text:
Heads-up warning to the American Peoples – Nuclear Attack on Iran appears imminent!
Zahir Ebrahim
March 29, 2008.
Addendums: April 06, 2008 ; May 15, 2008 ; June 29, 2008
(Covering the crisis period March 29, 2008 to June 29, 2008)
© Project HumanbeingsfirstTM. Permission granted to use freely as per copyright notice.
Document ID: PHBFZE20080329 URL: http://humanbeingsfirst.org. | Print | PDF | Comment.
Heads-up warning to the American Peoples – Nuclear attack on Iran appears imminent!
Project HumanbeingsfirstTM cannot humbly emphasize enough the first order most crucial question that must concern all conscionable 'United States persons' today, including courageous genuinely patriotic whistleblowers. The impending nuclear attack on Iran, under all kinds of contrived pretexts, and especially disguised as a "'defensive' U.S. military action" (Brzezinski) must be prevented if this is indeed a genuine "populist democracy" for which Brzezinski had observed: "Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization"!
To present a more extensive and coherent analysis than is possible in these Op-Ed pages, the following essay is available from Project Humanbeingsfirst.org: "Beware of Red Herrings on Nuclear Security spun by Hectoring Hegemons and their patsies!"
There must be only one immediate, near term, and long term goal for the equitable security (and prosperity) of all peoples on the planet Earth so long as there remains an imbalance of power among us, so long as there remain 'hectoring hegemons' seeking "full spectrum dominance" among us, and so long as there remains an absence of 'full spectrum deterrence' to "the pursuit of power", for indeed, "hegemony is as old as mankind": prevent new "'defensive' U.S. military action". Especially one in response to a horrendous 'nuclear terrorist act' transpiring in the United States of America "that will make Sept. 11 pale by comparison" – as President George Bush himself prognosticated on February 13, 2008, in full anticipation of precisely another catalyzing 911. For what else, other than a nuclear terrorist act in America can be described as making "Sept. 11 pale by comparison"?
A major indication that something is imminently afoot is that the sudden 'Civil War' now raging in Iraq, is about to be directly blamed upon Iran! A weapons cache allegedly of Iranian origin has just been uncovered, as briefly reported on March 29, 2008, in the Pakistani newspaper The News: "Col. Dominic Caraccilo, commander of the 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, said the rockets were marked with manufacture dates as recent as 2007, and were believed to have been brought into the country from Iran during a buildup of U.S. troops last year. The U.S. military accuses Iran of arming and funding Shiite extremists in Iraq, although Tehran denies the charges."
While that war of words and the concomitant Iraqi-fodder of 'Muslim on Muslim' violence in itself is not a sufficient pretext to nuclear bomb Iran, it is consistent with the rapidly developing pattern of escalating warnings of another terrorist act "that will make Sept. 11 pale by comparison". The 'setup' is in accelerated progress to most assuredly lay the blame for "Iraqi failure to meet [American] benchmarks" upon Iran, and as 'presciently' noted by Zbigniew Brzezinski before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2007, it will be followed by "accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran. culminating in a 'defensive' US military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan."
Well, the 'unequivocal evidence' fingering Iran for Iraqi Army's easy to predict defeat at the hands of Iranian backed militias in this American backed 'Muslim on Muslim' violence was just found. Even President George Bush expressed his great satisfaction at this turn of events by noting that it was a "positive moment", gleefully adding:
"I understand people here want us to leave, regardless of the situation, but that will not happen so long as I'm Commander-In-Chief."
And this unverified report points to the following ominous headline: 'Saudis Prepare for "Sudden Nuclear Hazards" After Cheney Visit', which if true, requires no further elaboration.
In isolation and without context, all these rapidly breaking events are mere unrelated point events. However, in the light of the none-too-secret White House and Pentagon's overarching agenda, these are not isolated events. They are now culminating in the build-up of pretexts for nuclear attack on Iran!
Do the American peoples want to wait until the matters are a fait accompli?
As William Arkin had reported in the Washington Post three years ago, America can mobilize CONPLAN-8022 in less than 12 hours notice. Quoting Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force: "We're now at the point where we are essentially on alert ... We have the capacity to plan and execute global strikes ... in half a day or less."
And from all accounts of the enormous mobilization-buildup to attack Iran already in place, as noted in this 2007 study which concluded "the US has made military preparations to destroy Iran's WMD, nuclear energy, regime, armed forces, state apparatus and economic infrastructure within days if not hours of President George W. Bush giving the order", and which today, in 2008, 'include[s] not only a vast array of weapons, including nuclear weapons, cruise and other missiles and hundreds of aircraft but also "insertion" (invasion) forces and equipment' as noted by one observer, that "half a day or less" timeperiod is today almost near real-time. And the moment a nuclear terrorist '911' in an American or European city, or a provocation by Israel taking out Iran's nuclear reactor sites, or a 'Gulf-of-Tonkin' or 'USS Cole' or 'Lavon Affair' event that sinks America's entire 5th fleet in the Persian Gulf transpires, the timeperiod will likely be instantaneous!
The American public will be rendered as bewildered at that time as a fawn caught in headlights, and as enraged to go nuclear-bomb the entire planet as any 'ubermenschen' simply because they can get away with it! But interestingly, they won't pick on Russia or China who can fight back. No – they will only pick on a defenseless peoples who dare to standup to "full spectrum" hegemony of the 'hectoring hegemons'. Only the Iranians (and Pakistanis) will bear the brunt of America's wrath next!
Therefore, knowing how the future is likely to unfold in extremely rapid, fast-breaking developments leaving no time to wisely-reflect or to react-sanely at that time by peoples opposed to America's endless wars, time to act is now.
A Domestic Solution Space That Works
Firstly, anything, including all 'nuclear terrorist acts' on American soil, or anywhere in the world, all shocking revelations by whistleblowers, all leaks in newspapers, and all phantasmal mantras that distract from the afore-stated goal, regardless of how compelling the reasons, must be treated by the unwary and gullible American public and its intellectual dissenting-chiefs, as red herrings, pretexts, and deceptions for premeditated "imperial mobilization" by their nation's rulers.
Let the American peoples not be 'surprised' once again by facile disingenuous conclusions like this one in 2005 by the Iraq Study Group in the aftermath of the premeditated invasion of Iraq under false WMD pretexts:
"We conclude that the intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its prewar judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. This was a major intelligence failure". (Iraq Study Group report, March 31, 2005)
Or even by un-surprising exposés like this one in 2008, titled: "FBI says, 'No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11'", being among the top 25 most censored stories of 2008. It quotes Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI:
"The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11. Bin Laden has not been formally charged in connection to 9/11."
Secondly, if there is reason for the United States to nuclear decimate any country or any peoples in purported 'self-defense', the American peoples must demand a ratification of the decision to go to war through a public referendum – let its great "populist democracy" speak directly in the modernity of the 21st century before it is called upon to make its sacrifices, before it is called upon to pay its taxes to fund the war, and before it is called upon to acquire innocent blood on its hands!
Even better, draw the soldiers, officers and war-technicians from the pool who vote for war! If they can vote yes to invade other nations and wantonly shatter the tabula rasa of a 'lesser humanity', then they must also first be willing to sign up for doing it themselves – instead of having a draft of economic conscription. Every 'yes' voting home in America must have at least one 'patriot' from the immediate family show up on the front-lines without exception – or their 'yes' vote is void!
A commonsensical and calculated demand such as this publicly made today, right now, to be adjudicated upon in Congressional public hearings and converted into law, is infinitely more sensible for assuring America's national security given the hundred+ year history of deception for "imperial mobilization" by this nation's Executive branch with willing complicity from its entire ruling elite from legislature to newsmedia – as evidenced from the fiction of USS Maine to the fiction of WMDs – and which today rings the entire globe with more than 700 of its military bases eagerly paid for by Congress year after year in the pretense of keeping an "American peace". FY 2009 budget is to cost the American tax payers $3.1 trillion! Both the Congress and the Executive effectively comprise the same pool of 'hectoring hegemons', with the Judiciary, not espousing the tradition of 'suo moto' action, preferring to remain silent on any and all matters projected as being related to foreign policy matters, politics, or executive privilege under times of 'war'!
And to preemptively understand how such a demand for public referendum – if it were to gain a threatening traction – will surely be co-opted by the Executive branch and willingly aided and abetted by the Congress and the Courts, recall that the 'Continuity of Government' Executive Order can now 'legally' disable this "populist democracy" and its entire democratically elected legislature under emergency powers already appropriated by the Executive. A Martial Law will be declared with the American soldiers (or the privatized profit-making wing of it which goes by the name 'Blackwater') re-training their blood soaked guns from the 'lesser humanity' in the Middle East and South Asia onto the American peoples themselves.
"Al Qaeda operatives who look western"
One can already see that particular 'setup' in active construction even as we speak. Now the domestic threat is no longer perceived to be primarily from 'Arab' looking 'jihadi' men out to terrorize America, but from "Western" looking ones as ominously noted by the CIA:
'[Al Qaeda] were training "operatives who look western" and "would be able to come into this country without attracting the attention others might ... making it easier for them to get past security at US airports, according to CIA Director Michael Hayden. If there is another terrorist attack, it will originate there, [along the border with Afghanistan]." ' (Pakistani newspaper Dawn, March 31, 2008)
Do you "look Western"? Now it's your turn buddy!
The moment George Bush's, and the CIA's, and the American military's prognostications of another '911' come true, all you 'United We Stand' "western" looking Americans better run and hide quickly under your beds – for who knows which one of you flag-waving 'white-boys' is secretly 'al Qaeeda'! Perhaps you all are!
This scribe takes no pleasure in pointing out the 'I warned you so' in his 2003 narrative "They dared to knock on my door" available at http://humanbeingsfirst.org.
It is of course hastily presumed that "look western" means 'white'. It could also possibly mean 'Black', 'Hispanic', 'Chinese', and of course, also 'Arab'. The only thing it surely doesn't mean is 'Pakistani' looking! Great! Should all 'brown-skinned' peoples in America finally breathe a sigh of relief? No – we will be the first ones interned as the already known 'old enemy' under any Martial Law!
It is the free-willed Americans who must now be afraid the most as the new 'enemy combatants', for most of us lowly immigrants escaping from our respective 'hell-holes' to make a better lives for ourselves have already shown our true cowardly 'native-informant' and 'uncle tom' sides to the authorities! The fascists have genuinely nothing to fear from us 'brownies', and they know it ever since Sept. 11 when our mosques to our wedding halls began crawling with FBI agents. It is mainly the free-willed peoples who "look western", and who are also armed under their 2th Amendment Rights and who might also insist upon their 4th Amendment Rights, that the fascists genuinely fear the most! It would be a pleasure to observe how FBI agents fare among their 'western' churches, synagogues, weddings, and wine parties!
Welcome to the Fourth Reich in America where the new enemy is those who "look western"!
Shrewdly anticipating what the 'hectoring hegemons' will do to thwart a conscionable peoples' imperatives to stay a free peoples, the American peoples must make their own next moves now as outlined above while they still possibly can, and with much alertness, in order to prevent the premeditated orchestration of nuclear "revolutionary times" which will surely become the harbinger of many "inconceivable" operations in the world, including many changes right here in the US of A. Once the nuclear 'Rubicon' is crossed, the "revolutionary times" intended to "birth-pang a new Middle East" for the "New World Order" will predictably acquire an uncontrollable dynamics of its own right here in the American homeland itself.
Demanding a public referendum before any act of 'retaliation' as a matter of law is the only peacefully-efficacious American peoples' immediate protocol for arresting the cancer of "imperial mobilization" in its tracks with all its concomitant benefits directly accruing to the ordinary peoples of this nation in the longer run – from increased social spending to a safer world for them to vacation in, to proudly disclose in far away places that they are American without the fear of being gunned down. Other collective protocols by the rest of the planet's peoples may not be so benign.
It is the profound and most earnest plea of Project HumanbeingsfirstTM to the American newsmedia to not be co-opted by another 'shocking' USS Maine, another 'Gulf of Tonkin', another '911', and another 'mantra of WMDs' into misleading their own peoples to mobilize for war. Even if, as a leading Pakistani English newspaper's editor once explained to this scribe, 'freedom of the press, in effect, actually means freedom of the owners of the press - worldwide', please exercise at least that freedom to not go to war on the American peoples themselves!
Zahir Ebrahim
email: firstname.lastname@example.com
This heads up warning is made even more ominous and abhorrently prescient by the report of April 05, 2008 in the UK Telegraph:
"British officials gave warning yesterday that America's commander in Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the US-backed Baghdad government.
A strong statement from General David Petraeus about Iran's intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a US attack on Iranian military facilities, according to a Whitehall assessment. In closely watched testimony in Washington next week, Gen Petraeus will state that the Iranian threat has risen as Tehran has supplied and directed attacks by militia fighters against the Iraqi state and its US allies."
Paul Craig Roberts, the former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, immediately noted:
'The neocon lacky Petraeus has had his script written for him by Cheney, and Petraeus together with neocon warmonger Ryan Crocker, the US governor of the Green Zone in Baghdad, will present Congress next Tuesday and Wednesday with the lies, for which the road has been well paved by neocon propagandists such as Kimberly Kagan, that "the US must recognize that Iran is engaged in a full-up proxy war against it in Iraq." Don't expect Congress to do anything except to egg on the attack.'
It is the earnest and most profound hope of Project HumanbeingsfirstTM that this warning is entirely wrong – that the last nuclear attack on any peoples, and upon any country, under any pretexts, was in 1945!
But if hopes were horses – beggars would ride, and there would have been no 911, and no invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon, to "Birth-pang a New Middle East". Therefore, a complacent but "populist democracy" is shown how to rise to the challenge of the 'hectoring hegemons' – demand a public referendum before going to war on Iran!
Both NY Times and LA Times showed no interest in this oped submission. Surely, newsmedia: "either you are with us, or with the [super]terrorists."
The same act that General Colin Powell had performed before the UN in March 2003 while waving his PowerPoint slideshow of non-existent Iraqi WMDs, was also performed by General David Petraeus in April 2008 before the US Congress by holding up evidence of non-existent Iranian weapons in Iraq. The following press release of May 10, 2008 by CASMII (Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran) titled "US confession: Weapons were not made in Iran after all", is only remarkable in that it notes the retraction by the US Military before the fait accompli has been constructed. Unlike the one in Iraq, whereby, the retraction only followed two years after the fact of the invasion which was constructed using WMD as a pretext, with the disingenuous Iraq Study Group blithely asserting ex post facto, in March 2005: "We conclude that the intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its prewar judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. This was a major intelligence failure." The CASMII notes the following:
"In a sharp reversal of its long-standing accusations against Iran arming militants in Iraq , the US military has made an unprecedented albeit quiet confession: the weapons they had recently found in Iraq were not made in Iran at all."
This premature retraction ostensibly implies to the forensic mind that there is, in some likelihood, some dissent within the senior US military establishment on the wisdom of continuing on with "full spectrum dominance" that is bankrupting the United States while making it the most violent pariah nation on the planet. One must however, if one has the geopolitical acumen to understand the diabolical "forces that drive them", not count on the efficacy of such dissent to avert any of the catastrophic scenarios, including a staged 'Gulf of Tonkin', or a staged nuclear terrorist act within the United States, or an Israeli attack on Iran, or an escalating Israeli war in Lebanon and Syria, all of which can lead to "'defensive' US military action against Iran [and Pakistan]".
The Iranian and other Asian leaders would be wise to not underestimate the tortuous power of the 'Dark-Side' that is attempting to seed Total War in Asia using America as the 'hired hand'. See "Letter to Editor Press TV with a message to the Iranian Peoples", and "The WAR on TERROR 2008 Omnibus Collection", in order to effectively grasp, with minimal readings, the grotesque reality that is being orchestrated to deliberately seed "revolutionary times". For indeed, "what is inconceivable in normal times is possible in revolutionary times." The following insightful analysis by Richard Cook "Has the Battle for America Begun?" lends additional forensic clarity to the "forces that drive them" towards Total War. Rather than continually dismiss the tortuous aspirations for global domination as lunacy, it would be prudent to treat them as real doctrines of conquest by a handful of the world's ruling elite partnering together in a twisted convolution of mutual interests – never to be underestimated for its destructive power upon the weak. Such an assessment, based on full spectrum comprehension of reality, permits the construction of the only effective self-defense by the weak. Why such a self-defense is not transpiring is a puzzle that defies explanation, as noted in "The Missing Link - Full Spectrum Deterrence".
That deterrent solution-space, according to Project Humanbeingsfirst, is only in the forming of NATO-like Full Spectrum Alliances with an effective "Dr. Strangelove" type Samson Option that is publicly targeted at Israel and Western Europe as a declared self-defense nuclear doctrine, to construct the only viable and effective Deterrence: MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction)!
Only in the insanity of its "sublime irony", wherein, in the immortal words of Winston Churchill, "safety [is] the sturdy child of terror and survival the twin brother of annihilation", can there be any assured prospects of defeating the war-mongers before they hand the world a nuclear fait accompli.
This heads-up, originally issued on March 29, 2008, is even more pertinent today under the premise that there may be a covert power-struggle going on within the US military that can make a nuclear fait accompli tactically all the more expedient.
An alleged assassination attempt was made on Nicholas Sarkozy at the time of his departure on June 24 2008, from Israel's most closely guarded institution – the Ben-Gurion Airport. That same day, Israel, the United States, and Iran, all denied rumors of the launching of full spectrum attack on Iran, as narrated by the Jerusalem Post "US, Israel, Iran all flatly deny attack rumor". See assertions and denials in Jpost, Haaretz, Atimes here, Press TV, Globalresearch here here here here, armchair scenarios here here. See Iran's ineffectual bravado of its limitless response as in "the response would have no time and space limitations and would be quite devastating" here here, which is analyzed and deconstructed by this scribe in the as yet unpublished Letter to Editor to Tehran Times and Press TV. Also visit the famous conscience of the US military brass and the IAEA brass who "will quit" if US attacks Iran – some good will that do for the millions of 'wretched of the earth' on the receiving end of a nuclear holocaust! Finally, witness these ominously descriptive words of concern emanating from the Republican Congressman Ron Paul, as reported by Press TV on June 28, 2008, with no formulation of effective prescriptions and merely still restating the supreme monumental crime to be, which most already know:
"In the last several weeks, if not for months we have heard a lot of talk about the potential of Israel and/or the United States bombing Iran. Energy prices are being bid up because of this fear. It has been predicted that if bombs start dropping, that we will see energy prices double or triple," said the Republican.
"To me it is almost like deja vu all over again. We listened to the rhetoric for years and years before we went into Iraq. We did not go in the correct manner, we did not declare war, we are there and it is an endless struggle," he told a nearly empty House chamber.
"I cannot believe it, that we may well be on the verge of initiating the bombing of Iran,"
"This resolution, House Resolution 362 is a virtual war resolution. It is the declaration of tremendous sanctions, and boycotts and embargoes on the Iranians. It is very, very severe," Paul said.
Supported by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), House Resolution 362 (and the Senate version Resolution 580), known as the 'Iran War Resolution' can be considered a means of imposing harsher sanctions as well as a naval blockade restricting exports to the oil-rich country.
This bill, which was introduced at an AIPAC annual policy conference, has gained 208 co-sponsors in the House and 29 in the Senate. It will likely be put to a vote after July 4.
"This is unbelievable! This is closing down Iran. Where do we have this authority? Where do we get the moral authority? Where do we get the international legality for this? Where do we get the Constitutional authority for this?" asked Paul.
Instead of such glorious words of endless expression of concern (which are mere repetitions of what was already uttered in the Jan 2007 speech), endless petition writing in conscionable dissent, endless calls for impeachment, more courageous acts of soothing the conscience after the fact, and vacuous bravado of the victims, please refer to Project Humanbeingsfirst's forensic headsup warning and the outlining of the only effective deterrent solution-space which can actually prevent all predatory attacks on all underdogs. Only the immediate re-ushering in of the "sublime irony" in which, once again, "safety will be the sturdy child of terror and survival the twin brother of annihilation", is there any possibility of effectively turning back from the edge of precipice. There is no other solution apart from "full spectrum alliances" against the hectoring hegemons!
The level and potency of their mantras is far greater than even the victims have perceived. The Zionist 'uber' war-mongering circus clown in the United States, Dr. Daniel Pipes, in his latest screed "The Enemy Has a Name", re-spins his attack on Islam thusly (with Iran as the newest harbinger of this 'threat' to Western civilization): "vanquish Islamism and help Muslims develop an alternative form of Islam. Not coincidentally, this approach roughly parallels what the allied powers accomplished vis-à-vis the two prior radical utopian movements, fascism and communism." The insightful debunking by Khalid Amayreh has already dealt with this Goebbellian "manufacturing consent" among the Western populations quite effectively. See the following Project Humanbeingsfirst rebuttal to Daniel Pipe's protégé's parallel cheerleading assault "Response to 'Islam in America's public schools: Education or indoctrination?'"
Sooner the conscionable peoples in the West standing up to the aggression of their own nations, and too the victims now so Machiavellianly divided and reduced to easy pickings, both rationally come to grips with this blatant single fact that the only effective self-defense possible against this level of full spectrum assault is in full spectrum alliance, sooner will all stop wasting time on ineffective pursuits and finally begin to focus on the only real deterrence solution-space.
It is also entirely feasible that Iran has already covertly constructed such a mutual defense pact treaty with Russia (with tacit supply-line assuring economic treaties with China and India). In fact, only the existence of such, can actually explain Iran's irrational bravado in the face of the extreme danger facing their nation. Perhaps it is indeed a devilish setup to obliterate Tel Aviv by goading Israel and America into first ineffectively attacking Iran!
While Zbigniew Brzezinski may have planned the "Grand Chessboard" in the West, his Eurasian targets of the great game actually invented chess. All four of the regions burgeoning powers, Iran, India, China, and Russia, are ancient civilizations far older than the Atlantic powers put together, and are also expert chess players in the very ethos of the richness of their civilizations. Many public parks in Iran for instance, are dotted with stone and wood carved chess tables where ordinary peoples gather daily under the shady trees to spar with each other, bringing their own chess pieces. Chess is not an acquired skill in Asia, nor is it of recent acquisition, as it is for the West! It is innate to the peoples. The Chinese classic "Art of War" is 2500 years old and still teaches the Rand Corporation how to play their great games! The Israelis would be wise to not forget that, along with who has continually sheltered the Jewish peoples when the Atlantic Christians were persecuting them for two millennia. Even Uri Avnery, a self professed progressive Jewish leftist, and Zionist, was forced to admit it when he fairly noted in his famous 2006 essay "Muhammad's Sword" (also available here):
'Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.'
The Israeli Jews, the Zionists, and all their genuine exponents worldwide itching to bomb Iran, might reflect on this alternate "war game" scenario before their hubris takes them to their own suicide. Muslims are not the Jews enemies! Step back from the brink if you really are the true inheritors of Solomon's wisdom, and not merely impostors! For this may be the ultimate patsy setup by your own 2000 year old true nemesis!
The author, an ordinary researcher and writer on contemporary geopolitics, a minor justice activist, grew up in Pakistan, studied EECS at MIT, engineered for a while in high-tech Silicon Valley (patents here), and retired early to pursue other responsible interests. His maiden 2003 book was rejected by six publishers and can be read on the web at http://PrisonersoftheCave.org. He may be reached at http://Humanbeingsfirst.org. Verbatim reproduction license at http://humanbeingsfirst.org/#Copyright.
Copyright Notice:
All material copyright (c) Project HumanbeingsfirstTM, with full permission to copy, repost, and reprint, in its entirety, unmodified and unedited, for any purpose, granted, provided the URL sentence and this copyright notice are also reproduced verbatim as part of this license, and not doing so may be subject to copyright license violation infringement claims pursuant to remedies noted at http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html. The rights of the author to express these views are based on inalienable rights noted at http://www.hrweb.org/legal/undocs.html, and to do so freely without suffering intimidation and duress. All quotations and excerpts are based on non-profit "fair use" in the greater public interest consistent with the understanding of laws noted at http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html. Full copyright notice and Exclusions at http://www.humanbeingsfirst.org.
Links fixed, reformat for readability, Jan 07, 2018
Warning to the American Peoples 13/13 Nuclear attack on Iran appears imminent!


text:
Growing consumer demand for mobile banking has prompted more credit unions to offer members the ability to check account balances, transfer money, and pay bills using their smart phones.
A recent study released by the Federal Reserve showed that 21% of mobile phone users had used mobile banking within the past 12 months, and an additional 11% anticipated using it in the next 12 months.
But increasing traffic in the cyber realm doesn't need to trigger additional security threats. Following are three best practices—some for the credit union and others for users—that can help ensure the security of your members' data, as well as control and monitor access to your credit union's systems.
1. Instruct members to use their mobile devices' security features
Many device and operating system manufacturers build some level of security into their equipment, but members don't always leave those safeguards in place.
"It seems a lot of people want to go in and hack or jailbreak their smartphones, and that opens the device up to quite a bit of security risk," says Aaron Oplinger, director of eServices and channel integration at $1.3 billion asset Arizona Federal Credit Union in Phoenix. "We definitely advise our members to leave the security in place, and to use the security the devices come with, because there is value in that."
Encouraging members to install antivirus software and to use good judgment when downloading applications is something Frank Macrina, vice president of e-services at $2.3 billion asset Virginia Credit Union in Richmond says also will contribute to a safe mobile banking experience.
"They should use a PIN or security pattern as a first line of defense," he says.
These simple measures may be powerful, but they often go unused. A recent survey revealed that more than half of users don't use a password or PIN to prevent unauthorized access to their mobile devices.
Macrina fears that losses attributable to the mobile channel will rise. "Mobile security does not yet seem to be taken seriously by consumers."
Chris Saneda, Virginia Credit Union's senior vice president and chief information officer, believes proactive member education often provides the foundation for other security features in the mobile banking channel, and is fundamental "in terms of ensuring additional security for member transactions."
Virginia Credit Union's website offers members a range of security tips, something Saneda says is crucial to a secure platform. "Without member education, that's going to be your weakest link."
2. Put sensitive features behind a multifactor authentication gateway
Members using Arizona Federal's online portal are protected by multifactor authentication (MFA), but mobile banking users are not.
To maintain security without these more advanced authentication protocols, Oplinger says there are safeguards in place that limit what mobile users can do.
"We don't allow them to change their password—they still have to go through online banking for that—and we don't allow them to set up new payees within bill pay," he says. "They can only send payments to existing payees."
In short, money can't be sent via mobile device anywhere that hasn't already been established as a legitimate target in an MFA-protected environment.
Oplinger says one longer-term goal is to have enhanced MFA on mobile devices, at which point additional functionalities will be available to users. "But until we get those security features in place," he says, "we're restricting all of that."
3. Leverage software to detect suspicious activity
The technology team at Virginia Credit Union also restricts what members can do through their mobile devices. Because they aren't using MFA, high-risk transactions aren't allowed.
However, Saneda says the credit union is looking at software solutions that would alert them to suspicious events.
"It will alert us to high-risk activities," he explains. "Not just from a high-risk transaction standpoint, but also any kind of unusual behavior a member might exhibit."
These fraud-detection platforms typically look for pattern anomalies, flagging suspicious actions for the credit union to examine and act on.
BRIAN McGINLEY is senior vice president of data risk management for Identity Theft 911.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
So you just keep your mouth shut.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Doing the Right Thing: Upside? Zero. Downside? Financial Ruin…
So you just keep your mouth shut.
11 comments:
- BobE said...
While John rues that the SEC has gotten better at its job (a low hurdle, admittedly), the recent passage of the JOBS Act suggests that he will have plenty of new opportunities before much longer.
I'm surprised he didn't mention this.
- Jeff Matthews said...
The JOBS Act wasn't in place...and yet Groupon happened right in front of everyone's eyes. The JOBS Act wasn't even dreamed of, and 3 of the 6 biggest brokers disappeared in 2008-9 despite the fact that every one of those CEOs and CFOs signed off on their financials in accordance with Sarbanes.
I like the JOBS Act. Sarbanes killed the small company IPO market--ask any legit CEO of any legit small company. And if more scam-artists slip through the pre-IPO net, let the short-sellers do their thing without fear of retribution, lawsuits, and the Feds unilaterally halting short sales when the going gets tough. Let the market work on both sides.
My two cents,
- Michael M said...
I agree with the general sentiment and logic of your post, but saying "Upside to doing the right thing by going public? Zero." is taking it too far, I think.
High profile shorts like Enron (Chanos), Lehman (Einhorn), Chinese frauds (Muddy Waters, Citron and Hempton), housing (Burry, Bass, Paulson, Falcone etc), China and PIIGS (Hendry) can make you instantly famous, which seems to have some value especially to guys who don't sell themselves short. Last time I checked Chanos is still usually being introduced as the guy who shorted Enron, and that was nine years ago.
- longshorttrader said...
Helpful post, especially since you've been doing this for some time (and with the best in the business). A few things:
I suspect there is at least one more downside risk to the 2 you mentioned. One important one that comes to mind is that if you go public with your short, you are a target for those on the other side of the trade who may have more gunpowder than you and may deliberately try to squeeze you out...which I imagine is illegal but difficult to detect, and even more difficult to enforce.
On the upside of going public, I would add one more to the ones you mentioned: it might (just might) seed a reflexive reversal in the positive feedback loop that exists
in the targeted company's stock price (this is of course assuming there is a positive feedback loop that is propping the stock).
Why else would short sellers go public? It seems to me that many short sellers who go public with their short theses are fully aware of the downside risks you describe, yet they must consider that the overall risk/reward of going public is more favorable than you suggest. My suspicion is that the smart n seasoned short sellers go public when certain criteria are met, e.g. situations where a company is ponzi-financed (in the Hyman Minsky sense).
Your thoughts on the above-mentioned (as always) would be appreciated.
- Jeff Matthews said...
Both Michael M and LongShortTrader make good points (although it is not "illegal" to squeeze a short, unless one is doing it the Robert Maxwell way--i.e. by raiding the company pension fund to prop up the stock).
There is, indeed, an upside to drawing attention to one's idea: the problem being that one then becomes a target for many guns, which, now that trial lawyers run the country, means that you face the distinct and very real risk of losing your business even though you were right.
So in that sense, the upside is not what it seems, which is the real point I was making.
And p.s. Jim Chanos was also the Man Who Shorted Baldwin-United, well before Enron. (Look it up, kids.)
- Sam Antar said...
Hi Jeff:
You and I come from very different worlds. Based on my background as a criminal, I respectfully cannot agree with you on the JOBS Act. It will make crime easier, there will be more white-collar crime, and regulators will not have the resources to investigate and prosecute such crimes. Old saying among criminals, "If the door is open, walk through it."
However, I do agree with you that we need stronger laws to protect whistleblowers from retribution by fraudsters. The JOBS Act empowers white-collar criminals, while it does nothing to empower and protect whistleblowers who seek to expose their crimes.
Sam E. Antar, Convicted Felon
- Jeff Matthews said...
Sam and I go way back, and I respect him immensely for what he has done post-Crazy Eddie to make amends and open investors' eyes to what bad guys will do to take advantage of the system.
I won't argue with him about the JOBS Act: I think a remedy lies in dealing with the systemic problem in America, which is that trial lawyers run Congress and our legal system has become a tool to shut down dissenting voices--on Wall Street, in healthcare, in government.
Whistleblower laws are fine, except they encourage lawsuits rather than correct behavior.
As Shakespeare said...and he was right.
- longshorttrader ("LST") said...
How do you correct behavior? Or said differently, what seems to work more than not, and what does not work at all?
I imagine that even among the most ardent short sellers, it is nice to see crooks/fraudsters/etc. redeem themselves, aim to 'make things right' for victims, and...eventually give back more than they have taken from others.
- Anonymous said...
I like reading the Bronte Capital blog and I think that John Hempton has generated an impressive (albeit short) track record.
However, his desire for publicity is self-serving in a number of ways: 1) by exposing frauds, he hopes to improve the performance of his short book; and 2) more generally, he is raising his own public profile which ought to help him raise money which, as a professional funds manager, is critical to the success of his business.
Another thing is that John is a former public servant. As such, I expect we would have been well schooled in the art of rationalising his actions as being 'in the public good' in situations where, in so many cases, that is merely camoflage for the public servant's self-interest.
As a private investor, I am envious of John Hempton's success but, in my opinion, his work on exposing scams is driven by self-interst rather than by the sort of factors suggested in the blog post to which you refer.
By the way, I like your blog and I hope you continue to find the time to keep up the good work.
Cheers, Nemo.
- Jeff Matthews said...
Well, yes John can benefit from the publicity in the two ways you describe...but only if he is right on the facts.
If he is wrong, he loses both money and (potentially) clients.
Furthermore, in John's blog post (Daddy You're Evil) he does not stress the "public good" aspect. He admits it's better if the market in scammers is highly inefficient and the "public servants" are asleep at the switch, as they usually are.
My point was that John really downplayed two significant risks involved in going public--risks that keep many others from trying to help those public servants keep bad guys out of the markets.
Going public on scammers just ain't as easy, fun, profitable, risk-free as it might look when you see the occasional Jim Chanos bag an Enron.
Thanks for your well written, thoughtful comment.
- Anonymous said...
Well there is a certain man from Nazareth, who did publicly proclaim:
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled."
"Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
Seems to apply surprisingly well to this post.


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Reminiscent of hand drawn maps, Stamen's new watercolor maps apply raster effect area washes and organic edges over a paper texture to add warm pop to any map.
We've launched maps.stamen.com to showcase these new maps as well as our Terrain and Toner map styles.
We'd love to see these maps used around the web, so we've included some brief instructions to help you use them in the mapping system of your choice. These maps are available free of charge but with attribution. Details at any of the links above.
Tags: basemaps, stamen, terrain, tiles, tilesets, toner, watercolor, watercolors, web maps


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American Dietetic Association (ADA) Approved Pre-Professional Practice Program (AP4) (code 5-1019)
The Department of Home Economics offers a combined Master of Science in Nutritional Science and AP4 field experience program. This field experience fulfills the registration eligibility requirements of the American Dietetic Association (ADA) to become a registered dietitian. Upon successful completion of AP4, the student will be eligible to write the Registration Examination for Dietitians.
The AP4 requires 1280 hours, 1187 hours of practice divided into three components: clinical dietetics, foodservice systems management and community nutrition. The Seminar in Dietetic Practice constitutes the remaining 93 hours of the AP4. The field experience is conducted off campus at a variety of excellent facilities. Opportunities exist in acute and long-term health care sites, as well as in teaching, research, community and governmental agencies. Students will therefore receive training in general dietetics with experiences that expose them to various specialty areas.
Admission Requirements:
1) Completion of Plan IV/V academic requirements as stipulated by ADA;
2) Earned baccalaureate degree;
3) GPA 3.0/4.0 scale (required on the last 60 units of courses completed);
4) Related volunteer or work experience in the United States;
5) Graduate standing in the CSULB Master of Science, Nutritional Science program;
6) Completion of the four core graduate courses, H EC 531, 533, 534, 562 or equivalent with a grade of "A" or "B";
7) Application materials to AP4 Director including three letters of recommendation and personal interview with Program Director.
Program Requirements:
Upon satisfactory completion of the Professional Practicum in Dietetics, H EC 591A and Seminar in Dietetic Practice, H EC 591B, the student will be able to meet the performance requirements for entry-level dietitians as specified by the ADA.
The 12 units of core graduate courses and a total of 2 units of H EC 591B are applicable toward the M.S. degree in Nutritional Science. Completion of the M.S. degree is not a requirement for completion of the AP4. Students should contact the AP4 Director for complete details on this program.


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Sports Cars Roar at the Geneva Motor Show
Alfa Romeo, Corvette, Opel, Jaguar and Spyker all unveiled sports cars or convertibles at the Geneva Motor Show. Rolls Royce, meanwhile, showed a racy Wraith. WSJ's Jeff Bennett reports on the new-model parade.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
I ... the the ... as they'll just use the still assembling his rolls out Tuesday fourteen ... Corvette Stingray ... and Rolls Royce has come up with ... deletes it something racy ... yes the Geneva motor show was open ... and to ... Jeff Bennett is that ... Jeff ... is busy day what were the highlights ... it's where it was the convertible subtle ... and I should be showing not Stingray Grenoble to acquire the ... incredible and even Opel ... October convertible debt that it should be up the Guinea get into markets later this year ... so I was just a few of those who have a Rolls Royce bringing back an old mean the way ... that's can it be coming out of an inspector that back in again ... I with the new vehicle and its twenty pc range short of hopes for twenty fourteen that's just some of the highlights and ... of course there's a lot of our opponents peoples that ... for hours on the floor ... Colossus ... is that you ... did the issue the was the of the calls that have basically is a ... way of using Geneva school Global ... said the same time al Rumaila ... was using Geneva premise via ... a C four C sports top which he really was taken to the US ... that's correct we were seen in an election between into here but I think you know ... she knew the really does ... an app that international reach so that's what a joke was when the bad ... debt which were seen really hear ... that the move is pressure relaxing and where you wanna call global that's what they can exceed its ... convertible Stingray ... without incident in January when a unit is expected to trade ... says the cast By was the new rules would grow up rolls Royce ... Wraith ... a hard to say aam but ... it was on the top of the guys that made an expensive car that was being passed and made it cheaper and expensive ... to buy into it on a mine because ... Tuesday the twenty nearby and will have the money to buy it so ... that they didn't plan it back down to ... the top they see this is an apportionment rename a little bit more so that the mysterious on it and it's not something that to ... the tothe discounting had asked ... the dozens of them broke away from that that that the ... previous design of the highs ... when you know it's a ... good point that I think that they're kind of going for a change now here ... and they've moved away from some of the key ... though the looks that China had gotten stuck on it so that's good to see see them come back toward eight years ... it's ... it's so while size on the cars from Geneva ... well we're still printed and getting hopes on how the European economy and the other CEOs are still submit between a slight lead our continued down ... but perhaps propping up this year ... which he seems to want ... companies to continue to use the miles you don't see that slowing down of our weekend Opel plants in the team's twenty two vehicles over the next five years ... that's pretty ... pretty ... hard charging me ... for ... an industry that has had complained of other ... countries are really going in. there's just


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Deborah Levy
Deborah Levy is a British playwright, novelist and poet. She is the author of six novels, Beautiful Mutants (1986); Swallowing Geography (1993); The Unloved (1994); Billy & Girl (1996); and Swimming Home (2011), which was shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize as well as the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize. Deborah is also the author of a collection of short stories, Black Vodka (2013), which was shortlisted for the BBC International Short Story Award and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Her latest novel, Hot Milk, was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize.


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Hale is 2008 SunTrust State Open Champion
Former Lipscomb University golfer Cody Hale won the 2008 SunTrust State Open at Gaylord Springs Golf Links earlier this month.
Hale, a Tullahoma. Tenn., resident, finished the tournament with a score of 202, 11 under par. He shot a 68 in the final round after firing a 64 the day before in the second round.
Hale completed his eligibility at Lipscomb this past spring.
The SunTrust State Open Championship is one of Tennessee's oldest and most prestigious championships. The event annually pits the state's top amateurs and professionals against each other to determine a true state golf champion.
The Tennessee Golf Association contributed portions of this article.


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MEDFORD, Mass. -- In their first match of the 2012-13 season, the Brandeis women's tennis team dropped a 9-0 decision to Tufts University. The Judges (0-1) were ranked 22nd in the final Intercollegiate Tennis Association poll of 2011-12, while the Jumbos (2-0) were 14th.
Brandeis lost three singles matches in third-set super tiebreakers. Sophomore All-American Carley Cooke (San Diego, Calif./Point Loma) dropped her opener at No. 1 singles to Lindsay Katz after winning the first set, 4-6, 6-3, 10-4. Senior Faith Broderick (Washingtonville, N.Y./Washingtonville) lost her tiebreaker to Samantha Gann by the same score after taking the second set, 6-4, 2-6, 10-4. The duo were also upset at No. 1 doubles, 8-5, by Katz and Shelci Bowman. Rookie Maya Vasser also lost in the third set at No. 6 singles, 3-6, 7-5, 10-3, to Katherine Worley of the Jumbos.
The Judges return to action next weekend in the ITA regionals at MIT.


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The four hundred years of planetary science since Galileo and Kepler
30 July 2010
For 350 years after Galileo's discoveries, ground-based telescopes and theoretical modelling furnished everything we knew about the Sun's planetary retinue. Over the past five decades, however, spacecraft visits to many targets transformed these early notions, revealing the diversity of Solar System bodies and displaying active planetary processes at work. Violent events have punctuated the histories of many planets and satellites, changing them substantially since their birth. Contemporary knowledge has finally allowed testable models of the Solar System's origin to be developed and potential abodes for extraterrestrial life to be explored. Future planetary research should involve focused studies of selected targets, including exoplanets.
Read more: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7306/full/nature09215.html
Search IYA2009 Updates
National Nodes: 148
Organisational Nodes: 40
Organisational Associates:33
National Websites: 111
Cornerstone Projects: 12
Special Task Groups: 11
Special Projects:16
Official Products:8
Media Partners:22


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With the highest unemployment rate in nearly 30 years (9.5%) and a lingering recession, an increasing number of laid-off workers are competing for a dwindling number of jobs. Employment options seem bleak, and in some professions, they are. But for students entering college and trade schools this fall, there are some fields that hold much more future promise than others. According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there are several fields that will virtually guarantee a job for those graduating over the next few years. (For background reading, see Invest In Yourself With A College Education.)
We scoured the OOH report and found a surprisingly long list of careers that have both:
- Much faster-than-average employment projections, meaning that employment opportunities are projected to grow by more than 21%, and
- Excellent job opportunities, meaning that there will be more job openings than job seekers.
If you're a high school grad looking to choose a major, or a seasoned worker looking to upgrade your skills, read on for some of the most promising career fields.
Health Services
With an aging baby boomer population, it should come as no surprise that seven of the 20 fastest-growing occupations are healthcare related. In fact, three of every 10 new jobs created in the U.S. economy by 2014 will be in healthcare services. But even in the promising healthcare field, there are a few key careers that really stand out. (For more jobs in health services, see 6 Hot Careers With Lots Of Jobs.)
- Home Health Aide
- Job Duties: Help elderly, disabled or infirmed patients remain at home by providing basic clinical care, including checking basic vital signs (blood pressure, pulse, respiration, temperature), assisting with prescribed exercise, helping patients transfer positions and maintaining personal grooming.
- Required Education: On-the-job training by registered nurses (RNs), licensed nurse practitioners (LPNs) or experienced aides. A competency evaluation may also be required.
- Pay: Median hourly earnings of $9.34
- Medical Assistant
- Job Duties: Perform basic clinical and clerical tasks such as scheduling appointments, filing insurance claims, taking medical histories from patients and drawing lab samples.
- Required Education: One year postsecondary medical assistant program through a vocational technology high school or community/junior college or a two-year associate degree. Certified Medical Assistant (CMA) certification through the American Association of Medical Assistants (AAMA) is required by some employers. Students who have passed the Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) exam through a local community college typically command the highest salaries for this position.
- Pay: Median annual salary of $26,290
- Physician Assistant (PA)
- Job Duties: Practice medicine under a doctor's or surgeon's supervision. Physician assistants ease the patient load burden for their employers by providing diagnostic, therapeutic and preventive care services such as examining and treating patients, interpreting lab results, treating minor injuries and counseling patients.
- Required Education: Completion of a two-year accredited PA program offered through a medical school, hospital or four-year college.
- Pay: Median annual salary of $74,980
The largest states offer the most healthcare jobs, so if you're looking for work in healthcare and you can't find a position in your area, you should concentrate your job search in California, New York, Florida, Texas and Pennsylvania.
Information Technology (IT)
Thomas Watson was clearly not an oracle. In 1943, the then-Chairman of IBM (NYSE:IBM) was quoted as saying, "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
The rapid growth in information technology would have stunned Watson, and it's projected to continue unabated. Job openings in computer systems design and related services are on track to grow by nearly 40% as businesses become increasingly complex. The best IT employment opportunities over the next few years include:
- Network System and Data Communications Analyst
- Job Duties: Design, test and evaluate local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), intranets and other corporate or organizational communications systems.
- Required Education: A bachelor's degree in computer science, information science or management information systems (MIS), or an MBA with a concentration in information systems. (For related reading, see Business Grads, Land Your Dream Job.)
- Pay: Median annual salary of $64,600
- Computer Software Engineer and Application Designer
- Job Duties: Design, develop, test and refine computer software and systems including games, word processing and business applications, operating systems, and network distribution.
- Required Education: A bachelor's degree in computer science or software engineering, or a master's degree in math or systems design.
- Pay: Median annual salary of $79,780
Other Fields
If you're not jumping at the chance to land a job in healthcare or IT, don't fret. There are still plenty of other fields that will need workers. Check out these opportunities:
- Environmental Science and Protection Technician
- Job Duties: Perform lab and field tests to monitor environmental resources and determine the nature and sources of pollution.
- Required Education: Minimum of a two-year associate's degree in applied science or science-related technology is required but a bachelor's degree in science, botany or another science-related field is preferred.
- Pay: Median hourly earnings of $18.30
- Water and Liquid Waste Treatment Plant and Systems Operator
- Job Duties: Control pumps, valves and other equipment to ensure wastewater is correctly treated. Read, interpret and adjust equipment, control chemical-feeding devices, take water or wastewater samples, perform lab analyses, measure water quality, schedule and record maintenance activities and produce reports.
- Required Education: A minimum of a high school degree and on-the-job training; a two-year associate's degree or one-year certificate in water quality and wastewater treatment technology is preferred.
- Pay: Median annual earnings of $36,070
- Court Reporter
- Job Duties: Create verbatim transcripts of speeches, conversations, legal proceedings, meetings or other judicial proceedings.
- Required Education: Training through a postsecondary vocational and technical school or college. The National Court Reporters Association (NCRA) has certified 70 programs nationwide.
- Pay: Median annual salary of $45,610
- Welder
- Job Duties: Operating machinery and equipment to apply heat to metal and bond piece such as pipes in pipelines, power plants, and refineries and beam for buildings, bridges and other structures.
- Required Education: Requirements vary, but highly skilled jobs (commanding higher salaries) require postsecondary work through a vocational-technical institute, community college or private welding school.
- Pay: Median hourly earnings of $14.90
- Veterinary Technologist or Technician
- Job Duties: Perform clinical work under supervision of a licensed veterinarian, including running medical tests, diagnosing medical conditions, preparing tissue samples, analyzing test and lab work, recording patients' case histories, and providing specialized nursing care.
- Required Education: A minimum of a two-year associate's degree from an American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA)-accredited community college program in veterinary technology or laboratory animal science, but preferably a four-year bachelor's degree in veterinary technology. State credentialing is also required.
- Pay: Median hourly earnings of $12.88
The unemployment rate may be high, but that doesn't mean you need to sit on the sidelines. Getting trained for an in-demand career will help make your job search easier and your employment more stable. So, what are you waiting for?


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What kind of car was it?
I don't know. An old car. What difference does it make?
A man sits in his car three days running in front of the house, you should be able to describe it.
An American car.
There you go.
A squarish car with a long hood. Long and floaty-looking.
A Ford?
Well, definitely not a Cadillac.
No. It looked tinny. An old car. Faded red. There were big round rust spots on the fender and the door. And it was filled with his things. It looked like everything he owned was in there with him.
Well, what do you want me to do? You want me to stay home from work?
No. It's nothing.
If it's nothing, why did you bring it up?
I shouldn't have.
Did he look at you?
Did he?
When I turned around, he started the engine and drove off.
What do you mean? So before you turned around—
I felt his eyes. I was weeding.
You were bending over?
Here we go again.
You know this creep pulls up in front of our house every morning and you go out to the garden and bend over?
O.K., end of conversation. I have things to do.
Maybe I can park at the curb and watch you weeding. The two of us. That's something, anyway. Seeing you in your shorts bending over.
I can't ever talk to you about anything.
It was a Ford Falcon. You said it was squared off, hard edges, a flattened look. A Falcon. They built them in the sixties. Three-speed manual shift on the column. Only ninety horses.
O.K., that's wonderful. You know all about cars.
Listen, Miss Garden Lady, to know a man's car is to know him. It is not useless knowledge.
Guy is some immigrant up from Tijuana.
What are you talking about?
Who else would drive a forty-year-old heap? Looking for work. Looking for something he can steal. Looking for something from the lady with the long white legs who bends over in her garden.
You're out of your mind. You've got this know-it-all attitude—
I'll take the morning off tomorrow.
Immigrants don't have long white hair and roll the window down so I can see his pink face and pale eyes.
Oh, ho! Now we're getting somewhere.
You don't move out of here I'm writing down your license plate. The cops will I.D. you and see if it's someone they know. . . .
You're calling the police?
Why not, if you don't move? Go park somewhere else. I'm giving you a break.
What is my offense?
Don't play dumb. In the first place, I don't like some junk heap in front of my house.
I'm sorry. It's the only car I have.
Right, I can see that no one would drive this thing if he didn't have to. And all this bag and baggage. You sell things out of the trunk?
No. These are my things. I wouldn't want to let anything go.
Because nobody in this neighborhood needs anything from the back of a car.
Well, I'm sorry we've gotten off to the wrong start.
Yes, we have. I'm not too friendly when some pervert decides to stalk my wife.
Oh, I'm afraid you're under a misconception.
Am I?
Yes. I didn't want to disturb anyone, but I should have realized that parking in front of your house would attract notice.
You got that right.
If I'm stalking anything, it's the house.
I used to live here. For three days, I've been trying to work up the courage to knock on your door and introduce myself.
Ah, I see the kitchen is quite different. Everything built-in and tucked away. Our sink was freestanding, white porcelain with piano legs. Over here was a cabinet where my mother kept the staples. A shelf swung out with a cannister for sifting flour. That impressed me.
I'd probably have kept it. This is their renovation—the people who lived here before us. I have my own ideas for changing things around.
You must have bought the house from the people I sold it to. You've been here how long?
Let's see. I count by the children's ages. We moved in just after my eldest was born. That would be twelve years.
And how many children have you?
Three. All boys. I've sometimes wished for a daughter.
They're all in school?
I have a daughter. An adult daughter.
Would you like some tea?
Yes, thank you. Very kind of you. Women are more gently disposed, as a rule. I hope your husband won't be too put out.
Not at all.
To speak truly, it's unsettling to be here. It's something like double vision. The neighborhood is much as it was. But the trees are older and taller. The homes—well, they're still here, mostly, though they don't have the proud, well-to-do look they once had.
It's a settled neighborhood.
Yes. But you know? Time is heartbreaking.
My parents divorced when I was a boy. I lived with my mother. She would die in the master bedroom.
I'm sorry, I sometimes speak tactlessly. After Mother died, I married and brought my wife here to live. I've never stayed anywhere else for any length of time. And certainly never owned property again. So this is the house—please don't misunderstand me—this is the house I've continued to live in. I mean mentally. I ranged all through these rooms from childhood on. Until they reflected who I was, as a mirror would. I don't mean merely that its furnishings displayed our family's personality, our tastes. I don't mean that. It was as if the walls, the stairs, the rooms, the dimensions, the layout were as much me as I was. Is this coherent? Wherever I looked, I saw me. I saw me in some way measured out. Do you experience that?
I'm not sure. Your wife—
Oh, that didn't last long. She resented the suburbs. She felt cut off from everything. I'd go off to work and she'd be left here. We hadn't many friends in the neighborhood.
Yes, people here stick to themselves. The boys have school friends, but we hardly know anyone.
This tea helps. Because this is a dizzying experience for me. It's as if I were squared off, dimensionalized in these rooms, as if I were the space contained by these walls, the passageways, the fixed routes of going to and fro, from one room to another, and everything lit predictably by the times of day and the different seasons. It is all and indistinguishably . . . me.
I think if you live in one place long enough—
When people speak of a haunted house, they mean ghosts flitting about in it, but that's not it at all. When a house is haunted—what I'm trying to explain—it is the feeling you get that it looks like you, that your soul has become architecture, and the house in all its materials has taken you over with a power akin to haunting. As if you, in fact, are the ghost. And as I look at you, a kind, lovely young woman, part of me says not that I don't belong here, which is the truth, but that you don't belong here. I'm sorry, that's quite a terrible thing to say. It merely means—
It means life is heartbreaking.
He came back? He was here again?
Yes. It seemed so sad, his just sitting out there, so I invited him in.
You what!
I mean, it wasn't what you thought, was it? So why not?
Right. Why wouldn't you invite him in, since I told him if he came around again I'd call the cops?
You should have invited him in yourself when he told you he'd lived in this house.
Why is that a credential? Everyone has lived somewhere or other. Would you want to relive your glorious past? I shouldn't think so. And this is not the first time.
Don't start in, please.
Husband says white, wife says black. The way it works. So the world will know what she thinks of her husband.
Why is it always about you! We're not the same person. I have my own mind.
Do you, now!
Hey, you guys, we got an argument brewing?
Close your door, son. This doesn't concern you.
Every time another man comes into this house you go berserk. A plumber, someone to measure for the window blinds, the man who reads the gas meter.
Ah, but is your man a man? Awfully fruity-looking to me. Wears his white hair in a ponytail. And those tiny little hands. What does the well-known fag-hag have to say?
He's a Ph.D. and a poet.
Jesus, I should have known.
He gave up his teaching job to travel the country. His book is on the dining-room table. He signed it for us.
A wandering minstrel in his Ford Falcon.
Why are you so horrible!
Arguing is instead of sex.
It has been a while.
This is better.
I don't know why I get so upset.
You're just a normally defective man.
So we're all like this? Thank you.
Yes. It's an imperfect gender.
I'm sorry I said what I said.
I'm thinking now, with all three of them in school all day, I should get a job.
Doing what?
Or maybe go for a graduate degree of some kind. Make myself useful.
What brings this on?
Times change. They need me less and less. They have their friends, their practices. I carpool. They come home and stay in their rooms with their games. You work late. I'm alone in this house a lot.
We should go to the theatre more. A night in town. Or you like opera. I'll do opera as long as it isn't Richard fucking Wagner.
That's not what I'm saying.
You chose the suburbs, you know. I work to pay off the mortgage. The three tuitions. The two car payments.
I'm not blaming you. Could we turn on the light a moment?
What's the matter?
There's no moon. In the dark, it feels like a tomb.
This is very embarrassing.
What were you doing there at three in the morning?
Sleeping. That's all. I wasn't bothering anyone.
Yeah, well, the cops are touchy these days. People sleeping in their cars.
It used to be a ball field. I played softball there as a boy.
Well, it's the mall now.
You don't mind that I gave them your name?
Not at all. I like being known as a criminal associate. Why didn't you just check into the local Marriott?
I was trying to save money. The weather is clement. I thought, Why not?
Clement. Yes, it's definitely clement.
Is it the habit of the police to go around impounding cars? Because if they think I'm a drug dealer, or something like that, they will find only books, my computer, luggage, clothes, and camping gear and a few private mementos that mean something only to me. Very unsettling, strangers digging around in my things. If I'd stayed at a hotel, I'd be on my way right now. I'm really sorry to impose on you.
Well, what's a neighbor for.
That's funny. I appreciate humor in this situation.
I'm so glad.
But we'd be neighbors only if time had imploded. Actually, if time were to implode we'd be more than neighbors. We'd be living together, the past and the present moving through each other's space.
Like in a rooming house.
If you wish, yes. As in a sort of rooming house.
So he's there. What—hitting on your wife?
No, that won't happen. It's not what he's about. I'm pretty sure.
So what's the problem?
He comes on like some prissy fuss-pot poet, doesn't have it together, drives a junk heap, claims to have quit his teaching job but was probably fired. And, with all of that, you know he's a player.
Yeah, I know people like that.
His difficulties work in his favor. He gets what he wants.
So what does he want from you?
I'm not sure. It's weird. The house? Like I've defaulted on the mortgage and he's the banker come to repossess.
So why'd you bring him home? He could sit in a Starbucks while they went through his car.
Well, he called. And I hang up and there she is looking at me. And I'm suddenly into proving something to her. You see what's happening? I can no longer be me, which is to say to the guy, I don't know you. Who the fuck cares if you lived here or didn't live here? They'll give you back your damn car and you can leave. But no, he works it so that I have to prove something to my own wife—that I am capable of a charitable act.
I guess you are.
So, like, he's now some new relative of ours. This touches on the basic fault line in our marriage. She's naïve in principle—she forgives everybody everything. Always excusing people, finding a rationale for the shitty things they do. A clerk shortchanges her, she imagines he's distracted and just made a mistake.
Well, that's a lovely quality.
I know, I know. Her philosophy is if you trust people they will be trustworthy. Drives me crazy.
So they'll give him back his car and he'll go.
No. Not if I know her. She'll drive him to pick it up. The day will have passed, and she'll ask him to stay for dinner. And then she'll insist that he shouldn't be allowed to drive off in the night. And I will look at her and sit there and agree. And she will show him to the guest room. I'll give you odds.
You're a bit overwrought. Have another.
Why the hell not?
With age, you see how much of it is invented. Not only what is invisible but what is everywhere visible.
I'm not sure I understand.
Well, you're still quite young.
Thank you. I wish I felt young.
I'm not talking about one's self-image. Or the way life can be too much of the same thing day in and day out. I'm not talking about mere unhappiness.
Am I merely unhappy?
I'm in no position to judge. But let's say melancholy seems to suit the lady.
Oh, dear—that it's that obvious.
But, in any case, whatever our state of mind life seems for most of our lives an intense occupation—keeping busy, competing intellectually, physically, nationally, seeking justice, demanding love, perfecting our institutions. All the fashions of survival. Everything we do to make history, the archive of our inventiveness. As if there were no context.
But there is?
Yes. Some vast—what to call it?—indifference that slowly creeps up on you with age, that becomes more insistent with age. That's what I'm trying to explain. I'm afraid I'm not doing a very good job.
No, really, this is interesting.
I get very voluble on even one glass of sherry.
Thank you. But I'm trying to explain the estrangement that comes over one after some years. For some earlier, for others later, but always inevitably.
And to you, now?
Yes. It's a kind of wearing out, I suppose. As if life had become threadbare, with the light peeking through. The estrangement begins in moments, in little sharp judgments that you instantly put out of your mind. You draw back, though you're fascinated. Because it's the truest feeling a person can have, and so it comes again and again, drifting through your defenses, and finally settles over you like some cold, very cold, light. Maybe I should stop talking about this. It is almost to deny it, talking about it.
No, I appreciate your candor. Does this have something to do with why you've come back here—to see where you used to live?
You're perceptive.
This estrangement is maybe your word for depression.
I understand why you would say that. You see me as the image of some colossal failure—living on the road in a beaten-up car, an obscure poet, a third-rate academic. And maybe I am all those things, but I'm not depressed. This isn't a clinical issue I speak of. It's a clear recognition of reality. Let me explain it this way: It's much like I suppose what a chronic invalid feels, or someone on the verge of dying, where the estrangement is protective, a way of abating the sense of loss, the regret, and the desire to live is no longer important. But subtract those circumstances and there I am, healthy, self-sufficient, maybe not the most impressive fellow in the world but one who's managed to take care of himself quite well and live in freedom doing what he wants to do and without any major regrets. Yet the estrangement is there, the truth has settled upon him, and he feels actually liberated because he's outside now, in the context, where you can't believe in life anymore.
Why would anyone come to New Jersey to die?
And the house is nothing special, you'll grant me that. The usual Colonial with white vinyl siding, a one-car garage, the gutters packed with the crap of I don't know how many autumns. Actually, I've been meaning to get to that.
Sir, please. We ask and you answer and we leave. Can you tell us anything more about the deceased?
Well, you see, I knew him mostly as a corpse in the hallway. Ah, you are skeptical. And why not, with my wife weeping away like he was a close relation?
So you're saying—
Hard to believe, isn't it? Not even an old boyfriend of hers, not even that.
You have no heart.
No, it's an interesting experience, a total stranger falling dead in his underwear on the way to the bathroom. And to see him carried out the door in a body bag! Wouldn't miss it for the world. Good for the kids, too, a life experience before going off to school. Their first suicide.
Sir, the man died of an acute myocardial infarction.
Says who?
The E.M.T.s examined him.
Well, they're entitled to their opinion.
It's more than an opinion, sir. They see things like this every day. They didn't even try to resuscitate.
No, he took himself out, for sure, wily fellow that he was. That's why he came here—it was all planned.
Why are you being like this? He came here, it was like—
Like what?
A pilgrimage.
Oh, right. He came here to fuck up our lives is why he came here. Came here like a dog to lift his leg and mark his territory. And where does that leave us? Living in a dead man's house. I thought my home was my castle.
I didn't think you had such homebound loyalties.
Well, folks, we'll be leaving now.
I didn't! Somewhere to stash the wife and kids is as far as it went with me. But, by God, I paid for it with my labor. I've done everything I was supposed to do. Gave you a house, a safe if dull neighborhood, three children, a reasonably comfortable life. To make you happy! And have you ever been? What but your dissatisfactions could have led you to invite this walking death wish into your home!
Well, folks, as I said, we'll be leaving now. We may have some more questions after we sort things out.
And what are you going to do about his damn Ford Falcon sitting in my driveway?
We've gone through the car. We've inventoried the contents. Got his I.D. Closest relative.
He said he had a daughter.
Yes, ma'am, we have that.
But the car!
We have no more interest in the car. It becomes part of the deceased's estate. The daughter will decide its disposition. In the meantime, I will ask you to leave it where it is. Safer here than downtown. Keys are in the ignition.
Sir, there are procedures for situations like this. We are following the procedures. The cause of death will be confirmed by the medical examiner, the death certificate filed with the town clerk's office, the body placed in the morgue, pending instructions from the closest relative. That will be the daughter.
Officer, I will want to write her.
Soon as we make contact, ma'am. I see no reason why you can't. We'll be in touch.
Thank you.
And, hey, Officer?
Tell her the good news. Daddy has come home.
So, finally, I agree with you.
We can't live here anymore. I pass through the hallway and sidle along the wall as if he were there on the floor, staring. It's eerie. I feel dispossessed. I'm a displaced person.
Not the best time to be selling, babe. And what about the kids' school? Right in the middle of the term.
You're the one who said we couldn't ever get this out of our mind.
I know, I know.
The boys won't come upstairs. The playroom's their dormitory. And it's damp down there.
All right. O.K. Maybe we should think about renting something. Maybe a sublet somewhere till we get squared away. We'll see. You want another?
A half.
I am really sorry. I don't blame you. I speak in the heat of the moment.
No, I suppose I should have known. The way he talked. But it was interesting. His ideas—how unusual to hear philosophical conversation. That someone would reveal himself to that extent. So though I thought he was a depressed person, I was fascinated by the novelty that someone could be talking that way as if it were the most natural thing.
You know, it's really funny. . . .
She's just like him, the daughter. A gamer.
Yes, I did think it odd.
I would not call that a close relationship, would you?
Couldn't care less. You know, I found—when Goodwill took away all his stuff—I found that the actual naked car inside was clean. Upholstery's O.K. And I looked under the hood. Needs an oil change, and the fan belt looks a bit ragged. Took it around the block and it bounces a bit on the road. Maybe new shocks.
You like that car, don't you?
Well, with a good paint job, maybe some detailing . . . You know, people collect these things, Ford Falcons.
It was his home.
No, dear one. This is his home. That's just a car.
Our car.
Appears to be. We ought to frame her letter. Or bury it in the yard along with the can of ashes.
Oh, but she meant for them to be strewn.
Strewn? Did you say strewn?
Why not sprinkled?
O.K., sown. I'll go with sown. ♦


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Branded video reached new heights in 2013. More than 38% of new campaigns achieved more than 1 million views in 2013, compared with 26% in the year prior. And 5% of campaigns reached more than 10 million views, compared to 3% the year before.
In 2012, brands saw campaigns like Red Bull's "Stratos," Invisible Children's "Kony 2012," and Rovio's "Angry Birds Space" become mega viral hits. The result of that success was that brands began to see producing quality content – not just ads – as an important weapon in their marketing arsenals.
So in 2013, the name of their game was perfecting the brand story. And in this regard, many brands succeeded this year. Brands were able to drive big views consistently throughout the year.
The biggest campaign of 2013, "Real Beauty Sketches," came from video veteran Dove. This emotional campaign questions women's self-image with the help of a trained FBI sketch artist. While the short film met with a warm reception, for the most part, some critics felt that the ad patronized women. But that debate didn't hurt the brand; the media coverage that ensued only helped to lengthen the life of the video and drive views up to more than 136.2 million views.
Other brands that hit it big included Volvo Trucks, which emerged from obscurity with "Live Test" starring Jean Claude Van Damme. Pepsi MAX pulled off a stunt in "Gordon Test Drive," and Internet Explorer called on our nostalgia with "Child of the '90s."
So what does 2014 hold for branded video? Based on the successes of 2013, here are five trends that I think will flourish in the coming year:
- Longer-form, cinematic content: The draw of branded video is the freedom it gives brands to tell their stories outside of the 30-second TV spot. So videos like True MoveH's "Giving," were longer and more cinematic.
- Stoking the debate: Some of the biggest video stories in the 2013 came from brands that incited debate. Cheerios, for example, achieved its biggest success to date with "Just Checking," which opened a long debate about interracial families and their portrayal in the media late last year. Did they mean to start the debate? Probably not, but it did keep their brand in headlines for weeks.
- More interactivity: Old Spice produced one of the most viral interactive campaigns with 2010's "Responses." It produced another in 2012 with "Muscle Music," which allowed viewers to create their own music inside of a video. And last year Intel and Toshiba released its third social film, "The Power Inside," which allowed viewers to shape the campaign's story through social media. Interactive campaigns like these only work when viewers actually engage with them. As the video universe gets more crowded, brands will be looking for unique ways to attract and engage viewers, and interactivity is a great way to do both.
- Real-time campaigns: At last year's Super Bowl, Oreo became the poster child for real-time marketing with its half-time tweet, while Coca Cola's campaign changed based on the score of the game. Both brands had good feedback from their campaigns, which seemed more relevant because of how timely they were.
- Encouraging user-generated content: Some of the most successful campaigns of the last year benefited from user-generated content. Volvo Trucks' "Live Test" generated more than 30 million of its more than 111 million views from user-generated content – spoofs, mashups, copies, responses, etc. Besides showing how engaged viewers are with a brand's campaign, user-generated content that takes off can extend the life of a campaign.
These trends – and the more cinematic, provocative, imaginative, and engaging campaigns that they produce – will lead to one thing: views skyrocketing higher than ever before. As we have seen every year for the past five years, overall views in 2014 will surpass 2013, as brands continue to break new ground and perfect their video storytelling and strategies. If you are looking for advice in producing effective video marketing campaign's then please get in touch with our team atbespokevideoproduction.com.