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Bill Clinton loves toshop. On a March day in an elegant crafts store in Lima, the Peruvian capital, he hunted for presents for his wife and the women on his staff back home. He had given a speech at a university earlier and just came from a ceremony kicking off a program to help impoverished Peruvians. Now he was eyeing a necklace with a green stone amulet.
Standing all by himself, the former president of the United States moved his eyes methodically across shelves of wooden carvings, jewelry and sculptures as he searched for something distinctive to bring his wife. "She used to look forward to me coming home from wherever I've been," he mused with a laugh. "Now I'm afraid I'll be second fiddle to whatever world leader she's just met."
Hillary Rodham Clinton, the secretary of state, had in fact just returned home from a trip to Mexico, then rushed to the White House to help announce a new war strategy. "I saw her on CNN standing behind the president talking about Afghanistan," her husband said. "Then she went to Dallas for something. I don't know why."
He spotted a turquoise bracelet. "Hillary likes turquoise," he noted as he fingered the piece.
He decided to buy it. In between his globe-trotting philanthropy, speech making and legacy burnishing, Clinton is a regular at crafts stores around the world and can tell you the best ones in Hong Kong or Arusha. "They're a great thing," he said. "If all of your staff are women and all of your family are women, you just buy what you like and bring them home and then figure out who to give them to."
The store owner showed him a selection of shoulder bags for women. Clinton selected one he thought would be great for his friend, Frank Giustra, the Canadian mining mogul, to give to Giustra's girlfriend. Clinton said he likes picking out gifts for his friends' wives and girlfriends.Continue reading the main story
After a half-hour, he slipped back into his motorcade and headed to the Restaurant Huaca Pucllana, adjacent to pre-Incan ruins dating back 1,500 years. Clinton settled into a seat at a long table that included his traveling party: Giustra, a half-dozen aides, some local advance people and me.
He seemed a little tired, having flown overnight to Peru from New York before plunging into a full day of activities. More than eight years after leaving office and nearly five years after an open-heart operation, Clinton at 62 looks older than the boy president who dominated American politics in the 1990s, but he remains more robust than most men his age and full of intellectual energy. His left hand trembled a little bit during dinner, as it tends to do late in the day. It worried him enough at one point that he had himself tested for Parkinson's disease, but the results came back negative; his doctor says he has just signed too many autographs over the years. When I mentioned that he had to get hearing aids during his White House tenure because of the effects of too many campaign rallies, he cheerfully pulled out the latest equipment from his ear and showed off how sleek and virtually invisible it was.
By the end of a three-day jaunt through Peru and Colombia to check up on programs sponsored by the William J. Clinton Foundation, I realized how familiar the trip felt — not because it resembled the travels he made as president but because it resembled the ones Hillary Clinton made as first lady. As a White House correspondent at the time, I accompanied her to Africa, Europe and Latin America. She typically would make a courtesy stop at a palace for a brief meeting with the head of state, but the trips were built around round-table discussions or visits to far-off villages to explore how people confronted the challenges of their world. That's what Bill Clinton was doing now. The next day he would wake up in Lima, fly to Barranquilla on Colombia's northern coast and then to Medellín before settling into a hotel in Cartagena. When I later made the observation to him, he said with a laugh, "We've reversed roles."
One day during the trip, he was standing on an airport tarmac in Colombia, struggling with the mobile telephone pressed to his ear. "The only bad thing about Hillary's being secretary of state," he groused good-naturedly, "is I can't always get hold of her. They changed all her phone numbers, and her phone doesn't work inside the State Department building."
Clinton has now spent more time as a former president than he did as president, a point he said he made to Hillary when they arrived home after President Barack Obama's inauguration. "I looked at her and I said, 'You realize we've now been out of the White House longer than we were in it.' "
The advent of a new Democratic administration, with his wife in the top cabinet slot, has opened a new chapter in the eventful life of the nation's 42nd president. No longer in exile, yet not exactly in the inner circle, Clinton is trying to define his role and find his place in the Age of Obama. He agreed to some limits on his activities to satisfy the good-government advocates around Obama, but he is still traveling the globe, pushing his favorite philanthropic programs, collecting six-figure checks for speeches, dining with foreign leaders and in his own way speaking for America again. A couple of weeks ago, he agreed to serve as the United Nations special envoy to Haiti.
At the same time, he is trying to respect a certain line with the new administration. He sends memos occasionally to the national-security adviser, Jim Jones. He talks with Vice President Joe Biden perhaps once a week and less frequently with former aides like Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers and Carol Browner, who all now hold high positions in Obama's White House. But he leaves Obama alone. When I visited Clinton at his office in Harlem last month, he said he had talked with Obama only once since the inauguration and could not remember what about. "I try to stay out of their way," he told me. "I've got plenty to do. I've got a full life here. If I come up with an idea I think that's helpful to them, I give it to them."
He has easier access to the secretary of state, at least when he can get the phones to work. "If she asks, I tell her what I think," Clinton said. "And if there's something that's going on that I feel that I have a particular knowledge of, I say that." Does she ask? "Yeah, quite frequently she does," he said. "She says: 'Did you ever work with this guy? Do you know him?' "
Hillary Clinton, who declined to comment for this article, recently told Mark Landler of The Times that her husband is careful to give her space but can be a useful source of information. "He just knows a lot and he knows everybody," she said. "He has a broad-gauge understanding of issues and personalities, so he's always value-added."
No one has combined the roles of former president and cabinet spouse before, and the lines are blurry. After Hillary Clinton's nomination for secretary of state was announced, the telephones at her husband's office rang as various ambassadors tried to go through him to get a meeting. The foreign leaders he meets with now ask after his wife and know they can use him to get messages to her. But Obama has not tapped Clinton to do anything significant for the new administration yet. Unless Obama messes up, says a former top Clinton aide, "President Clinton is irrelevant." Obama does not need him. "This is not a circumstance in which Bill Clinton is going to have much of a role," the aide says.
So Clinton is doing his own thing. The restrictions Obama imposed on Clinton's activities — like disclosing his foundation's donors and no longer convening conferences overseas — have done little to tether him to New York. At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, Clinton roamed the halls, mixing with the dignitaries as if it were an Oxford reunion. After hosting a reception at a local museum on opening night, he wandered over to the Sheraton to a private party held by Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, who welcomed him as "our good friend" and toasted him with vodka shots. The two then retired to a private room, planted themselves at a table and talked deep into the night.
When I asked Clinton later what they discussed, he lapsed into stories about Putin and his own love for Boris Yeltsin but divulged little of what was said. Even so, it seems reasonable to infer that Putin was hoping to send messages to the new administration through the husband of the secretary of state. On missile defense, Clinton said Putin told him, "Oh, we're going to work it out now." And Putin stressed that his handpicked successor as president, Dmitri Medvedev, was not just a puppet.
For both the trip to Davos and the trip to South America that I joined, Clinton said he checked first with Jim Jones at the National Security Council. "I say: 'Look, I've been invited to go to this place. These people will be there. Do you want me not to go?' " he told me early last month. "If they want me to make any points on their behalf, I'll do it. I really do believe there can only be one president at a time." A White House official later told me that Clinton also checked with Jones before agreeing to take the United Nations post.
So far, the former president has avoided causing trouble for the new one. Before Hillary Clinton was picked for secretary of state, some Obama advisers were wary of bringing a freelancing Bill Clinton inside the tent. But to their surprise, Clinton has done nothing to complicate Obama's life so far. As of early May, Clinton had never been mentioned during the daily White House senior staff meetings as an issue to be dealt with, according to two officials who attend. By contrast, one of them said, Jimmy Carter had come up twice already.
"He left the country in a stronger position, and I think he's pretty much at peace with what he accomplished," Mack McLarty, a Clinton friend since kindergarten and his first White House chief of staff, told me. "That doesn't mean that from time to time, President Clinton wouldn't like to be engaged and be in the action. That's an understandable human feeling. But it's not burning him up or eating him up."
Not long after our meeting in Harlem, Clinton was invited to join Obama for a ceremony enacting legislation to expand the AmeriCorps service program, one of the former president's favorite legacies. By the time Clinton left office, more people had served in AmeriCorps than have served in the Peace Corps in its entire history. The ceremony was held at a school in a poorer, predominantly African-American section of Washington. Clinton was acknowledged in the remarks but was not invited onto the main stage or given a speaking role. Instead, Obama used the occasion to heap praise on Senator Edward Kennedy, a key patron during last year's campaign.
Afterward, Clinton joined Obama in a motorcade ride to a nearby park to plant trees with members of a program financed by AmeriCorps. Clinton wore boots and gloves. Obama, in dress shoes, watched as his predecessor showed him how it was done, chopping at the dirt and making sure the hole was big enough for the roots to grow.
"Mr. President, I don't think you can do any better than that," Obama told him. The two walked up a path together as Clinton prepared to leave.
"Stay in touch," said Obama, who went to plant his own tree. Rather than leave, Clinton grabbed a second tree and began planting that one too.
Clinton was in Hong Kong for a foundation event in December when Obama nominated Hillary Clinton for secretary of state. As Bill Clinton watched the announcement on a television in a restaurant, he could not help voicing his own running commentary. He shouldn't have said that. He could have said this.She should smile now. Mack McLarty, who was with him, nudged him. "Mr. President," he recalls saying, "there are other people here."
Clinton arrived at the inception of the new administration still burned by the campaign that produced it. His flashes of temper and ill-considered remarks on the trail showed a side of him that surprised many accustomed to a smooth political operator. He was riled that a young upstart who had never accomplished much could overtake his wife, according to campaign veterans. He chafed at efforts by her staff to control him and bristled when he felt they were not listening to him. At one point he devoted days to campaigning in South Carolina against the wishes of her strategists, only to watch her lose the primary. "He never felt a part of the campaign and, in fact, he was not part of the campaign," an adviser to Hillary Clinton, who did not want to be named discussing internal dynamics, told me. In part, the strategist said, that was because the candidate herself felt she had to win on her own. "She was keeping him distant."
Now his anger appears gone, and he has entered the reconciliation stage of the familiar Clinton cycle of fall and redemption. "I think his blood pressure is down again," McLarty said. And after an uncertain beginning, he added, Clinton has passed through "a fragile period" during the transition and reconciled himself to the new administration. "I think he's better," agreed Skip Rutherford, another longtime friend and dean of the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas. "I think he's happier."
Two sides of Clinton's persona have long warred with each other, sunny optimism versus angry grievance. Clinton succeeded in politics largely because he projected the former; his worst moments usually came when he gave in to the latter. Both sides are genuine reflections of who he is. Twelve years after his last campaign for office, he found it harder to control his resentments when he returned to the trail on his wife's behalf. In his view, the news media and the political world held her to a different standard, while practically anointing Obama. And when he says her, he also means, in the back of his mind, himself.
By most accounts, including his own, Clinton was never the same after a quadruple-bypass heart operation in 2004, followed by rare complications affecting his lungs that required another operation six months later. "Last year, I was exhausted half the time," he told me when we sat down last month at his house in Chappaqua outside New York City. "I literally went to 300 towns in March, April and May alone. I did way over 300 events in those three months, but I was in 300 separate American communities. So you know, you might be a little testy, too, if you didn't get more sleep than I did."
When Clinton was in college at Georgetown, a professor mentioned that great men often require less rest than ordinary people, some sleeping no more than five hours a night. Clinton adopted that pattern. But the heart and lung operations drained his fabled stamina. "It changed me," he said. "One of the things I noticed is that on normal days ever since I had that heart surgery, I'm a lot more laid back and a lot more relaxed and a lot more healthy. But I also noticed since I had the surgery — and this is what you picked up in the campaign — that if I'm really, really tired, it's more difficult for me than it was when I was back in politics before I had the heart problem. I have no explanation for why that is. I'm just observing it. It's neither an excuse for any mistake I made or anything else. I'm just explaining. It's something I've noticed. My life has changed."
People close to Clinton said he has largely got over his resentment at Obama but not toward Ted Kennedy and his niece, Caroline Kennedy. As Clinton sees it, they say, he did so much for the Kennedys over the years that he felt they became almost family. Nor has he forgiven Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who endorsed Obama even though Clinton appointed him to two cabinet posts. And the man once called the "first black president" remains deeply wounded by allegations that he made racially insensitive remarks during the campaign, like dismissing Obama's South Carolina win by comparing it with Jesse Jackson's victories there in the 1980s.
"None of them ever really took seriously the race rap," he told me. "They knew it was politics. I had one minister in Texas in the general election come up and put his arm around me." This was an Obama supporter. "And he came up, threw his arm around me and said, 'You've got to forgive us for that race deal.' He said, 'That was out of line.' But he said, 'You know, we wanted to win real bad.' And I said, 'I got no problem with that.' I said it's fine; it's O.K. And we laughed about it and we went on." The other side is moving on, too. Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, who once recalled an angry Clinton berating him on the phone for criticizing the former president's campaign rhetoric, is letting bygones be bygones, at least publicly. "No fence-mending is needed," Clyburn said through a spokeswoman.
Yet if Clinton has a powerful memory for slights, he also has a remarkable capacity for reconciliation. He is likelier to find peace with people who hate him the most than with friends who betray him. He focuses his considerable charms on seducing the person in the room he finds most resistant. Among those he has been friendly with lately is Christopher Ruddy, a conservative journalist who was a chief proponent of cover-up theories involving the Clintons during the 1990s. In his book, "The Strange Death of Vincent Foster," Ruddy rejected official findings that Foster, a deputy White House counsel, killed himself in a Virginia park and suggested the possibility of "a cover-up conducted by people who have, with the help of the press, placed themselves above the law." Ruddy also advanced the notion that Ron Brown, the Clinton commerce secretary who died in an airplane crash in Croatia in 1996, was actually shot in the head.
Ruddy today is the founder and chief executive of Newsmax, a conservative news-magazine. He told me he came around on Clinton after Ed Koch, the former New York mayor, introduced them. That led to lunches and more contacts, and now Ruddy says he was wrong about Clinton. "I do consider Bill Clinton a friend, and I think he would consider me a friend," Ruddy said. "And to think of all the wars we went through in the '90s, it seems almost surreal."
With the passage of time, Ruddy said he came to believe that Clinton was much less liberal than his enemies thought. After all, Clinton overhauled welfare, tamed the deficit and promoted free trade. While still a proud "Reagan conservative," Ruddy said he now thinks the attacks on Clinton in the 1990s went too far. "Did we like and enjoy all the salacious reporting and all the stuff going on in the '90s?" he asked. "I guess we thought, This is just politics. But looking back at my role, I was probably over the top. And if I knew then what I know today, I wouldn't have pursued some of that stuff as aggressively as I did. I did an honest reporter's job. But I have a different take on it now."
Ruddy also attributes his change of heart to Clinton's foundation, which has impressed him and other onetime foes. Richard Mellon Scaife, the billionaire publisher who financed Ruddy's investigations and other anti-Clinton activities, is now a contributor to the foundation. So is Rupert Murdoch, the News Corporation chairman whose Fox News was a regular thorn in Clinton's side. Clinton over the years has also made peace with other former adversaries, like Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich. The elder George Bush told me he now considers Clinton "a real friend." When I asked what changed his view, he wrote in an e-mail message: "I didn't know him personally back then. I knew him, but not up close and personal. Now I do."
Clinton's relationship with the younger Bush evolved over the years. "President Bush the latter didn't like me very much, because I defeated his father, and it was obvious to me when he came to the White House when I was president and he was governor of Texas," Clinton recalled. "Jeb was a better actor." The bad blood increased when Clinton left the White House and stories emerged about W's being removed from computer keyboards and so forth, much of which proved to be exaggerated or untrue. The Bush crew bitterly complained that the Clinton team did little to help them; Clinton was bitter at the whisper campaign trashing him. "I had a talk with him about it one day, a real frank talk, because they were being rough," Clinton told me. "I told him that I understood how he felt, and it didn't bother me. I liked the fact that he loved his father and that I felt a great affection for his father, too. But I said: 'I'll tell you what, I'll make you a deal. If you ever need me to do something for you and I can do it consistent with my conscience, I'll do it.' "
Bush took him up on the offer by asking Clinton to work with his father on relief efforts after the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. "We just developed a relationship," Clinton said. "He would call every now and then. We would talk. I just made it a project. I wanted to figure him out and get to know him." Although they disagree on many issues, Clinton said: "I like him personally. I think he did what he thought was right." By the time Bush left office, the two presidents were close enough that Clinton taped a funny testimonial alongside the elder Bush for a video shown on the plane as the 43rd president flew back to Texas after Obama's inauguration. And Clinton and George W. Bush agreed to appear onstage together in Toronto on May 29 for a 90-minute discussion of current events.
"You know, I'm a Baptist," Clinton explained. "We don't give up on anybody. We believe in deathbed conversions."
How about Ken Starr? "Well," he said, then paused. "That's another kettle of fish."
History will always remember that Bill Clinton was the first elected president ever impeached, particularly because the charges were rooted in a tawdry Oval Office fling with a White House intern and fostered a divisive partisan showdown ending in his acquittal. But Clinton has not been willing to trust history to write his story.
When Clinton left office, he was lost at first. McLarty recalled being "a little concerned" for a while. But then the former president established a foundation with ambition to match his own. Financed by Saudi princes, Indian tycoons, Hollywood moguls and governments like Australia and Norway, Clinton has assembled an operation with 1,400 paid employees and volunteers working in 40 countries to fight disease, poverty and climate change. The foundation has made a place for itself as a generator of new ways of tackling old problems. Rather than just pour money into an issue, it searches for market-based solutions that bring together business, government and the nonprofit sector.
The claimed successes at times sound grandiose. The Clinton Global Initiative asserts that it has "affected more than 200 million lives in 150 countries" through $46 billion in commitments by its members. Whatever the details, the foundation's work clearly has yielded tangible results, most notably in the fight against H.I.V./AIDS. By negotiating a volume contract with the pharmaceutical industry, the foundation cut the cost of anti-retroviral medicine by nearly half for the developing world; governments around the globe have bought drugs off the Clinton contract for about two million people living with the disease.
Clinton's peripatetic journeys in South America showcased other initiatives. In Lima, he attended a ceremony kicking off a project to provide 50,000 cataract operations for the poor over four years. In Cartagena, wearing a hand-woven bracelet that he was given during a previous visit in 2002 and has never taken off, Clinton visited young women growing and selling spices thanks to help from the foundation.
His foundation works on the home front too. Shortly after returning from South America, I went to see him at the Empire State Building as the owners announced a "green" retrofit to cut energy consumption and save $4.4 million a year on utility bills. The project represented a Clinton-foundation approach to reduce the carbon footprint of large buildings across the world: building owners obtain financing from banks to renovate their properties by dedicating the savings from lower utility bills to repay the loans. Energy-services companies guarantee reductions in energy consumption to achieve those savings or provide the difference if they fall short. "We'll never conquer climate change," Clinton told the crowd on the 80th floor, "until we prove it's good business to do so."
Some friends think he is using his postpresidency to make up for what he could not achieve during his presidency. "He's got a lot of unfinished business that he wants to do," Skip Rutherford, of the Clinton School of Public Service, said. "I think he's completing a lot of things he wished he could have done as president." Bono, the rock star and activist, said he believes Clinton regrets in particular that he did not do more in office to fight AIDS overseas. "He did a lot on domestic AIDS, but I think he does beat himself up on not dealing with global AIDS quickly enough," Bono told me. Since leaving office, he said, Clinton "not only got up to speed but got into the fast lane in fighting this epidemic."
Clinton agrees, to a point. "Some of the things, yes, it's unfinished business," he told me. "That's mostly the climate-change thing and, to some extent, AIDS. But AIDS was more like here's something where I can still make a difference." On climate change, he argued that he did what he could as president; he pushed for the Kyoto treaty curbing greenhouse gases but never sent it to the Senate because it would not be ratified. "Nobody was really focusing on climate change," he said. "So a lot of times you have to wait for the time to get right." When it came to AIDS, he added, "I felt that neither I nor anyone else in the world did enough. We tripled overseas AIDS funding when I was president, and we were contributing about 25 percent of the funding in the world, but it was a pitiful amount."
Ultimately, at the suggestion of his longtime aide and right-hand man, Doug Band, he formed the Clinton Global Initiative in 2005 to gather heads of state, Nobel laureates, billionaires and celebrities for a conference to make specific commitments to fix the world's problems, not just talk about them and forget them the next day. As Band put it, "Only one person alive could really get all these people together in one room — 60 or 70 heads of state, Bono, Gates and Buffett — and say, 'You can't leave the room until you make a commitment and put your name on the line.' "
A few weeks after Obama's inauguration, Clinton joined Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to talk about climate change at the Center for American Progress, the liberal research organization founded by his former White House chief of staff John Podesta. Moderating was Timothy Wirth, the former Colorado senator who served as an under secretary of state in Clinton's administration. Wirth noted the recent momentum on climate change, then turned to his former president.
"Why did this take so long?" Wirth asked Clinton pointedly. Clinton looked a little peeved. "We didn't have the votes before," he explained.
Later in the program, Podesta returned to the subject. "I want to come back to the question you posed to President Clinton, which is what's different than the last 35 years," said Podesta, who most recently served as Obama's transition chief. "And I'd say after this beginning, it's that we have new leadership to move the issue forward."
If the implicit comparison bothered Clinton, he did not say so. But the moment raised questions: What does Obama's ascension mean for Clinton's legacy? Is it the validation of the Clinton presidency or the repudiation of it? Is Obama building on the base Clinton established or tearing it down? Will Obama be the president many Democrats wished Clinton had been? Or will he be doomed to relearn the lessons Clinton did about ambitious agendas giving way to more incremental change?
In the past 140 years, only two other Democratic presidents, Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter, lived long enough to see another Democrat in the White House — and Carter's relations with Clinton were difficult, to say the least. Clinton chooses to look at Obama as the next stage in a political movement he led. But it's not at all clear that Obama sees it that way. During the campaign, Obama dismissed Clinton as a historical placeholder. "Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not, and in a way that Bill Clinton did not," Obama said then.
Of course, Obama was running against Clinton's wife. Since winning, Obama has found more to like about the Clinton administration, particularly its personnel. His chief of staff, national economics adviser, climate czar, White House counsel, Treasury secretary, attorney general, United Nations ambassador and homeland-security secretary — not to mention his secretary of state — all served with Clinton. As of April, 42 percent of Obama's appointees to Senate-confirmed positions were Clinton veterans.
Some of those returnees to power seem to view the Obama administration as a do-over, a chance to get right what went wrong in the 1990s. When they talk about what it is like to work for Obama, Clinton does not fare well in the comparison. That may be a function of the natural tendency to talk up the current boss, but in their praise of Obama comes the obvious contrast. They marvel at Obama's discipline and roll their eyes as they remember Clinton's agonizing before making decisions. They admire Obama's cool as they recall Clinton's "purple rages" at his staff behind closed doors. "Obama respects the process," said an aide to both men. "Clinton always had to do the math himself."
Rahm Emanuel, who was a senior adviser to Clinton and now is chief of staff for Obama, recently described the current White House as a far more cohesive operation than his last one. "We don't, rather, have the kind of New Democrats versus traditionalist split that existed in that White House," he said on CNBC. "We don't have in this White House the president-versus-vice-president staff divisions that have been in other White Houses." Emanuel credited "the tone and tenor that the president of the United States has set in expectations." The next day on ABC, he suggested Obama would rank among the best American leaders, comparing him with "successful presidents and transformative presidents" like Franklin D. Roosevelt, Kennedy and Reagan. Emanuel made no mention of Clinton.
When I later asked him about that, Emanuel quickly heaped praise on Clinton. "When you do a balanced budget, welfare reform, a crime bill, successfully prosecute the war in the Balkans, pass the chemical-weapons treaty, NATO expansion, there is no way Bill Clinton was not a successful president," he said. "He governed in a Republican era. I said 'transformative president.' " Transformative presidents like Roosevelt, Kennedy and Reagan followed presidents who were perceived to have failed and who governed in a time of crisis, he said. The factors "that make up what would be a transformative president weren't there for Clinton."
While Emanuel points to history, some Democrats blame Clinton for being too tactical and hope that Obama will achieve what his predecessor failed to do in remaking health care and reining in climate change. "So why didn't more happen?" Wirth asked, repeating his own question when I tracked him down after the forum on climate change. "That's the first question that has to be looked at. It was not very high on their political list, and I think they were somewhat afraid of the issue politically." Clinton was right that he did not have the votes, Wirth said. "But they didn't try to get the votes," he said. "When we were doing Kyoto, they weren't really helpful in driving the issue at all, the White House. We were sort of hung out there on our own at the State Department. So we lost all those years."
But if liberals see Obama as the bold Clinton, some moderates and conservatives worry that Obama is reversing his predecessor's direction. Clinton sought to remake a broken party in a more centrist mold. Beyond balancing the budget for the first time in three decades and overhauling the welfare system, he passed the North American Free Trade Agreement and launched military strikes against Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic. Now the "era of big government" he declared over appears back, as Obama tries to jump-start the economy by pushing deficit spending to the highest levels since World War II and inserting government more deeply into the private sector than it has been in generations. Where Clinton failed to pass a $16 billion economic-stimulus package in 1993, Obama pushed a $787 billion stimulus package in 2009 through a more deferential Congress.
So if Obama transforms Washington, does that validate Clinton or marginalize him? "I think it eclipses him," said a senior Clinton White House official. Podesta puts it differently, arguing that Obama may be able to accomplish more because Clinton paved the way for his administration. "It's built on extending the strategy that Clinton brought to bear on government," Podesta told me. "But it also has more opportunity for transformational change. If he's able to succeed at that, and I believe he can, people 40 or 50 or 60 years from now will look back and say the roots of that were planted during the Clinton administration. But Clinton lived at the back end of a conservative cycle, and Obama is living at the front end of what could be a profoundly progressive cycle."
The issue came up several times in my conversations with Clinton, and it was clear he was sorting through the shifting historical roles. "I see this moment as the triumph of a battle we've been waging for 40 years, and basically they were symbolized by, in effect, Reagan and Thatcher on one side and me and Blair on another," he said. Now he detects a new era in which the Democratic base has grown and more things are possible, just as many of Theodore Roosevelt's progressive designs were not realized until his cousin became president. "I see a lot of the ideas that I pushed — that I got enormous push-back for — now flowering," he said.
One thing that thrived during Clinton's presidency, the economy, has wilted of late. The economic boom of the 1990s created nearly 23 million new jobs during his eight years, but today, the economy is shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs a month. While this has stoked nostalgia for the prosperity of the Clinton era, it has also focused new scrutiny on his record. What role did Clinton's policies play in creating the conditions that led to the Great Recession?
When the subject came up during our conversation in Chappaqua, Clinton calmly dissected the case against him and acknowledged that in at least some particulars his critics have a point. In almost clinical form, as if back at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, he broke down the case against him into three allegations: first, that he used the Community Reinvestment Act to force small banks into making loans to low-income depositors who were too risky. Second, that he signed the deregulatory Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, repealing part of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act that prohibited commercial banks from engaging in the investment business. And third, that he failed to regulate the complex financial instruments known as derivatives.
The first complaint Clinton rejects as "just a totally off-the-wall crazy argument" made by the "right wing," noting that community banks have not had major problems. The second he gives some credence to, although he blames Bush for, in his view, neutering the Securities and Exchange Commission. "Letting banks take investment positions I don't think had much to do with this meltdown," he said. "And the more diversified institutions in general were better able to handle what happened. And again, if I had known that the S.E.C. would have taken a rain check, would I have done it? Probably not. But I wouldn't have done anything. In other words, I would have tried to reverse everything if I had known we were going to have eight years where we would not have an S.E.C. for most of the time."
Clinton argued that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act set up a framework for overseeing the industry. "So I don't think that's such a good criticism," he said. "I think, actually, if you want to make a criticism on that, it would be an indirect one — you could say that the signing of that legislation sped up what was happening anyway and maybe led some of these institutions to be bigger than they otherwise would have been and the very bigness of some of these groups caused some of this problem because the bigger something is and the newer it is, the harder it is to manage. And I do think there were some serious management problems which might not have occurred."
Then there are the derivatives. There, Clinton pleads guilty. Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, opposed regulation of derivatives as they came to the fore in the 1990s, and Clinton agreed. "They argued that nobody's going to buy these derivatives, we'll do it without transparency, they'll get the information they need," he recalled. "And it turned out to be just wrong; it just wasn't true." He said others share blame, including credit-rating agencies that underestimated the risk. But he accepts responsibility as well. "I very much wish now that I had demanded that we put derivatives under the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission and that transparency rules had been observed and that we had done that. That I think is a legitimate criticism of what we didn't do." He added: "If you ask me to write the indictment, I'd say: 'I wish Bill Clinton had said more about derivatives. The Republicans probably would have stopped him from doing it, but at least he should have sounded the alarm bell.' "
For all that, Clinton insisted he never would have let the housing bubble grow into the problem it became (never mind the high-technology bubble that burst on his watch) and would have stepped in if he were president to prevent the free fall. "When anybody asks me that," he told me, "I ask them, I look at them and ask them: 'Do you think this would have happened if we had been there? Look me in the face and say yes.' I haven't found any takers yet."
On the cedar-shingled Dutch colonial in Chappaqua hangs a sign that says, "The Clintons, est. 1999." It is a white house, if not the White House, the oldest part dating to 1895. The first floor, airy and bright, displays the artifacts of a lifetime in politics. As Clinton gave me the tour, each item came with a story. Pictures of Boris Yeltsin, Nelson Mandela, Helmut Kohl, Yitzhak Rabin and Pele the soccer star. An illustration of the White House with drawings of all the presidents ("there's Fillmore," Clinton noted). A 4,000-year-old Chinese funeral urn and a 700-year-old Vietnamese spear. A massive, century-old German cabinet he bought, more than 30 years ago, for $150 (Hillary Clinton calls it "the monster"). A sculpture made out of pieces of Ron Brown's plane embedded in rock from the Croatian mountain into which his plane crashed.
Unlike most presidents, Clinton never had his own house to retreat to while in office, and he eagerly described how he flattened an outside slope, put in a new floor and opened up the glassed-in porch. "I love this place," he told me. "I've worked hard on it."
As he showed me around, it was striking just how much this was his house. The memorabilia was his. All the work done to the property was what "I" did rather than "we." While Hillary Clinton returns from her travels to their house in Washington, he flies back to the little airport at White Plains just 15 minutes from Chappaqua. He watches "Mad Men," "24" and "Damages." The man who ushered in the Internet age still does not use a computer, much less a BlackBerry, but keeps up with blogs and sites like The Huffington Post through clips printed out by aides.
The couple's hyperbusy, often-separate lives intersect when schedules permit. "I try to go down there one night a week," Clinton said. "She comes home Friday nights, stays Saturday night, goes back Sunday." When she makes it to Chappaqua, they do little socializing. "Normally when she comes here," he said, "she just wants to rest." And while they talk regularly by telephone, they sometimes lose track of the other. Hillary Clinton told my colleague Mark Landler that she did not know Bill Clinton was doing the Empire State Building event until it was in the news.
They spend much of their lives on airplanes, hers provided by the Air Force, his usually by one of his wealthy friends. For the South America trip, Clinton traveled with Frank Giustra aboard his luxurious MD-87, complete with bedroom and shower, gold-plated bathroom fixtures, leather upholstered reclining seats, flat-panel TVs and original paintings on the cabin walls. The blankets are emblazoned "Giustra Air." Traveling with him on this trip was Doug Band, 36, his aide of 14 years who spends more time with Clinton than any other person. Mort Engelberg, a Hollywood producer who made films like "Smokey and the Bandit" and has done volunteer advance work for Clinton for years, was there too.
Clinton's life with the high-flying crowd and his postpresidential friendships with the rich, powerful and famous have drawn disapproval from some quarters, including former advisers who see it as unseemly. Some of his rich bachelor friends have not led celibate lives, and the associations have generated concern about his own activities, as detailed in a Vanity Fair article last year. His contacts also made Clinton a very rich man very quickly after leaving office. Saddled with $14 million in legal bills after his wars with Ken Starr, Clinton quickly amassed a fortune through speaking fees, book contracts and business deals. Periodically questions emerge about his financial dealings with the likes of Giustra or Ron Burkle, the supermarket tycoon.
Clinton has severed his financial ties with Burkle. But he continues to travel with Giustra, despite attention over a visit he and Giustra made a few years ago to Kazakhstan's authoritarian president, Nursultan Nazarbayev. An article on the front page of The Times focused on whether Clinton's presence helped Giustra get a lucrative uranium-mining deal, something that both adamantly deny. Just as problematic was Clinton's endorsement of Nazarbayev's bid to lead an international organization that monitors elections, despite Kazakhstan's history of manipulated votes. Giustra, who committed $100 million to a sustainable-development initiative with Clinton, deeply resents the insinuations about their friendship. "Being called all these things by all these people who never met me — let's just say this: I will never go into politics," he told me in a van as we rode to inspect a project in Colombia. "That's a contact sport. He accepts the world he lives in."
Clinton slips effortlessly among his various worlds. After a talk at a United Nations forum about Asian tsunami relief, I found him backstage accompanied by the film director Martin Scorsese, with whom he had just had lunch. A few weeks earlier, Clinton participated in a panel discussion at his presidential library in Little Rock. The rarefied Clinton gave way to the down-home Clinton, describing how he felt when his friends left Washington ("I was lower than a snake's belly") and how he attended an annual "coon supper" as governor ("Until you have eaten barbecued 'coon, you have not lived"). He laughed until he was red in the face as Dale Bumpers, the former senator from Arkansas, recounted traveling together in a small plane that crash-landed. "He was telling some long yarn, and when we crashed, he just kept talking," Bumpers related with a little Ozark embroidery. "The plane was upside down, and I said: 'Bill, open the door! This damn thing's going to catch on fire!' "
For a man slowed by health issues, Clinton still stays up late at night chewing cigars and playing Oh, Hell, a card game Steven Spielberg taught him in 2000, recruiting Giustra, Band and anyone else he can get to play. He obsessively works the Times crossword puzzle, enlisting others to figure out clues. After getting stuck one night on "big catch of 2003" ("Hussein"), he handed me the completed puzzle the next morning.
He remains a wonk of the first order, lamenting that the foundation located next to his library has "a better water-capture and recycled-materials ratio than I do." During Obama's transition, Podesta said the only time Clinton called him was to make specific suggestions on "greening" buildings. "Mr. President, I'm not really sweating the details on this," Podesta told him. And yet Clinton is self-critical enough that after a presentation to the Inter-American Development Bank conference in Medellín, he asked four times if he did all right.
"It's a restless engagement in the world," said Eric Nonacs, who was the foreign-policy adviser to Clinton's foundation and now does work for the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative. "He's the same guy who has a huge circle of friends and keeps in touch with all of them. He's the same guy who wants to finish the crossword puzzle and will do it with everyone around him if he needs to."
If there is part of him that secretly covets Obama's job, he is burying it inside. "I like my life now," he said. "I loved being president and it's a good thing we had a constitutional limit or I'd have made the people take me out in a pine box, probably. But we had a constitutional limit and I knew that in the beginning. And so when I left, I had to go out and create another life. And I did it, and I love doing it."
He no longer seems to need the crowds quite the way he used to. He still lights up at the attention of people on the street and happily shakes every hand that comes his way, but he does not seek them out as much. It was striking one night in Lima to watch him steer through a restaurant. In the old days, he would have worked every table and lingered to hear every story. On this night, he shook the hand of a waiter but did not break stride as he made his way to the table. Being noticed has become part of the job, rather than a craving to satisfy.
Still, as he boarded the plane in Medellín one night, he posed on the tarmac with the local security officers who had been guarding him, as he dutifully does at every stop. He seemed tired and not particularly interested, but he did not complain. Climbing the stairs to leave, though, he noticed some other officers. "Were you in the picture?" he asked. Then to an aide, he said, "These guys weren't in the picture." He came back down the stairs and posed again.Continue reading the main story


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|By Kristi Furrer
Article Rating:
|May 19, 2010 04:49 PM EDT
Cloud Computing and Advanced Relationship Analytics
There is a wealth of information, connections and relationships within the terabytes and petabytes of data being collected by organizations on distributed cloud platforms. Utilizing these complex, multi-dimensional relationships will be the key to developing systems to perform advanced relationship analysis. From predictive analytics to the next generation of business intelligence, "walking" the social and professional graphs will be critical to the success of these endevors.
Most applications and data layers today are only capable of simple analytics, finding out who-did-what or who-bought-what. Advanced analytics yields far more knowledge at a much deeper level, understanding who, where, what, how and why – right now.
Google, Yahoo and other leaders in online and personalized services are looking to use complex, multi-dimensional graph data to improve everything they do -- from supporting vast indexes and catalogs of content, to providing the best value and return to their advertising users. Graph technology offers a superior solution for relationship analytics requirements, enabling organizations to traverse any number and complexity of relationships in virtually any amount of distributed data, from any number of sources and types, in near real-time, and on the same commodity hardware obtained through cloud computing platform providers.
Solve the problem.
The No SQL (or "not only SQL") movement is defined by a simple premise: Use the solution that best suits the problem and objectives. If the data structure is more appropriately accessed through key-value pairs, then the best solution is likely a dedicated key-value pair database. If the objective is to quickly find connections within data containing objects and relationships, then the best solution is a graph database that can get results without any need for translation (O/R mapping). Today's availability of numerous technologies that finally support this simple premise are helping to simplify the application environment and enable solutions that actually exceed the requirements, while also supporting performance and scalability objectives far into the future.
Cloud computing has adopted a broad variety of No SQL technologies to support these leading-edge requirements. By using solutions designed to support specific tasks and requirements, organizations can more easily achieve often significant reductions in complexity and costs associated with their systems. And by using more targeted and capable components, these systems are also able to achieve even greater levels of performance and scalability.
Graph databases may be the most important part of the No SQL movement.
Graph databases typically solve problems related to complexity of data, while key-value and column-store solutions seek to address common issues encountered as data volumes grow in size. Our technology addresses both the complexity and scalability requirements to give you the best of both worlds, managing complex and big data.
Graph data is represented by nodes or vertices and edges, where any node could be connected to any number of other nodes via the edges between them.
Graph database technologies can support rapid traversal of these edges to get results in a matter of seconds (or less). Because the data is persisted where relationships are first class citizens, performance is no longer an issue. But when this type of work is done in a relational database or key-value environment, there are very expensive constraints and limitations to performance. And, of course, if the graph database architecture is distributed, then scalability limits are also addressed very nicely.
As social media, personalized web and advertising services, business intelligence and organizations in other spaces understand the importance of the deeper relationships within their data, their success in utilizing this information will depend on the technology. Trying to scale out graph data and relationship analysis using relational technology is simply not the answer. In addition, the complex custom code, high-end server hardware, map reduce layers, and administration overhead required to support these architectures can significantly increase costs and overhead.
The days of compromising requirements to support centralized database server architectures or relational systems that simply aren't designed to solve some problems, are over. Today, there are other options and solutions.
Objectivity/DB is the original graph database.
Today many people are looking for graph technologies that can support for their applications and online, distributed systems. While several solutions focus on the graph interface or API, the underlying database is even more critical. The graph database must support your requirements for performance and scalability, ingest and fusion.
Objectivity/DB is the leading, enterprise-proven, distributed data management solution and persistence layer that supports the most demanding requirements, and graph computing needs. Benefits include:
· Objectivity/DB persists complex object models where the object and relationships can be any degree of complexity. Objects are persisted natively in the database, and there is no mapping layer. References between objects are stored as direct persistent pointers (object identifiers) making navigation very efficient and high performance.
· Complex graphs (networks) of objects and references can be persisted and navigated (queried) efficiently. The objects and references in the graph can be distributed across tens of thousands of databases in each federation. The navigational queries can be broken down into sub-tasks and executed in parallel.
- Objectivity/DB has a fully distributed (peer-to-peer) architecture that allows virtually unlimited scaling of both data and processing. This federated architecture (a collection of distributed databases) supports a single logical view across all objects in the federation, no matter where the data is located, allows elastic scalability of both processing and data in the cloud.
· Objectivity/DB has been deployed in a variety of configurations, including embedded devices and sensors, telecommunications network element management, enterprise client/server and large distributed systems, and on grid and cloud environments.
· Objectivity/DB supports several object languages, including Java, C#, C++, Python and Smalltalk. SQL access is also supported via an ODBC connection. Objects and application components created in any language can be accessed from any language.
· Objectivity/DB runs on a number of hardware platforms and operating systems, including Linux, Windows, and major Unix operating systems. Databases created on any platform can be accessed heterogeneously from any platform.
For More Information
Please visit us online at www.objectivity.com or call (U.S.) 408 992-7100.
Objectivity, Inc.
640 West California Avenue, Suite 210
Sunnyvale, CA 94086-3624 U.S.
Phone: U.S. (408) 992-7100
- The Top 250 Players in the Cloud Computing Ecosystem
- Cloud People: A Who's Who of Cloud Computing
- Cloud Expo New York Call for Papers Now Open
- The Top 100 Bloggers on Cloud Computing
- Industry Experts Discuss the State of Cloud Computing
- Cloud Computing and Big Data in 2013: What's Coming Next?
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- Web 2.0 Re-Examined: Nexaweb's Coach Wei On The Paradigm Shift, Technology Stack and Business Value
- Virtualization Expo New York Call for Papers to Expire January 15, 2010

subset: commoncrawl


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- Did you mean
- classes events name free geauga county
Search results
County-level 4-H Advisory Committees
Advisory Committees play an important role in the county 4-H program. As the name implies, they provide ... evaluating key events and practices found in their county 4-H program. Across the state, 4-H Advisory ... and implementation. Committee Membership In Ohio, each county establishes its own 4-H Advisory ...
News tips and events for the week of Dec 2
University South Centers. Sip some wisdom and wine at the event, which is for established grape growers, wine ... (ARC) with either county or individual coverage (ARC-CO or ARC-IC) or Price Loss Coverage (PLC). The ... Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center, 2201 Fred Taylor Drive, Ohio State, Columbus, Ohio. Event will feature ...
Dining with Diabetes Franklin and Morrow Counties
at-risk for diabetes and their family members. In a series of four classes, participants: Learn skills to ...
News tips and events for the week of Dec. 9
Ohio State on Jan. 8, from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., at the Champion Center at the Clark County Fairgrounds, ... Composting, noon to 2 p.m., Mahoning County office of OSU Extension, 490 S. Broad St., Canfield. Poultry, ... education tracks will include annuals and perennials, tree and shrub care, turfgrass management, garden ...
News tips and events for the week of Nov. 25
event, which is open to the public and reporters but has a registration fee, is set for Dec. 4, the day ... organized by CFAES' School of Environment and Natural Resources. Find details about the event below or at ... first win in the event in 33 years. The team beat 17 other schools in the Sept. 30 competition, ...
News tips and events for the week of Nov. 18
Building in room 250, 2120 Fyffe Road, Ohio State, Columbus, Ohio. The event will answer the question, "If ... phosphorus enough to meet the targets set by the United States and Canada?" The event will include remarks ... events, and shopping, which leave us with even less time for healthy lifestyle habits such as exercise, ...
Effective Ways to Promote Ohio 4-H Camps
counselors and members who have had past positive experiences to share at club meetings and county events ... information at county fairs and other community events —utilize the opportunities when you have 4-H members ... and families present for other events to promote camp. Camp open house —some youth are nervous to go, ...
Late planting leads to wetter harvested grain
coats," said Eric Richer, an Ohio State University Extension educator in Fulton County, on the far ... Hartschuh, an OSU Extension educator in Crawford County, just west of Mansfield. When Ohio corn is ... Events/Announcements Columbus area (Ohio) Community Crops Faculty and Academics Wooster area (Ohio) Alayna DeMartini ...
Awards and recognitions
Society and the American Fisheries Society on Oct. 1 in Nevada. Named after wildlife conservation pioneer ... Unlimited, in a press release. "Growing up exploring the outdoors in Hardin County and other parts of Ohio made ... me curious to learn more. The Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area in Wyandot County was one of my favorite ...
One base at a time


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All of us who have psoriasis understand all too well the daily struggles and battles faced in living with chronic skin disease. Listening to the latest webcast here on HealthTalk called, "How to Avoid Psoriasis Flares" reminded me of how depressing and debilitating this disease can be. If I heard correctly, the dermatologist on the show mentioned how many psoriatics are depressed, and as a whole have a higher proportion of smokers and drinkers. I avoid illegal drugs, smoking, and drinking for various reasons, but I can understand needing coping mechanisms for how depressing this disease can be. I always cringe when people say, "You know, it won't kill you!" While it may be true psoriatics don't typically die tragic deaths from psoriatic symptoms, we can die slowly from the inside.
As I go through my days and weeks looking after my health the best I can, I sometimes begin to have tunnel vision. In these times I only think about how I am struggling with treatment decisions, physical discomfort, and putting on medicine. But there are others around me who suffer along too. When I take a step back from my own suffering, I am amazed at how others relate to what I am going through.
An interaction I had with my wife last week started me thinking about this topic. We shared our thoughts and feelings about the many pressures we have now with school starting, changing jobs, dealing with my being gone more due to a much longer commute, and so on. She then became emotional, pouring out how much she worries about my health. While I have decided to not think about it until my next doctor appointment on Friday, she continued to carry the burden of the next treatment decision from day to day. She shared how she also worries because she can't see me or my skin during the work day to make sure it is under control.
When I look back, I can think of times my parents also worried and made allowances for my having psoriasis. Sometimes I thought them too harsh, not letting me eat chocolate or candy for fear of exacerbating my skin condition. Other times, it seemed like I could get away with a lot, as they didn't want to give me too much pressure. Even today I can tell that my mom worries, asking me frequently about how my skin is doing; my dad, who used to help me apply tar and Aquaphor at night when I was eight, and later built me an UVB light box, continues to follow my condition and care.
My children react in their own ways too. One time, I broke down in tears as I thought about dwindling treatment options and the inhuman amount of discomfort I had experienced. My 8-year-old son stood by the door wondering what was wrong. After a few minutes, his younger sister joined him. With great concern they rushed into the room after things calmed down a bit to give me a hug and ask me how I was doing. I wonder how much their dad having psoriasis affects them; I am amazed at their great capacity to express love and concern.
Psoriasis impacts my closer friendships, my relationship with my colleagues, and those in my church. When I really step back to think about it, psoriasis affects everyone connected to me. Sometimes I feel I'm a burden to those around me, but perhaps a better way to see it is that it's just another way to relate to others. What is life if it isn't going through the ups and downs with the people in your life — cheering, crying, or even laughing about how crazy it all can be? So thanks to all my family members and friends who share this rather difficult aspect of life with me, however unpleasant it may be. And sorry for not seeing you when all I see is my skin.


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Have joined the universe.
Do the same and be a part of creating a living, breathing First Person Universe where you and your friends will be able to explore the stars with unparalleled immersion.
the Call.
Join the fight and help support the ongoing development of Squadron 42, an unprecedented single-player adventure set in the Star Citizen Universe.John Galliano Denim Jeans Pants Spijkerbroek Hose Strass Neu 30


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How Will Health Law Impact Small Businesses?
The small business community will be on the front lines of healthcare reform as it rolls out on October 1. Ben Walter, CEO of Hiscox USA, which specializes in insurance for professional services businesses for nearly 30,000 small businesses, joins MoneyBeat.(Photo: Getty)
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... mm mm mm ... all eyes are on Washington today as a potential ... Government shutdown Looms at the center of the debate ... is present Obama healthcare reform which is set to go into effect ... tomorrow ... the small business community will be on the frontlines of the health care reform ... and here to explain how will the impact of that group ... is Ben Balter CEO of the stock's USA ... which specializes in insurance for for for professional services businesses which include nearly thirty thousand small business participants ... and I think that to really ... that is a key group You are ... the small businesses held in the affected ... I you talk a lot of them I think the concern of the word of the jumping and what what's the sense among the small business community ... yet there's a lot of concern I mean there's a lot of concern in general about Washington the man of regulation the fact that they can't make decisions at all ... whenever ... I can tell you how often we talk to small business owners who say ... the fire in my business the way they run with ... Washington you know I'd be in a lot of trouble ... and so I ... and I think you see that both sides of ... the army coming out because many small businesses really depend on the government for various things a lot of businesses the beast that the top tube got started to along for the small business the province the government ... at the same time they talk about the matter of red tape and bureaucratic ... process ease and a half to go to to get started ... so they're they're picking other Cirque of the metal ... now on this health care law is going to go into effect tomorrow it's happened it's happening ... how good businesses deal with this I mean you talking to complain about retain we all complain about it by ... Mia when it comes down to it they had to deal with it what did they do is is ... is this ... Kirk business does is something that they just ... come adjust prices move on from the deal with this I think most businesses we talk to have figured out how to deal with and don't you know that ... that the rules keep changing and they want the rules to be settled down into the standard but what we find is that ... God is really small business as ten fifteen employees it's not even on the radar it's really not what the focused on ... and the professional businesses that we talk to their offering health benefits anyway ... so I'm you know to look at the lower end of the labor market that may not be the case the post professional services business ... businesses need to offer health care to attract customers what we do find as the top two businesses it is ... common among would be on screen orders ... there's actually some hopeful optimism because I'm we surveyed businesses all over the world during the US in the UK in Europe from what we do find is one of the big barriers to starting a business is the risk of losing your health care of losing your benefits and not having access ... to all this comes down to whether or not the laws implemented well and frankly nobody knows how that's going to go ... but if it's implemented well it could be a boon for innovator sensed that you know and and the people jumping in to start small businesses to come down to his own on the show trouble to market some of the economy all of time ... it doesn't come down to ... red tape purses ... economic fundamentals I mean how much is the fact that demand out there it's like the economy isn't really growing much ... how much is ... is that having an effect on these business it's all that I mean the red tape is just it's it's frankly TT is a bad phrase red tape is white noise ... if you talk to any of these businesses will tell you ... if it's a good case that I can make money doing it I'm going to do it all figured out a way to lead a ... user can do people these are the common people quit their jobs to start their own business from there to find a way to remedy what they are really concerned with is Do I have enough demand ... Kennedy the economics of my does this work and a break and ... get past all this is that they're very optimistic group to our ... fleet of optimistic milk and thanks for coming on to really appreciate it ... very much


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Copy of Baby Bison 2 Canvas Print
"Baby Bison 2" canvas print. Turn every head in the room with this beautiful canvas print. Designed to stay taut and flat, even through the roughest of life's every day pokes and prods. It also comes with a hard sealed backing and hanging hardware for an effortless install in your favorite space. Add a floating frame for an extra level of picture perfection PM us for framing options please.


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RICHMOND — Two weeks after issuing a 10-page letter critical of a draft environmental impact report detailing Chevron's proposed $1 billion refinery modernization project, California Attorney General Kamala Harris' office issued a second letter last week expressing support for an alternative plan that would mandate "no physical increase in greenhouse gas emissions from refinery operations."
"The alternative is environmentally superior to the proposed project," the letter reads.
The modernization, scaled down from a previous iteration that was halted by a judge in 2009, has been subjected to public scrutiny for much of the year, as city leaders and critics comb through more than 4,000 pages of reports and notes. Chevron has long maintained that the new project will not result in any "net increase" in emissions, but critics say it uses mitigation measures and other offsets to mask an increase in some emissions.
The new letter, issued Friday, focused on an alternative proposed by the city's EIR consultants that would require Chevron to keep emissions of greenhouse gases "at no higher than baseline levels" and allow no increases in greenhouse gas emissions from any production of hydrogen for export.
Chevron Richmond spokeswoman Melissa Ritchie released a statement Wednesday saying the company appreciates the office's letter and will review and evaluate its favored alternative, but she signaled that there were concerns with the emission limits.
"The letter expresses the Attorney General's support for the modernization project if Chevron accepts an alternative project case that would significantly limit the refinery's requested flexibility," Ritchie wrote.
Richmond mayoral candidate Mike Parker, a Chevron critic, wrote in an email this week that "Chevron has not weighed in as to whether it is willing to accept this alternative. But if Chevron were to agree, it would be a giant step forward for both the project and for the health of Richmond."
In her first letter, Harris emphasized that the central point of the project is that Chevron plans to process higher sulfur crude, which caused the corrosion that sparked a fire and explosion at the refinery in August 2012.
Facing a more than $5 million budget deficit, the City Council earlier this month urged the Planning Commission to complete its review so that the council could weigh in on any appeals before its August recess. The modernization project promises around 1,000 jobs and could restore tax revenues from the refinery, which plunged after the 2012 fire.
The Planning Commission is scheduled to hold a hearing on the environmental report July 9. If it is appealed by either side, the council will weigh in. A subsequent court challenge by either environmental activists or Chevron is likely, observers say.
Councilman Tom Butt said Wednesday that the attorney general's letter carries significant weight in the process.
"There's a presumption that the city will put (Harris' suggestions) into its requirements," Butt said. "The Planning Commission has the power to put this into the conditions of approval."
Contact Robert Rogers at 510-262-2726. Follow him at Twitter.com/sfbaynewsrogers.


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San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick slammed media reports that he is being investigated by Miami police for sexual assault.
In a series of three tweets first sent at 7:30 a.m. Friday morning, Kaepernick wrote:
"The charges made in the TMZ story and other stories I've seen are completely wrong," he tweeted. "They make things up about me that never happened. I take great pride in who I am and what I do, but I guess sometimes you have to deal with someone who makes things up. I want to thank all of the people who have shared their encouraging sentiments. I assure you that your faith is not misplaced."
TMZ on Thursday first broke the news about Kaepernick, saying in its headline that he was being investigated for a sexual assault.
Later in the day, the Miami police department released a report filed April 3 by a woman who said she is a former lover of Kaepernick's. In the report, the woman said that she partied with him and two other NFL players, passed out at the Miami Viceroy hotel on April 2, and wound up at a hospital later without having any idea how she got there.
The report alleges no specific crime.
(1/3) The charges made in the TMZ story and other stories I've seen are completely wrong. They make things up about me that never happened.
— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) April 11, 2014
(2/3) I take great pride in who I am and what I do, but I guess sometimes you have to deal with someone who makes things up.
— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) April 11, 2014
(3/3) I want to thank all of the people who have shared their encouraging sentiments. I assure you that your faith is not misplaced.
— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) April 11, 2014
According to the police report, the woman -- who, according to the police report, had a previous sexual relationship with Kaepernick -- said she went to visit Ricardo Lockette, 27, at his unit at the luxury residences of the Viceroy in downtown Miami on April 1 about 9 p.m. Kaepernick and 49ers wide receiver Quinton Patton, 23, were also there.
The woman said she mixed drinks for the men and gave them shots, according to the report. She said the men told her that if she wanted to drink she had to "hit the bong, which contained marijuana," the report states.
They chatted for a while and watched basketball.
Before midnight, she started to feel "light headed," she told police, and she went to lie down.
She said Kaepernick came behind her in the bedroom and started kissing her, the report states. He started to undress her, and she told police she got naked. They did not have sex at this time, the report states.
Kaepernick left, saying he'd be right back.
When the woman called out that she was in bed naked, Patton and Lockette opened the door and "peeked" inside, the report states. She remembers yelling, "What are you doing? Where is Colin? Get out!" the report states. They closed the door and left.
But the woman cannot remember anything after that.
She woke up in a hospital and can't remember arriving there.
Miami police said they are investigating the report, as is standard when someone files one.
Wisconsin-based XAM Sports, which represents Kaepernick, also issued a statement to CSN Bay Area in support of their client on Friday.
"We stand by Colin 100% and are fully confident that the truth will be evident once the facts come to light regarding this matter. Thank you for supporting Colin."
Agent Scott Smith represents Kaepernick, who is in line for a lucrative contract extension.
General manager Trent Baalke said recently at the NFL owners meetings in Orlando, Fla., the 49ers hope to have a new deal in place before the opening of training camp. And 49ers CEO Jed York said Kaepernick deserves to be paid like a top quarterback.


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Thanks for commenting! Also, thanks for reminding me where I've seen the Camelot logo before.I like the music in this game as well. I do feel that some of the tracks are recycled quite a bit more than necessary, though. I also agree about the mind reading/Psynergy aspect. They were definitely creative with it. It's just a little annoying that in order to use it on the map/in town, you have to go through the menus each damn time. Being able to hot button it in some way would have been great (unless it is actually possible, and I'm too ignorant to figure it out).
Thanks for the replies, guys. I may try The Lost Age someday, but it will most likely be a while 'til then. I've been GS-ed out for now, and have so many other games I want to play in the meantime. One of which is the first Wild Arms. I was thinking of journaling that one, too.. but I'm still on the fence about it. It's a lot of writing - lol. Also, I love Lufia 2. =D


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"Do Not Write Another Blog Post Until You Watch This Free Video..."
Watch this free video to learn...
- How I got over 10,000,000 people to visit my websites.
- The types of blog post that got me all that traffic.
- How to get someone else to do it for you!


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The Museum of Inuit Art has an amazing team of over 30 volunteers that offer their time and expertise to support many areas of our operations—public programs, visitor services, website development, collections management, and marketing to name a few. In 2013 our volunteers contributed nearly 4,888 hours to our organization. That is the equivalent of the hours worked by 2.5 full-time staff members in a given year! We are truly grateful for their support.
We have such a fantastic team here at the museum, it is hard to capture all the wonderful people involved but we've selected a few of our current and past volunteers in a variety of roles to speak about their experience being a part of the MIA family!
Lauren W.
Lauren Williams joined the MIA collection management team during her second year for the University of Toronto's Master of Museum Studies (MMSt) program. Since her first day at MIA she has become an invaluable addition and helped MIA staff tackle a large and significant collections audit. From works on paper, stone, antler, hide, metal, ivory – Lauren has worked with it all, and shown remarkable care and attention to all of her condition reports and exhibition preparation. MIA could not be more proud to have such a dedicated volunteer and can not wait to see what she accomplishes in the field now that she has graduated from the MMSt program!
Why did you decide to volunteer with the Museum of Inuit Art?
After doing an internship at a large institution I was very interested in seeing how things are done on a much smaller scale. The Museum of Inuit Art has always been the little-museum-that-could to me. Despite the small staff they are always on the forefront of museum innovation: from augmented reality to the speaker series Museum ShowoffTO.
Describe your experience so far with MIA
My experience has been very positive so far. I have had the pleasure of working with a collection of works on paper as well as various sculptures and baskets. I am learning more and more about Inuit art and culture each time I come in. The staff are all incredibly knowledgeable and very helpful!
What was the most memorable or rewarding moment that you have had while volunteering with the museum?
I began my experience at the MIA cataloging a series of works on paper by hand. Many of these drawings had syllabics written on them – I was careful to copy them down as the artist had written them, but as this was my first time encountering syllabics I was doing so blindly. In the past few weeks, I have been inputting those paper records into a digital catalog. This time I have been using a chart online to transcribe the syllabics. After doing this a couple times I was really starting to not only copy but understand the way artist's names translated. This was an exciting moment for me as I am always looking to learn something new!
What have you learned from your experience with the museum thus far?
I have learned how invaluable volunteer work can be to smaller museums. As I said before, I had previously interned at a larger institution and took a lot of things for granted. I was truly amazed when I learned of the amount of volunteers at the MIA. Each week I am inspired by all of the other volunteers who dedicate their time to the museum.
What are you doing now?
Currently, I am finishing up the final weeks of my Master of Museum Studies Degree at University of Toronto. I volunteer at the MIA once a week working on collections management projects.
If you are interested in learning more about our collections management volunteer opportunity at the museum, visit our website. We are always looking for people to join our team!
– Posted by: Lindsay Bontoft, MIA's Public Programming and Development Coordinator


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NOLOGIN(8) NetBSD System Manager's Manual NOLOGIN(8) NAME nologin -- politely refuse a login SYNOPSIS nologin DESCRIPTION nologin displays a message that an account is not available and returns a non-zero exit code. It is intended as a replacement shell field for accounts that have been disabled. SEE ALSO login(1) HISTORY The nologin command appeared in 4.4BSD, a free re-implementation was con- tributed in NetBSD 1.5 by Hubert Feyrer to avoid bloat through the copy- right comment. NetBSD 7.0 June 19, 1993 NetBSD 7.0
You can also request any man page by name and (optionally) by section:


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If you were on the East coast on Tuesday night and saw a bright red streak through the sky, you weren't alone. A NASA rocket test left a trail of red light through the night sky, as a test run in preparation for the launch of two upcoming space observation missions, according to Discover Magazine's 80 Beats blog.
Here's the rocket:
The red glow came from two exploding lithium canisters ignited after launch. They left trails that were high enough to be illuminated by the glow of the sun, turning them red.
These trails were visible from lots of places on the Eastern seaboard (from Canada to Florida). The rocket launched around 6 PM, EST, from Wallops Island, Virginia. Here's the map of where you should have been able to see the red trails:
Here's the rocket as it launched. It then successfully deployed its canisters of lithium.
Here are a few images of the trails over the East Coast. They are smaller than the trailed made by last year's launch, but, "everything worked as planned," Wallops officials said on the livestream.
@nasa_wallopsDuck NC twitter.com/cath439/status…— cathy belcher (@cath439) January 29, 2013
@nasa_wallops #rocketsredglare twitter.com/MattWCurtis/st…— Matthew Curtis (@MattWCurtis) January 29, 2013
@nasa_wallops My view from Bloxom. #rocketsredglare twitter.com/vbseth/status/…— Seth Stewart (@vbseth) January 29, 2013
A Norfolk, VA view of the lithium trails from the @nasa_wallops sounding rocket launch. #rocketsredglare twitter.com/ToTheNth/statu…— To the Nth (@ToTheNth) January 29, 2013
Send your pictures of the rocket to email@example.com or tweet @bi_sci.


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Chocolate Chip Cookies Straight Up or with Nuts
By lmarchan74
- 8 tablespoons (4 ounces) butter, softened but still cool
- 3/4 cup (6 1/4 ounces) firmly packed dark brown sugar
- 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon (4 ounces) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg (1 1/2 ounces by weight)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 1/4 cups plus 3 tablespoons (7 ounces) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped the size of chocolate chips, or bittersweet chocolate chips (about 1 1/2 cups)
- 3/4 cup (3 ounces) chopped walnuts, optional
Step 1
In a large bowl, using a wooden spoon, cream together the butter and brown and granulated sugars until smooth but not over mixed. (I do this by hand, but if you use a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or a handheld mixer, beat on medium speed for 1 to 2 minutes, and then scrape down the sides of the bowl before continuing.) Add the egg, vanilla and salt and stir just until combined.
Sift in the flour, baking soda and baking powder and stir gently just until combined. Add the chocolate and nuts if using and stir just until evenly distributed throughout the dough. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Position the racks in the upper third and lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Scoop up 1-inch balls of the dough with a spoon or mini scoop and set them 2 inches apart on the prepared pans. Bake the cookies, rotating the pans after 7 to 9 minutes, for 13 to 17 minutes until the cookies are golden brown. If you like a very soft cookie, bake them for 13 minutes. If you like a crisp cookie, bake them for 17 minutes. Transfer to racks and let cool. I think these cookies are best the day they are baked, but they will keep in an airtight cookie jar for up to 4 days-if they last that long.


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Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Enlighten Yourself
The idea of privilege, however, I think needs to be discussed. It is often hard to know that one has privilege without being made aware of it. That is how I came to know many of my own privileges. So, because of that, and because I understand that sometimes it can be difficult to know where to go for information about an unfamiliar topic, I am compiling a list of links about male privilege. If you are a male reader of this blog who is inclined to be wary of feminism (and all males, really), please check out the links and enlighten yourself.
1) What is Male Privilege? (Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog)
- An excellent beginning reading on privilege in general, and male privilege more specifically.
2) The Male Privilege Checklist (Alas! A Blog)
- A list of examples of what having male privilege entails.
3) Privilege-Colored Glasses
- A blog post I wrote to call out men I had interacted with whose male privilege shone through brilliantly, probably without their knowledge.
4) A fan-video for the song "Privilege" by Incubus.
This page, and the links contained on it, will be updated from time to time. If you know of any other links to add to this list, leave them in comments.
15 comments:
- The Great American said...
Thank you Amelia, I finally understand. I finally get it. Male Privilege is just your way of trying to make men feel guilty because they are superior to women. I appreciate the clarification....
- October 2, 2008 at 1:05 AM
- The Great American said...
- This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
- October 2, 2008 at 2:30 AM
- Amelia said...
And then, you know, there is this.
- October 2, 2008 at 10:31 AM
- Amelia said...
And yes, he did just claim that males are superior to females.
You can lead a horse to water...
- October 2, 2008 at 10:34 AM
- Lindsay said...
Great collection of links.
Whenever someone doesn't get their own privilege, I ask, "Would you say that x group [Black Americans] are disadvantaged in society?" They most likely say yes, and then ask, "If x group is disadvantaged, wouldn't that mean someone has an advantage? Most likely people who are not in x group [White Americans]?"
- October 2, 2008 at 2:01 PM
- ShamelessFeminist said...
nice blog!....many people choose to ignore male privilege, white privilege, class privilege, etc. because it's the pink elephant in the room that no one wants to acknowledge since it's so controversial
- October 2, 2008 at 11:37 PM
- Renee said...
I so agree with you. Discussing privilege is so very important. I have been trying to do that quite a bit on my blog but find that there is so much resistance to the concept. It is especially tough when I talk about white privilege because of course I get the standard you are just an ABW.
A great blog for white privilege discussion is Professor What If. I highly recommend her work.
Notice that the very first comment on this post was all about the men again. Not only are people dedicated to denying privilege they are intent to make every single post about their issues.
- October 3, 2008 at 12:02 AM
I love the first paragraph of this post. I agree with it entirely, yet I find myself feeling responsible for explaining subject matter... Perhaps I am unable to turn the teacher in me off...
I wish I could ignore the inflammatory remarks and trolling, but I tend to feel obligated to answer, to feel "oh, maybe there is a chance this person could change their ways..."
To get over this, I may have to post your first paragraph in big bold text above my monitor!
I have written a few posts about white privilege recently that garnered trolling. It seems my white privilege posts always create the most ire amongst MRA's, anti-feminists, and white privilege deniers.
If anyone can enlighten me as to why trolls troll, I would be thankful. Is it hubris? Do they really think their ire and attacks will change us into non-feminists, that we will go, oh, yes, you are right, talking about white privilege is so dumb? I don't know whether to just ignore them, or to try and get them to open their minds a bit...
And, thanks Renee, for recommending my blog for posts on white privilege. Right back at you.
I wish I knew how to hyperlink in comment threads, but as I don't, here are the URLs for three specific posts I have written on white privilege:
- October 4, 2008 at 11:16 AM
- Amelia said...
Professorwhatif: It took me a long time to learn to ignore trolls because I, too, often hoped that there was a chance to open their eyes. But once I did learn that ignoring them was best, I became a lot happier and less stressed. I am glad, though, that my first paragraph was meaningful to you. :)
I will definitely link your posts later today...when I am done with all my homework.
- October 4, 2008 at 12:15 PM
- Michael said...
Having trolled internet arguments from time to time, I feel I might be slightly equipped to answer professorwhatif's question.
Most of my exercises into trolling have been for the purposes of making one side of an argument look ridiculous; for example, I've taken the position of a creationist in arguments about creationism or intelligent design in schools with the intent of presenting the argument in a way that makes it seem ridiculous (although that isn't particularly difficult...).
However, there have been instances of me trolling just to get a rise out of someone. I rarely do this during arguments about important topics that I care about, but if I find people having an intense, serious argument about something that is (in my opinion) fairly unimportant or lighthearted, I often make an attempt to inject some levity into the situation by trolling the living crap out of both sides. Finding a proper balance between insane nonsense and reasonable-sounding opinions is the most difficult part about this particular brand of trolling, and when I can pull it off well, I actually feel very rewarded. I mean, my words, usually very few words, grabbed the attention of people on BOTH sides of an argument and made them start screaming or CAPS LOCK TYPING at ME, instead of each other. It's sort of a power trip, to be honest.
I've never trolled on this blog or any blog, though. I reserve my trolling for Fark and other general discussion forums.
Hope this helps!
- October 4, 2008 at 4:23 PM
- Samuel Tinianow said...
This post has inspired me. I think that for my next blog post I'm going to write about accepting feminism as a man. Because all men should be knowledgeable and accepting of feminism, but I also remember that it was extremely hard to come to terms with the idea that I had spent my entire life unknowingly participating in an oppressive system that victimized more than half the people I knew.
- October 6, 2008 at 12:53 PM
- Smirking Cat said...
Privilege isn't really that difficult a concept to understand, unless you truly just don't want to. Just asking yourself (if you are a man) "How may my life be different if I was a woman?", or if you are white, "How may my life be different if I were another race?" can raise awareness of how things could be different based on your race or gender. It's not a declaration that "You're white or male, so your life is easy and wonderful with no worries." But it is: your life is very different because males and Caucasians are generally more highly validated and respected in our society. Refusal to even consider opening your mind is such a sad thing to see, and a guarantee of handing today's kids the legacy of oppression, stereotypes, inequality, and straight-up stupidity.
- October 17, 2008 at 8:15 AM
- Jason said...
Thank you for the post.
Having thought about issue of social equality, here's my take on this issue.
As an ethnic minority, I am certainly sympathetic with you and many feminists about societal structure favouring Male because I also have experience unequal treatment to some extent. The privilege White Male get is undeniable, and the debate usually plays out on the issue of to what extent this privilege really matters in reality. I think that it over-emphasized by feminists and scholars in African American studies and under-emphasized by mainstream media and the public. In my experience, I found it hard to articulate clearly how discrimination has occurred to me because in Western society (such discrimination usually isn't explicit, but rather vague). I think this is where feminist scholars and African American scholars help greatly in analyzing with hard data where such discriminations occur.
With that said, I have a great respect for the scholars working towards social equality.
But recently, I have been rethinking whether some assumptions feminists have are correct.
Do people have duty to treat others equally?
I think feminists would say yes because they are certainly seeking for social equality for women. But in my opinion, we don't have duty to treat other equally. As long as I do not infringe others rights, I can treat people the way I desire. I think the best example is of families. I greatly discriminate others and favour my own family members. This discrimination I hold to be justified could come as a nightmarish case to many feminists because I favour my own family members just for being my family. They often do not have distinguishably attractive qualities, and they are rather normal, and yet I treat them very differently from others. This notion extends greatly for everyone. People have friends for certain traits they have and hate someone for certain traits they have. People treat their friends nicely and discriminate people they do not like as people do not have duty to treat people equally.
Let's apply this to a real world example of affirmative action.
Here is my argument.
1. People have rights.
2. Companies cannot infringe other people's rights.
3. Companies have rights.
4. People cannot infringe the companies' rights.
5. Companies have rights to act in anyway they desire to fulfill their interests as long as they don't infringe the rights of others.
6. Companies have rights to hire people they think are the best for a position.
7. Companies do not have duty to hire people.
8. Companies do not have duty to hire people of certain background.
9. Affirmative action infringes the rights of the companies.
Please let me know of flaws in my argument. I wanted to demonstrate that people do not have duty to treat people equally with a more relevant example.
I personally do wish that people would treat other as people and judge people based on their attributes and skills. In that respects, I sympathize with feminists. However, I value freedom more than my desire to be treated in certain way.
Thank you for taking time to read my comment.
And if you are a libertarian feminist, I was probably preaching to the choir. Keep up the good fight!
- November 18, 2008 at 12:25 PM
I find that when you talk about privilege on whatever subject Gender, race its usually to make some one feel guilty. You really can't help if you are born white, black, male, female, rich, poor, just make the best of the talents you have, towards improving yourself. Sure someone is always going to have it better or easier but to say, well someone has priviliges is to play the victim card. I look at it this way, If you are Born in the US the richest and best country out there you can make it happen for yourself, it might not be easy but it can be done.
Don't worry about what you can't do worry about improving yourself
- December 25, 2008 at 8:21 PM
I don't think it's about making someone feel guilty here (although I suppose talking about privilege could be depending on circumstances).
This post is obviously intended to do something proactive about a social problem, namely male privilege.
In other words, the post isn't about "worrying what you can't do" as much as it is worrying about improving SOCIETY.
I know it's been ages since that comment, but I felt the need to add something for the next guy that comes along.
And thanks, this is an awesome post. Now if only someone would write about what a man can do to help create change...
- February 17, 2010 at 8:26 PM