,000 residents in 2016 — the same as the national rate.
Nationwide, suicides have increased nearly 30 percent since the turn of the century.
As a group, Latinos face obstacles that can affect their health and well-being: They earn less than non-Hispanic whites, and are more likely to lack health insurance coverage. In 2017, 16.1 percent of Hispanics were uninsured compared with 6.3 percent of non-Hispanic whites, hampering access to mental health care and other treatment. In addition, Latino immigrants contend with the challenges of moving to a new country, sometimes after leaving violence and other traumatic conditions at home.
But the practice of "colectivismo," the building of a latticework of relationships through extended family, work colleagues and friends, is prevalent in the Latino community and can help provide an emotional safety net, said Luis Garcia, who has developed suicide prevention programs for Latino youth in California. Even activities such as regular church picnics or salsa dancing can help, said Garcia, vice president of cultural diversity at Arcadia, Calif.-based Pacific Clinics.
"Latinos or Hispanics have a preference to work in groups," Garcia said. "It's something that, believe me, we practice on a daily basis."
Ties That Bind — And Fray
To be sure, Latinos are a multifaceted population from numerous countries who shouldn't be viewed through a single lens or set of assumptions, Garcia and other researchers stressed. And not all family or community relationships are necessarily healthy.
Still, when immigrant families assimilate and ties to the Latino culture fray, so do the protective effects, according to a study published in 2014 in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. Researchers, who analyzed suicidal thoughts and attempts, found that those inclinations increased as Latinos spent more years in the U.S. and started losing their fluency in Spanish and connections to Latino social networks and identity.
In addition, Latino youth appear more vulnerable to suicide attempts than white teens. In 2017, 8.2 percent of Hispanic high school students attempted suicide in the prior year compared with 6.1 percent of whites and 9.8 percent of blacks, according to federal data.
Still, the higher rate of teen suicide attempts has not resulted in a corresponding increase in suicide deaths among Latinos, for reasons that are unclear, said Luis Zayas, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of the book "Latinas Attempting Suicide: When Cultures, Families and Daughters Collide."
One possibility, Pacific Clinics' Garcia said, is that the attempt is a teen's cry for help and attention, and there may be an extended cultural support system to fall back on.
Sometimes, though, vulnerable individuals must be encouraged to lean on that support. Sarai, a 15-year-old Latina in Southern California who requested that her full name not be used, credits a mental health counselor at Pacific Clinics with helping her reach out to friends and family, rather than bottle up her feelings.
Sarai's problems manifested when she began cutting herself. Her family did not notice because she wore long sleeves to cover the marks on her forearms.
"I thought every time I did it, that it would let out some of the frustration and anger and sadness that I had," Sarai said.
One day, she found herself sitting on the kitchen floor, looking at the bleach in the sink cabinet and contemplating suicide. "I was just looking at the bottle of bleach and thinking, 'This is it. I'm just going to do it.' But then I heard my mom's footsteps, and it totally snapped me out."
Still, the experience scared Sarai enough that she told her family that she needed to talk to someone about her anxiety, and they sought professional help.
Sarai's counselor persuaded her to share her feelings rather than to inflict pain on herself, the Latina teen said.
Over time, Sarai opened up to her older sister about her history of cutting, calling her up late one night when she was tempted to start again. "We talked 'til probably 3 in the morning," Sarai recalled. The inclination to hurt herself "completely went away," she said.
Cynthia Rodriguez, who has counseled Sarai for about a year and a half, said she encouraged the teen to not hide her emotional struggles and "to take advantage" of the support of close friends.
Sarai eventually told a few friends that she used to cut herself. "They became like my little second family," she said.
Missing Data?
While family and community support might partially explain the suicide paradox, it's likely not the only factor. It may also be that some Latino suicides are misclassified, in part due to the stigma associated with it, said Ian Rockett, a professor emeritus of epidemiology at West Virginia University School of Public Health, and a longtime researcher on suicide.
Federal suicide data, which is based on death records, relies on information compiled by local medical examiners or coroners, family and others, Rockett said. It can be more difficult to sort out what happened with an opioid overdose or when a car careens into a tree, he said.
One clue is a note. One of Rockett's studies, published earlier this year, found that nearly 33 percent of non-Hispanic whites committing suicide left a note compared with 26.5 percent of Hispanics and 19.6 percent of non-Hispanic blacks.
Back in Laredo, Gallegos learned that the young man who had contemplated suicide believed suicide was against his family's religion and that he had brought shame upon his family even by harboring suicidal thoughts.
Once he realized his mother didn't hold such beliefs, his tense posture began to ease, said Gallegos, who now works as a quality management adviser for the Laredo-based mental health center.
"He was a lot calmer," Gallegos said. "He was grateful that his mom was there."
Want To Talk?
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255) is open 24 hours a day, with an option for Spanish speakers (1-888-628-9454).
Prefer to chat online? Go to the Lifeline's homepage — https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ — and click on the "chat" button in the top right corner.