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Once upon a time, years ago, there was a crazy author who spent a lot of time, money, and energy visiting forty different states in the US.
He signed at over 1200 bookstores.
He spoke at over a hundred libraries.
He attended dozens of conventions and conferences.
He went to many book fairs and literary festivals.
He spoke at schools and universities.
In short, he did what he felt he needed to do in order to succeed. Namely, meet as many people as possible, handsell books, and spread his brand.
It cost lots of money to do this. Lots of money and lots of time.
As a result, all of his books are still in print, while many of his peers (who didn't do as much) went out of print.
These days, he does very few appearances. He doesn't speak in public. He doesn't travel.
Yet he's still selling well. Better than he ever sold before.
So are appearances still worthwhile?
Have they ever been worthwhile?
One of the things about being a writer is knowing that in order to continue writing, you have to sell books. Because of this, many writers try to do things in order to boost sales. Some buy ads. Some have contests. Some blog. Some tweet. Some use Facebook. Some give away stuff.
Some make public appearances.
I've always believed that face-to-face time is valuable, and that there is no better salesperson for my book than me. But I never considered myself a salesman. I considered myself an ambassador, spreading information and good will. Often I taught what I learned. Sometimes I got paid, but mostly I dished out money for travel and hotels and convention fees.
And because of this, I've sold more books than I would have if I hadn't done anything at all.
That's the key. Doing something will help you sell more than doing nothing.
But for every book sale, there is a cost to pay.
The cost, of course, if both the monetary cost of travel, and the time cost of making an appearance.
Not too many writers openly talk about the costs involved in self-promotion, though all do it in some form or another. There is a reason for this.
Because all of us are failing. At least, when it comes to tangible returns on investments.
Writing is a solitary profession. But we need people (readers) in order to continue to write. So we try our best to find these readers, and appearances are one way to do this.
A damn expensive way.
I was just at the Printer's Row Book Fair in Chicago. The cost to me was $25 for parking, $10 for gas, and five hours of time.
I sold about a dozen books (paperbacks), and the royalties totaled $7.68.
So my personal appearance left me in the red almost thirty bucks, not counting the five hours I could have spent writing.
Walking the fair, I saw many of my peers, none of them doing any better than I did. Some traveled from out of state to attend. Some dished out major bucks and bought their own tables.
That's a lot of time and money for a few dozen sales.
Rewind to Bouchercon 2010, the biggest mystery con of the year. I attended, but not as an author. I'd just begun my hiatus from public appearances, and I wanted to hang out with my friends without the pressure of having to be "on."
Some authors sold a few dozen books. Most didn't even come close to that. Considering the hotel was $199 a night, and travel to San Francisco isn't cheap, I wouldn't be surprised if some writers were in the red several thousand dollars.
So why do we keep doing this? Why do we invest so much for so little in return?
Here are my thoughts.
1. We feel as if we have to do something. Doing nothing means asking for failure. So even if the costs of doing something far exceed the sales we make, at least we can say we tried.
2. There is a bit of peer pressure and "go with the crowd" mentality. Gathering together with fellow authors is a cathartic experience. We're all in the same boat, and to see others doing what we're doing makes us feel better about what we're doing, even if it is ineffective.
3. We count on intangible benefits. Even if a bestseller goes on tour, they're losing money. Pretend a big shot sells 100 hardcovers at an appearance. That's $300 in royalties--not even close to the cost of plane fare, hotel, and an escort. But meeting a fan once can make a fan for life, befriending booksellers can help your titles sell for years, and giving a good talk could help spread word of mouth, selling many more books than were signed. This can't be gauged, however.
4. We think this will be the "big one" where we sell in huge numbers. And big ones do occasionally happen. Unfortunately, there's no way to know which appearances will be worthwhile and which won't.
5. There's an ego aspect to appearances, especially at the beginning of a career. We want to make fans. We want to sign books. We want to hear how people enjoyed our writing. Having someone hug you and say they love you is a heady experience.
But eventually, like all good things that became spoiled once dollar signs were attached to them, dealing with fans becomes work. It's good work if you can get it, but it has diminishing returns that increase the more fans you acquire.
I do very few appearances these days. And it hasn't hurt my career.
While I don't advocate doing nothing, and I stand by my original position that the more you do, the more you'll sell, I've come to realize that one person, no matter how hard they try, can't make themselves a bestseller. Luck always plays a part.
The harder you work, the luckier you tend to get. But there comes a point where you can spend too much time trying to promote old work, when you'd be better served writing new work. That point can vary, book to book, person to person. But it is something to be aware of.
So next time someone asks to to speak someplace, or when the yearly convention sends you an email asking to attend, try to weight the pros and cons before automatically saying yes. Because while you will sell more books, it will probably come at too high a cost.
Friday, June 17, 2011
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Hatcheries' metal can disrupt steelhead magnetic sense
Young trout raised in distorted field flunk first test of which direction to swim
Emily Putman
Young steelhead trout don't get off to a good start as navigators if they're reared in hatchery tanks where iron pipes cause weirdness in magnetic fields.
The trout, like many other animals, sense Earth's magnetic field and use it when they migrate. Yet young fish raised with magnetic distortions from a pipe and rebar in concrete flooring failed to orient normally in a simulated magnetic field, says marine biologist Nathan Putman, now at the Southeast Fisheries Science Center in Miami.
In a recent study, Putman had concluded that young migratory fish can inherit their magnetic maplike sense of their future ranges. But the fish confusion in new tests suggests that scientists need to account for experience as well as genetics, he and his colleagues report June 4 in Biology Letters. And if the early influence of magnetically disturbed homes persists later in a fish's life, the new experiment might start to explain why hatchery fish often fail to return to their expected spawning grounds.
These steelhead trout, Putman says, "are a big deal to a lot of people." Both commercial fishing operations and sports enthusiasts treasure them, and Pacific tribes consider them part of their heritage. Steelheads belong to the same species as rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss. Rainbows spend their lives in freshwater, but steelheads swim out to sea and return to freshwater to spawn, often finding their way back to the streams where they hatched.
The steelhead lifestyle demands accurate navigation, and the cluelessness of fish from the magnetically distorted tanks adds a twist to the unfolding story of how salmon and their close relatives use Earth's magnetic field to find their way. True navigation requires both a compass to identify directions and a map to indicate which direction to go and how far. In February, Putman and his colleagues reported that young Chinook salmon inherit their version of a map instead of having to learn it. Even before they had tasted saltwater, the young Chinook responded to Putman's simulations of the magnetic field at the edges of their future foraging ranges in the ocean. When placed in buckets, the fish tended to face away from the simulated range borders as if they already knew which way to swim to get back to the heart of their domains.
But now Putman has discovered that whatever maplike sense salmon and trout inherit also responds to environmental cues. In his new tests at the Oregon Hatchery Research Center in Alsea, steelheads too young to even start journeying out of freshwater were likely to orient away from the simulated magnetic borders if they had grown up in hatchery tanks with a geographically normal magnetic field. Young fish reared in a tank with magnetic distortions —caused by an iron pipe buried in it and nearby rebar in concrete — were unable to use normal map orientation. (Electric wiring and equipment also distort magnetic fields.)
The fish do inherit the basics of their magnetic sense, says James Gould of Princeton University, but "the system needs initial calibration." Gould studies animal navigation but was not involved in this project. He suspects that fish need to experience the changes in the magnetic field as they move around.
Whether the experimental fish that grew up in weird magnetic fields are disoriented for life, Putman can't say without further tests. With more time in an undistorted field, he suggests, perhaps the confused fish may straighten out their maps.
If they don't, the test could help explain some of the troubles people have had raising fish in captivity. "Everybody's disappointed with hatchery fish," Putman says. Advocates of raising fish to supplement wild populations lament that that hatcheries are inefficient, with distressingly few of the released youngsters returning to spawn. Critics of hatchery programs warn that artificially raised fish all too often end up in the wrong streams to mate and thus muddy the gene pool of locally adapted wild populations. Both of these disappointments could be the result of failures to navigate. It's too early to tell, but Putman acknowledges that maybe the fish "don't navigate as well if you rear them in weird magnetic fields."
N.F. Putman, A.M. Meinke and D.L.G. Noakes. Rearing in a distorted magnetic field disrupts the 'map sense' of juvenile steelhead trout. Biology Letters. Published online June 4, 2014. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2014.0169.
N.F. Putman et al. An inherited magnetic map guides ocean navigation in juvenile Pacific salmon. Current Biology. Vol. 24, February 17, 2014, p 446. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.01.017.
S. Milius. Everyday electronics may upset birds compass. Vol. 185, June 14, 2014, p. 10.
J.L. Gould and C.G. Gould. Nature's Compass: The Mystery of Animal Navigation. Princeton University Press, 2012.
W.P. Irwin, A.J. Horner and K.J. Lohmann. Magnetic field distortions produced by protective cages around sea turtle nests: unintended consequences for orientation and navigation?Biological Conservation. Vol. 118, June 2004, p. 117. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2003.07.014.

subset: commoncrawl


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London-based artist Gerry Judah has been widely known for his large-scale outdoor installations. Especially noteworthy are his works commissioned for such famous car brands as Jaguar, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and others. Collaborating with the sponsors, Judah has created a series of gravity-defying suspended installations featuring scale-sized model cars shooting as high as 35 meters in the sky.
Gerry Judah has been building his car-themed sculptures since 1997. His tremendous structures have always been a sight at the annual Goodwood Festival of Speed in Sussex, England. Judah works extensively with steel. Naturally the amount of it consumed for each installation can go as high as whopping 175 tonnes (Jaguar, 2011). Despite the rugged material, Judah's structures seem to be incredibly lightweight flexible. His works are particularly appreciated for the cohesion with the style of cars they represent. Here's Judah talking about the design of Porsche 911 monument (above):
"The 911 is a fantastic shape that can't be deconstructed or embellished, so in this context, the sculpture had to provide the right platform for the car to soar up and shine in the sky. <…> The concept was that each car is shooting into the sky, supporting one another, racing each other, captured in a perfect moment. Like the cars it displays, the sculpture is superbly engineered, lightweight and reflective of the Porsche 911 itself: simple, pure and built for the job."
His latest work for Mercedes-Benz (below) features a 160-tonne steel sculpture with two Mercedes-Benz cars passing each other in midair. The installation is 90 meters long and soars 26 meters into the sky. It celebrates the 120-years-anniversary of motorsport heritage by Mercedes-Benz.


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'Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope' (1977)
Domestic box office: $460,998,007 | Worldwide box office: $775,398,007 | As soon as "Star Wars" thundered into theaters on May 25, 1977, it was clear the film was a force to be reckoned with. "On opening day ... in the afternoon I did a radio call-in show in Washington and this guy, this caller, was really enthusiastic and talking about the movie in really deep detail," Gary Kurtz, the producer of "Star Wars," said. "I said, 'You know a lot abut the film.' He said, 'Yeah, yeah, I've seen it four times already.' And that was opening day. I knew something was happening." The original trilogy was re-released in theater s in 1997 to commemorate the franchise's 20th anniversary. These "Special Edition" releases featured controversial digital alterations to the original series.


text: Advanced Server Virtualization serves as your guide to understanding and implementing enterprise server virtualization technologies from leading vendors inlcuding VMware and Microsoft. Based on the authors' years of hands-on experience architecting, implementing, and troubleshooting complex solutions for world-class enterprise cusotmers, this must-have resource offers much more than the technical details of the virtualization platforms that are covered. Fundamental concepts, use cases, planning details, best practices, gotchas, and large-scale server virtualization system management challenges are fully documented to help you to learn from the authors' experience, allowing you to jump-start your virtualization projects and take them to the next level with ease. Advanced Server Virtualization presents information that can be found nowhere else. It contains concepts that transcend the virtualization software covered, concepts that can be applied to current and future server virtualization systems.


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Blake Shelton and Kenny Loggins Bring 'Footloose' to the 2011 CMA Awards
Country's funny man Blake Shelton kicked off the 2011 CMA Awards in Nashville, but fortunately, he didn't take the stage to do stand-up. The reigning Male Vocalist of the Year rocked viewers and his peers with a remade version of the 1984 movie hit 'Footloose,' but not without a little help from the original recording artist, Kenny Loggins.
Of course, Shelton was doing fine on his own — the choreographed and very much in-sync dancers on platforms around him gave country music fans plenty to look at while the singer stood forefront with his guitar, belting out the words to the classic singalong tune. In addition to flips and jumps, the quick-footed backup performers were sporting all of the sequins you would hope to find at country's biggest awards show.
But halfway through, when the famed Loggins took the stage, the lighting quickly changed from red to blue and the mood shot up. The two guitarists stood next to one another and gave it their best enthusiasm, while the dozens of 'Footloose' dancers shook their groove things to the beat.
The first performance of the night ended with a big bang and an even bigger applause from Nashville's greatest, making the 2011 CMA Awards officially a go.


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BERKELEY — The Bay Area's newest craft brewery is serving up sour brews.
The Rare Barrel opened a public tasting room just in time for New Year celebrations. The tasting room, open on Fridays and Saturdays for now, serves up sour beers, a style that's increasingly popular among craft beer aficionados and known for having a tart and acidic flavor distinct from your traditional lagers. Jay Goodwin is the brewmaster behind concoctions that use raspberries, apricots and strawberries.
The tasting room has 12 taps, including two guest beers and wine, and serves a light menu of salad and paninis. It's open Friday from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Saturday from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. at 940 Parker St.
Contact Heather Somerville at 510-208-6413. Follow her at Twitter.com/heathersomervil.


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Coast Guard
Jailed Coast Guard LT claims "plotting domestic terrorism" is how he describes taking a dump
GREENBELT, Md — With claims that sound suspiciously similar to a recent incident at a Home Depot in Kansas, jailed Coast Guard Lt. Christopher Hasson now claims "plotting domestic terrorism" is how he describes going to the bathroom, sources confirmed today.
"Lieutenant Hasson's arrest is system overreach of the highest order," Hasson's lawyer, Julie Stelzig, said. "My client is guilty of having a penchant for spicy Thai food, a leaky b-hole, and a creative vocabulary, nothing else."
While authorities remain skeptical, Hasson's team is attempting to sway the public by going directly to the media. White power, mass murder of innocent civilians, and neo-Nazism are diarrhea ideologies and should therefore be considered acceptable euphemisms for having diarrhea, his team emphasized in a press statement.
While novel, it's doubtful the defense will be effective.
"Everybody poops, not everyone spends their day googling mass shootings," said a law enforcement official familiar with the case. "It also doesn't explain the weapons the defendant was stockpiling or his association with known terrorist groups.
In response, Hasson reportedly clarified that he suffers from erectile dysfunction, which he treats by taking Cialis, stockpiling ammunition, and spending time with piece of shit human beings.
Coast Guard
Teen becoming officer so he can tell his enlisted stepfather what to do
ST. LOUIS— Charlotte High School graduate Devin Jaskot will soon enter the Coast Guard's Officer Candidate School this July for the sole reason of bossing around his fat piece of shit stepdad, Petty Officer 1st Class Carl Barnes, sources confirmed today.
Jaskot's mother married Barnes in 2016 with much protest from Jaskot. Despite his claims that Barnes was a lazy and pathetic excuse of a man, Jaskot was required to attend his mother's wedding, with Barnes wearing a wrinkled dress bravo uniform.
"That's when I took a vow to enter the Coast Guard's officer training so I can out rank this asshole and tell him to go clean the head," said Jaskot. "He calls me 'buddy' and 'sport' and winks at me at the dinner table like some greasy pedophile sailor."
Barnes is a 15-year E-6 who met Jaskot's mom on eHarmony while stationed in the Upper Mississippi Coast Guard station.
"We had our first date at the Macaroni Grill, and when we connected on our mutual love of 'Burn Notice,' I knew she would be my wife," said Barnes when asked about his relationship with Jaskot's mother.
Jaskot's intentions to join the Coast Guard have the support of his stepfather.
"I'm actually very proud he's joining the Coast Guard. He's such a bright and enthusiastic young guy who can do some great things if he puts his mind to it — even though he's a little impatient with me and calls me Petty Officer Mouthbreather when he sees me in uniform."
"Can you believe I was 3 years old when he enlisted in the Coast Guard?'" said Jaskot. "Once I graduate, I'm going to walk right up to his pudgy subhuman body and tell his gelatinous fat ass to scrub the decks. Then I'll provide him some drive-by tasking, busy work, and a whole bunch of micro-managing. I'm going to make his life a living hell!"
In addition to Devin Jaskot, a DOD survey found that roughly 16% of all Officer Candidate School applicants are motivated by outranking piece of shit family members who are a complete waste of space.
Coast Guard
Coast Guard icebreaker draws first sea penis
ARCTIC SEA — The Coast Guard icebreaker USCGC Polar Star achieved a world first by drawing a sea penis north of the Arctic Circle, sources confirmed today.
"This thing was huge. I'm talking huge. Easily bigger than any wimpy looking sky penis out there. You can see it from space. That's right. Space. We've tagged it on Google Earth and everything," Polar Star Capt. Don Simmons told reporters.
The Coast Guard released over fifty pages worth of comments similar to that one, generally repeating the same sentiments of pride and going into detail to describe the achievement.
Strategic Command confirmed that the penis can, in fact, be viewed from space
"We couldn't believe it. There it was. Beautiful. Vascular. The sons of bitches had done it. We openly wept," STRATCOM wrote in a press release.
The move now stands as one of the greatest achievements of the Coast Guard. It may go down in history as a day that the Coast Guard stood in defiance of all other branches with pride.
Simmons took a swipe at the Marine Corps with his closing comments.
"We would like to take this moment to thank our parents, the United States of America and to issue a challenge to the Marines. Your move!" he said.
Coast Guard
Typo causes Coast Guard to spend millions of dollars guarding nation's coats
A major typo in a recent presidential directive to the Coast Guard has caused the service to expend thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars in resources guarding the country's coats, sources confirmed today.
"The Coast Guard, as its primary mission, shall ensure the safety and security of our nation's coats," read an executive order issued by President Donald Trump. "These duties shall include search and rescue, drug interdiction, and especially arctic operations."
The Coast Guard has redirected its priorities away from maritime security in response to the order and is instead focusing on the defense of coats made by everyday brands like The North Face and L.L. Bean, as well as high-end brands like Burberry and Canada Goose. However, it is still unclear whether its responsibilities will extend to the defense of lighter-weight jackets and cardigans.
"If we were to enter a new Cold War with China, it is essential that our strategic reserve of coats is kept safe and in a high state of readiness," said Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz. "Otherwise everyone would freeze to death."
Schultz admitted that while guarding coats is an atypical mission set for a service that was designed to patrol waterways, it is one his service is prepared to undertake.
"A couple of months ago, we had ensigns who couldn't tell the difference between a peacoat and a chesterfield," admitted Schultz. "Now, we have troops deployed to every REI and coat check room around the country ready to take action."
At press time, a Coast Guard Maritime Security Response Team was deployed to the mid-Atlantic to investigate reports of a sinking goat.
Coast Guard
Coast Guard tells families to "sell your organs, start hooking" to help cope with government shutdown
WASHINGTON — The Coast Guard published a list of recommended actions today that its service members and their families can take to cope with the continuing government shutdown, including selling their bodily organs and taking part in extramarital prostitution.
The guidance is a 7-step checklist given to the thousands of families and federal employees who will not be receiving a paycheck due to the furlough.
With no end in sight, the Coast Guard has recommended the following actions and tips, assuring those affected that "you may have to temporarily make changes in the way you handle your finances, but by following these steps, you'll be more likely to get quickly back on track when the furlough period is over."
Understand the Details – Find out the Specifics of Your Furlough
Chances are that if you are being furloughed, it is for a completely invalid reason and the result of someone's personal agenda. Keeping that mindset, this is a perfect opportunity for you to ask your command for answers, but know that you will likely not get a reasonable response. We encourage you to reach out to your Administrative Officer for additional information, even though they're also on furlough and probably unable to answer your question
Crunch the Numbers
Assess your financial situation so that you can make good decisions during these trying times. Getting organized is key because only God and James Mattis know when you'll actually be getting paid again.
Get Lean
Evaluate your spending. Do you really NEED food and water? That PT test next quarter will be here before you know it, and you could probably stand to lose a few. What better thing to motivate you to get fiscally responsible than incomprehensible government furloughs with no end in sight?
Consider your needs. History shows that a lot of people actually went their entire lives without electricity before Ben Franklin. Why not pay tribute to our founding fathers? Save some bucks and unplug/unhook everything in your house. Make it a fun game for the kids!
Supplement Your Income
Finding alternative methods of income is a wise decision during government furloughs. Have you considered selling your non-vital organs? Nobody ACTUALLY needs both kidneys. Why not make easy money and save someone's life?
Another great idea is to have your spouse frequent street corners and questionable hotels, conveniently located just off any military post worldwide. The Coast Guard is full of families, and its time each member start pulling their own weight. Studies have shown that prostitution is a great way to make extra bucks, and much like driving for Uber or Lyft, you get to pick the hours you work!
When low on cash, just remember – "Sell Your Organs, Start Hooking."
Avoid the Credit Trap
Don't be afraid to talk with your creditors. Somebody has got to be the one to tell them why your mortgage payments and credit card bills won't be paid this month, and it's definitely not going to come from us or the federal government.
Your credit score will undoubtedly take a hit during this period of no-pay, but if you prepare enough, it will be less depressing a year from now.
Don't Go At it Alone
One team, one fight. You are not alone in this time of potentially crippling debt and depression, there are many other families and federal contractors out there screaming themselves hoarse with rage over this nonsensical furlough. Find others to vent your frustration with. Because in the hardest of times, it is important for us to stick together despite your employer completely abandoning you.
Coast Guard officials could not be reached for immediate comment.
Coast Guard
Coast Guard helicopter totally forgot why it came out here in the first place
TAMPA, Fla. – A Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter has completely forgot why it flew all the way out here in the middle of the ocean after it was launched from Air Station Clearwater this morning to respond to the search and rescue notification, sources confirmed today.
"I knew I flew out here for something," exclaimed Lt. Brandon Rivera- González. "I'm pretty sure it was for a person in the water, or was it a boat taking on water? … oh man, I hate when this happens." The pilot proceeded to retrace their steps trying to recall what it was they were searching for in the first place.
Air Station Clearwater launched its helicopter this morning for a search and rescue case 13 nautical miles offshore in response to a distress call or something. It is not exactly clear. Coast Guard Sector Hampton Roads Command Center was contacted by the helicopter to reassess the situation and remind them of their mission. When contacted, the watch stander on duty shrugged and mumbled, "Uhh I don't know."
The Coast Guard proceeded to commence a search pattern that resembled a circle and then a triangle, which gradually became an aimless squiggle in the middle of the ocean. Coast Guard Atlantic Area policy states that if a helicopter is to forget why it's searching in the first place, the helicopter is to just look for stuff and things.
At press time, sources confirmed that when the helicopter touched down at a local airport for lunch, they suddenly remembered what they were searching for.
"Oooh yeah!" exclaimed Rivera-González, "We were supposed to look for some missing guy with an orange kayak … or was it green?"
Coast Guard
Whale gives Coast Guard cutter 'the fin' after being cut off
BERING SEA — A disgruntled humpback whale returning from his migration journey has reportedly flipped the Coast Guard Cutter Munro 'the fin' in response to a near miss with the large sea mammal, sources confirm today.
"Learn how to sail you fuckin' psychos," said the 40-year old sea mammal, acknowledging that he has not seen such amateur navigation since he was a calf.
"There I was just minding my own business when suddenly WHAM here comes this white-ass mother fucker out of nowhere." exclaimed the humpback. "They act like they own the ocean! Assholes."
The cutter recently completed it's fisheries patrol in the Bering Sea when it came mere inches away from striking the whale. Witnesses believe the combination of a newly recruited seaman at the helm and an ensign who is a freshly qualified officer of the deck was the main cause of this careless near-casualty.
"Use your turn signals too you inconsiderate asshats!" the angry marine animal yelled. "I'm a whale, not a psychic."
The gray-finned mammal also made sure to write down the Coast Guard boat's hull number and call the agency's complaint hotline with a heated 5-minute-long moan.
"I swear to God if those jerk-offs disrespect me again I'm going to jump out of the water and show them my junk," he added.
Coast Guard
Coast Guard begins reselling seized cocaine amid government shutdown
SAN DIEGO — With the Coast Guard being the only branch of the military whose members may go without during the current government shutdown, the service has decided to resell the nearly $1 billion dollars worth of cocaine seized in the past six months to supplement pay for the 42,000 men and women on active duty.
"We doubt legislation will be passed by Friday, Dec. 28, which will keep us from getting our scheduled pay check for 31 Dec.," Chief Warrant Officer Kevin Francescon said in a statement. "However, we have a shit ton of drugs. And if we can capture it, we damn well can sell it back for twice the price to the right buyers."
With Coast Guardsman needing to pay mortgages, rent, food, and travel expenses, the service weighed various options to cover the services many costs, such as a GoFundMe campaign, mandatory intermittent fasting, bread-lines at military galleys, and turning the Coast Guard's small boats into party boats and their cutters into cruise liners.
Officials said that since the Coast Guard was the only part of the military under the Department of Homeland Security, it left them as the only military service not being paid as other branches continued to receive funding during the shutdown. Nevertheless, those other services don't have over 20 tons of pure uncut cocaine in storage to sell to the highest bidder, according to multiple sources.
Besides the federal drug sale, Navy Federal Credit Union has announced a relief program offering a zero-interest loan to qualified affected members, while USAA has offered a free sponsored coffee mug to use while members panhandle outside of all Coast Guard bases.
On Friday, Trump threatened Congress with continuing the shutdown if lawmakers refused to fund $5 billion for the border wall, and said that since the Coast Guard's motto is "Always Ready," why weren't they ready for this?
Nevertheless, the Coast Guard remains in good spirits though and according to Pamatian, "If we run out of blow we can always sell all the marijuana we captured. You think we just burn it?"
Coast Guard
Border Wall to be constructed out of unfinished Coast Guard cutters
EL PASO, Texas — Federal authorities have awarded over 30 unfinished Coast Guard cutters to a Texas company to build 12 miles of wall along the U.S.-Mexico border in the Chihuahuita area, sources confirm today.
Texas contractor FLURP Inc. will begin construction of a 418-foot reinforced steel levee wall in January in the agency's El Paso region using remaining parts and materials from unfinished and unneeded boats, Coast Guard representatives told reporters. The company also will use the money saved from building more Coast Guard vessels to dig a sick moat with alligators and build a super cool draw bridge.
President Donald Trump has promised that the Coast Guard cutters on the border will provide an impenetrable defense against all aspects of illegal immigration and shot down questions of migrants using boats to cross.
"Shut your mouth!" the president said, pointing at a reporter. "They can't get here on boats. You think those rapists and murders can afford a yacht?"
The section will be the first of Trump's border barriers in the valley, which is considered one of the busiest corridors for illegal crossings. Other areas have been completed with remnants of discarded F-35 parts.
"The wall will be comprised of several security layers: a broken flight deck camera system, miles and miles of rusted steel peppered with white and red paint, and guard towers built out of discarded non-skid," Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told reporters. "We're also looking at utilizing pursuit boats stacked on top of one another that we otherwise would have used to interdict drug traffickers and a bunch of helicopter blades on top of the wall from Coast Guard search and rescue helicopters."
Coast Guard representatives agreed with the decision and said they've been doing fine fine with what they already have.
"Considering how often these boats leak, it might be the best idea to place these things along the border," said Capt. Barry Hughes.
"These invaders will be so disappointed once they see this massive impenetrable wall of badassness," Texas resident and border militia founder Jamie Kearney told reporters. "I mean, how else can they get across our border? I literally can think of no other way of these assholes can get to America. I think we won!"
Army to name new attack helicopter after Elizabeth Warren
134 percent of Marines arrested in nationwide ASVAB cheating scam
Green Beret fights off cougar at local bar
Parents bribe service academies to not accept their children's applications
Russians training pudgy, tattooed honeypots to target enlisted
Lieutenant goes missing after chewing out command sergeant major
Trump enjoyed Vietnam trip, unsure why McCain complained so much
John Walker Lindh killed in drone strike moments after release
Platoon Sergeant Claims 38 Soldiers On His Tax Return
Senator Heroically Saves Obsolete Program, 20,000 Coincidental Jobs In His State
Advanced Weapons Tested For Destroyer That Will Never Destroy Anything
New ISIS Propaganda Video Claims American Colors Do Run
Okinawa Approves New Marine Air Station On Unstable Volcanic Island
Marine One Crew Wishes President Would Shut the F— Up Already
Base-Wide Alert After ISIS Breaks Into Soldier's Car
American-Born ISIS Recruit Beheaded For Calling Cadence
We didn't want to invite John Walker Lindh to our Memorial Day party, but his potato salad is so damn delicious
Opinion: Once again, my shithead husband will be deployed for the birth of our child
Alabama National Guardsman charged after aborting unplanned mission
John Walker Lindh killed in drone strike moments after release
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Find Our Latest Video Reviews on YouTube!
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Monday January 12, 2009 12:06 pm
ASUS Eee Keyboard/Browser
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: CES, CES 2009, Design, Internet, PC / Laptop, Peripherals, Wireless / WiFi
Imagine a keyboard PC with a 5-inch touchscreen built in. That's exactly what Asus did with their Eee, unveiled at the recent CES. The screen can be used for browsing while the keyboard itself can be used to stream audio and video when attached to a TV or other screen with built-in wireless HDMI. At a weight of under 1KG, it also features a 1.6GHz Intel Atom microprocessor, 1GB DDR2 DRam, Windows XP Home and either 16 or 32 GB storage. Look for the Asus Eee around September of this year.
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It's getting really hard to look at the distorted rhetoric of today's debate about public schools and NOT see it in the same whorish light as other political discussions of the day. Just as we're being stoked with down-is-up claims that tax cuts balance government budgets and giving more money to rich people creates jobs, much of what we hear in the conversation about our nation's schools reflects the same sort of pretzeled logic where words are turned on their heads and factual evidence is thrown to the wind.
"A set of stock phrases, sound bites, and buzzwords has come to dominate the public discourse on education," Sean Cavanagh recently observed in the professional trade newspaper Education Week. And although all involved in the debate about our nation's schools purport to be pushing what's best for "the children," it's hard to believe – after disassembling all the verbiage being thrown around – that something much more cynical isn't afoot.
Take the term "reform," for instance. As Cavanagh explains, the word is "summoned reflexively, it often seems, by elected officials and advocates who speak a shared, accepted language." And those who consider themselves to be the "reformers," tend to portray themselves as battling a "status quo" that is often identified with teachers' unions or just "the education establishment." "The rhetoric," Cavanagh explains, "tends to divide the world in two: between those who favor 'reform' and those who don't."
"References to 'reform' and 'status quo' fill policy papers churned out by advocacy groups and opinion pieces from newspaper editorial boards," Cavanagh elaborates, "as well as the remarks of forceful and charismatic advocates, such as former District of Columbia Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee."
Arrayed under the reformist banner is an agreed-upon policy agenda that tends to include expanding charter schools, evaluating schools and teachers based on high-stakes test scores, standardizing curriculum, recruiting nontraditional teachers, and sanctioning and closing schools that don't meet specific performance benchmarks. But what's immediately puzzling about this self-proclaimed "reform" movement is that the policies it seeks to enforce have been, since the last time Federal education policy was revised, the law of the land. And they have been for the past ten years since the passage of that legislation, known as No Child Left Behind.
Furthermore, this nation's leaders, arguably the most powerful people in the world, in the cockpits of control in Washington DC and state capitals and legislatures – from President Obama and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to state governors such as Chris Christie and Scott Walker – have donned this mantle of being "reformists" battling the "establishment."
And topping it all off, one of the richest men in the world as well as an array of extremely wealthy foundations have also taken up the brave "reform" cause. So rather than being an "anti-establishment" crowd, reformists, for all intent and purpose, seem to be the establishment.
And who is the "Goliath" that these upstart "Davids" want to take on? It appears to be a bunch of little people who happen to disagree with them. And they appear to have some good reasons.
Many of the ideas that are on the reformists agenda – ideas that have been the law of the land for a decade at least – don't seem to be panning out too well. As veteran education journalist Ron Wolk recently commented, all these "years of unprecedented effort and enormous expenditures has not improved student performance, reduced the dropout rate, or closed the achievement gap."
Charter schools, for instance, don't appear to do any better – and in fact may do worse – than public schools in increasing student achievement. Paying teachers more money if they happen to increase student test scores may actually hurt student achievement. And teachers who come from alternative pathways to the classroom don't seem to stay around for very long
People at the levers of power in DC and elsewhere continue to maintain that "reforms" are going to take more time. But people who have their ears closest to the ground are skeptical. Although it's widely reported that classroom teachers are less than pleased with the testing and targets enforced not only in NCLB but also the Obama-Duncan Blueprint, school board members as well don't share the interests of the "reformists." In fact, a recent survey of the local officials elected to direct our community schools found very little enthusiasm for the most popular top-down mandates.
Forty percent of the school board members surveyed attached little or no importance to recruiting nontraditional teachers, and more than 50 percent felt that way about increasing within-district school choice. The report also found that 60 percent said the same about a year-round school calendar, and more than 80 percent put little stock in the creation of new charter schools to promote student achievement.
Nearly 90 percent of the school board members surveyed also said that student success needs to be broadened to include more factors than academic achievement.
And it's not just teachers and school board members who are wondering whether "everything" that we claim to know about education reform is really wrong.
Last week's first-ever International Summit on Teaching, convened in New York City, got the attention of Linda Darling-Hammond and many others because it "showed perhaps more clearly than ever that the United States has been pursuing an approach to teaching almost diametrically opposed to that pursued by the highest-achieving nations."
As Darling-Hammond observed, in nations such as Finland and Singapore, that lead the world in international comparisons of student achievement, there is "no teacher-bashing, no discussion of removing collective bargaining rights, no proposals for reducing preparation for teaching, no discussion of closing schools or firing bad teachers, and no proposals for ranking teachers based on their students' test scores."
Echoing this very theme – that current education policies in the US are horribly out of step with countries that lead the world in achievement – a new study released this week enumerated (pdf) the best educational practices from around the world, only one of which – high standards – appears on the national agenda coming from DC. The most glaring difference was on the issue of how our country treats educators. While our country seems preoccupied with how we can pay them less, leading countries expend "substantial amounts of time and money to nurture and develop the talents and leadership abilities of teachers and principals".
Nevertheless, despite all the evidence otherwise, the reformist agenda for educational policy rolls along unquestioned in the media.
But whether or not you agree with the message of school reform, it's time to hold these messengers to higher standards. Anyone who cares about public schools or who attempts to report on them needs to make these powerful proponents of questionable policies come out from behind the empty rhetoric of school reform. Anyone making pronouncements on education that prove to be based on questionable claims needs to be questioned about their real intentions. And "being for the kids" doesn't count.


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DaddyCarl necesitaba un nuevo diseño de página web y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 36 diseños de 6 diseñadores freelance.
Daddyhunt is the largest social network, personals, and dating site for men over 40 (and their admirers). Our mission is to celebrate older gay men and to create a healthy, fun alternative to meat-market websites.
Daddyhunt is experimenting with new designs for our homepage to see which one users find the most enticing. We'd like you to try your hand at designing two different alternatives for us to use. Please visit our site, http://www.daddyhunt.com, to get a sense of our site design so that your design will be compatible with the general color scheme and look of our site.
While our site welcomes men of all ages, our primary target is gay men over 40. Our visitors are men who prize masculinity, maturity, and natural looks over sculpted abs and perfect eyebrows.
While many of our visitors will be familiar with other dating sites, we also wish to welcome visitors who have never tried a personals site before. We want these designs to be welcoming, friendly, and easy-to-follow for our less web-savvy visitors.
Both versions should contain the following elements:
* A sample testimonial: "I got tired of the meat-market drama, so I tried Daddyhunt. I'd wondered where all the real men were - now I know!" -- veinyboy, 31
* Total userbase population (202,368) and online now (3,657)
* Our logo
* The tagline "Meet Real Men of ALL Ages in San Francisco!"
* A simple login link
* A powerful image of a hot guy or couple (some are attached)
1. QUICK SEARCH - This version would focus on getting visitors to try a sample profile search. It should have the following fields (in addition to the ones above):
* Search box with:
...* "I'm looking for " dropdown (Daddies/Hunters)
... * Country dropdown
... * State/Province Dropdown
* A signup link
* 4 or 5 sample profile pictures with usernames
A few examples of dating sites with a "preview search" focus are:
* http://www.outpersonals.com/
* http://www.match.com
* http://www.singlesnet.com
2. QUICK SIGNUP - This version would focus on encouraging the user to sign up right from the front page. It should have the following fields (in addition to the ones above):
* Sign up box with:
... * Username
... * Email
... * Password
... * Submit button
* 10 - 20 sample profile pictures with usernames
A few good examples of "fast join" dating site pages are:
* http://www.sixsingles.com/
* http://www.zoosk.com/
* http://www.fling.com


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Pre Fabricated Houses Metal Manufacturer
- August 11, 2017
- Posted by: admin
- Category:
Polycarbonate multiwall sheets are substantially superior to all the conventional skylight materials in almost all areas of comparison. The following comparison chart will provide you a better insight on its superiority:
Multiwall Sheets
Multiwall sheets, as their name suggests are hollow or fluted polycarbonate sheets which have two thin walls separated by vertical ribs. The hollow air gap provides excellent thermal insulation property and the sheets are extremely light weight. The vertical ribs also provide superb rigidity to these sheets. Multiwall sheets are a product of choice for atria, vaulted skylights, canopies, awnings and large skylight domes in commercial areas. These sheets provide excellent economic value for such applications. Multiwall sheets are available in clear, tints and opal white variants. The thickness range is as follows: 4mm, 6mm, 8mm, 10mm, 10mm Triple wall & 16mm Triple wall.
The excellent thermal insulation of polycarbonate multi-wall structured sheeting results from the air cells inside the hollow structure of the sheet. It has a much higher insulating ability than single walled, corrugated, or solid flat sheets. It offers lower heat loss (or gain), and therefore – higher energy efficiency. Multi-wall structured sheeting, with its co-extruded UV protective layer, will resist the effects of solar UV radiation.


text:
An audiometry exam tests your ability to hear sounds. Sounds vary based on their loudness (intensity) and the speed of sound wave vibrations (tone).
Hearing occurs when sound waves stimulate the nerves of the inner ear. The sound then travels along nerve pathways to the brain.
Sound waves can travel to the inner ear through the ear canal, eardrum, and bones of the middle ear (air conduction). They can also pass through the bones around and behind the ear (bone conduction).
The INTENSITY of sound is measured in decibels (dB):
Sounds greater than 85 dB can cause hearing loss after a few hours. Louder sounds can cause immediate pain, and hearing loss can develop in a very short time.
The TONE of sound is measured in cycles per second (cps) or Hertz:
The normal range of human hearing is about 20 Hz - 20,000 Hz. Some animals can hear up to 50,000 Hz. Human speech is usually 500 - 3,000 Hz.
Audiometry; Hearing test; Audiography (audiogram)
The first steps are to see whether you need an audiogram. The procedure most often involves blocking one ear at a time and checking your ability to hear whispers, spoken words, or the sound of a ticking watch.
A tuning fork may be used. The tuning fork is tapped and held in the air on each side of the head to test the ability to hear by air conduction. It is tapped and placed against the mastoid bone behind each ear to test bone conduction.
Audiometry provides a more precise measurement of hearing. For this test, you wear earphones attached to the audiometer. Pure tones of controlled intensity are delivered to one ear at a time. You are will be asked to raise a hand, press a button, or otherwise indicate when you hear a sound.
The minimum intensity (volume) required to hear each tone is graphed. A device called a bone oscillator is placed against the bone behind each ear (mastoid bone) to test bone conduction.
No special steps are needed.
There is no discomfort. The length of time varies. An initial screening may take about 5 to 10 minutes. Detailed audiometry may take about 1 hour.
This test can detect hearing loss at an early stage. It may also be used when you have hearing problems from any cause.
Common causes of hearing loss include:
There are many kinds and degrees of hearing loss. In some types, you only lose the ability to hear high or low tones, or you lose only air or bone conduction. The inability to hear pure tones below 25 dB indicates some hearing loss.
The amount and type of hearing loss may give clues to the cause, and chances of recovering your hearing.
The following conditions may affect test results:
There is no risk.
There are many kinds of hearing function tests. In simple screenings, the health care provider will make a loud noise and watch to see if it startles you. Detailed screenings include brainstem auditory evoked response testing (BAER). This test uses an electroencephalogram to detect brain wave activity when sounds are made.
Another hearing test called otoacoustic emission testing (OAE) can be used in very young children (such as newborns).
Kileny PR, Zwolan TA. Diagnostic audiology. In: Cummings CW, Flint PW, Haughey BH, et al, eds. Otolaryngology: Head & Neck Surgery. 5th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Mosby Elsevier; 2010:chap 133.
Norton SJ, Bhama PK, Perkins JA. Early detection and diagnosis of infant hearing impairment. In: Cummings CW, Flint PW, Haughey BH, et al, eds. Otolaryngology: Head & Neck Surgery. 5th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Mosby Elsevier; 2010:chap 190.


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I keep looking at this 57 year old sign and my brain just kind of shuts down. The world has changed just over the span of my life, and in this case…not for the better.
(via Mike the Mad Biologist)
I keep looking at this 57 year old sign and my brain just kind of shuts down. The world has changed just over the span of my life, and in this case…not for the better.
(via Mike the Mad Biologist)
Holms says
Well… my distant understanding of the conservative / oppressive vote is that it always existed, but swapped parties some 40 years ago. Therefore the Republican decline is matched by the Democrat improvement, making it somewhat zero-sum.
eigenperson says
Well, there's good news: we still have over 66,000,000 employed.
outaworkee, back at work for now. says
I used to be a Republican in the 70's. More for progress and encouraging people to move up. That party has left the building, and maybe even reality.
Azuma Hazuki says
Holms has it right: from the time of Lincoln until approximately Eisenhower I'd have been a proud Republican. From Eisenhower to, let's say, George H. Bush, a proud Democrat.
Now I just want them all to die in a meteor strike. >< Politicians have no accountability or morals anymore, and the writing was on the wall when Nixon was pardoned.
ledasmom says
Obviously, the problem is that we have insufficient war.
(writ sarcastic)
A. Noyd says
Greatest prosperity without war? What does that even mean?
Dick the Damned says
Okay, so what is the elephant in the room signifying?
ifthethunderdontgetya says
Holms, we have no labor party anymore. Not since the neoliberals took over the Democratic party. We're down to negative sum.
Remember, it was G.H.W. Bush who proposed NAFTA, and Bill Clinton who got it passed. Similarly, Little Boots proposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (aka NAFTA on steroids).
Guess who is now busting his comfortable shoes trying to get the TPP passed?
Jonathan, der Ewige Noobe says
Azuma @4
With the exception of race, every single aspect of the current social and political conflict played out in perfect miniature two thousand years ago. The same people, the same personalities, the same rhetoric–the conservative oligarchs nobly defending the meritocracy and the freedom and justice that it stood for, the wicked populist demagogues cynically manipulating the know-nothing hoi polloi in brazen attempts at undermining democracy to set themselves up as kings…
At least, that's how history recorded it. Because guess who won back then? Guess who always wins?
Gaius and Tiberius Gracchus: Dead.
Gaius Marius: Dead
Gaius Julius Caesar: Dead.
Wat Tyler: Dead.
Huey Long: Dead.
Mohandas Gandhi: Dead.
Martin Luther King: Dead.
Funny how things always turn out that way.
Sili says
Southern Strategy.
scimaths says
"free working men and women produce more and consume more"
Interesting, given the problems of over-consumption that this was being so explicitly held up as a good thing.
gsciacca says
The 1956 Republican President was Eisenhower and the South voted Democratic (but not Texas or Florida). Maybe things will turn around again in another 57 years.
penumbra says
Makes one's head spin. Now they're using the deplorable "southern strategy". Oh, and since the '80s "Keynes" is a swear word.
Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says
"free working men and women produce more and consume more"
Interesting, given the problems of over-consumption that this was being so explicitly held up as a good thing.
I take it as spending more, that is more money circulating.
Lynna, OM says
As usual, Paul Krugman nailed the facts in discussing respect for workers, economic changes, and the Republican blind spot(s) that causes so much legislative trouble.
[excerpts below are from this NY Times article
… what's unimaginable now is that Congress would unanimously offer even an empty gesture of support for workers' dignity [referring to the establishment of "Labor Day"]. For the fact is that many of today's politicians can't even bring themselves to fake respect for ordinary working Americans.
Consider, for example, how Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, marked Labor Day last year: with a Twitter post declaring "Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned their own success." Yep, he saw Labor Day as an occasion to honor business owners.
…Time was when their [conservatives] ire was directed at bums on welfare. But even at the program's peak, the number of Americans on "welfare" — Aid to Families With Dependent Children — never exceeded about 5 percent of the population. And that program's far less generous successor, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, reaches less than 2 percent of Americans. …
How can someone who works for a living be considered the moral equivalent of a bum on welfare? Well, part of the answer is that many people on the right engage in word games: they talk about how someone doesn't pay income taxes, and hope that their listeners fail to notice the word "income" and forget about all the other taxes lower-income working Americans pay.
… if you consider someone who works hard trying to make ends meet, but also gets some help from the government, a "taker," you're going to have contempt for a very large number of American workers and their families….
… economic inequality has soared over the past few decades, and while a handful of people have stratospheric incomes, a far larger number of Americans find that no matter how hard they work, they can't afford the basics of a middle-class existence — health insurance in particular, but even putting food on the table can be a problem. Saying that they can use some help shouldn't make us think any less of them, and it certainly shouldn't reduce the respect we grant to anyone who works hard and plays by the rules.
But obviously that's not the way everyone sees it. In particular, there are evidently a lot of wealthy people in America who consider anyone who isn't wealthy a loser — an attitude that has clearly gotten stronger as the gap between the 1 percent and everyone else has widened. And such people have a lot of friends in Washington. …
PZ Myers says
#9: I'd really be surprised if the Gracchi and Caesar were still alive.
laurentweppe says
As usual, Paul Krugman nailed the facts in discussing respect for workers, economic changes, and the Republican blind spot(s) that causes so much legislative trouble.
It's not a blindspot: is a symptom of decadence: parasitic dynasts tend to become increasingly inept as generations passes: at first they're smart enough to realize that their long term survival demands a certain amount of compromise with the plebs: that's when you get stuff like fordism (Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible), then they start believing that it's possible to con the hoi polloi into voting for keping the economic competition rigged ad vitam æternam : that's when you get demagogues talking about the Welfare Queens Conspiracy, and then, when the con starts to show signs that its not working as well and as undyingly as they thought, they convince themselves that the plebs already wants to commit a class based genocide and that the only thing that can protect them is to build an army of uniformed thugs and then threaten to let them loose on the populace to keep it obedient. Right now you're between step two and three, Europe is still somewhere between step one and two (for how long…?) and Syria is what happens after step three
wilsim says
#9 I was having a good day until you had to go and intrude on my reality with some horror, er, um, I mean history.
Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) says
Also, it was the 50s and the republicans acknowledged working women? O.o
geral says
How far we've fallen.
AsqJames says
#9: I'd really be surprised if the Gracchi and Caesar were still alive.
But not Wat Tyler?
anthrosciguy says
Young Republicans, that poster is from the good old days you're always saying you want to get back to. Start by embracing each point on the poster, and while you're at it start agitating for a return to the tax rates in place at the time of the poster.
Alyosha says
#6 A. Noyd,
Lest we forget that FDR was the only US President to shore up the economy and boost employment with a war…
Ha! Not waging war to artificially stimulate the economy USED to be a Republican brag.
AND the guy who warned the States against the influence of the military-industrial complex was the one who helped defeat the hordes your current President is so often compared to, WAS a Republican himself.
It makes sense now. As you were.
PZ Myers says
I expect Wat Tyler to show up here again any day now.
A. Noyd says
It's just, I'm trying to wrap my head around where they think America's prosperity comes from if not war. I guess the genocide of indigenous Americans and constant squabbles with other colonizers over borders and governing don't count?
Kagehi says
Here. Fixed it for you:
mildlymagnificent says
Interesting, given the problems of over-consumption that this was being so explicitly held up as a good thing.
But it's a recognition of where people were coming from. If you were 20 to 40 years old in 1956, you were either born during the Great Depression or you tried to get your first job then. Having a well paid job and not being subject to the make do and mend attitudes your parents forced you to live by when you were growing up would make 1956 America a truly wonderful place and time to be. (Unless you were one of the truly unlucky ones.)
Same thing for the non-wartime prosperity pointer. Many people see the manufacturing and other profitable activity supplying the combatants before the US became directly involved in WW2 as the only thing that got the US out of the depression in the first place. Having lots of jobs in factories going gangbusters producing consumer goods rather than munitions looks very rosy from that point of view in 1956.
anuran says
Holms, before you dislocate your arm patting yourself on the back consider it was the Democrats under FDR who made all those New Deal era labor and electoral reforms, Social Security, tamed the hideous financial sector, modernized the country with things like REP and TVA, actually got workers some rights and so on. The Republicans fought all of these tooth and nail.
Republicans such as the Mellons and Prescott Bush tried to stage a coup against Roosevelt to bring Fascist economic policies to the US. It was only because of Marine Corps General Smedley "Bulldog" Butler that they failed.
Menyambal --- flinging the squaler says
A war economy is basically the tax-and-spend that modern conservatives so decry. And yeah, a lot of people who lived through both think that WWII got the USA out of the Great Depression. A lot of Englanders will tell you that their economy went to shit as soon as that war ended. Put the two together, and WWII was the best economic news for some time.
Baktru says
Republicans? Celebrating Labour Day? I.. What? Where I come from Labour Day is for all intents and purposes the socialist national holiday!
laurentweppe says
Republicans such as the Mellons and Prescott Bush tried to stage a coup against Roosevelt to bring Fascist economic policies to the US. It was only because of Marine Corps General Smedley "Bulldog" Butler that they failed.
To be fair, their attempt was so badly planned that it would probably have failed even without the guy they wanted to use as a figure head ratting them out.
madscientist says
Well, back in the 1980s I suspected something must be going wrong since I seemed to agree more and more with William F. Buckley (though I never supported Reagan and Buckley was a great admirer and friend of the ol' geezer). It's so bad these days that Obama makes Reagan look good (and Dubbyah – well, he makes Pol Pot look good); I never would have imagined I'd say a president looked awful in comparison to Reagan.
dogofman says
It's kind of interesting that US of A's right wing party uses the same red colour that signifies socialist and communist parties in the rest of the world.
Holms says
anuran @ 28
Holms, before you dislocate your arm patting yourself on the back…
Are you just completely unaware of the fact that there is a thread going on right now that is alllllll about dialling down the pointless insults and general asshattery? That could have been said just as well – better, actually – without the weird condescension.
Also, where exactly was I even remotely self-congratulatory in my post? This hostility just seems to come so naturally to many here that it has come to be the default setting, whether warranted or not.
gussnarp says
It's true that the 1968 Presidential election marked a rather hard switch of political party identities in the U.S., but it is also true that the Republican party has tended to be very pro-big business since at least William McKinley (T.R. was a bit of an anomaly). So it's still surprising to find the Republican party supporting labor so openly and strongly. We can probably find some reasons to explain this though.
For one, that 1968 switch due to civil rights and the Southern Strategy has led to a great deal of political polarization. Most of the twentieth century prior to that was marked by Democrats and Republicans not really being that far apart.
But I think the real impetus behind this poster is something quite different. This was the height of the Red Scare, and labor was divided, some groups had been allied, to some extent, with the far left and socialism and communism, others opposed communism vehemently. During the Red Scare there was a purge, if you will, of pro-communist elements from organized American labor. The major unions, struggling for political influence and the support of their members, turned harshly against any potential communist sympathizers. Once that happened, having workers join organized labor put them in the anti-communist camp. Far better to have them in the AFL-CIO than floating out there unaffiliated and then joining the Wobblies or the commies. Combine that with the state of the parties pre-1968, where Republicans couldn't get a vote in the South, and with the huge growth of American manufacturing in the North where huge swaths of people had already joined unions, and it becomes a no brainer for the Republican Party to support organized labor.
All this is off the top of my head, and it's been a while since I've read labor history, so it would be instructive to see more detailed coverage of American labor during the red scare. Also, I hope you've found my inconsistent capitalization of terms entertaining, as I don't want to go back and fix it.
lpetrich says
Republicans being red and Democrats being blue is a historical accident — it dates from 2000. In previous decades, newscasters had used different colors, like Republicans blue and Democrats red.
As to the transformation of the Republican Party in recent decades, that party has become the party of Jefferson Davis, the only President of the Confederacy. Senator Trent Lott even went on record as stating pretty much that in 1984, and the rest of the party did not complain very much.
As to this Gilded Age II, I don't know how much longer it will last. I thought that the Occupy movement might be the beginning of the end of it, but it has been a flash in the pan.


text:
April 7, 2008
This feature originally ran in the Santa Barbara News-Press on Mar. 12.
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - The producers of "When Animals Attack" could save a lot of time and money on their next video. All they need to do is follow Mike Runkle around for a while.
Runkle, a libero-turned-setter-turned-outside hitter for the UCSB men's volleyball team, is part of the ultra-exclusive club of human beings who have experienced a shark attack (the International Shark Attack File cited only 71 attacks worldwide in 2007).
But his date with a dorsal fin at age 10, which left him with a skin graft and a large scar around his left shin, is not even the most freakish animal-related memento he carries with him.
Travel a few feet up to his shoulder, and you'll find evidence of another serious wound, this one caused by a land animal.
In the summer of 2006, Runkle was working construction in Montana, where his dad runs a fishing and hunting lodge near the remote town of Troy (pop. 958). Runkle was riding his dirt bike with a friend when a deer walked right in front of him. The bike t-boned the animal at approximately 35 mph, and Runkle went flying over the handlebars and skidding across the pavement.
Amazingly, the deer got up and scampered away. Runkle wasn't so lucky. His left labrum was torn and his shoulder was pulled completely clear of the socket.
"It was definitely the most excruciating pain I've ever felt in my life," he says.
It didn't go away that quickly, either.
Runkle and his buddy had to wait 20 minutes for Mike's dad to arrive with his truck. Troy doesn't have a hospital, so a dash to the town of Libby was in order. As if driving 20 miles with an arm falling off was not agonizing enough, sirens flashed and the crew was stopped for speeding.
The elder Runkle was forced to pull over and stay put until the unsympathetic policeman's son, an EMT, arrived to take Mike to the hospital (as if speeding in the boondocks of Montana was more dangerous than waiting to bleed to death on the side of the road).
Another 20 minutes passed, and the wounded Gaucho was en route once again. Overall, he estimates that his shoulder was completely out of its socket for two hours.
It almost makes the chomping he suffered while a little boy in Cocoa Beach, Fla. -- inflicted by either a bull or tiger shark, he says -- seem like a mosquito bite.
"He's like chum," said UCSB head coach Ken Preston with a chuckle.
But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and Runkle has gone from seeing no playing time last season to the starting lineup this year.
Originally recruited out of Santa Margarita High as a libero (he played nearly every position for Eagles), Runkle, a Law and Society major, had a hard time finding a spot on the court where he could help the Gauchos. He took a redshirt in '05, tallied five kills in three matches in '06, and was stuck behind a standout senior class in '07. At the end of that season, Runkle approached Preston with an idea: He wanted to be the backup setter for Max Klineman.
"My initial reaction was that he was a guy searching for something he could do for the team," said Preston. "He didn't have a lot of confidence as a hitter on the outside and understood that he was undersized (6-foot-2) and didn't jump incredibly high."
But Runkle had already proven himself to Preston off the court during a team retreat at El Capitan before last season.
"He's just a really personable guy. At the retreat he emerged as a guy who had a very sensible direction and an even keel. He had a quiet presence, but whenever he spoke people would listen," said Preston.
So Runkle got his wish and went in to run the offense whenever Klineman struggled early this season, and the junior set with confidence and efficiency when his name was called.
But the Gauchos had a bigger spot to fill than the backup setter position. The young team's attack was abysmal at times, with hitting averages sinking as low as .045 in a Jan. 4 loss to Northridge. The Gauchos broke the .300 mark only twice in their first two matches.
Preston was playing mix-n-match with his lineup, trying to find a combination that would lead to more consistency. He realized that returning All-American Theo Brunner needed to move back from the left to the middle, and that freshman leapfrog Jeff Menzel needed to play on the right side in order to develop into a worthy replacement for graduated superstar Evan Patak.
That left the left side in trouble. Mike Fisher had a nerve problem that sometimes left his hitting-hand numb. Freshman Trey Valbuena went down with a thumb injury. Phil Mathews was hot-and-cold.
Mike Runkle was ready.
"Anything the team needs," is what he told Preston when asked about giving the outside hitter position a try.
So Runkle gave it a shot, and it was a shot in the arm for the Gauchos. With Brunner back in stride bombing the middle and Menzel coming into his own as the team's ball-crusher on the right, all Runkle needed to do was be steady on the left.
"I didn't need to get a ton of kills. I just needed to be consistent, not make a lot of errors and pass well," he said.
And while a bad night here-and-there has left his cumulative hitting clip at a less-than-impressive .186, he has provided a sense of balance to the floor.
There have been, of course, standout performances.
He notched 10 kills and a .562 average in the first of a two-game series against Hawaii. The Gauchos completed the sweep the next night, when Runkle hit .391 with 12 kills. Then there was the four-game win over mighty UCLA, in which Runkle hit .429 with 15 kills and 11 digs.
He ranks fourth on the team in digs, blocks, and aces. Not bad for an undersized guy who looks more like a leftfielder than a left-side hitter.
And as an added benefit, Runkle's position change forced Preston to bring Vince DeVany out of his redshirt year to back up Klineman, and the freshman has been stellar in that role thus far.
Devany and Runkle will both start tonight when the No. 13 Gauchos (7-11, 5-9 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) host No. 10 USC (9-11, 6-8) at Rob Gym in a 7 p.m. match.
Both teams are fighting for a spot in the MPSF Tournament.
"We need this one big time," said Preston.
Just make sure Mike Runkle doesn't go to the zoo between then and now. He doesn't need another scar.


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Professor John R. Martin
Research Professor of National Security Studies (JIIM)
Area(s) of Expertise: Post-hostilities operations, counter-insurgency, training indigenous security forces, information operations, Army force structure, Regions: Korea, Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq
Professor John R. Martin joined the Strategic Studies Institute in mid-2009 and is the Institute's specialist in joint, interagency, intergovernmental and multinational issues. Professor Martin previously served at SSI from 2000 to 2004, serving as the Chairman of the Art of War Department and concurrently as the Institute's Deputy Director. Professor Martin was also a Visiting Professor at SSI in 2006 and 2007.
Professor Martin served in the U.S. Army for over thirty-one years, retiring as a Colonel. He served extensively in the Republic of Korea, primarily in tactical Aviation, but also with the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission and as commander of a liaison team with the Republic of Korea Army. He also possesses considerable experience in Washington, DC, where he worked on Army force structure, manning the force, the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter program and providing language training. While in the Army, Professor Martin was deployed operationally to Guam (1975: Operation New Life), Kosovo (1999: Task Force Falcon), Bosnia (1999-2000: SFOR), Afghanistan (2002: CJTF-180) and Iraq (2003: 0RHA/CPA; 2005: MNSTC-I, 2007: MNF-I).
Professor Martin was the Executive Editor of Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience. This major government report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction was published in early 2009 and analyzed the reconstruction of Iraq since 2003.
Professor Martin graduated with highest distinction from the College of Naval Command and Staff at the Naval War College, Newport, RI, in 1988. He is a 1996 graduate of the National War College and holds Master's Degrees in National Security Affairs from both institutions. Professor Martin also holds a Master's Degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, MD. He is a 1974 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY.
*The above information may not be current. It was current at the time when the individual worked for SSI or was published by SSI.
SSI books and monographs by Professor John R. Martin
Decisionmaking in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM: Removing Saddam Hussein by Force
March 22, 2010
Authored by Dr. Steven Metz. Edited by Professor John R. Martin.
The Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) is pleased to initiate its latest monograph series, Operation IRAQI FREEDOM Key Decisions. SSI started this project in an effort to give leaders of the U.S. Armed Forces some important insights into how military advice was provided to the Nation's civilian leadership during the many years—including the months before the invasion—of the war in Iraq. Dr. Metz starts this series with an impressive review of the decision to remove Saddam Hussein by force. The Strategic Studies Institute hopes that this and the succeeding monographs will generate debate on just how the United States made decisions—some of them disastrous—about Iraq. The resulting better understanding of the decisions should lead to strengthening of the processes—where appropriate—so that the military and civilian leadership forge better decisions in the future.
A Nation at War
February 05, 2007
Authored by Professor John R. Martin.
One of the basics of strategy is understanding the foe and the type of war in which a nation is involved. The Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) does not fit easily into the mold of war, but that is because of too much comparison with conventional wars; the Cold War may provide a better model. This report chronicles the panels and resulting papers from the Seventeenth Annual U.S. Army War College Strategy Conference, held at Carlisle Barracks, PA, in April 2006.
Defeating Terrorism: Strategic Issue Analyses
January 01, 2002
Edited by Professor John R. Martin.
Within only a few days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. Army War College initiated a series of short studies addressing strategic issues in the war on terrorism. This collection of essays analyzes a broad array of subjects of great strategic importance. This volume provides historical documentation of some of the advice given the military leadership in the early days of the war, but it also continues to be a source of solid strategic analysis as the war lengthens and perhaps broadens.
SSI articles, editorial, and briefs by Professor John R. Martin
A Death Knell for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
February 03, 2010
The Missing Debate
March 08, 2007
What should be Believed about Progress in Iraq?
October 01, 2003


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If you haven't been to Haystack Antiques in Bellevue, Washington,
you're missing out on one of the most magical and inspiring
vintage experiences in the Pacific Northwest!!!
Recently written-up in 425 Magazine, this premier antique mall is
a most unique addition to the growing, Bellevue landscape!
Check out the March/April edition, which
highlights Debbie Nordstrom's
fabulous shop on the
East side!!!
Some of the Pacific Northwest's premier vendors--known for
exciting, beautiful, eclectic, outrageous and
design-savvy merchandise show
at Haystack Antiques!!!
I'm not going to be a name-dropper here--I'd like you to visually
feast your eyes on just a small fraction of what awaits your
shopping pleasure!!! I'll be focusing on several
individual dealers in future posts.
So, if you've been putting off a visit to this AMAZING shop,
I hope I've inspired you to find your needle in a
Haystack . . . Antiques!!!! It's soooo
worth the effort to find this
shining gem!!!
They say a picture is worth a thousand words.
You'll be smitten when you walk in the door. It is *gaspingly*
gorgeously enticing, inviting, exciting . . . !!!!
Ormolulu is new to the landscape at Haystack Antiques.
It's an honor and a thrill to be among so many
extraordinarily talented vintage
Thanks again, Debbie Nordstrom, for your vision and
hard work . . . and including us in your
dreamworks at Haystack!!!
Grab a friend . . . or two . . . or three . . . and GET IN HERE!!!!!!
Happy Spring, Happy Everything!!!
xoxo - Debi


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Google Glass will undoubtedly change how people consume information, share content on the Internet, and interact with the world around them.
But one of the biggest issues to consider, while the concept of Glass is still relatively new to people, is privacy, James Bareham recently wrote in a forum on The Verge.
By now, we're all used to people taking photos and shooting videos on their mobile devices.
With a mobile phone or tablet, it's obvious if someone is recording because they have to hold up the device. But with Glass, it will be nearly impossible to know whether or not someone is taking photos or capturing video.
"The issue is not whether Glass users WILL be shooting surreptitiously; the issue is that they CAN," Bareham writes. "And that's potentially a real problem; wearing Google Glass could be banned from many public and government places."
That's why there will be a need for some type of "Glass etiquette," The Verge's Josh Topolsky wrote in his review of Glass.
Otherwise, when someone walks into a restaurant wearing Glass, for example, non-Glass users may feel uncomfortable because they may think they're being recorded.
"In many circumstances, the only way to convince authorities or the general public that you're NOT recording anything with your Google Glass device will be to take it/them off," Bareham writes. "And then you can't use it for anything else. You'll be back to using your phone."
Granted, there is a light that goes on when you're recording with Glass, but as Topolsky notes in his review, he got the feeling that most people didn't know what they were looking at. Obviously, this will change as more people become familiar with Google Glass.
Get the latest Google stock price here.


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PARIS (Reuters) - France's health regulator said on Thursday it would comply with the European Commission if it ruled that Bayer acne pill Diane 35 and its generic versions were safe to use in some cases.
However, it added it would keep sales of the treatment on hold until then.
France is the only EU country where sales of the treatment were suspended earlier this year after four deaths over the past 25 years were linked to its use.
Diane 35 reduces acne by regulating hormones and blocking ovulation, and is often prescribed as a contraceptive even though it is not approved for this use.
Following a formal safety review, conducted at the request of French authorities, the European Medicines Agency concluded earlier this month that the benefits of Diane 35 outweighed the risks - provided measures were taken to minimize the chance of blood clots forming in veins and arteries.
These recommendations were endorsed on Thursday by a European Union body representing EU member states and will be sent to the European Commission, which will adopt a legally binding decision in the coming weeks.
The French government in January also stopped reimbursing prescription costs of third and fourth-generation birth-control pills and restricted their use after a woman sued Bayer over alleged side effects.
Reporting by Elena Berton; Editing by Lionel Laurent


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Message Board
Jorge Semprun Message Board
Talk about the novels, new and used books that Semprun has written!
Author Semprun's Book Reviews
The Long Voyage
The Long Voyage tells the story of a five day train ride to a German concentration camp near Weimar in the winter of 1943. Manuel, the narrator, is a captured member of the resistance. He finds himself jammed into a railcar with 119 other prisoners pressed up against one another so that there is barely room to breathe. Manuel tells the story of the journey from sixteen years after the event. He fills it with flashbacks and flashforwards: his child...


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In addition to entering formulas that perform basic math — such as adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing — you can use a vast library of built-in worksheet functions in Microsoft Excel to do much more.
You can use these functions to return information, such as:
Getting the current date.
Finding the number of characters in a cell.
Manipulating text; for example, converting "hello" to "Hello" or even "HELLO."
Calculating a loan payment.
Testing the contents of two cells to see which is larger or if they are identical.
Start typing in a cell
Choose a function and fill in its arguments
Enter one or more arguments after the opening parenthesis, if necessary. An argument is a piece of information that the function uses. Excel shows you what type of information you should enter as an argument. Sometimes it's a number, sometimes it's text, and sometimes it's a reference to another cell.
For example, the ABS function requires one number as its argument. The UPPER function (which converts any lowercase text to uppercase text) requires one string of text as its argument. The PI function requires no arguments, because it simply returns the value of pi (3.14159...).
Complete the formula and see the results
Excel adds the closing parenthesis for you, and the cell shows the result of the function that you used in the formula. Select the cell and look at the formula bar to view the formula.
Next steps
Try creating formulas that use nested functions; that is, a formula that uses one function and then uses the result of that in another function.
Try using some functions that you've never used before and see if they return the values you expect.


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France is a Feast Extended!
Napa Valley Museum Yountville has announced an extension of the exhibition, due to extraordinary popular demand, through Sunday May 20, 2018. Through intimate and compelling photographs taken by her husband Paul Child, a gifted photographer, France is a Feast documents how Julia Child first discovered French cooking and the French way of life. (Extended from February 18, 2018) The exhibition has added a popular audio tour with personal stories from acclaimed authors and chefs including Jacques Pépin, Cindy Pawlcyn, Thomas Keller and Julia and Jacques television producer, Susie Heller – plus the voice of Julia herself. Alex Prud'homme, grand-nephew of Paul Child and co-writer of Julia's best-selling memoir "My Life in France," and co-author of the newly released book, "France is a Feast," recounts personal experiences growing up with Julia and husband, Paul. Limited edition prints and posters for sale benefit the Museum.Tickets