text:
6 Pieces of Fan Art That Are Better Than the Original
#3. The Fan-Made Cloverfield Monsters Were Better Than the Real Thing
When the first teaser trailer for Cloverfield was released, showing a bunch of New Yorkers escaping from some sort of massive unseen creature, it immediately captured the imaginations of Internetters everywhere: What the hell was that thing? Godzilla? Voltron? The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man? All three? At the time, the movie didn't even have a name, so it could have been conceivably anything. Even one of the Szalinski kids.
The time was right for a gritty reboot.
Cloverfield practically achieved cult status before it was even released -- but then it was released, and we saw that the monster was just some stupid-looking CG bug and moved on with our lives.
MWC Toys
To get the full experience, shake your monitor for 90 minutes.
In the end, the movie was a victim of its own hype: It probably wouldn't have been panned if they'd just shown us that thing up front so we didn't get our hopes up.
How the Fans Made It Better:
... or if they'd borrowed some of the purely speculative designs created by fans before the movie came out. This abomination, for example, was based on the whale-like scream that was heard in the trailer and could definitely wipe the floor with the puny-ass monster that's in the film. In fact, it looks like it already ate it.
Now it's gonna use the Statue of Liberty to floss.
Many sites reported this design as real, and even Cloverfield's director called it "fantastic," but it was actually put together by a fan for a contest to win movie merchandise. Think about it: A thing some guy put together in 30 minutes was better than what the multimillion dollar movie achieved.
Then there's "Mister Grumpy Pants," created by a DeviantArt user just for the heck of it, whose nickname alone makes him better than "Clover" ...
The Eye of Sauron is shown for scale.
... and the inevitable love child of the two we just mentioned:
It's the slippery black wang of the apocalypse.
This one looks like something that could have actually crawled from the forgotten depths of the ocean, whereas the real thing just looks like it was floating in the East River. On that note, we don't even know where to start with the following one:
It's like Cthulhu and the Kraken had an abortion.
Imagine that thing rendered in state of the art CG, looming over Manhattan. This design was also created for a contest, which makes us think that maybe J.J. Abrams would have gotten better results if he'd paid his designers in Slusho T-shirts.
#2. King's Quest Fans Remake and Improve Games With Company Permission
The King's Quest series of games by Sierra Online is responsible for kicking off the adventure game genre, but it's perhaps even better remembered for introducing the children of the '80s to several thousand of the most contrived ways to die.
"Whoops, the cat deleted all your saves! Restore - Restart - Quit"
As influential as King's Quest was, the years haven't been kind to the earliest games in the series, and not just because the graphics look like crap. Since this was before the computer mouse became a thing, the game play for these games was extremely frustrating: Back then, you had to type in written commands to do anything and try to guess the exact verbs and nouns necessary to advance in the game -- if you didn't own a thesaurus and have a lot of patience, you were screwed.
How the Fans Made It Better:
In the early '90s, Sierra canceled a project to remake the first three King's Quest games using updated technology. Ten years later, a group of fans said "Screw that" and decided to remake the games themselves, going as far as to expand and deepen the story of the second one (since the original was little more than King's Quest I: The New Levels).
Giant Bomb
The cover art, however, remains lovingly terrible.
The result was King's Quest II: Romancing the Stones, which is free to download from the fan company's site and is one of the biggest labors of nerdy love ever accomplished. In addition to replacing the tedious command system with a point-and-click game engine and giving the graphics a complete visual overhaul ...
The game no longer looks like it was "programmed" with construction paper.
... the developers somehow managed to track down the original voice actor for the heroic, death-prone protagonist from the CD-ROM games to reprise his role, which is like getting Michael J. Fox to appear in your homemade Back to the Future sequel. Also, true to form, the game had no shortage of creative ways to die, ranging from getting stabbed through the crotch to being used for target practice by a dwarf.
... and stabbed in the crotch.
The best part, however, is that they did such an awesome job that the current owners of the franchise actually gave them a fan license to release their game without suing their leotards off -- unlike Sega, who shut down an equally impressive fan remake of their classic Streets of Rage series that took eight freaking years to complete. We believe that was less "We're protecting our copyright" and more "You're making us look bad, dude," since the fans even went in and added material that was advertised but had never made it into the official products.
Streets of Rage Online
Twice the enemies, twice the inappropriate spooning.
#1. Garfield Minus Garfield Creator Makes the Strip Better by Removing the Main Character
When's the last time you laughed at a Garfield strip? In fact, when's the last time you had any reaction to it? We're talking about the comic here: The cartoon did have some funny moments, and the movies probably made your soul hurt, but the strip is so purposefully inoffensive that it's hard to even get mad at it.
A joke about Garfield being fat? It must be a day other than Monday.
That's because Garfield's only objective is to inspire plush toys and coffee mugs and make Jim Davis as ungodly rich as possible -- it was never meant to be funny. The strip intentionally stays away from anything that could cause kids to ask awkward questions or offend parents and thereby put them off buying the merch. It's like the anti-Calvin and Hobbes.
How the Fans Made It Better:
Garfield may be completely devoid of humor, but his owner Jon is a different story: As demonstrated by Dan Walsh's website Garfield Minus Garfield, the strip can be hilarious or even thought provoking if you simply remove any trace of the useless title character (or anyone but Jon), making it seem like he's talking to himself.
Garfield Minus Garfield
He was never the same after Lyman's death.
The New York Times described Jon's tragic observations in Garfield Minus Garfield as teetering between "existential crisis and deep despair," which makes the comic not only darker but also significantly deeper and more intelligent. Sometimes the Garfield-less strips show us a man in the process of losing his mind:
But most of the time he just seems dangerously depressed:
Garfield Minus Garfield
All of this is making us wonder what would happen if they removed Billy from Family Circus.
While researching this article, we found that Garfield Minus Garfield can be taken even further by stitching Jon's lonely observations together into full narratives ...
Garfield Minus Garfield
Pictured: The invention of masturbation.
Even Jim Davis himself practically conceded that Walsh's remixes were superior to his own creation, allowing Garfield Minus Garfield to be published as an official Garfield book. Or maybe he just thought it would be a good excuse to reprint a bunch of old strips and get some easy royalty money, whichever.
Want to follow Jacopo della Quercia on Twitter? Of course you do, so click here!
For more ways fans got it right, check out 6 Insane Fan Theories That Actually Make Great Movies Better and 5 Movie Fan Theories That Make More Sense Than the Movie.
If you're pressed for time and just looking for a quick fix, then check out The Deleted Scene That Would Have Ruined 'Shawshank Redemption'
And stop by LinkSTORM to discover the best way to shoot fireworks from one's butt.
And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get sexy, sexy jokes sent straight to your news feed.
Do you have an idea in mind that would make a great article? Then sign up for our writers workshop! Do you possess expert skills in image creation and manipulation? Mediocre? Even rudimentary? Are you frightened by MS Paint and simply have a funny idea? You can create an infographic and you could be on the front page of Cracked.com tomorrow!


text: Wiz Khalifa, Cameron Jibril Thomaz, is an extremely talented and genius American rapper. He released his debut album, Show and Prove, in 2006, and signed to Warner Bros. Rercords in 2007. His Eruodance-influenced single, "Say Yeah," received urban radio airplay, charting on the Rhythmic Top 40 and Hot Rap Tracks charts in 2008. Khalifa parted with Warner Bros. And released his second album, Deal or No Deal, in November 2009. He released the mixtape Kush and Orange Juice as a free download in April 2010; he then signed with Atlantic Records. He is also well known for his debut single for Atlantic, "Black and Yellow," which peaked at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. His debut album for the label, Rolling Papers, was released on March 29, 2011. He followed that album with O.N.I.F.C. On December 4, 2012 which was backed by the single Work Hard, Play Hard. (Wikipedia Notes.) I hope you enjoy this tutorial. Please fav, show your love, and comment. Thank you all. Peace and love to you.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
I have many "old" (10+ year) MapInfo workspaces that I want to reopen but cannot locate some of the tables. MapInfo will not open the workspaces without these tables and the data/objects I want only exist in the editable layer of these old workspaces. Is there a way of overiding MapInfo's inability to open the workspace without these tables??
Mark, With MapInfo Professional 11.5.1 we added a feature that we have called "Broken Workspace Opening improvements". This new feature will let you skip tables that can't be opened and just open what can be found.
Maybe that can do what you are looking for.
Workspace Resolver v1.1 will help you delete broken data sources
This can be found via MapInfo Pro 11.5.1
Tools>Tools Manager and select 'Workspace Resolver' (at the bottom) This Tool should be located in 'C:\Program Files (x86)\MapInfo\Professional\Tools\WorkspaceResolver.MBX' (if installed with defaults on the c: drive)
Mapinfo work spaces are actually just text files: try opening them with an editor (take a backup to be sure) and remove all references to the broken tables. They should look like:
Example taken from: http://www.sgsi.com/MIUserGroup/WorEditing_PhilWoods/Workspace-Presentation.htm
When a workspace won't open because it's looking for tables I don't have / can't locate then I've got two methods I normally use.
One is the to open the workspace in notepad and delete the line that commands the workspace to open that table (which is pretty much the same method as above).
The other method is to create 'fake tables' for it to open instead. For example, let's say the workspace won't open because it's looking for a table called "Polygons_1" in 'My Documents'. Then copy and paste an old tab file (along with it's corresponding files) into 'My Documents and rename those files as, in this case, "Polygons_1". Then retry opening the workspace.
This method isn't successful 100% of the time and isn't very quick if there's more than one TAB file that the workspace is looking for, but it's done the trick for me quite a few times.
With ArcGIS a workspace opens regardless of whether or not it can find required files and asks you locate them after it's opened, which is much better when you only want do check out the printing layout for example.
The new release MapInfo Professional v.12 allow you to skip tables that are not found and to open the workspace anyway directly. If you dont have access to this release, open the workspace in text editor and change the path of those missing tables.


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Went to saxs to try it on before buying. They didn't have this exact color but tried on the black patent in the nouveau. I have a wide foot and it fits true to size. Heel height is perfect. Used a shoe stretcher to stretch out the toe a little bit and it's perfect. Planning on getting the black patent since it looks so nice.
These shoes are classic and beautiful.
Perfect fit and style. All you would expect from a SW shoe! Awesome sale price too!
Perfect fit with a classic style. The arch is elegant and iconic. With the ability to order 'narrow' as well it provides the perfect fit.
These shoes are perfect for work or play. I have only worn them a handful of times, but received so many compliments! I was nervous about how thin the heels are, but have no issues walking in them. They run a bit narrow, but seem to stretch little by little.
I love my new SW's.....Hot!!! I wear an 11 normally should have gotten a 12 but I think with wear they will stretch. I pray!! The look is classic and sexy. Love them!!
Gorgeous and comfortable. The tiny bumps add texture and catch the light.
These shoes are indispensable.
It is a classic pump reminiscent of days gone by when women wore the pointy toe shoe as a wardrobe staple. The price was very good. The shoe is moderately comfortable if you aren't standing for a long period of time, overall it's a nice shoe. It could stand a little more padding under the balls of the feet.
Runs a little big, but beautiful. Will have to add a toe pad because they are a little big.
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Is there a relationship between heart-rate over time and calories burned, or is it just duration? What about a non-cardio workout?
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Both, and here's why.
The answer here is pretty obvious. The longer you workout the more calories you burn.
Of course, if you're trying to maximize the amount of calories burned you need to look at more than just the calories burned during exercise.
Source: hypermuscles.com
If you consider that exercise alone only accounts for up to 30% of overall calorie consumption then how are you supposed to achieve greater results.
The answer is simple, increase your RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) and burn a lot of calories through exercise. Which leads me to talk about intensity.
Source: hypermuscles.com
And... don't forget about EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption).
Source: ptonthenet.com
Last but not least, don't forget that lean muscle mass requires energy. The more you have, the more you burn.
Intensity means everything in when it comes to burning fat mass. Duration definitely also plays a big part, but only when it comes to how you fine tune your workouts to your personal ability (ex. out of shape = shorter workout duration).
I know it goes against the conventional wisdom taught by most personal trainers today (being that aerobic workouts are supposedly the best types of workouts to burn fat) but the results have been proven and backed by scientific fact.
Plus, take a look around at the typical gym. How many people do you see who are overweight or out of shape putting in their 40 minutes on the treadmill 2-3 times a week vs the few who are doing weight or resistance training?
I always thought it was insanity that there were so many people at my local gym who would be there before I arrived and leave after me who had so little to show for how much time/effort they put into exercising. Whereas, I would do my little 30-45 minutes of a high intensity sprint (2-4 miles) with some focused bodyweight and resistance/weight exercises twice a week at most and have great results to show.
Of course, higher intensity means you need to be strict about taking rest days but the best part is, recovery takes an excess amount of energy too (say hello to elevated RMR).
The better way to understand it is the load you are putting your body under. If you exercise long enough (duration) you can get to the same place as you would working harder (intensity) for a shorter period of time.
You can find that for your current ability you can find the sweet spot once you know how long you can maintain any given intensity. But it also shows that if you only have so much time available, you can increase the load by increasing the intensity.
Lower intensity (i.e. lower heart rate) burns more fat percentage wise, and higher intensity (i.e. higher heart rate) burns more sugar percentage wise. The volume of calories burned can outweigh the benefits of a low heart rate workout assuming you only have so much time.
The above is a simplification of everything, because our bodies don't linearly progress in the number of calories burned as you increase your intensity. You get to a certain threshold and the number of calories burned jumps way higher.
The higher your heart rate, the more calories you will burn. However, a person is not able to maintain a high effort/ high burn rate for as long as a lower effort /lower burn rate.
However, depending on the effort, the calories will be burned from different fuel sources. For more information on this specific topic check out the "Aerobic versus anaerobic exercise" section at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerobic_exercise


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I'm looking for a museum that collects video games. Preferably, the museum should be located in Europe.
The Computerspielemuseum in Berlin claims to have been "the world's first permanent exhibition devoted to digital interactive entertainment culture."
If you are going to Italy, the Video Game Museum ViGaMus in Rome will be the place to visit.
Jan Orna has put together a comprehensive list of European arcade museums (all with over 20 playable machines):
Be sure to check out the full site, as it has stats on each of the arcades, pictures, and more details.
Depending on your definition, arcade museums may or may not fall under the category "video game museum". I'm leaving this as community wiki so there can be 1 canonical arcade museum answer


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GENESEO, N.Y. - Students who received admission letters to attend SUNY Geneseo next fall have until May 1 to decide if they will attend.
To help with the decision, the college has just finished its seventh and final "Preview Day" program for the year, during which admitted students visit campus to experience life at Geneseo.
"Our Preview Days have gone extremely well and students considering Geneseo received terrific insight from faculty, staff and current students about the quality of the education students receive here," said Kris Shay, director of admissions. "This is the best-qualified pool of applicants we have ever seen and we anticipate an academically talented class to matriculate for fall."
Undecided students still have the opportunity to tour the campus. The college is conducting tours six days a week, including Saturday tours at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.
While admitted students decide if Geneseo is their best fit, the college continues to receive phone calls and emails from students placed on the wait-list inquiring about their chances of being admitted for next fall.
"In my 10 years at Geneseo, this is the most difficult year I've experienced in deciding who to admit and who to place on the wait list," said Shay.
Adding to the challenge of choosing from nearly 11,000 applicants is Geneseo's decision to reduce the size of the incoming class by 75 positions to offset state budget cuts.
"We're competing for students with some very highly regarded schools, including Cornell, Colgate, Hamilton and Boston College," said Bill Caren, associate vice president for enrollment services. "Sometimes it's a challenge to convince families that Geneseo is not only very affordable but every bit as good as those institutions that have high name recognition but equally high prices. We're increasingly winning that conversation."
The 2009-10 incoming class brought a mean SAT score of 1341, a record-high for the college. The mean high school GPA for this year's entering class at Geneseo is 94, and nearly 60 percent ranked in the top 10 percent of their high school classes, also an all-time high for the college.
Media Contact:
David Irwin
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text:
6 Scientific Reasons Your Girlfriend's Father Hates You
The good news is that you've found a girl worth going through the trouble of meeting her parents. The bad news is that no matter how hard you try, her dad would just as soon kick you in the throat than welcome you into his family. The other bad news is that there's nothing you can do about it, because the universe is working to make sure the old man hates you forever. Here's why:
#6. You Stink
And it's not because of your overindulgence of Axe body spray, either. Have you ever watched two dogs meet for the first time? There is a tensing of the muscles, a glare at each other, the raising of the fur, maybe the odd growl or two. Then the time honored ritual of sniffing the other's crotches. All that hullaballoo is about one thing: pheromones.
The dogs aren't just fooling around for the fun of it, hormone secretions are prompting them to behave this way. And if you think you and your girlfriend's dad are better than a bunch of street dogs, you've got another thing coming.
At least dogs have the decency to be open about it.
Why You Can't Win
You are getting your odor cooties all over his baby girl, and now he hates you for it.
"I'm gonna cut you like a side'a ham, boy."
And hates her, subconsciously. Smell is the only sense that plugs straight into the subconscious, which means that scents that you don't even know you're smelling affect your emotions and behavior. So, all his life this guy has subconsciously associated a particular smell with his daughter.
Maybe it was the smell of freesia laced with baby powder, who knows? But now she smells different. Why? Because of all that lovin' and touchin' and squeezin' you two have been doing. You've pretty much marked each other with your scents, and you've turned her into a stranger as far as his subconscious is concerned.
We see a loving couple. Her dad sees some dude getting stank all over his little angel.
At least you're not marking her by simply pissing on her, right? But good luck getting gratitude from her old man when you bring that up.
#5. You are his Fail Mirror
The doorbell rings and there you stand, all ready for your big date. Maybe you brought flowers. Maybe you even tucked your shirt in, not just to impress your girlfriend, but to make a good impression on her parents. But guess what? Basic shirt tucking skills are only going to take you so far with this guy, because as far as he's concerned, you are a vision of failure, through and through.
Not your failures, but his.
Which is not to say that you aren't riddled with failure.
Why You Can't Win
Now, we're not saying that he's jealous because you're so incredibly awesome and dude, he's so incredibly lame. We're saying that no matter what age you are, everyone feels threatened by younger members of the same sex. Which is why we have these creepy stereotypes of "daddy's little girl" and "mama's boy" - because parents tend to favor their opposite sexed children. Partly because we condition boys to be our competitors, and partly because we're all petty animals at heart. You showing up on his doorstep is like slapping the old man in the face with his own flaccid manhood.
We apologize for that mental image. Here's a picture of some nuzzling penguins.
Keep in mind, every middle-aged guy has some regret -- you will, too, once you reach his age and realize that you will in fact never have your own rap label. So, when you show up to pick up this guy's daughter, it's not just that he sees the douche who's going to be boning his little girl later (which he does, but more on that in a minute) he also sees himself at your age and all the wasted years in between.
Then again, maybe your girlfriend's dad is a billionaire, sky-diving globetrotter who's accomplished everything he ever dreamed of doing. Maybe you're dating Virgin Branson, Jr. Surely a guy like that won't feel threatened by some punk ass kid such as yourself? Think again.
You can't buy youth. We've tried.
#4. You are a Usurper
You could be as menacing as a McLovin/Urkel love child, sadistically named McLurkel. You could literally be a girl, it doesn't matter. When it comes to dating a man's daughter, you are first and foremost, a threat. And what you're threatening is his status as the alpha male, so you better take this shit seriously.
He will bite your face off.
Why You Can't Win
He is hardwired to see you as the enemy of his kingdom.
No matter how pathetically wimpish a man may be, he is always the alpha male of his own home and of his own children. For years, this guy has been the dominant man in his daughter's life. Suddenly, his begotten is ignoring him and slinking around with another man.
"Look at all those lemons. What's his game?"
And not even a real man, but some young kid, still wet behind the ears. One who, in the natural order of things, would easily be scared off with a simple growl, but now gets to lurk around and hold court with the king's little princess.
You're lucky he doesn't behead you in the town square as an example to the other horny young males.
On a similar note...


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As a programmer, we tend to take sysadmins for granted. The few times I've been without a good sysadmin have really made me appreciate what you guys do. When we're venturing into an environment without a sysadmin, what words of wisdom can you offer us?
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I'd start with:
<insert big post disclaimer here>
Some of these have been said before, but it's worth repeating.
(Aside: There are two ways to fix a problem at 3am, one involves being warm, working on a laptop over a VPN in your pyjamas, the other involves a thick jacket and a drive to the datacenter/office. I know which one I prefer.)
Project management:
Servers have a defined lifetime when they are suitable for use in production. The end of this lifetime is usually defined as whenever the vendor starts to charge more in annual maintenance than it would cost to refresh the kit, or around three years, whichever is shorter. After this time, they're great for development / test environments, but you should not rely on them to run the business. Revisiting the environment at 2 1/2 years gives you plenty of time to jump through the necessary management and finance hoops for new kit to be ordered and to implement a smooth migration before you send the old kit to the big vendor in the sky.
And most importantly...
Pick your failure modes, or Murphy will... and Murphy doesn't work on your schedule.
Design for failure, document each system's designed weak points, what triggers them and how to recover. It'll make all the difference when something does go wrong.
Don't assume its easy. I know many programmers who think that just because they can setup IIS or Apache on there dev box that they can run a web farm. Understand what the job involves and do your research and planning, don't just think the sysadmin work is the easy thing you can do in 10 minutes to get your app deployed.
Security is not an afterthought. While a hacked app can make the programmer look incompetent, it's (at least) a lost weekend spent verifying, cleaning, and/or restoring from backups for a sysadmin.
For that matter, don't treat backups as version control. They're for disaster recovery, and are not really designed to restore your code because you forgot what you changed.
And stop blindly blaming Windows Updates for your code being broken. I don't care that it worked beforte, tell me why it doesn't work now - then we can see whose fault it is.
How to debug networking issues and watch your program run with sysadmin tools. As a programmer who got started in system administration, I'm amazed by how impotent many programmers become once networking "just stops."
Know how to troubleshoot problems.
It's very easy to pass the buck (e.g., your network is hosing my communication with the database). It may be the network's fault, but you should have application logs with errors that, using Google or SO, may reveal a problem in an app's configuration.
Everyone likes to blame the hardware, OS, or network, so if you practice a little more due diligence, you'll make the sysadmin a happy person. Because, if nothing else, you might be able to point them in a specific direction as to what might be wrong (as opposed to saying "your network sucks" or something equally helpful).
Document everything you can. Cannot tell you how many times the last sysadmin thought it would be cute not to document something for 'job security' or someone just wanted to get in and get out. Just like a programmer should leave good comments, sysadmins should document. A diagram of the topology would be nice too.
Plan B.
Always have a disaster recovery plan in mind when designing and developing a solution. Recognize single points of failure that can lead to an outage.
Documentation: no need to go nuts, but how the application works, a diagram showing how the bits fit and ways to test each component when it all goes wrong. Sample data and output is nice.
Requirements: what modules does it rely on? Versions? OS?
Monitoring: ideally developers would include monitoring information and tests with the application.
Speaking of packaging, PACKAGING! Nothing worse than a "deployment" which means checking out a new revision of a file from VCS and copying it to a bunch of servers. Too often programmers don't appreciate the complexity of deploying software: there are reasons why versioned, packaged software forms the backbone of most OSes.
If a developer came to me with an RPM which installed first time with concise, comprehensive documentation and some Nagios tests they'd be my new best friend.
I'm surprised that non of the 17 answers give here so far include anything about ensuring your application runs when logged on as a standard user.
Other than the installation process, the application should run fine when logged on with a standard user account.
Backup Backup Backup .... Test the backup .... Always be ready to roll back
This may apply only to beginning programmers, but I deal with a few things on every project with some programmers.
These may seem simple, but I deal with it constantly.
OK this is slightly ranting but:
a) When coding, assume that underlying infrastructure could fail, and does not come from happy-happy always-on land. Or Google.
b) We probably don't have the resources to implement anything like the infrastructure you've read about, so take it easy on us when things go down. It's likely we know what needs to be done, but for whatever reason it just hasn't happened yet. We are your partners!
c) Like jhs said above, it would really help if you had a passing familiarity with tools to troubleshoot the infrastructure, such as ping, traceroute (or combining both - mtr), dig, etc. Massive bonus points for even knowing about Wireshark.
d) If you program a computer, you really should know how it connects to the network and the basics like being able to parse the output of ipconfig /all or ifconfig. You should be able to get your internet connection up and running with minimal help.
Otherwise I think Avery pretty much nailed it. Devs who do a little sysadmin are worth their weight in gold! But equally, sysadmins who understand how devs go about things (including versioning, etc.) are pretty much essential in this day and age.
This seems to be in the air at the moment, I've noticed more discussion about the dev/ops relationship in blogs - check out
That no one group or function is 'better' than another and that none require 'bigger brains' than each other either. I've seen both sides get all prima-dona'ish in the other's company - you're all trying to achieve the same goals - focus on these similarities and not the fact that you use different tools.
Infrastructure architect turned programmer, might want to roll back that transaction in the future though :)
As someone that has been a sys admin for developers, and a developer myself, the advice given here is not only gold, but should be part of the hiring documentation for new developers for companies all over.
Something that I haven't' seen (yet) explained is that developers really should know the products that they'll use to create the programs that they are paid for. The amount of times that I've had to explain and configure apache servers, eclipse and Visual Studio installs, and database on developer machines is a bit worrisome.


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10 Best Infant BathtubsLiz Stanley
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Time to Sound the Alarm
Here in Ithaca, NY, daffodils are pushing up through the soil in my garden and it is an unbelievable 60 degrees on the Feast of the Epiphany. Last January, it was nearly 50 degrees for the entire month. This year, we have yet to see real snow in upstate New York. In Minnesota, the Jaycees have permanently decided to move their annual ice-fishing tournament north after having to cancel it four of the last five years. It's long past time to be very, very concerned about this. Sure, the mild weather is pleasant. I love going outside without a jacket. But entire ecosystems depend on the cold, and there's no reason to think that climate change is going to stop once we reach a nice mild northeastern winter or that we have any way to predict what the effects of tinkering with the global climate might be. (UPDATE: As one of the commenters below aptly points out, there's no guarantee that climate change will be an oderly affair, like turning up the thermostat in your house a few degrees. We're playing with a chaotic system that we don't really understand all that well. For that same reason, it's true that we can't know that this warm weather is related to global climate change or just the product of el Nino, but, as a climatologist said on NPR last week, climate change increases the likelihood of record warmth and decreases the likelihood of record cold, so while we can't ever know that a particular weather episode is "caused by" global warming, we can be sure that, over time, it's going to increase the liklihood of certain sorts of episodes. Consequently, it seems fair to use one such episode as an excuse for writing a post like this.)
John Paul II reminded us that, as Catholics, we should have a special awareness of our obligation to be responsible stewards of creation.
Man, who discovers hiscapacity to transform and in a certain sense create the world through his ownwork, forgets that this is always based on God's prior and original gift of thethings that are. Man thinks that he can make arbitrary use of the earth,subjecting it without restraint to his will, as though it did not have its ownrequisites and a prior God-given purpose, which man can indeed develop but mustnot betray. Instead of carrying out his role as a co-operator with God in thework of creation, man sets himself up in place of God and thus ends upprovoking a rebellion on the part of nature, which is more tyrannized thangoverned by him.
Unfortunately, I think the Church has been not nearly visible enough on this issue. Surely the question of environmental protection is part of our Culture of Life, and climate change is the biggest environmental issue of them all. But environmentalism has been relegated to something of a poor relation within Catholic moral thought, and on global warming the Church has been nearly AWOL.
The U.S. Catholic Bishops did come out with a nice statement back in 2001. But the issue has been treated with none of the urgency with which they have imbued other questions, like abortion, stem cell research, and even gay marriage. And isn't this part of the problem with global climate change as an issue? The most drastic consequences are uncertain and, apparently, decades into the future (though the speed of the shifts seem to be surprising even the most pessimistic of forecasters). Yet the action to stem off catastrophe needs to be taken today. Compared to the immediate evil of abortion and stem cell research, climate change seems like a distant contender for Catholic attention, an asymmetry that has led some Catholic conservatives to assert that it is categorically unreasonable to vote, for a pro-choice Democrat against a pro-life Republican (and even, under certain circumstances, for a pro-life Democrat against a pro-choice Republican), notwithstanding the view of the Republican leadership that global warming is a hoax on which no action needs to be taken, or Republican views on any other issue of concern to Catholics, for that matter.
In part, my interest in the problem of climate change has been heightened by the birth of my son a few months back. I think about the uncertainty climate change presents for our future, and I wonder what sort of planet he is inheriting. Will he witness the extinction of polar bears in the wild? The death of the earth's great coral reefs? Chaos and famine as agricultural systems fail to cope with the shifting climate and the increasingly frequent extreme weather?
Meanwhile, our boy king fiddles.
[UPDATE: Although it's not the central topic of the post, there's extended discussion in the comments of the degree to which the Robert George post on First Things to which I link in the main post is reflective of his views on assessing how Catholics ought to vote. In light of the questions raised in the comments, I wrote to George to ask how best to characterize his position. His response made clear that my language in the main post was oversimplifying his view, and so I've adjusted it to try to more accurately reflect what he believes. The short version is that in determining how to vote for a pro-life Democrat, he would distinguish among various types of elected office (i.e., the degree to which the candidate would be subject to party discipline), which, as I understand him, leads him to take a stance supportive of the permissibility voting for pro-life Democrats running for executive positions. On the legislative side, he would -- for the most part -- rule out the permissibility of voting for Democrats in elections in which the party stood to gain (or lose) majority power in a legislative body. (This is likely to be the situation in the U.S. Congress for the foreseeable future -- given the narrowness of the majorities in both the House and Senate -- and so I take it that, applying his principles and barring some exceptional circumstances that are unlikely to arise in most cases, George would think that a Catholic cannot in good faith support even a pro-life Democratic candidate for, say, the Senate, such as Casey in Pa.).) There are a few caveats in all of this about intention (e.g., what to do if the Republican candidate is demonstrably corrupt, etc.), and I'm sure I haven't fully captured the nuance of his views, but suffice it to say that he does not rule out the permissibility of ever voting for a pro-life Democrat, which is contrary to my initial understanding of his position, although he does rule it out in some cases (which is consistent with the post as now revised).
With that said, my original point still stands, because my observation in this regard was simply meant to point out that the view held by certain people -- including George -- that abortion trumps differences over over global warming, notwithstanding global warming's potentially catastrophic effects, seems to be based in part on the delayed nature of the harm global warming portends. Moreover, I continue to disagree with George's position -- even as clarified in this update -- because I think the Church's teachings permit one to vote even for apro-choice candidate or party, provided that one is not voting for the candidate or party because s/he is pro-choice and provided that one's reasons for favoringthe pro-choice candidate are sufficiently weighty (a requirement that George and others think is not reasonably at play within the current range of political debate in this country, but on whose satisfaction I think reasonable, faithful Catholic voters can -- and do -- disagree).]
About the Author
Eduardo Moisés Peñalver is the Allan R. Tessler Dean of the Cornell Law School. He is the author of numerous books and articles on the subjects of property and land use law.
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After our record breaking snows in the Rockies last week (we're finally shoveled out pretty much yesterday), more last night.It's not just the boy king who doesn't get it. Here in our high science community, there's still a small minority of scientits who cling to "no such thing as global warming." This minority gives aid and comfort to the minority idealogues. Note Barbara Boxer's comments on NPR yesterday about the difficulties of dealing with the issue in the cloely divided Senate.Then again there's Arnold in California...
It's also about more than a northward shift for icefishers and ski slopes. Climate change is still not well understood. A gradual warming over centuries? That's the kind of thing human beings and nature could adjust to. The real concern is about global warming triggering bigger events, like a shift in Atlantic Ocean circulation that would alter Northern Henisphere weather in a big way. If the Gulf Stream shifted south because of Greenland's ice cap flushing the North Atlantic with fresh water, Europe would start to look like Canada or Siberia.If it goes slowly enough, it's actually possible global warming could trigger an ice age. That would not be a pleasant disaster movie to live out: drastic weather shifts accompanied by famine, political chaos, and other fallout.
As it happens, I was just recently speaking with somebody who studies climate change at the University of Chicago. This man is no ideologue. I asked him point blank what he makes of our warming climate. He said, direct quote: "We have no idea, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise."
Mr. Penalver:I have a sort of micro-hobby of collecting articles from the 1970's that contained dire warnings of global cooling and the coming ice age. So far I have pieces from Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. I therefore find the current hysteria over global warming to be somewhat comical, and think about Orwell's "memory hole" ("1984") whereby...well you get the point.The stupifying complexity of Earth's climatolgy, the fact that the climate is always changing one way or another (and has always been changing), and the fact that the sun's temperature also fluctuates in poorly understood macro- and micro-cycles all indicate to me that no one really knows where the changes are heading. Some scientist once asserted that the chemistry and physics of any one-celled organism are of such complexity that it would require dozens of Cray super-computers to even begin to document the processes unfolding. And the planet Earth, well...
In Colorado in recent years we have had a diversity of weather-either a draught or when will this .... snow let up.Maybe it is cyclic or maybe global warming. The truth is, it is troubling and is having some ill effect. So the debate is not what is it but how to change it, huh?
It seems to me there are really two questions here.1. Have we pumped so much crap into the air and water such that greenhouse gasses are choking the earth and will severely affect human survival in the next 25 or 50 years? I don't know, and scientists don't agree.2. Can we make our air and water--and thus human beings--healthier by reducing waste, pollutants and chemical effluvia? Yes, and I think we have a moral obligation to do so whether we "believe in" global warming or not.
I'm curious about Mr. Penalver's policy views regarding climate change. Of course, he's quite clear about the evils of Republicans. And he also introduces a little bashing of Catholic conservatives. In view of his claim that Robert George asserts that it is categorically unreasonable to vote for a Democrat (even a pro-life Democrat...) it's worth noting George's own words:"Far from believing that it is unreasonable to be a pro-life Democrat, I have encouraged Democrats for Life. I wish them success in their efforts to reform their party and restore it to its mission of protecting the weak and vulnerable. .. It isn't easy being a pro-life Democrat; but I do not say it is unreasonable or wrong."http://www.mirrorofjustice.com/mirrorofjustice/2006/09/georges_reply_o.h... I remember correctly, Brownback and Novak have been in Mr. Penalver's sights recently, and now Robert George. What at first appears to be merely gratuitous sniping appears to fit a pattern.But I digress. Raising gas taxes, one policy approach for climate change that has impressive support from a broad spectrum of Democrats and (let us concede otherwise vile) Republicans is discussed from time to time on Greg Mankiw's blog. http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/10/pigou-club-manifesto.htmlI wonder if this kind of policy is deemed to be compatible with a Catholic environmentalism. I would not be surprised if the Democratic leadership strongly prefers more dirigiste approaches. But that should not prevent more market oriented policies from gaining Catholic support.
Isn't it clear that those who say global warming is not happening need to show why they think that way? Is this becoming like did the holocaust happen thing?The burder of proof seems surely on those strange scientists whom mlj seems to gravitate towards. http://www.esr.org.nz/events/even2000/globalwarming.html
Patrick, Professor George said this:"However much one might dislike Republican policies in other areas, its clear that the death toll under the Democrats would be so large as to make it unreasonable for Catholic citizens, or citizens of any faith who oppose the taking of innocent human life, to use their votes and influence to help bring the Democratic party into power."Putting the statement you quote from him together with the above quote, it seems to me that Professor George must think a "reasonable" (Catholic) democrat for life would exhort the Democrats to be pro-life, but not vote for them until they were.I'm not sure how that would go down in party headquarters, even in West Virginia
The Catholic Church is becoming more involved in the global warming issue. For example, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has established a Global Warming Action Team with a grant from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Global Warming Action Team's website notes that the team aims to "be the 'leading edge' of a coordinated and strategic Catholic effort to measurably reduce the carbon that is emitted in the metro area and in the state. Many organizations, faith communities, and individuals have already started this work. The Global Warming Action Team brings two unique assets to the table: the moral motivation of the Catholic faith, and the capacity for broad-based grassroots action through Catholic parishes." See http://www.osjspm.org/globalwarming.aspx Last November Archbishop Flynn, along with other religious leaders, met with Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) to discuss the need for the US to address global warming.
"The Catholic Church is becoming more involved in the global warming issue. For example, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has established a Global Warming Action Team with a grant from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops."I approve of this. Now how about some concerted action against this terrible war in Iraq. We should not forget for a moment that we bear some responsibility for the more than 3000 a month that are dying in Iraq.http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/world/middleeast/07civilian.html?_r=1&... has come out against this evil. Now Rome needs to become more vocal on a more frequent basis.
Cathy,I grant that your reading of George's statement (exhort but not vote for Democrats) is defensible since George does not explicitly mention voting. But I believe it to be a strained reading and not the natural or straightforward one. His statement ("I wish them success in their efforts") would then presumably allow for lobbying, contributions, staff work, etc., on behalf of Democrats, in fact everything except casting a vote for them. Even voting for them, provided another party line is used, might then be allowed. As I say, it's a possible interpretation, but in my view an unlikely one. Moreover if that is George's meaning and if I were a pro-life Democrat running for office I would not be unduly disturbed. I might well prefer a supporter who lobbied, contributed, etc., even though he didn't vote for me over someone doing none of those things but offering me simply a reluctant vote. I've always found Robert George to be an articulate and careful spokesman and I don't mean to speak for him. But on any list of obstacles hindering a proper focus on climate change I believe his statements, no matter how interpreted, belong very far from the top. A footnote on the matter of the comparative urgency of abortion and environmentalism: I think I've heard abortion mentioned from the pulpit perhaps two or three times, a generous estimate, in the last 12 months. The environment, on the other hand, is not an uncommon topic in the sermons I've heard.
First, the vast majority of scientists here agree with the notion of global warming. One can always find some minority view, but I disagree with Jean's "scientists don't agree";{" I think a clear preponderance are quite sure on the topic.In our parish, abortion is mentioned almost every week and the environment - never.Except I guess to pray for rain when the drought was on us.At any rate, so much for anecdotal evidence shaping perceptions.
On the lighter side of this issue and as a reminder to those folks in the N. E. USA & Canada, especially those who experienced 72 F in New York yesterday Click your mouse on the snowglobe and move it back and forth at this link:www.ricker.us/snowglobe.swf (Requires the latest Flash Player.)Since I live 8 hours north of Minneapolis, I can vouch that the fish huts are safely out on the lake and have been since the end of November. And so are the trucks and cars, but it is still well above average in temperature.
Patrick -- I'm glad you think Robert George would support voting for pro-life Democratic candidates. I didn't say that he clearly said one may not (though I do not think it would have been a mischaracterization to say so), I said instead that the logic of his argument seems to point in that direction. Perhaps you should apply to your own comments the policy of charitable interpretation that you seem to be urging on me. In fact, I think that my interpretation faithfully conveys the thrust of George's argument, and I had the very language Cathy helpfully cited in mind. In addition, I linked to his post, so people could read for themselves and make up their own minds, which you have. George says it is categorically unreasonable for a Catholic to take steps to help bring the Democrats into power. That would certainly seem to rule out voting for Democratic candidates for higher office, since their election would, by definition, bring them into power. It does not rule out BEING a pro-life Democrat, but I'm not sure what exactly that means. It is that statement that seems to me to be anomolous within his argument, not the one on which I relied. Care to offer another reading or explain how mine is a stretch, as you put it? I agree with you that George is an extremely careful thinker, and I hold him in the highest intellectual regard. In fact, he's one of those people who is so smart that when I find myself disagreeing with him, I feel like I need to double or triple check what I'm saying. I agree with much of his fundamental jursiprudence, which I assign in my classes and frequently praise to my students and cite in my own scholarship. Although we disagree on several moral questions which lead to differences on specific policy questions, I see him as an important ally within certain crucial legal debates. On the abortion issue, I think he goes farther than he should. While the Church's teachings on abortion are unambiguous, I do not think they indicate how to weigh the abortion issue in casting one's vote with the clarity that he claims. Moreover, I think his position, in which the abortion issue by definition trumps all others, is unwise in that it has the effect of visibly linking the Catholic Church as an institution to one political party.On the global warming question, as a law studnet I wrote and published an article endorsing carbon taxes and I think CO2 emissions are a perfect candidate for an emissions trading regime. I sincerely doubt that Democrats would propose anything less market oriented, to be honest, given the nature of our dependence on fossil fuels in living out our daily lives. In fact, I think they've been pretty weak willed on this issue. But at least they're not committed to obfuscating the question. The Republicans were in control of all branches of government for 6 years under GWB. The global warming question is not a new one. They've done nothing but make it worse by muddying the waters with misinformation. I think that is unconscionable, and I think it is something that a reasonable Catholic can weigh in deciding how to cast their vote.Your reaction is funny to me -- all I've ever argued is that Catholics have the option to determine for which party to cast their vote. And that's all I say in this post. Republicans are right on abortion, but wrong on many, many things. Abortion is an important issue, and I can understand why many Catholics feel compelled to vote for Republicans. But I don't think Church teachings REQUIRE that choice. That's all I've said. George, on the other hand, has said that Catholics cannot in good faith vote for a Democrat. I think that's a far more extreme position, and in far more tension than the guidance the American bishops (with a few exceptions) have offered.
Also, it goes without saying that merely describing someone's position, linking to the piece in which they make the argument, and noting one's disagreement is hardly "gratuitous sniping."
Eduardo,Well said, and thanks for posting this. I believe that global warming could indeed be the defining issue of our time. Yes, I wish the church spoke out more, but they are not exactly silent either. Pope Benedict raised environmental concerns in his recent World Day of Peace address.What dismays me is not the bishops, but the right-wing lay Catholics. Every time the issue comes on in the Catholic blogosphere, I am shouted down by a cavalcade of consersative voices, parroting the energy shills and pulp fiction writers (Michael Crichton) claiming there is no global warming. In many respects, they have adopted the post modern approach of the Bush administration, which holds that facts can be ignored if ideology is at stake. Why do so many Catholics do this? I fear again it is secular ideology overcoming Catholic teaching (as when they bash the Vatican for speaking out against the death penalty, war etc). It also may represent the strongly voluntarist strain within evangelical protestantism: the will or might of God trumps the laws of science and nature. And, of course, if you believe in the "rapture" theology, if God is going to kill most of humanity anyway, why worry about the climate?But Catholics are not supposed to think this way. We are supposed to believe that faith and reason are two sides of the same coin. Facts matter. And the overwhelming scientific consensus is that man-made global warming is real, and causing great harm. Meanwhile, the Catholic right, in their dalliance with the evangelicals, looks only at sexual sin....
Robert P. George is a good example of a theocon who believes that this country can only be justly governed by Christian principles. Cathy's reading is spot on and the burden is on anyone else to prove otherwise given George's history. He might have great rhetorical skills but people should really feel quite comfortable to disagree with him.George serves on the boards of directors of several right-wing groups including IRD, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Institute for American Values, the National Association of Scholars, and the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. George is also on the board of the anti-gay Alliance for Marriage and is a regular contributor to National Review.With President Bush in office, Neoconservative Catholics such as Robert George have gained unprecedented power. He is a regular advisor to the president on matters from Supreme Court nominations to faith-based initiatives. He serves on the President's Council on Bioethics, where he has worked to obstruct federal funding of stem cell research (Blumenthal, 2006). The Nation magazine reported that "Bush's operative, former Republican National Committee chief and chief Enron lobbyist Ed Gillespie, also a right-wing Catholic, chose George and others to teach Bush how to 'speak Catholic'" (Blumenthal, 2006). A conservative Catholic magazine, Crisis, wrote in 2003, "If there really is a vast, right-wing conspiracy, its leaders probably meet in [Robert] George's basement" (Blumenthal, 2006).George, like other IRD-affiliated Catholic Neocons, has been effective at tapping into right-wing money. The Nation magazine documented that between 2000 and 2005 the Madison Program at Princeton and Professor George received grants and gifts totaling $2,280,625 from several of the sources that fund IRD (Blumenthal, 2006). In addition, despite George's ardent denials that he receives funds from the secretive group, Opus Dei, the Princeton University newspaper, Daily Princetonian documented that from 2000 through 2002 his Madison Program obtained at least $390,000 from groups used as conduits to funnel money from it (Eshel, 2005).In a book entitled The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion and Morality in Crisis, George expresses the sort of views about human sexuality that will keep the money of social conservatives flowing his way. He wrote: "The plain fact is that the genitals of men and women are reproductive organs all of the time -- even during periods of sterility." According to journalist Max Blumenthal, George advocates for state laws that criminalize adultery and fornication. He also calls for a curb on "sexual practices he views as immoral, including oral sex and masturbation (which he calls bad' sex)" (Blumenthal, 2006).The New York Times recently reported that Robert George has been working closely with Republican Senator Santorum of Pennsylvania to put a gay discrimination amendment into the U.S. Constitution (Kirkpatrick, 2006). In 2002, Santorum spoke at an Opus Dei event in Rome at which he attacked President John F. Kennedy's 1960 endorsement of church-state separation. Santorum said the Kennedy vow not to enforce Catholic doctrine through civil law has caused "much harm in America," and he went on to describe President George W. Bush, a United Methodist, "as the nation's first true Catholic president" (Boston, 2006).With Santorum ousted and others of George's favorites it will be interesting to see him operate now. Or will be part of the downfall of the theocons?
IMO global warming is almost certainly linked to greenhouse gas emissions--can the 16 million tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere every 24 hours by human use worldwide (U.S. Department of Energy statistic) be beneficial or at a minimum harmless? I don't think so. According to the DoE, the U.S. is the single largest emitter of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions worldwide, accounting for 23% of such emissions. Moreover, carbon emissions in North America reached 1,760 million metric tons in 1998, a 38 percent increase since 1970, and they are expected to grow another 31 percent, to 2,314 million metric tons, by the year 2020. The EPA reports that an average of 23,000 pounds of carbon dioxide are emitted annually in each home in the U.S. But beyond the global warming issue itself, there is also the moral question of the gross overconsumption of non-renewable energy by some to the detriment of others. Even if global warming were not an issue, doesn't the western world's (and especially the U.S.'s) gluttony for what is at present a finite resource raise serious Catholic moral and social justice issues? The U.S., for example, consumes 25% of the world's energy despite having only 5% of the world's population. Much of that consumption is on such non-essentials as energy-guzzling luxury cars, large homes, etc., while two billion of our brothers and sisters in the developing world lack electricity. The huge disparity between the haves and the have nots would seem to me to be as compelling a problem as that of global warming itself.
Mazzella -- I'm not sure, but Commonweal might have a policy against pasting large blocks of text from other sources (http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=142). Copyright issues, you know. Eduardo -- I'm sympathetic to a carbon trading regime, much as we already have for SO2, but I think that Catholic teaching should mandate the seeding of oceans with iron. http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/oceangard/overview.php
Eduardo,A few responses:1) Your characterization of George's position (or my characterization of your characterization).You now say flatly (last paragraph): "George, on the other hand, has said that Catholics cannot in good faith vote for a Democrat." Is this based on your current reading of the FT Sep 25 note? Or do you have another statement in mind? Isn't this interpretation different from your view elaborated in the first paragraph and in your earlier post? If I misinterpreted your original view of what George means it seems to me to rest on a pretty subtle point. I believe it turns on how "or" is meant in your original post.2) Does the abortion issue in Georges view, by definition trump all others, as you state? Your original link was to a First Things article of September 25, 2006. In my comment I linked to a later Mirror of Justice post of September 27 responding to a request for clarification about the FT article. I thought it worth linking to the later discussion because it didnt seem to accord with what you assumed to be the logic of Georges position in his Sep 25 post. As Im sure youre aware, there was more discussion on the MOJ site in the next few days, including your own interesting contributions. My links to that site dont seem to work but heres another post from September 27 which addresses the weighting issue you seem to feel is ignored by George. Rob raises the question whether this sort of reasoning renders issues other than abortion or (let us add) nuclear attacks on civilians "irrelevant" for Catholics and other pro-life voters. I think the answer is no. He goes on to discuss an issue that seemingly would trump other concerns.My point in all this linking is not to rehash old arguments or, much less, to speak for George but instead to suggest that his position is more complex than your brief description allows. At the least its worth noting that more was said on the issue after the points made in the article you link to.3) You ask me to provide an alternate interpretation. Here, as before, I'll take the liberty of taking into account all George's statements, those on MOJ as well as FT. I'll start with one scenario and at first I'll make it easy for myself. Suppose we have two candidates holding the same praiseworthy positions on all issues except abortion. The Republican wants to repeal the Hyde Amendment and wants to subsidize abortions aggressively. The Democrat wants to retain the Hyde Amendment and moreover wants to challenge his party leadership to change their policies on abortion. And further let's suppose that the Democrats in this case are unlikely to gain legislative dominance. In these circumstances I don't believe George would say Catholics are required to not vote for the Democrat. His words re Bob Casey, Sr. in the MOJ posts suggest as much, as do some of the other comments about encouraging pro-life Democrats that I've already quoted. The implication I read in those statements (disputed by Cathy Kaveny) is that in certain cases, not all, it would be legitimate to vote for a Democrat. Now suppose the Democrats are likely to gain power in one house. The calculus becomes more complicated. But suppose the Democrat was part of a group of extremely charismatic or effective individuals (Kennedy, Gore, Jesse Jackson in their earlier incarnations) who would work to change Democratic policy. There are other gray areas (suppose the candidate is good on abortion but bad on stem cell research - Hatch, Frist). As you probably agree it ultimately becomes pointless what my interpretation of George's position on some of these other situations would be. But at a minimum I don't believe George's comments on MOJ necessarily entail your (and apparently Cathy Kaveny's) conclusion about George's position: "Catholics cannot in good faith vote for a Democrat." I suppose this is the nub of our disagreement. You believe George requires Catholics to not vote for Democrats; I believe that conclusion is not justified. Need I add theres an obvious way to resolve this. 4) Im glad to learn that you believe Republicans are right on the abortion issue, though wrong on many others. I agree, as does George. I suspect youll get disagreement on the first part of that statement from some on this site who seem uniformly hostile to Republicans but perhaps theyll be inspired to reconsider when apprised of your position. Im also glad to read that you view George as an ally on many important issues, again welcome news. 5) To digress again to the topic of climate change - Im genuinely curious about your thoughts on the uses and abuses of the precautionary principle (better safe than sorry in its extreme versions) as discussed by Sunstein and others. The principle would appear to be highly relevant to the topic of remote catastrophes, not only drastic climate change, but asteroids, pandemics, scientific accidents, etc. Do you have a particular slant on that principle and its compatibility with Catholic thought and is that a further point of difference with George? A topic for a future post, perhaps.
The precautionary principle, of course, is precisely the thing that Cheney et al. believe in as to terrorism. That's the whole point of the "One Percent Doctrine" (see Ron Suskind's book), which says that if there's a one percent chance that a regime might allow terrorists to get their hands on a nuclear weapon, the United States must spring into action.
I go back to this statement:"However much one might dislike Republican policies in other areas, its clear that the death toll under the Democrats would be so large as to make it unreasonable for Catholic citizens, or citizens of any faith who oppose the taking of innocent human life, to use their votes and influence to help bring the Democratic party into power."The key phrase "is unreasonable. . . to use their votes and influence to help bring the Democratic party into power."I just don't see how this phase allowed for much discretion for interpretation. The key question is whether "helping" is to be interpreted as "Intentionally helping" or "foreseeably " helping. In other words, is George ruling out intentionally bringing the Democrats to power, or merely acting in a way that foreseeably brings them to power? It seems to me that he is worried about a state of affairs-- not a purpose of a voter. My guess is that he would say (channeling Grisez) that whatever one's good intent or purpose, it is unreasonable to inflict as a side-effect of one's action a situation in which Democrats were in power. That would rule out, in the context of the 2004 election, even voting for a Democrat-for-Life, since for the purposes of control of the Congress, it's the "democrat" part that counts.Pace Patrick's elaborations, I don't think it's possible to reconcile George's two statements in any coherent way. That was the ironic point of my post: it was to point to the futility of trying to do so.. It leads to the absurd spectacle of a Democratic party activist not voting or working for Democratic victory. A Democrat-for-Life is presumably a party activist; to be a good party activist one has to work for the victory of the party. And that, in my view, is the fundamental thing George has trouble with.In a nutshell: Would a Democrat-for-Life want Congress to be controlled by the Democrats? I would think the answer here has toe yes.Would Robbie George--no. He thinks it's not only wrong, but unreasonable.
Thanks again to Cathy for her helpful comment.Patrick,I'm not sure how much turns on this, since my original post was sufficiently qualified ("or" having the meaning there of "or, at least,"). In other words, if he didn't come out and say it (which he may as well have, as Cathy points out), his logic would seem to point in that direction. This was part of a longer discussion, as you note, and honestly I don't have time to retrace the whole thing, but I'm not sure that much turns on it for my purposes. No one disputes that George thinks it is impermisssible (i.e., unreasonable) to vote for a pro-choice Democrat, and that in itself does almost all the work that I need, since most Democrats are pro-choice. And that position is also, in my view, unsupported by the Church, which has taken a more nuanced view with respect to how to balance abortion against other issues. Even your narrower reading of George's position therefore breaks new ground and has the effect of making abortion the only relevant issue except in the relatively rare case where a pro-life Democrat faces off against a pro-life Republican (e.g., the Pa. senate battle).The only question is the less crucial one: whether he goes farther and thinks it is impermissible to vote, even for a pro-life Democrat because that Democrat will vote for Democrats in leadership elections, etc. His FT comment seems to me to pretty clearly imply that they cannot. Any additional person in the house or Senate gives a party more power, and, given the nature of our electoral system, it's impossible for a voter to distinguish among the cases you identify, because in any given election, if enough voters vote for Democrats, they can take control of one or both houses of Congress, even if none of the voters intend that, as Cathy points out.I don't take your citations to the MOJ discussion to fatally undermine that reading, although they do, as you suggest, complicate his position in terms of what he would be willing to allow as reasonable. The nuclear war point is not to the contrary. George said (I'm working off memory here) that there were some issues that might conceivably outweigh the abortion question, and he included the intentional killing of a large number of civilians as an example. But that is really beside the point (and was at the time) because no one is currently advocating such a policy. Accordingly, it seems accurate to say that his view has the effect of rendering irrelevant all of the issues that are actually live in American political discourse today (e.g., the Iraq war, tax policy, welfare policy, environmental policy, racial justice, the death penalty, etc.), none of which meet his high standards for even plausibly being decisive over the abortion/stem cell question. Bottom line, though, is that I don't think I was being unfair or misrepresenting his view, as your initial comment seemed to suggest. I will admit to sniping at Novak and Brownback, but I don't think I was being unfair to them, because, well, I think they deserved it for staking out transparently ridiculous positions. But I think I was just honestly and straightforwardly disagreeing with what I take to be George's position. You're right, though, that we may want to just email him and ask him what his bottom-line view is. On the precautionary principle, I think that is the key question and really the answer to MLJ's comment above. But I will save it for a separate post and, for now, merely endorse the implications of some of Stuart's comments above, though not perhaps the seeding the ocean point, about which I know very little and which seems to me in some tension with the precautionary approach.
Let me say it clearly. The theocons are more of a danger to this country than any external enemy or terrorist organization. They are the inquisition disquised. It is true that George does waffle a bit more than the other theocons. But he remains one of their primary architects. This democracy sent a strong message to the theocons in the last election. Under the mantle of right to life they want to establish a Christian government. It has not worked in the Roman Catholic Church nor any government in which the church has governed. It is impossible to understate what a threat to the democracy of this country they are.
One other point. I think it makes good sense for George to take the position I ascribe to him. That is, given the view he has that abortion trumps other questions currently under debate in American political discourse, I think it makes sense to work on a party-by-party basis. For the same reason, I think progressive voters in RI were correct -- given their priorities -- to oust Lincon Chaffee. Given our party system, which party is in control matters at least as much as the individual views of the particular candidate from a particular district. (Perhaps this is less true of the executive branch, though I think the judicial nominating process might cast doubt on that qualification, but it is surely true of the legislature.) My disagreement is with the assumptions underlying George's first premise about the weight that must be given to the abortion question to begin with.
Eduardo,So instead of saying, as you do in your first comment: 'George...has said that Catholics cannot in good faith vote for a Democrat," a substitute wording (admittedly inelegant) might be: "Although I believe George's FT comment seems to me to pretty clearly imply that Catholics cannot vote for a pro-life Democrat he has not explicity said that and his other MOJ comments are hard to reconcile with a strict 'never ever vote for a Democrat stance.'" I rust you may agree there's always a danger in putting words in the mouths of others, especially when one discusses contentious topics. The precautionary principle might encourage further caution.
This is getting silly, because now you're taking issue with my comments rather than the original post. By pointing to my qualification in the original post, I wasn't backing away from my reading of George, but pointing to your own omission of the nuance of what I said -- the very thing you were accusing me of doing to George in your first comment.In any event, this is the last thing I'll post in this thread, because I think we've long past the point of diminishing returns. I continue to reject your reconstruction of his position. I would say the following: George has said (in his original FT post) that you cannot vote for Democrats, presumably of any stripe, since he does not qualify his comments and the focus of his discussion is on which party is in power (his actual words on FT are that Catholics cannot "use their votes and influence to help bring the Democratic party into power." Period.). His MOJ comments suggest to me that there might be OTHER THINGS one could do as or for a pro-life Democrat that do not involve helping to bring the Democratic party into power (until such time as the party is itself no longer pro-choice), but these do not as a rule include actually voting for pro-life Democrats because under any normal set of assumptions about how our political process works, that always carries the risk that Democrats will, as a party, come into power.I'm with Cathy on this not being a completely coherent position, but I think it is mostly coherent because the problems with it are really at the margins: what are these hypothetical additional things por-life Democrats can do that don't involve bringing the Democrats into power as a party? NOt running for office or donating money or even canvassing. At most, perhaps, participating in internal party politics with an eye towards changing the platform. Given the fit between the no-vote position, however, and the rest of his thought on the weight that must be given to abortion in casting one's vote, my guess is that George would jettison the ambiguous qualification from the MOJ comments before he jettisoned the other bits. I certainly would if I were him. Because I believe that the MOJ comments are more opaque than the original FT post, and because the FT post fits in with George's broader views, as I noted in the comment above, I do not think my characterization of George's position -- certainly not in the original post, but also not in my comments -- is in the least misleading.
I didn't realize that one shouldn't take issue with your comments. I'll try to remember next time. Ithaca loquit, causa finita?
"Ithaca loquit, causa finita."Wow. That's an amazing charge to hurl in light of my lengthy (and time-consuming) attempts to explain myself and respond in a civil way to your criticism of the original post. Your rudeness really knows no bounds.
Tu quoque. I dared to comment on your comments because your original post was somewhat unclear (nuanced in your terms) and you seemed to feel I was ungenerous in interpreting it. I thought your first comment was meant to clarify your nuances. Apparently my mistake but an innocent one.


text:
The hyperreal number system is defined as one that contains the real numbers, satisfies the first order properties of real numbers, and contain infinitesimals. It can't be as simple as stating the reals are a subset of the hyperreals. Do I need to prove an isomorphism between the two? Or am I completely missing something here?
Any help would be appreciated.


text:
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Global February 2014,
Posted Date:
Amy Rush-Imber
Armstrong CEO's mandate: Growth, innovation, branding
[Las Vegas] While Tom Mangas, newly named CEO of Armstrong's global flooring business, may have been new to Surfaces last month as a first time attendee, he is certainly not new to the consumer products arena and what it takes to drive product sales.
Before joining Armstrong as CFO in 2010, Mangas spent 20 years at Procter & Gamble in different posts throughout the company, including the $17 billion fabric care business (with brands like Tide, Downy and Cheer) and then the $28 billion beauty and grooming business that houses some of the company's more visible brands like Gillette as well as a roster of prestige fragrances and skin care.
"There are a lot of similarities in how P&G went to market and how we go to market through distribution. The business model of manufacturing consumer products is very similar — fundamentally you're driving innovation through new products, and figuring out distribution and packaging and shipping," explained Mangas.
As CFO of Armstrong, Mangas said he took a more operational view. "I never was a CPA. Armstrong wanted someone to drive global business and expansion."
Having been CFO for four years, Mangas brings intimate knowledge of the company but is new enough to certain aspects to be able to ask questions and offer a new perspective.
"I benefit from the historical perspective but being the new guy, I can play dumb a bit and ask questions — why do we do it this way? Stir the pot a bit. That's how I see my job — leveraging the strength of the team but question. I'm going to ask a lot of questions and figure out how we can accelerate the growth," explained Mangas.
Here at Surfaces he told FCW that he is in "receive mode" paying close attention to what is working for Armstrong customers and what isn't as well as assessing the competition.
After spending his first month on the job getting entrenched in the North American business, then hitting the road for two weeks to China, India and throughout Europe to gain a global view of the business, he said Surfaces was well timed for getting him re-immersed in the North American market and begin thinking about how to execute the plan Armstrong has for future growth.
Mangas said that everything he's learned thus far, confirms his view from his previous position. "It's been fabulous," he noted. "I've started to put together some of my thoughts on what works and what doesn't work. Number one, people love the Armstrong brand and the innovation. We show a different level of innovation and I think it is differentiating us from others. It's the value of the Armstrong relationship and how we drive quality. And service."
Armstrong innovation
The word innovation came up a lot during our time with Mangas. It is something core to the strong past performance of Armstrong and will be a key element moving forward as well.
"I think we are stacking up very strong in innovation — our innovation across the line whether it's in sheet vinyl, which has been a sleeping category, or our Alterna products or our wood product or the laminate products that are award-winning. Our team has done a great job driving that."
North America is an important revenue stream for Armstrong — some 70 percent of company sales. In North America, said Mangas, "That's where innovation happens."
Armstrong left Surfaces several years ago when the venue changed. They've been back now three or four years but in a suite off the main show floor. "I like the way we are able to drive a very consistent customer presentation and environment here; we can engage our customers here. The showroom gives us great presence and functionality with our customers," Mangas said.
Roadmap for success
Mangas came into the CEO position with a clear set of goals and mandates. All focus on the long term value for shareholders and the customer. "That's the overall mandate. So we have a series of short term and long term steps that form the mosaic of that," he said.
An important piece of the puzzle is getting the wood business back on track — a challenge for every company that plays in this segment. "Our most pressing issue is driving and restoring the attractiveness of our wood business. If you look at our margins last year, they collapsed. That was driven by a perfect storm of dramatically accelerating commodity pricing, a surge in demand in ours and other industries that caught us somewhat unprepared in the supply chain, and in a competitive environment. So getting that business structurally attractive, getting pricing — that's short term priority one," said Mangas.
Armstrong has made some significant investments over the past few years. Mangas is ready to leverage those. About $115 million was invested in two plants in China set to serve the Asian market. "We want to reap the benefits of our significant investment in emerging markets," he said.
To do that, Mangas said they will look to drive commercialization of the plants and expand distribution and sales to "pull the product through," he said. "The reality and focus of 2014 and beyond is to commercialize those plants. We see huge opportunity for resilient flooring in China and India, South East Asia and the Middle East." In those regions, the focus will be on commercial product, not residential business.
Mangas said that things look good enough that folks weren't even talking economics here in Vegas. "We had a good year, even through third quarter. Our problem was supply chain and cost," he said adding, "We are not going from a point of weakness and trying to recover. We are coming from strength and trying to capitalize on it."
While his responsibilities have changed and increased, Mangas said, "The levers I would talk about as CFO aren't that different. The difference is who I'm talking to. The accountability is awesome. I take a sincere responsibility. How do I drive long term valuation — that is top line growth and working with our customers."
He said the company has a clear path and that now it is a matter of making sure everyone interprets it the same way. "How do we make sure we are aligned on the strategy and cascade that through the organization? It's about clarity and alignment of strategy. Between Armstrong CEO Matt (Espe), Armstrong Residential Flooring senior vice president Kevin (Biedermann), Armstrong Commercial Flooring senior vice president Dominic (Rice) and myself, we are very well aligned."
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