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Senate Dems punt on spill bill
Senate Democrats on Tuesday punted their oil spill response bill to next month, but the extra time doesn't guarantee the measure will pass — far from it.
The delay virtually ensures that strategists from both parties will use the congressional recess to hone their plans, talking points and poison-pill amendments for any floor debate, all with an eye toward the midterm elections.
Majority Leader Harry Reid's decision to pull the plug on offshore drilling is the latest blow to Democratic efforts to move energy legislation, beginning with the deaths of a sweeping climate change bill and then a scaled-down renewable energy bill.
It initially appeared that the slender offshore drilling package was a must-pass bill with political momentum, but it became evident over the past week that the Nevada Democrat lacked the votes within his own caucus to force the issue as the Republicans held firm against it.
Some Democrats and environmentalists said they are optimistic the extra time will allow them to revisit the broader renewable energy provisions they had to jettison earlier, in hopes of folding them into the drilling bill.
"It may be a good thing," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn). "Maybe we can get some support for a renewable standard and do a little more. If there's any hope of strengthening it and adding [a renewable electricity standard], that'll only happen if we wait until September."
But lobbyists and staffers close to the energy bill process said that, if anything, the partisan dynamics that led Reid to pull the bill this week will only get worse the closer lawmakers come to the midterm elections.
"Reid has got to craft a very narrow bill. He's going to have to go as narrow as possible," said a former Senate Democratic aide now closely involved in the Hill energy debate. "Getting broader just makes it harder. He's going to have to go as narrow as possible, given that he's got some Democrats against the liability cap. It's a terrible box."
Central to the offshore drilling reform bill was a title to eliminate the $75 million liability cap on damages oil companies must pay in the case of spills and other disasters. Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska), both close allies of the oil industry, made clear they opposed that provision.
The deeply partisan atmosphere in the Senate ensured that there would be no opportunity to amend the bill with a scaled-down, compromise liability title. Reid's staff had made clear that if the bill were to come to the floor, it would be subject only to a straight up-or-down vote.
Staffers close to the Republican leadership said that if the bill had been left open for amendments, Republicans would have hijacked the debate with amendments designed to prolong partisan arguments and revive GOP attacks on the broader Democratic energy initiatives, including cap-and-trade climate legislation. Many said Republicans' desire to use the energy debate to put Democrats on the spot on those issues closer to elections will prevail next month as well.
"While the conventional wisdom is the Senate has to do something about the spill, the R's are licking their chops to get on an energy bill in September and then just bring up amendment after amendment," said a lobbyist close to the debate.
Both sides blamed the deadlock on partisan politics.
"It's a sad day when you can't find a handful of Republicans to support a bill ... that would hold BP accountable for the worst oil spill in history," Reid told reporters.
"We tried jujitsu, we tried yoga, we tried everything we could to get Republicans to come along," he added.
For their part, Republicans said Reid failed to approach the spill bill on a bipartisan basis.
"Sen. Reid is predictably blaming Republicans for standing in the way of a bill that he threw together in secret and without input from almost any other member of the Senate," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "Process alone guaranteed its failure, although substance would have as well had Sen. Reid actually brought his bill up for debate or a vote."
New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, the author of the language lifting the liability cap and the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, sounded a partisan message about the stalled bill, outlining the talking points Democratic strategists had prepared to use in August campaigns after the spill vote.
"The key question is, Whose side are you on? ... Are you on the side of Big Oil, or are you on the side of citizens in coastal communities?" Menendez said. "I hope citizens spend the month of August asking Republicans why they oppose holding BP accountable."
Environmentalists slammed the chamber for failing to act. "It's shameful that more than 40 senators are such slaves to Big Oil that they want taxpayers — and not BP — to be liable for cleanup costs from this disaster and future blowouts," said Daniel Weiss, director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
"Thanks to the Senate Republican leadership, they are popping champagne corks in Big Oil offices from Houston to London," Weiss added.
Oil industry representatives said they are indeed celebrating the death of the bill but are likewise gearing up for more fighting in the fall. "We're glad to see that the Senate did not act on a bad bill with job-killing provisions," said Jack Gerard, head of the American Petroleum Institute.
The House passed its spill response bill last week, 209-193.


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North Korea's despot dies at 69
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) - North Korea announced the death of supreme leader Kim Jong Il and urged its people to rally behind his young son and heir-apparent Monday, while the world watched warily for signs of instability in a nation pursuing nuclear weapons.
South Korea, anxious about the untested, 20-something Kim Jong Un after his father's 17-year rule, put its military on high alert against the North's 1.2 million-strong armed forces. President Barack Obama agreed by phone with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to closely monitor developments.
People on the streets of the North Korean capital, Pyongyang,wailed in grief, some kneeling on the ground or bowing repeatedly as they learned the news that their "dear general" had died of heart failure Saturday at age 69 while carrying out official duties on a train trip.
"How could the heavens be so cruel? Please come back, general.
We cannot believe you're gone," Hong Son Ok shouted in an interview with North Korea's official television, her body shaking wildly.
"He passed away too suddenly to our profound regret," said a statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency. "The heart of Kim Jong Il stopped beating, but his noble and august name and benevolent image will always be remembered by our army and people."
While there was no immediate statement on official succession, indications were clear that Kim Jong Un, the third son of Kim Jong Il, would be in charge.
The North said in a dispatch that the people and the military "have pledged to uphold the leadership of comrade Kim Jong Un" and called him a "great successor" of the country's revolutionary philosophy of juche, or self reliance.
The death could set back efforts by the United States and others to get Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions, because the untested successor may seek to avoid any perceived weakness as he moves to consolidate control.
"The situation could become extremely volatile. What the North Korean military does in the next 24-48 hours will be decisive," said Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who has made several high-profile visits to North Korea.
The death comes at a sensitive time for North Korea as it prepares for next year's 100th anniversary of the birth of founder Kim Il Sung - Kim Jong Il's father. The preparations include massive construction projects throughout the city as part of
Kim Jong Il's unfulfilled promise to bring prosperity to his people.
Seoul and Washington will worry that Kim Jong Un "may feel it necessary in the future to precipitate a crisis to prove his mettle to other senior leaders," according to Bruce Klingner, an Asia analyst at The Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington.
In Seoul, parliamentary official Lee Kyu-yun said he was thinking of stocking up food in case of soaring military tensions.
Lee Byung-joon, 27, feared South Korea might have to fight a war against the North if high-ranking officials challenge the inexperienced
Kim Jong Un and Pyongyang becomes unstable.
"I definitely think the chance of war breaking out between the South and the North is higher now than before," Lee said.
Some analysts, however, said Kim's death was unlikely to plunge the country into chaos because it already was preparing for a transition.
Kim Jong Il indicated a year ago that Kim Jong Un would be his successor, putting him in high-ranking posts.
"There won't be any emergencies in the North at least in the next few months," said Baek Seung-joo of the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in South Korea.
Another analyst said an internal power struggle could break out between
Kim Jong Un and his aunt's husband, Jang Song Thaek, who was elevated in the government last year and likely will be given a caretaker role in the new administration
"Tension will arise between Jang and Kim Jong Un, because Kim will have no choice but to share some power with Jang," said Ryoo Kihl-jae, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, which is in South Korea.
The North said it would place Kim's body in the Kumsusan memorial palace in Pyongyang and that his funeral would be Dec. 28.
No entertainment will be allowed during a 10-day mourning period, and the country w
ill accept no "foreign delegations hoping to express condolences," it said.
South Korea's President Lee urged his people to remain calm while his Cabinet and the parliament convened emergency meetings.
The Defense Ministry said the South Korean military and the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea bolstered reconnaissance and were sharing intelligence on North Korea. Lee also talked with the leaders of Japan and Russia.
The White House said in a statement that it is closely monitoring reports of Kim's death. "We remain committed to stability on the Korean peninsula, and to the freedom and security of our allies," the statement said.
The Obama administration may postpone decisions on re-engaging the North in nuclear talks and providing it with food aid, U.S. officials said.
The administration had been expected to decide on both issues this week, possibly as early as Monday, but the officials said Kim's death would likely delay the process. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.
They said the U.S. was particularly concerned about any changes that Kim's death might spark in the military postures of North and South Korea but were hopeful that calm would prevail.
In a "special broadcast" Monday from the North Korean capital, state media said
Kim died on a train due to a "great mental and physical strain" during a "high intensity field inspection." It said an autopsy was done on Dec. 18 and "fully confirmed" the diagnosis.
Kim is believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008, but he had appeared relatively vigorous in photos and video from recent trips to China and Russia and in numerous trips around the country carefully documented by state media.
"It is the biggest loss for the party ... and it is our people and nation's biggest sadness," an anchorwoman clad in black Korean traditional dress said in a voice choked with tears.
Chae Jae-eun, a South Korean company worker, said from Seoul that she worried mostly about the economic implications of Kim Jong Il's death.
Asian stock markets moved lower following the news.
A group of North Koreans waiting at Beijing airport for their flight to Pyongyang reacted with shock when asked of Kim's death.
One woman broke into tears as she pulled out a handkerchief. One of her companions led her away when she looked as if she would collapse.

subset: commoncrawl


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It is called Namir and was born as a collaboration between Italdesign Giugiaro and Frazer-Nash, a company specialized in the design and construction of hybrid systems. A concept which is the fastest hybrid car in the world.
The Arabian name Namir, meaning "tiger��?, shows the content of the concept car: elegance and power, aggressiveness and litheness of lines. The supercar's performance are a top speed over 300 km/h (187 mph) and an acceleration of 0 to 100 km/h in 3.5 seconds and from 0 to 200km/h in 10.4 seconds.
Namir is also an ecological vehicle. The hybrid system developed together with Frazer-Nash combines an 814 cc endothermic rotary engine with four electric motors, guaranteeing autonomy of 39 km with one litre of fuel CO2 emissions of less than 60 grams per km travelled.
The prototype was built entirely in the Italdesign Giugiaro plant and will not go on sale.


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A Viking Funeral - Simonson style!
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
1984 - The Mighty Thor #343
Posted by Jason Shayer at 10:00 AM
Labels: eilif, Marvel Comics, the mighty thor #343, thor, valhalla, Valkyrie, viking funeral, walt simonson
3 comments:
Simonson's "Thor" run still surprises me: whenever I look back at it, it actually seems even better than the last time I did so. Great choice of pages.ReplyDelete
I might be wrong, but I think this issue was actually #343. I recall picking up that specific back issue, when I was still collecting this run retroactively, and really being blown away by this funeral scene.ReplyDelete
Simonson's run feels like the only run of a comic book that I read retroactively (didn't read the whole thing until the 2000s) that feels as thrilling as if I was reading it as a kid back in the 80s.
Thanks for the post!
Hey David, nice catch, you are correct! The story started with #341 and climaxed in #343.ReplyDelete
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How does it feel to be famous? The new "pot czar" of Washington state chuckles at the question. "Drug-policy analysts do not get groupies," he says. But judging by the media storm surrounding Mark Kleiman—the professor, blogger, and drug-policy expert appointed to head the state's marijuana legalization effort—he's dead wrong.
After a glowing write-up in the Seattle Times and a headline-grabbing appearance on CNN, it looks as if the bearded Californian has caught the nation's attention.
When Washington state officials announced their decision to hire the UCLA professor and author of Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control, they were not simply choosing Kleiman—but also his hand-picked team of consultants, named BOTEC, for Kleiman's company. The ruthless fight for the position had pitted Kleiman's team against more than 100 others. He was sure his group of six was the strongest, and he was right. Nearly four months after the state of Washington legalized marijuana, Kleiman says he hopes to show the world what marijuana legalization—done right—can look like.
From his poor eating habits to playing Wii Fit, the new pot boss tells The Daily Beast who he is—and how he landed the most enviable seat in the world of marijuana.
Did you ever imagine that you'd take on this kind of role? Would you say this was a dream of yours?
No, I can't say that I ever imagined that a state would legalize marijuana while it remained illegal federally and then ask for advice about how to do it. [Laughs.] That was not on my list of dreams.
So now that you're in the spotlight, who is the real Mark Kleiman? Workaholic, family man, neither?
Well, no. I have not gotten any cooperation in being a family man. When we got the notice that we were the apparent successful proposer [to be Washington state's marijuana consultants], I told my team not to get overconfident. I was the apparent successful proposer to somebody once and she married someone else.
So you're single?
I'm available and interested. But I must admit, not having a family, it does make assignments like this easier.
According to the official announcement, you're charging $292 an hour. That seems like such a specific number. What's the story behind it?
My sense was that if said $300, it would sound like we made it up. It's a complicated calculation; obviously we couldn't do it precisely. A blend of some fairly high-priced talent with some younger people who don't cost as much. We're still working out exactly how the budget will work. I asked the guy, "Do we have to do some arithmetic that comes out to $292?" And he said, "No." I said, "Well!" [Laughs.]
A major factor of the decision process is how many people you will license to grow. Agreed?
Yes. That will be a big decision. I don't know if it's going to be 10 or 500. Ninety percent of the beer market in Washington state is served by three firms, just to give you some perspective. There are some people who think that's the direction this industry will go in, and others who think that's the worst possible result.
What are some specific examples of things you will deal with day to day?
Well, packaging is one. Packaging will be hugely important and essentially determine what the market looks like. Should there be brand names? Can you put "mellow" on the label, or just give the chemical content? These aren't simple choices, and every option has disadvantages as well as advantages.
From what I've seen, the effect this legal marijuana will have on alcohol consumption seems vital to you. True?
It's clear to me—though not everyone agrees with this—that if marijuana turns out to be a substitute for alcohol, if allowing people to smoke pot decreases heavy drinking, that's a huge win. If that were true, I'd be a strong legalizer. Alcohol abuse is a much bigger problem than cannabis abuse—in every dimension.
Are you able to sleep at night with the knowledge that all eyes are on you and your team, as the pioneers of this process?
[Laughs.] I'm sleeping pretty well. We've got a terrific team. It's an interesting challenge. I don't have any doubt that we can add value to the Washington process. At the end of the day, we're advisers. It's not as if our team is sitting around figuring out the optimal solution and then figuring out how we can pawn it off on the board. I'd be nervous about getting it wrong, but no, I'm not contemplating disaster.
Does the nickname "pot czar" annoy you?
Yeah, I mean, c'mon. [Laughs.] But at least they're not saying chief pothead! I do have to tell people that free samples were not a part of our bid. We're not planning to do a lot of firsthand observation.
Do you feel famous?
Well, no. As far as I can tell, drug-policy analysts do not get groupies. I went into the wrong profession, obviously. I should have picked up the guitar.
When CNN's Erin Burnett asked in an interview whether you smoke pot, you said you'll always answer this question with the same answer: "None of your business."
I understand why people ask the question. They're trying to place you culturally. When's the last time someone hired to advise on AIDS prevention was asked, "How many sexual partners have you had"? We might be able to make better policy about marijuana if we giggled a little less. People would not be asking me if I used cocaine. It's partly that about half of every age cohort uses pot. So it's a pretty clear cultural divider. I was glad to see Erin Burnett was not offended when I didn't answer. If you do drug policy, it's foolish to answer that question.
Why foolish?
Well, because it allows people to categorize you, either as a pot smoker or a drug warrior. It refocuses the conversation away from the substance and onto the person. And it also assumes that this is basically an extension of the culture wars, rather than a practical policy problem. If there's one thing that my team will bring to the table, it's that we're going to try to focus on advantages and disadvantages. Not on who's winning and who's losing. That's part of what makes me sleep easy.
When you're not running the pot world, what will you be doing?
I spend a lot of time blogging. I like folk music, Celtic music, and early music. My favorite singer is Mary Black. I'm also a big science-fiction fan.
What about TV?
I got rid of my TV in 1976. I have a computer, so I watch TV on Talking Points Memo. I bought a TV to watch the debates in 2008, thinking I would watch Netflix occasionally, but no. I'm out of the TV habit. I like to use Wii Fit and play video games on my computer instead. I'd much rather be reading history than watching television.
What's your favorite food?
[Hesitates.] Hmm. I have to say brownies, but I don't want you to get the wrong idea! I don't have the world's healthiest eating habits.
Word on the street is that you won't be moving to Washington and will remain in California to do this job.
Emails are a really wonderful thing. I have a day job. I'm going to continue to teach at UCLA. I'll obviously be up there from time to time, particularly over the summer. If I have to get up to Seattle, I won't object. But why burn a lot of jet fuel if you don't have to?
You've stated in the past that you're neither pro-legalization nor anti-. Can you explain that?
Well, any opinions I have now are completely subject to change in the face of new facts. We've never seen this beast. Assuming that Washington comes up with a reasonably sensible solution and the federal government lets it operate—meaning we get a fair shot at a mostly legal regime in Washington—then come back at me in five years and ask what I think about legalizing marijuana, and I might have an opinion that's worth something.
What advice would you give to the younger generation aspiring to be the next pot czar?
Same advice I'd give an aspiring musician: don't quit your day job.


text:
Why College Students Take on Loans They Can't Repay
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Students take on college debt with the best of intentions. They've been told that a college degree is a ticket to success. That they should pursue their dreams. That student debt is good debt.
But how do smart students wind up with debt they can't repay? Here are three reasons, plus ways to avoid these financial traps.
» MORE: How to pay for college
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They're told it's 'good debt'
In high school, students hear that they should earn a college degree to have a well-paying, successful career.
"We as a society kind of have this compulsory higher education," says Daniel T. Kirsch, author of "Sold My Soul for a Student Loan." "We're encouraging everyone to take out debt and calling it 'good debt'."
But student debt isn't good when your degree doesn't lead to a job that earns enough to repay it.
This is the case for 36-year-old Jennifer Atkins of Jacksonville, Florida. A first-generation college student, she believed a university diploma would help her get ahead.
"I had the mentality back then that I was doing what I was supposed to do in life," says Atkins, who earned three degrees, including a master of nonprofit management in 2014.
Now, Atkins has two kids, over $100,000 in student loan debt and is unemployed. She quit her job in 2017 due to complications with her second pregnancy and hasn't found a job lucrative enough to justify paying for child care.
Avoid this trap: Limit borrowing so that future monthly payments don't consume over 10% of take-home pay. By that standard, someone expecting to earn $50,000 a year could afford a monthly payment of about $279, according to NerdWallet's student loan affordability calculator. At the current undergraduate federal student loan interest rate of 4.53%, that payment would support college debt of about $26,800.
The loans don't feel real
Some students are willing to take on large amounts of college debt because they don't connect with the reality that they'll eventually have to repay it with interest. This aligns with what behavioral economists call "present bias," the idea that people often make choices that benefit them in the short term and overlook future consequences.
Atkins remembers accepting student loans in small increments throughout 10 years of higher education — $3,000 here, $5,000 there. She worked throughout school, but the loans were crucial to making ends meet.
"None of it was real to me back then," Atkins says. "I had no problem clicking 'accept' on those student loans."
In hindsight, Atkins says she wishes she had had a mandatory career counseling session to walk her through the numbers and understand her debt in the context of her future earnings and expenses.
Such counseling may have helped. Imagining our future selves can help us overcome present bias, says Jeff Kreisler, co-author of the behavioral economics book, "Dollars and Sense."
"If you make the future more specific, then you can connect to it," he says.
Avoid this trap: Do the math as you go. Every dollar you borrow will have to be repaid with interest. But you can choose to borrow less than you're offered. It may be tempting to accept the full amount, but you'll have a lower monthly payment in the future if you borrow only enough to cover tuition and basic living costs.
» MORE: Student loan definitions
They lack information
In many cases, students lack the financial education needed to make borrowing decisions.
Susan Dawson, 47, who has a Ph.D in history and works as a historian for a federal agency, can afford her student loan payments thanks to a second job teaching online classes and a federal repayment plan that caps her monthly payments at a percentage of her income. But she says if she had known the earning potential in her field, she would have chosen a different career.
"I feel stupid because I did not know what questions to ask," says Dawson, who has a six-figure student loan balance, and lives and works in Washington, D.C.
Things she wishes she had asked about include:
Typical earnings in her field.
Her future monthly student loan payments.
How student loan interest works.
Avoid this trap: Check the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook to research wages and education requirements for various fields. Use a student loan calculator to estimate future monthly payments. Interest accrues while you're in school — unless you have subsidized loans — but you can pay the interest during school to keep your balance from ballooning.
This article was written by NerdWallet and was originally published by The Associated Press.
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West looked the other way as Afghan drug trade exploded
By: Tom Lasseter, McClatchy Newspapers
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Locals call them "poppy palaces," the three- or four-story marble homes with fake Roman columns perched behind razor wire and guard shacks in Afghanistan's capital.
Most are owned by Afghan officials or people connected to them, men who make a few hundred dollars a month as government employees but are driven around in small convoys of armored SUVs that cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Kabul's gleaming upmarket real estate seems a world away from war-torn southern Afghanistan, but many of the houses were built with profits harvested from opium poppy fields in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar.
"When you see these buildings, that's not normal money . . . that's drug money," said Ghulam Haider Hamidi, the mayor of Kandahar's provincial capital since 2007. "The ministers and the governors are behind the drug dealers, and sometimes they are the drug dealers."
Last year, Helmand and Kandahar provinces accounted for about 75 percent of Afghanistan's poppy cultivation, and Helmand alone was the world's biggest supplier of opium.
Afghan and Western officials say that's because U.S. and NATO-led forces failed to take the drug problem seriously for more than six years after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 ousted the Taliban regime.
"They (the Western military) didn't want anything to do with either interdiction or eradication," said Thomas Schweich, a former Bush administration ambassador for counter-narcotics and justice reform for Afghanistan. "We warned them over and over again: Look at Colombia."
Now Helmand and Kandahar have become the core of a narco-state within Afghanistan, effectively ruled by the resurgent Taliban. Drugs are the main economic engine there, and most politicians and police are said to be under the thumbs of dealers. "I haven't seen any good police during the last two years in Kandahar," Hamidi said.
In the west Helmand district of Nad Ali, thousands of acres of government land reportedly have been irrigated and cultivated — including wells and farm boundaries dug by heavy machinery — as poppy plantations. Police in the area fired on government eradication teams last year.
Asked what American and NATO forces have done to halt the flow of opium and heroin in the southern provinces, Afghanistan's minister for counter-narcotics, Col. Gen. Khodaidad, who like many Afghans uses only one name, had a quick answer: "Nothing."
The Afghan government hasn't done much, either. Schweich said that at the highest levels of government the issue wasn't always corruption, but political considerations.
For example, he said, U.S.-backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai was seen in 2007 as "trying to prevent serious law-enforcement efforts in Helmand and Kandahar to ensure that he did not lose the support of drug lords in the area whose support he wanted in the upcoming election." Schweich, though, added that Karzai has recently appeared to "adopt a more hands-off approach."
A spokesman for Karzai, Humayun Hamidzada, denied that the government was soft on drugs, and said it was waging "an active campaign against corruption and drug dealing."
Mirwais Yasini, a parliament member who headed Afghanistan's anti-narcotics directorate for about two years, agreed that politics is a factor is the government's lax enforcement. However, he said, there's another consideration: "It's also for their own benefit, because some government officials have large lands that produce opium."
Yasini didn't provide the names of those officials.
Abdul Jabar Sabit, a former Afghan attorney general, said that when many Afghans got government positions, "they see that it is their turn right now" to grab as much money as they could. Sabit was speaking from his recently built house in an expensive Kabul neighborhood.
"All the officials dealing with narcotics are corrupt," said Sabit, who said that he'd borrowed money from a construction company to build his home. "The police are there to make a deal (with drug traffickers); if the police cannot make a deal, then the prosecutor will or the judges after them."
Mohammed Ayub Salangi, a former Kandahar and Kabul police chief, said recently that he didn't think that drug money tainted many Afghan officials. Salangi, who said he was paid about $6,500 a year, was sitting in front of his house in Kabul with a Lexus SUV parked in the driveway and a small posse of gunmen out front. Rents in the neighborhood run up to $10,000 a month. Officials from provinces where Salangi worked in the past told McClatchy they weren't aware of any accusations that he's corrupt. In fact, Salangi was waiting to hear whether he'd be named the police chief of yet another province.
Some Western and Afghan officials say that southern Afghanistan spun out of control because of a serious miscalculation by U.S. and British officials, who all but ignored the long rows of poppy and the opium trafficking that flows from them.
The results were grim.
After the Taliban banned poppy cultivation in July 2000, Afghanistan produced some 185 tons of opium in 2001. The next year, production was 3,400 tons, according to U.N. statistics, and by 2007 it was about 8,200 tons, making Afghanistan the source of roughly 93 percent of the world's opium and heroin. U.S. numbers differ from the U.N. statistics but reflect the same trend.
Production declined last year, but there are differences about how much. The State Department puts it at 5,500 tons; the U.N. says that while the area of cultivation fell by 19 percent, farmers still produced some 7,700 tons of opium because they had higher yields.
Most experts attribute the decrease in land usage to farmers diversifying because of rising prices for wheat and bumper crops in Afghanistan causing a slide in opium prices. Afghanistan, however, still supplied more than 90 percent of the world market last year.
As a lead donor nation to Afghanistan, Britain agreed in 2002 to head up counter-narcotics efforts, but it did little to crack down on drugs and largely avoided the eradication of poppy crops.
While NATO-led forces in Afghanistan provided training for Afghan anti-narcotics units, they would "not take part in the eradication of opium poppy or in pre-planned and direct military action against the drugs trade," Jack Straw, Britain's foreign secretary from 2001 to 2006, wrote in a 2006 letter to Parliament.
The British worried that strong-arming poppy farmers could create more militants, and they preferred to wait for the rule of law to be strengthened, at which point — the thinking went — the Afghans could take care of their drug problem themselves.
"We think that this was a rather simplistic view of the issue, because as we have seen in Colombia, as we have seen in the Golden Triangle" — an opium and heroin production area in southeast Asia — "at the end of the day it is very hard to make a distinction between the drug cultivation and the insurgency," said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, representative for the United Nations office on drugs and crime in Afghanistan.
The softer British approach often didn't achieve much.
During 2003, for example, the British and Afghan governments tried to buy up the poppy crop in Helmand. The $40 million effort "failed to produce lasting results," according to a subsequent report by the U.S. State and Defense departments' inspectors general.
In 2006, the British deployed about 3,300 troops to Helmand and brought with them the same laissez-faire approach to counter-narcotics.
A report published that year from the British House of Commons quoted a British Defense Ministry official as saying that "the military contribution to counter-narcotics might be quite small . . . it will be in support of the Afghan authorities rather than the British carrying out a counter-narcotics mission on its own account."
In 2007, Helmand radio stations carried announcements telling Afghans that NATO-led and Afghan troops "do not destroy poppy fields" because "they know that many people of Afghanistan have no choice but to grow poppy," an advertisement written by British officers, according to British news reports.
Three former Helmand governors said the British forces' reluctance to deal with drugs was disastrous.
"When they're not targeting the source that fuels the terrorism it is difficult to defeat terrorism," said Mohammed Daoud, the governor from late 2005 through 2006. "Unless the international community includes poppy eradication and fighting drugs in their list of ways to fight terrorism, they will not succeed in this fight because it (the drug trade) is the fuel in the machine of terrorism."
Asadullah Wafa, the Helmand governor from 2007 to 2008, said that many Afghans took the lack of action as a signal that it was open season for poppy cultivation.
Cultivation in Helmand nearly quadrupled from 2005 to 2008, and now accounts for some 66 percent of Afghanistan's output. In 2003, the province had roughly 37,980 acres of poppy. Last year, there were some 255,970 acres of poppy there, according to U.N. numbers.
"It was not just the British, it was also ISAF (the NATO-led forces) and the U.S. military" that did little about the opium trade, said a Western official working with counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
The British and U.S. embassies in Kabul declined to comment.
Some experts on counter-narcotics contend that in the middle of a war, in a country with a weak central government and a tattered economy, the British had limited options.
"Peace first, drugs next," said Ekaterina Stepanova, a senior analyst at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute who's studied drug economies in conflict zones. "If you want counter-narcotics policy to succeed, you first need a functional and domestically accepted state."
Stepanova agreed with the British decision to sidestep eradication.
"The most counterproductive thing you can do is to start an eradication campaign, because it pushes the peasants further to support the Taliban," she said in a phone interview.
The issue was left mainly to underequipped and often-corrupt Afghan police, who had little inclination to take on the hordes of militants and warlords who were protecting poppy fields.
The police are infamous for being on the payrolls of drug dealers big and small.
"When the police arrested me I would give them 1,000 or 2,000 afghanis" — $20 or $40 — "and they'd let me go," said Ahmadullah, a 20-year-old junkie and former two-bit heroin dealer from Kandahar who was interviewed at an abandoned building in Kabul that's become an opium and heroin den.
When he was asked when heroin started becoming a major problem in Kandahar, Ahmadullah, his hair matted with dirt and face drooping with the lazy gaze of a heroin addict, paused and asked: When did the Western armies and Hamid Karzai come? It was a few years after that, he said.
Christopher Langton, a retired British army colonel who's a senior analyst at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, pointed to the fragile state of the Afghan government, "which has little control over the country," as a major factor.
"Weak control allows cultivation," he said.
The Western powers' hands-off counter-narcotics policy in Afghanistan has begun to change, however slowly. Much of President Barack Obama's surge of 17,000-plus troops to Afghanistan will target the south, a move that's sure to put pressure on the Taliban's drug-running operations. The State Department and other agencies are spearheading eradication campaigns and agricultural development projects across the country, a carrot-and-stick approach.
In Helmand, the Afghan government — with U.S. and British backing — has distributed wheat seed to some 30,000 farmers as part of a pilot program for crop substitution, and has begun to map out supply chains for fruits and vegetables to lucrative markets such as Dubai.
Afghan eradication teams now have regular backup from Western military units that serve as quick reaction forces. Former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officers are mentoring Afghan Interior Ministry narcotics officials, and a central drug court in Kabul is seen as relatively promising.
Last December, the British military led a contingent of at least 1,500 troops for an operation in and around Helmand's Nad Ali district — home to thousands of acres of poppy — to establish a foothold. Then in February, the British conducted one of the first high-profile military raids of a reputed Taliban drug base in Helmand, in its northeast district of Sangin. They found more than 2,700 pounds of opium and a lab for making heroin.
The number of poppy-free provinces reportedly climbed to 18 from 13 out of 34 last year, including the former number two producer of opium, and there are expectations that the number will increase this year.
However, as poppy cultivation has shifted almost exclusively to five of the country's southern provinces, Taliban areas such as Kandahar and Helmand have become even more volatile. In 2007, 19 Afghan police were killed during eradication efforts. In 2008, that number more than tripled to 72, according to the Western official involved with counter-narcotics.
Government eradication troops in the south now come under attack by platoon-sized Taliban teams broken into squads firing mortars, grenade launchers and machine guns.
Amid the new, fragile momentum in the battle against drugs, the Obama administration has sent some confusing signals.
The president's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, recently lashed out at U.S. policy, saying that American efforts to date have been useless.
"We have gotten nothing out of it, nothing," Holbrooke said at a March conference in Brussels, Belgium. "It is the most wasteful and ineffective program I have seen in 40 years."
During a briefing for White House reporters the same month, Holbrooke acknowledged that the Obama team hadn't finalized its strategy for counter-narcotics in Afghanistan.
In Helmand, convoys of Land Cruisers still speed across the desert loaded with heroin and gunmen, and no one dares stop them, said Sher Mohammed Akhundzada, who was the governor there for about four years.
Sitting in his living room in Kabul, Akhundzada bemoaned the state of his home province. It's a place run by the Taliban and narco-traffickers, he said with a shake of the head.
Akhundzada didn't mention that during his time as governor he was caught storing some 9 tons of opium in the basement of his office. Instead of being prosecuted, he became a senator. Akhundzada now lives in a large house in Kabul.


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Nice crowd at New Hampshire, 75,000 to 80,000 for Round Two of the NASCAR chase (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
By Mike Mulhern
If this is the track Matt Kenseth most dreaded, where he'd never won, where he'd never really run as well as he'd hoped....well then it looks like his title rivals are in for a difficult fall.
Kenseth was rockin' and rollin' here Sunday afternoon, grabbing his seventh win of the season and taking an even stronger lead in the NASCAR championship chase.
He led 106 of the 300 laps, and even teammate Kyle Busch couldn't really do anything with him down the stretch, en route to the 1-2 finish for team owner Joe Gibbs....the second straight 1-2 Kenseth-Busch afternoon in the stock car racing playoffs.
The first day of fall marked Kenseth's 500th tour start...and his first win at the tricky, flat one-mile that Bob Bahre built 20 years ago up here 90 minutes north of Boston's Fenway Field.
"This is an unbelievable opportunity," Kenseth marveled, looking at what he's managed to do this first season with Toyota and Gibbs and crew chief Jason Ratcliff.
"I feel like the luckiest guy in the world.
"I'm going to enjoy it, and then look forward to getting to Dover."
That's next weekend's stop, Round Three of the playoffs....and the track where Kenseth made his first NASCAR start back in 1998.
While Kenseth downplayed any prowess here, Ratcliff insisted "Matt doesn't take enough credit. You don't just come out here and win.
"This guy has done an incredible job this year.
"At this track you have to be really on your toes on restarts, because you're up against guys with new tires and old tires. Matt was right on today."
Kasey Kahne, heading toward the inside wall and a very hard hit (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
When Kenseth won his first NASCAR championship in 2003, he all but locked up the title by mid-summer, but only won one race that season. Partly in reaction to that runaway, NASCAR's Brian France changed the rules dramatically, creating this 10-race chase, now with 13 men running for the title and their point totals essentially re-zeroed for the playoffs.
So it would be oh, so sweet for Kenseth to win this chase championship.
"Jimmie has hogged so many the last seven years, it hasn't left many for anyone else," Kenseth quipped, referring to the man who logically is his toughest competitor for the title.
This fall, though, it could be his own teammate, Busch, who gives him the most fits between now and Thanksgiving.
Busch dogged Kenseth hard, again, down the stretch, but failed to pass him.
"Whenever you race against Kyle, you're concerned, because there's just nobody better at it," Kenseth said.
"There were a couple of times I'd slip up, and I would start over-driving it, and miss a corner a couple of times, messing with lapped cars. Every time I did that, he was immediately there three-tenths. And I knew if I made any mistakes on the last three laps he was going to pound and be right there."
And Busch was clearly frustrated at not getting close enough to make the pass.
"Matt had a lot more than us this weekend, for some reason," Busch said. "It was just stupid fast.
"Sometimes you get those magical cars. Hopefully there's a couple for us left this year."
Bobby Labonte, about to test that flak jacket he's wearing for protection while recovering from those broken ribs (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
Among the day's disappointed, Jeff Gordon. He was strong early, then overshot his pits on a routine stop and never recovered. "I'm highly disappointed in myself," Gordon said. "The team put me in great position; I just came in and slid. That's all it takes between a chance at winning and finishing 15th."
One of the scariest moments of the race came when Kasey Kahne spun late and slammed into the inside wall.
Well, that wasn't as scary as Kahne's post-crash analysis -- he clearly seemed out of it, as though he'd been knocked out. However NASCAR cleared him to get back in his car, after repairs, and let him keep racing.
"I really don't know what happened," Kahne said after the crash. "Just racing, and I'm not sure if there was contact or if I just spun.
"I seriously don't remember how it happened.
"I hit the inside wall....but I'm not sure how I got there."
NASCAR's handling of drivers with possible concussions has been criticized since Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s two crashes last fall forced him to sit out two races while his head cleared.
Jamie McMurray (1) got caught up in an early race incident, ironically including teammate Juan Pablo Montoya. But McMurray recovered to finish fifth. Montoya finished 19th. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
Juan Pablo Montoya in a Roger Penske Ford for next spring's Daytona 500?
Could well be.
Penske, in hiring Montoya to drive his Indy-cars next season (after a 12-year break from that tour where he once starred), also has the opportunity to put Montoya in a Sprint Cup stocker for some 2014 races.
And that could be a nice plus for Ford Motor Company.
Montoya has been a Chevy man since joining the stock car tour in late 2006.
This is Penske's first year as a Ford man again in NASCAR. On the Indy-car tour he runs Chevys. And Ford officials say that adding an Indy-car program to their motorsports marketing portfolio "isn't even on the radar."
While much has been made of the Penske-Montoya-Indycar move, little has been laid out concerning the two men and a NASCAR game plan.
After all, Montoya has invested nearly seven years of his life in learning NASCAR, and despite his relatively lack of success, the questions at the moment appear more about his seven season running for what has not really been considered a Tier One NASCAR operation.
Given the long-running Penske-versus-Chip Ganassi war of wits and cars, on several fronts, it might be yet another interesting twist to see if Penske can make Montoya a bigger success in NASCAR than Ganassi.
Of course Montoya still has another eight NASCAR races to run in Ganassi's Chevys, so that might be reason for a low profile on this front.
Plus, Penske needs to get sponsorship for Montoya, all the way around.
One sign that something is in the works -- Sunday here Penske said he'd told Sam Hornish Jr., his long-time driver and current Nationwide tour points leader, to start looking for another ride for 2014.
Penske insists he has no plans for more than a two-car team in 2014, with Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano. However he added "Once we get a sponsor, we can go to a third car."
On the Indy-car side of things, well, moving from NASCAR to Indy-car, all things considered, has to be considered a step down, since the Indy-car world is, in several respects, struggling. Plus the number of potential winners on any given Indy-car race day is far less than in NASCAR.
Penske's bid for Montoya appears to have been well disguised.
Penske says he has "high regard" for what Montoya can do in his Indy-cars. "I don't want to make predictions, but I'd say he's exactly what we want.
"The series is very good right now; we just need continuity."
A beautiful day in the neighborhood. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
Montoya says joining Penske "was a no-brainer.
"When you get a chance to run for Roger....I wouldn't turn that down."
Montoya says he'd been talking with NASCAR team owner Barney Visser, about taking the ride Kurt Busch has this year. "They have a really good team," Montoya said. "We were actually pretty close.
Then Penske called. "I said 'Yes,' and that was it.
"I've run for Williams, McLaren, Mercedes, BMW, big teams. The only one on the list that I hadn't run with, and felt I always wanted to, was Roger's.
"If I can get some wins for him next year, I'll be real excited."
And NASCAR 2014 for Montoya?
"Looking at the Penske thing into the future, we'll see if there are maybe some NASCAR races that might come about," Montoya says. "We'll see.
"That is up to Roger. We need to sit down and talk about that later."
Matt Kenseth at Sunday's finish line, with teammate Kyle Busch (multi-colored car) behind him (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
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Friday, February 24
Friday Dose of Cute: The Beauty of Black and White
5 comments:
Mr. Midnight "But my toes are cold and I stand out like black on white." I had a black cat years ago named Midnight. Great picture.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous2/24/2012 4:27 PM
Mr. Midnight is beautiful!ReplyDelete
He is a beautiful cat! :)ReplyDelete
He's just gorgeous. We had a wonderful all-back kitty, Jasmine, that kept us company for 23 years and is missed everyday. Here's hoping Mr. Midnight has such a long and happy life.ReplyDelete
Looking cold!ReplyDelete
December 2015 update: Hi! For some reason I can't figure out, Blogger hasn't been letting me leave comments on my own blog (!) for the last several months, so I've been unable to respond to your comments and questions. My apologies for any inconvenience! You're always welcome to email me: farmgirlfare AT gmail DOT com.
Hi! Thanks for visiting Farmgirl Fare and taking the time to write. While I'm not always able to reply to every comment, I receive and enjoy reading them all.
Your feedback is greatly appreciated, and I especially love hearing about your experiences with my recipes. Comments on older posts are always welcome!
Please note that I moderate comments, so if I'm away from the computer it may be a while before yours appears.
I try my best to answer all questions, though sometimes it takes me a few days. And sometimes, I'm sorry to say, they fall through the cracks, and for that I sincerely apologize.
I look forward to hearing from you and hope you enjoy your e-visits to our farm!


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How the FCC Could Revolutionize Education and Put Computers in More Students' Hands
Restructuring the "E-rate" could vastly expand Internet access and give classrooms more digital tools.
Few, if any, of the confrontations captivating Washington this summer will affect daily life in America more than a subdued regulatory process that will begin Friday in an office building far from the capital's downtown power centers.
On Friday, the Federal Communications Commission will start restructuring the "E-rate" under which Washington provides funds to help schools connect to the Internet. This seemingly obscure decision could trigger an education revolution by enormously accelerating the deployment of tablets and other digital tools into classrooms. Even lawyers' eyes may glaze over when confronted with the gray columns in the "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" the commission will unveil on Friday, but the document will provoke a kaleidoscope of change for the families of America's 76 million primary and secondary students—and sooner than many might imagine. "This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to allow our education system to essentially leapfrog some of our competitor nations," says James Shelton, the acting Education Department deputy secretary.
The generational opportunity that Shelton and other advocates envision centers on the use of digital technology to create a more personalized learning environment. Reformers project a reimagined classroom in which all students are equipped with tablets or laptops that allow them to work at their own pace on lessons that adjust to their progress; use video links to take courses, such as advanced science lessons, only available at other schools; and receive real-time feedback from teachers who obtain reports on their performance through online connections with the students' devices. Constant digital updates would replace bulky out-of-date textbooks lugged in spine-crushing backpacks.
In June, the bipartisan Leading Education by Advancing Digital (LEAD) commission urged a national drive to provide digital devices to all students by 2020. Around that time, Los Angeles Superintendent John Deasy won approval for a $30 million contract to provide every student in the nation's second-largest school system with an Apple iPad. "Students are going to experience a common core [curriculum] with high standards in a very customized setting," Deasy declared at this month's Aspen Ideas Festival (cosponsored by National Journal's sister publication The Atlantic). New York City's two leading Democratic mayoral candidates are proposing a similar program.
These changes won't be possible unless schools upgrade their connections. Almost all U.S. schools are now online in some fashion. That's largely because of federal assistance provided by the E-rate, which was established under the 1996 Telecommunications Act passed by a Republican Congress and signed by President Clinton. Under the E-rate, consumers pay a monthly fee of about 30 cents per phone line to subsidize Internet connections for primary and secondary schools, which must also contribute to the cost.
While that program has provided most schools with basic connectivity, only about 20 percent of American students have access to "true high-speed Internet in their classroom," as President Obama noted last month. Speaking at a North Carolina middle school that has upgraded, he urged the FCC to develop a plan to provide 99 percent of America's students with high-speed connectivity within five years. "We are talking about moving from a school where the connectivity is one computer in the library to one where every kid has a device in their hands that allows them to manipulate a 3-D science project," says Cecilia Munoz, the White House domestic policy adviser.
The LEAD commission projects that meeting Obama's call for broadband in every classroom—which prompted the FCC rule-making—will cost between $6 billion and $9 billion. The White House estimates that to meet that cost consumers would face a temporary increase of about 35 cents in their monthly E-rate fee, less if the FCC can find savings from the existing program, as it will propose in Friday's notice.
Even with more money, this ambitious vision faces many hurdles. Administration officials acknowledge that the upgrade won't be affordable unless schools negotiate more effectively with telecommunications providers (some of which have faced persistent charges of failing to provide the E-rate's mandated discounts) and device manufacturers (which have not yet provided educators with mass low-cost options.) Software companies must develop more-sophisticated digital content, and teachers will need training to get the most from the new tools. Schools will need to teach "digital literacy and digital citizenship, and not just plunk a kid in front of a computer screen for seven hours a day," says James Steyer, a member of the LEAD Commission and founder of Common Sense Media, a group that monitors media's impact on children.
But if the FCC brings mass broadband to the classroom by expanding the E-rate program, it will create a vast new market for everything connected to digital education. That will likely spur a virtuous cycle of invention and competition that generates new answers to all of these challenges from educators, parents, and private companies alike. To promote new digital breakthroughs, the FCC for years has mostly bet on a strategy of deregulation. But to propel schools into the Information Age, government intervention looks like the indispensable first step toward unlocking private innovation.


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Ten years ago this week, the United States led an invasion of Iraq with the explicit purpose of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. The preceding months had been filled with vehement protests against the impending war, expressed in editorials, in advertisements, and in rallies so vast that some of them made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. With so many people against the invasion, who supported it?
Well, if you were like the great majority of Americans — you did. In February and March 2003, Newsweek's polls showed 70 percent of the public in favor of military action against Iraq; Gallup and Pew Research Center surveys showed the same thing. Congress had authorized the invasion a few months earlier with strong bipartisan majorities; among the many Democrats voting for the war were Senators John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden.
Though the Iraq war later became a favorite Democratic club for bashing George W. Bush, Republicans and Democrats alike had long understood that Hussein was a deadly menace who had to be forcibly eradicated. In 1998 President Bill Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act, making Hussein's removal from power a matter of US policy.
But bipartisan harmony was an early casualty of the war. Once it became clear that Hussein didn't have the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons that were a major justification for the invasion, unity gave way to recrimination. It didn't matter that virtually everyone — Republicans and Democrats, UN inspectors and CIA analysts, coalition allies, even Hussein's own military officers — had been sure the WMD would be found. Nor did it matter that Hussein had previously used WMD to exterminate thousands of men, women, and children. The temptation to spin an intelligence failure as a deliberate "lie" was politically irresistible.
When the relatively quick toppling of Hussein was followed by a long and bloody insurgency, opposition to the war intensified. But then came Bush's "surge," and the course of the war shifted dramatically for the better. By the time Bush left office, the insurgency was crippled, violence was down 90 percent, and Iraqis were being governed by politicians they had voted for. It was far from perfect, but "something that looks an awful lot like democracy is beginning to take hold in Iraq," reported Newsweek in early 2010. On its cover the magazine proclaimed: "Victory at Last."
And so it might have been, if America's new commander-in-chief hadn't been so insistent on pulling the plug.
In October 2011, President Obama — overriding his military commanders, who had recommended keeping 18,000 troops on the ground — announced that all remaining US servicemen would be out of Iraq by the end of the year. Politically, it was a popular decision; most Americans were understandably weary of Iraq. But abandoning Iraqis and their frail, fledgling democracy was reckless.
"It freed Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to be more of a Shiite sectarian than he could have been with the US looking over his shoulder," as military historian Max Boot observed this week. As Maliki moves against his Sunni opponents, some of them "are making common cause once again with Al Qaeda in Iraq, [which] has recovered from its near-death experience" during the surge, Boot declared. It is cold comfort that so many warned of such an outcome in 2011.
So was the Iraq war worth it? On that, Americans are a long way from a consensus. It is never clear in the immediate aftermath of any war what history's judgment will be. But this much we do know: The invasion of Iraq 10 years ago ended the reign of a genocidal tyrant, and ensured that his monstrous sons could never succeed him. It struck a shaft of fear into other dictators, leading Libya's Moammar Khadafy, for example, to relinquish his WMD. It let Iraqis find out how much better their lives could be under democratic self-government. Like all wars, even wars of liberation, it took an awful toll. The status quo ante was worse.
Jeff Jacoby can be reached at email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeff_jacoby.


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Foreclosure crisis phase 2: The negative equity dilemma
Many prime borrowers are being caught between devalued homes and job losses. Will Congress step in?
| Boston
For almost a quarter century, Cynthia Johnson, a Boston homeowner, has paid the mortgage on her three-bedroom single-family house on time.
But in July, for the first time, she'll miss a payment.
"I'm on [the bank's] doorstep at this point, saying, 'The savings are gone. I can't pay you as promised,' " she said.
Unless something changes, Ms. Johnson (not her real name) is set to join the nearly 2.4 million Americans with prime loans seriously delinquent on their mortgages. They are the new face of the housing crisis. Unlike subprime borrowers, most of these homeowners did everything right. They bought houses they could afford and used standard mortgages. But falling home prices and a protracted recession have pushed them into a classic squeeze: They can't keep up their mortgage payments because someone in the household has lost his or her job. They can't sell because they owe more than the home is worth.
"In the next 12 months it's going to be tragic – most people are just starting to fall behind now," said Avi Liss, a lawyer helping homeowners avoid foreclosure in the Boston area. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit research and policy group, as many as 9 million homeowners could go into foreclosure between 2009 and 2012.
Is there a solution? Yes, but it's controversial. Congress would have to force banks to write off part of homeowners' troubled loans as a way to keep them in their homes.
There are plenty of reasons to avoid this course. Chief among them is the moral hazard. If banks write down one homeowner's loans because of hardship, what's to keep other homeowners from claiming hardship, too? And the losses don't accrue to some faceless bank; they add up for individual shareholders and pension funds that have money tied up in mortgage loans.
"In a way, reducing principal is like rewarding [homeowners] for backing out of an obligation," said Stan Longhofer, director of the Center for Real Estate at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kan.
But the current program isn't working either, critics say. And the debt write-down happens anyway, whether a homeowner goes through foreclosure or the house is relinquished in a short sale. So isn't it better, they ask, for the bank to take its losses early and keep the owner in his home?
Foreclosed on, but kept his home
Osazee Egharevba, a Nigerian immigrant who came to the Boston area in 2000 after his wife passed away, worked two jobs and saved enough to bring over his five children in 2006. That same year he purchased a two-family home. He could afford the $3,950 monthly payments by renting out the first floor.
Then Mr. Egharevba lost one job, and the extra $800 a week it brought in, and started missing payments. Deeply "underwater" on the $510,000 property (owing more than it was worth), he was foreclosed on this past winter, after five failed attempts at attaining a loan modification.
"My children were going to be on the street because there was no way, there was no home," he said.
But he stayed in the house. In April 2010, a nonprofit called Boston Community Capital was able to buy the home and sell it back to him for $296,000 – the home's current value. His monthly payment has fallen to a manageable $2,300. Egharevba doesn't get off scot-free. He is bound to share with BCC any profit he makes when he sells the property.
"There's no incentive for someone to do this to make money," says Patricia Hanratty, who runs the loan program at BCC. "This is for people who desperately want to save their homes."
In the year that the program's been running, almost 70 homes have been either sold back or rented to foreclosed homeowners. None have redefaulted. When the group buys a foreclosed property, it routinely asks the selling bank if it wants to participate in the shared equity deal. Every one has declined the offer.
"They said it was too complicated; it wasn't something they were used to doing, they didn't want to get involved in it," said Ms. Hanratty. "Maybe that will turn, that will change in time."
A lesson from the farm?
There is a precedent for widespread principal reduction on property loans. During the farm crisis of the 1980s, young farmers who had bought farmland at inflated prices suddenly saw crop prices plunge and, soon after, land prices fall as well. It was a debt squeeze not unlike today's crisis for underwater homeowners who have lost their job. Seeing the unfolding rural disaster, Congress created a new chapter in the bankruptcy code. It allowed bankruptcy judges to modify loans, including partial debt write-downs, so family farmers could stay on their farm.
"People who will pull themselves out of trouble and be good credit risks again, those are the people who merit this kind of intervention and who will also help stabilize the markets," said Neil Harl, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University who helped write the bankruptcy language.
In 2008, Sen. Harry Reid (D) of Nevada introduced a similar bill for the housing crisis. But the measure languished, in large part because, at the time, subprime borrowers were in the eye of the storm and many of them had stretched to buy homes they really could not afford. Will the new foreclosure wave of prime borrowers change the political calculus? Professor Harl isn't optimistic.
"Unfortunately, people in Congress listen to [lobbyists]" said Harl. "They tend to drown out those that don't have as much money."
Instead, homeowners facing foreclosure can try to get their loan modified through the administration's Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP. Typically, the bank servicing the loan tries to make monthly mortgage payments affordable by extending the mortgage to a 40-year loan and reducing the interest rate. One year into the program, however, only about 300,000 of an estimated 4 million eligible homeowners have received permanent loan modifications.
"It is pretty much not working," said Nadine Cohen, a lawyer with Greater Boston Legal Services, which helps homeowners obtain loan modifications.
Why modification requests get denied
That's partly because loan servicers were unprepared for the massive influx of loan modification requests. It's also because a loan modification is difficult to qualify for. This is particularly true for owners with big mortgages whose income has decreased, like Cynthia Johnson.
Her spiral toward foreclosure began with a divorce in 2006, which halved her $160,000 a year household income. She took equity out of her home to buy her husband out of the mortgage. When she was forced to take a $22,000 pay cut, her $2,000 monthly mortgage payments became impossible to manage.
She's gone through about $14,000 in savings to keep paying her mortgage – which now eats up more than 40 percent of her paycheck. Still, she's about $60,000 underwater and, because of that, she can't refinance again or borrow off the equity on her home. Johnson appealed to her loan servicer to adjust her monthly payments, but because she is not yet in arrears, her request was denied.
Lenders test to determine whether it is more beneficial for the investor to modify the loan and get a lower monthly payment or foreclose on the home.
"In many cases where the person's income has dropped substantially, they decide it's better to foreclose," explained Ms. Cohen.
For homeowners who do qualify for a modification, few are offered principal reductions. Because less than 30 percent of the mortgages modified so far (about 98,000) included any reduction in the loan amount, many homeowners with modifications remain underwater. Some blame continued negative equity for HAMP's high redefault rate – about half of the loans modified through the program go into default.
The Treasury Department has taken sweeping steps to address problems with the program. In late March it announced a new initiative for unemployed homeowners – starting this month they will be given a three-month forbearance period before applying for a loan modification.
Underwater homeowners current on their loans will also be able to apply for refinancing from the Federal Housing Administration. This is the first time that modifications for people not yet in arrears will be performed as part of the program.
Perhaps most significantly, HAMP will now incorporate principal reduction into the refinancing process. Servicers will be required to consider the advantages of reducing principal to match the current value of the home. As an incentive, banks that reduce principal on loans will also get a fee based on how much debt was forgiven, and how deeply underwater the modified loan was beforehand.
The changes to HAMP have been hailed by housing and consumer lending advocates as a move in the right direction. But some insist that Treasury's reluctance to make one key change could significantly limit the revamped program's reach: principal reductions remain voluntary for banks.
As long as servicers can opt out of reducing principal, they will, say housing advocates – even when the only other options are a foreclosure or a short sale, which ultimately results in the property being devalued to the current market price.
"The way loan servicers get paid is that they earn a percentage of the principal balance of their book of business," said Julia Gordon, a Washington-based senior policy counsel for the Center for Responsible Lending. So when the dollar value of the principal outstanding on a mortgage is reduced, so are the bank's fees, she added. "You can see right there why the servicer doesn't want to write down principal."
Balancing risks
Mortgage bankers, though, insist that that argument is misguided.
"The servicer would find some very minimal reduction [in fees] if a principal reduction is made," said Jay Brinkman, chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association. "But they're not the one making that decision – they make the recommendations, but the principal reduction has to be made by the investor."
Ultimately, the issue boils down to balancing risks: the possibility that banks are pushing too many people into foreclosure versus the danger that banks' leniency will encourage more homeowners to default so they can get their mortgage principal reduced.
There are effective ways to modify loans (like reducing interest) that won't encourage such defaults, Mr. Brinkman says. "While [principal reduction] might improve things for one borrower, will it help the economy if 10 more homeowners default and ask for a reduction?"
Foreclosures: President says some families will lose homes
Are home prices headed for another drop?
After the housing crisis home flippers cash in on foreclosures


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For organizations that want the agility of public cloud infrastructure but want the security and peace of mind of hosting the hardware on their own premises, hyperconverged infrastructure has emerged as a dominant hardware platform for hosting private clouds, virtual desktops and new application development environments.
Over the past five years the hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) market has evolved out of its preceding converged infrastructure (CI). Like CI, HCI's foundational elements include an integrated compute, network and storage infrastructure offering. Unlike CI, HCI goes a step further with a software that sits atop the virtualized components that control the entire system. This creates software-defined storage, networking and compute, allowing resources to be spun up and down rapidly and through API calls. Research firm Forrester predicts that HCI systems will "become ubiquitous" as a common platform for deploying on-premises infrastructure.
+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: VCE Chief boasts of hyperconergence superpower +
So who are the leading vendors in this market? A Wave report released this month by Forrester analysts Richard Fichera and Naveen Chhabra runs through the top dozen providers based on product maturity and estimated market share.
Nutanix is credited with coining the term hyperconverged infrastructure with the 2011 release of its appliance. Today Forrester estimates that Nutanix is the largest HCI vendor in terms of customer deployments (3,100) and revenues (approximately a $460 million annual run rate). Nutanix excels at supporting large clusters of HCI deployments, scaling to up to 100 node clusters. Forrester also praises the company for its ease of use and simplified management.
Simplivity is by Forrester's measure the runner-up for most powerful HCI company with a strong platform custom designed for this market named OmniStack.
+MORE: Simplivity delivers use-case focused hyperconverged systems +
The system includes all of the important HCI features: Multi-site data management, global deduplication, backup, snapshots, clones, multi-site data replication and disaster recovery, along with WAN optimization. The company's one weak spot may be it's relatively modest 24-nodes local cluster limitation, but Forrester says the company excels unlike any other in the market in its multi-site data management across an integrated globally distributed deployment of OmniStack boxes.
Forrester had one other vendor in the "Leaders" category for the HCI market: Pivot3. The company has flown somewhat under the radar since it introduced its HCI offering in 2007 - one of the earliest vendors in this market before the term hyperconverged was coined. The company's strength is in its very efficient data storage platform that has integrated software-defined compute and network. Its expertise in storing petabyte-scale digital media has traditionally appealed to companies with large amounts of video data such as surveillance data and other media organizations. The company has made an effort to expand its customer base and for the first time this year reported that more than half of its bookings were from non-surveillance use cases. With its strong technology, Forrester expects Pivot3 to be an increasingly important vendor in this market.
Atlantis Computing
Behind the three leaders, Forrester identified a handful of what it calls strong performers in this market. Atlantis Computing has traditionally been a company focused on storage software but it pivoted into the HCI market by partnering with Dell, Lenovo, HPE and Supermicro to offer compute and network components to its offering. Forrester says the company's strength is in its "aggressively priced" mid-market all flash storage nodes, which accommodate up to 24 TBs of data. The company sells exclusively through a channel network, so it sometimes struggles with name recognition and market footprint.
Gridstore has rebranded itself as HyperGrid and is unique in the market because of its focus on Microsoft environments. The company only supports Hyper-V for its compute virtualization, and also supports Windows Systems Center and Windows Server; it recently added support for Microsoft Azure Pack too. The company offers an all flash storage array with independently scaling compute and storage nodes. It scales to up to 64 compute nodes and 256 storage nodes and Forrester praises the company for its ability to set predefined guaranteed input/output levels for various classes of virtual machines the system creates.
Forrester believe that EMC is in a "good position" to be a major vendor in the HCI market because of its breadth of offerings and legacy installed customer base. There are two major EMC HCI platforms. One is the VxRail, which uses EMC storage components combined with VMware compute and network virtualization. (EMC is a majority shareholder of VMware stock). EMC has another product named VxRack which is for larger deployments. It comes in two flavors: One uses open source software management and storage from EMC's ScaleIO division. A second version is based on VMware's Software Defined Datacenter (SDDC) software.
This is one of the newest members of the HCI market having only been founded as a company in 2013. On the positive side, the company has a strong platform based on various open source technologies such as KVM for virtualization and ZFS for virtualized storage. Its strengths are in workload and data migration capabilities, Forrester says. On the other hand, as a still relatively new startup the company is lacking some important HCI features, including deduplication technology and data compression (Forrester notes the company uses a duplication avoidance technology instead). Expect Stratoscale to continue to build out its product and gain market share as it does so.
The company traditionally known as the king of the virtualization market is expanding its portfolio to ensure that its compute, storage and network virtualization technologies (which they sell individually) are also packaged together in the form of an HCI offering, or used as components for other vendors' HCI products. VMware claims to have 4,000 customers of its virtualized storage area network product (VSAN), making it one of the strongest vendors in this market. Customers can deploy VSAN, along with vSphere and NSX atop Cisco, Dell, HPE, Lenovo and Supermicro hardware or they can buy a pre-packaged EVO Rail system with all the components bundled together.
The networking giant is tackling HCI from multiple different angles. Its UCS Server line is used as the hardware component for many software-based HCI partnering vendors; the company has a partnership with Simplivity; it's a got other partners in the software-defined storage market, and just this year has released the HyperFlex platform, which is its own HCI offering. This product uses licensed software from SpringPath to supply the various components needed to build an HCI system. Since the product is in the earliest stages of being rolled out adoption numbers are low. Given the company's market share and customer base, Forrester expects HyperFlex to be an important player in the HCI market and for Cisco to continue supplying componentry to other HCI platforms too.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Similar to Cisco, HPE has all the components of an HCI system but only recently packaged them together into a bundled offering.
+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Meg Whitman explains everything you need to know about HP Enterprise +
Its called HC380 and it uses the company's ProLiant DL380 Servers along with StorVirtual IP SAN and OneView management software, along with some componentry for automatically provisioning and automating workloads in the system. Also like Cisco, because the product is a newbie in the market user adoption is light, but Forrester expects HPE to be a big player.
Chinese networking and telecommunications giant Huawei is relatively new to the HCI market – releasing its FusionCube in 2014. Huawei offers the system with a choice of either all Huawei components, including FusionSphere virtualization and FusionStorage, or it also sells the platform with the option of using KVM or VMware virtualization software. Although the company has relatively nascent market share, it has been approved by SAP to be used as a platform for running HANA, giving it some credibility in the market.
Scale Computing
Forrester only has one vendor listed as a "contender" in its wave report and that's Scale Computing. The company is much smaller than the others in the list and focuses on selling to small and midsized businesses as well as being used for remote and branch office use cases. For these use cases it is a strong HCI vendor, but it has not gained traction in the enterprise market.


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Woody was only 15 years old when he began his radio career at WJCM in Sebring. After graduating from high school and spending four years in the Navy he wound up in Lakeland in 1960 going to college at Florida Southern and working as a deejay at Top 40 WYSE. He left in 1962 for WINQ in Tampa and then on to Baltimore and WISZ for three years as a country music deejay.
In 1966 Woody returned to Sebring as GM of WSEB before heading to Cypress Gardens' WGTO a year later. In 1971 he was in Lakeland as News Director at WLAK, then Program Director at WONN in 1972 and 1973. He moved into the sales end of the business in 1975 and rejoined WGTO, serving as Sales Manager there from 1980 to 1984. He also spent a year in Ft. Pierce as GM of WAVW and nine years as a deejay and newsman for WDBO in Orlando from 1988 to 1997. In 1998 he joined the sales team at Hall Communications' four-station cluster in Lakeland and began hosting WPCV's Sunday night Country Classics Show in 2001.
Woody was a graduate of Polk Community College and the University of Central Florida with a degree in political science and had held a First Class Radio Broadcast License since 1959. He lost his bout with cancer and passed away on March 1, 2006.
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DTP PMC Meeting, April 28, 2009
Revision as of 13:46, 28 April 2009 by Brianf.sybase.com (Talk | contribs)
← Back to DTP PMC Meeting Page
- Brian Fitzpatrick
- Linda Chan
- John Graham
- Brian Payton
- Status of Galileo builds
- Should we include the models folder in all binary builds as well as source builds where available?
- DSE bug (https://bugs.eclipse.org/272774)
- Virtual Galileo Day - June 26, 2009 - Eclipse marketing wants us to participate
- Wayne Beaton will give an introduction to Galileo and we plan to have you and another project lead participate as guest speakers. We would like you to take 20 minutes to discuss why your project is participating, what requirements were needed and what improvements Galileo will provide to the community
- What should I talk about for 20 minutes?
- Open discussion


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I'm so happy to be teaming up with some GREAT partners offering some perfect options for last minute gifting needs!
From easy recipes for busy weeknight dinners to curated gift ideas and affordable style finds, I love sharing ideas and inspiration for the modern millennial mama. Oh, and I thrive on talking all things media and sharing what I've learned throughout my extensive TV background.
I'm so happy to be teaming up with some GREAT partners offering some perfect options for last minute gifting needs!
I have so much fun choosing stocking stuffers for my family and I'm always on the lookout for new ideas to mix it up.
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Check out my current style favorites
Summer is here and we're gearing up for hotter weather and more time out doing the things we love. I stopped by Daytime Tampa to share some picks to get us set for summer.
These are the two favorites that we keep coming back to again and again. ⟶
We have been dreaming about and planning this trip for a long time and it really did live up to everything we could have hoped for. ⟶
Between the fantastic prices (their reasonably-priced organic produce and meat is unmatched, in my opinion)... ⟶
While this is the perfect end-of-summer meal, this lemon linguine is a staple in our house all year long. ⟶


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Friends Season 4 Episode 19 : The One With All The Haste
Monica and Rachel have Knicks season tickets and offer them to the guys if they give them their apartment back. Chandler doesn't trade but Joey wants to. They play a game with Phoebe as the judge on picking the highest card out of a deck of cards and the winner take all. The guys win, so they set off to watch the game. While Chandler and Joey are at the Knicks game, Monica and Rachel switch the apartments back, despite the guys winning the ticket...
Episode Guide
Season 01
Season 02
Season 03
Season 04
Season 05
Season 06
Season 07
Season 08
Season 09
Season 10


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STANWOOD — Miriam Lancaster paddled her kayak over the surface of Lake Ketchum. The water was still, a wisp of fog caressing the surface.
At the splash of her paddle, a flock of cormorants launched from a nearby dock, while others swam, looking for fish.
Lancaster, 70, doesn't get out on the water every day, especially in winter, but when the weather is warmer, she loves to take her kayak out for a paddle across the 25-acre lake.
But with summer comes algae, and Lake Ketchum, ringed by homes in a rural corner of north-Snohomish County, is more susceptible to algae than most because of a high level of phosphorus, a nutrient that is used in agricultural fertilizer.
This has been a problem on Lake Ketchum going back decades. In the early 1990s, residents on the lake contacted the county's then-new lake management program to investigate it.
Now, more than 20 years later, Snohomish County is going to start an approximately $450,000 multiyear treatment program to reduce the phosphorus concentration in the lake and restore it to something closer to its natural state.
How bad is it?
Lancaster thinks that toxic algae are partly responsible for her autoimmune disease.
One of her neighbors, Norma Arnold, believes toxins in the algae are responsible for the deaths two years ago of her two black Labradors.
Roy VanWinkle, a real estate agent who lives on the lake, said that when he sold his mother-in-law's house next door, it stayed on the market for nine months and sold between 10 percent to 15 percent below market price because of the algae problem.
Most polluted lake
But numbers, rather than perceptions, tell a more complete story. Snohomish County has been testing Lake Ketchum since the 1990s. While a phosphorous concentration of 25 micrograms per liter is considered "eutrophic," or nutrient-rich enough to promote algae growth, 15 years of testing revealed the lake's summertime average is 277 micrograms per liter.
That's in the surface water. In the sediments at the bottom, the level is much higher: 1,746 micrograms per liter.
Based on those levels, Lake Ketchum is the most polluted lake in Snohomish County, if not the state.
All lakes go through a eutrophic period as part of their natural evolution, said Gene Williams, a senior planner in Snohomish County's Surface Water Management program.
That natural process takes thousands of years, however. Lake Ketchum got this way in relatively recent decades.
"At one time Lake Ketchum was the drinking water source for Stanwood," Williams said. "That indicates it wasn't always green and slimy."
Not all algae blooms are created equal.
Cyanobacteria — commonly called blue-green algae because of the slimy soup it forms on the surface of area lakes — is fairly common during the warm summer months. Most of it is nontoxic, if unpleasant to look at or smell.
In Washington state, the most common toxins in algae are microcystins (liver toxins) and anatoxins (nerve toxins). Toxic blooms are hard to predict, however, because some algae blooms produce both toxic and nontoxic strains, and nontoxic blooms can turn toxic without warning.
Timing of symptoms
Lancaster believes her own condition involved just such an unpredictable outbreak.
She moved to her house on the lake in 2000, and would take her kayak out every day, even when algae was visible.
In 2008-2009 a new inexpensive test for toxicity became available, and the county began posting warning signs on the shore to keep people and animals out of the water during toxic blooms. Risk extended to people involved in boating and kayaking.
"I stopped that when the county started posting, but I was already starting to get sick," Lancaster said.
One day in 2009, she lost vision in one eye.
Her symptoms worsened rapidly, affecting her back, lungs, intestines, heart and urinary tract. She required oxygen and home care, and was forced to retire from a career as a nurse with the U.S. Public Health Service. She needed home health care herself.
"I couldn't get out of bed for six months, really," she said.
Her diagnosis was Reiter's syndrome, a form of arthritis that primarily affects the spine but can affect other areas of the body, and ankylosing spondylitis, another inflammatory condition that could lead to the vertebrae fusing together.
Her doctor couldn't pinpoint the cause, but the timing of the onset of symptoms corresponds to when Snohomish County began posting warnings about the water quality in Lake Ketchum, she said.
Her treatment was an aggressive steroid regimen that now has her in remission and mostly symptom-free, but which will cost her $2,000 a month most likely for the rest of her life.
Norma Arnold has the same suspicions about what killed her dogs. Her Labs, Cate and Biff, were about 14 years old, so perhaps had weakened constitutions.
Both still weighed more than 100 pounds each.
Arnold knew about the toxic algae, and had kept her dogs restrained. They nevertheless managed to get loose and into the lake one night, she said.
"The next morning they couldn't stand up," she said.
The dogs were put down later that day.
Arnold said she didn't have the bodies tested, but she believes her two otherwise healthy dogs wouldn't both simultaneously have become so ill as to require euthanizing if they hadn't been poisoned.
Treating the lake
The key ingredient in treating algae in lakes is alum, or aluminum sulfate. The aluminum bonds with phosphorous in the water, then settles to the bottom as a particulate, where it forms a "cap" on the lake bed, preventing more nutrients from being released from the sediment in the summer.
That's important, because right now 73 percent of all the phosphorus released into the water of Lake Ketchum during the summer months is coming from the lake bed itself.
How it got there in the first place is another matter. Testing in the 1990s identified the primary source as a dairy farm south of the lake.
The northern field of the farm was used for pasturing cattle, and the farmer had been accepting chicken manure and putting it in the fields as fertilizer.
That pasture drained into the creek that feeds the wetlands on the southern shore the lake.
After tests confirmed the farm as the source of the pollution, the owner took a few steps to mitigate it, including moving cattle off the northern field and turning the land over to hay production. However, a dispute over further actions and a lawsuit filed by the newly founded Ketchum Shores Improvement Club against the farm led to years of animosity between the farm owner and lakefront residents.
Ideally, a cleanup program for the lake would have involved removing contaminated soils from the former pasture, Williams said, because farm runoff still contributes about 23 percent of the lake's annual phosphorous load.
Calls to the farm were not returned.
In the long term
The treatment for the lake will begin in May, most likely, Williams said. A single large injection of alum will, he hopes, remove about 85 percent of the phosphorus from the water.
Smaller alum treatments will follow in the years 2015-2018 to bind up remaining phosphorous in the lake bed and to offset the continuing runoff. All told, the modeling is expected to bring the phosphorus down to a more manageable concentration of 40 micrograms per liter. That's still considered eutrophic, and there will still be algae in the lake, but the blooms will be nowhere near as common or as severe as in past years, Williams said, adding that the lake should be fine to use recreationally.
The cost for the four-year treatment plan is estimated to be $446,000, with the money coming from a variety of sources, including a state Department of Ecology grant, the Stillaguamish River Clean Water District's discretionary fund, the county Surface Water Management's funds, and the people living on the lake.
In particular, the residents of Lake Ketchum will kick in $36,000 from their Local Improvement District reserve fund, plus another $4,440 per year from LID assessments going forward. In 2013 the residents won approval from the County Council to raise an additional $13,560 per year from their own water fees.
While the model projection for the alum treatments says one thing, it's possible that future annual treatments will be needed, and possibly another major infusion of alum seven or eight years in the future, Williams said.
There is no funding identified for alum treatment beyond 2018, Williams said.
Roy VanWinkle, president of the Ketchum Shores Improvement Club, said the lakefront owners have taken an active role in the lake's cleanup, to the point of taxing themselves at a higher level, and are now just looking forward to seeing improvement.
"It's one of those situations where you really can't ignore it. It won't go away on its own," VanWinkle said.
For Miriam Lancaster, restoring the lake is personally important. With her illness in remission, she would enjoy taking out her kayak more often, which was her primary source of exercise before she got sick.
It's also a source of personal enjoyment, which is apparent even in mid-winter.
"It's a beautiful lake and it really should be cleaned up," she said.
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; email@example.com.
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This numbered edition Acrylic Glass Print, designed by Satakora, comes with a numbered and signed certificate of authenticity. Printed on archival-quality photo paper mounted on the back of a 1/8" thick, clear acrylic substrate, this artwork comes ready to hang on a wire attached to a wooden frame fixed on the back.
Digital art portrait of Michael Jackson
Russian Federation