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[214 U.S. 279, 280] The record in this appeal, transmitted to this court from the circuit court of appeals, contains the following findings of fact and conclusions of law:
1. On July 20, 1904, Ernest M. Newton and John F. Newton, partners as E. M. Newton & Company, merchants at wholesale and retail in Arkansas, and Swofford Bros. Dry Goods Company, a corporation, of Kansas City, Missouri, engaged in the wholesale dry goods business, entered into a written contract as follows:
Know all men by these presents: That Mr. E. M. Newton & Company of New Lewisville, Lafayette county, Arkansas, a copartnership composed of E. M. Newton and J. F. Newton, party of the first part, had this day purchased from Swofford Bros. Dry Goods Company and said Swofford Bros. Dry Goods Company, party of the second part, has sold to said E. M. Newton & Company, certain goods upon the following expressed conditions:
1. Said goods shall be selected by said first party from sample or from stock of said second party at Kansas City, Missouri, and same shall be shipped to said first party upon their request to New Lewisville, Arkansas, from which place they shall not be removed without the written consent of said second party, save and except that said first party shall have the right to sell said goods in the ordinary course of business, but not otherwise.
2. Said second party shall prepare at time of shipment full and complete invoices of the goods so sold and selected, and shall deliver copies of said invoices by mail or otherwise to said first party. Such invoices shall consist of itemized list of the [214 U.S. 279, 281] articles so sold and shipped, with the price and value of each article, and shall show also the credit terms upon which the same are sold, and the rate of discount, if any, which is to be allowed upon payment of the purchase price in cash upon delivery or at an earlier date than that specified in said credit terms.
3. The title to and right to immediate possession of all the goods so sold and shipped by said Swofford Bros. Dry Goods Company and of the proceeds derived from the sale of the same by the first party, whether in cash or note or book account, shall be vested and remain in said Swofford Bros. Dry Goods Company until the full purchase price and the agreed value of the same shall be paid by said E. M. Newton & Company to said Swofford Bros. Dry Goods Company in cash; and any and all notes, checks, and accepted drafts shall not be considered as payment, but merely as evidence of indebtedness. And upon taking possession of any notes and book accounts derived by said first party from the sale of said goods or any part thereof, said Swofford Bros. Dry Goods Company shall have the right to collect the same, either in its name or in the name of E. M. Newton & Company, by suit or otherwise, and in case of disputed notes and accounts against persons of doubtful solvency, said second party may compromise and settle the same, or may extend the time of payment thereof in such manner and upon such terms as may to it seem advantageous, and any new notes taken thereafter, whether in the name of Mr. E. M. Newton & Company, or in the name of said Swofford Bros. Dry Goods Company, shall be held and considered in all respects the same as the original evidence of indebtedness.
4. This contract and the terms thereof shall apply to all future orders given by the E. M. Newton & Company, and to all future sales and shipments made to them by said Swofford Bros. Dry Goods Company; so long as any part or portion of the purchase price of the goods sold and delivered hereunder shall remain unpaid, said Swofford Bros. Dry Goods Company shall have the right to terminate this contract at any time, and said E. M. Newton & Company may terminate the same at any time by paying [214 U.S. 279, 282] in full in cash whatever balance of the purchase price of the goods purchased and shipped shall then remain unpaid. Delivery of the goods, properly packed and marked, to a common carrier at Kansas City, Missouri, consigned to the first party, as above specified, shall be deemed and considered a full and complete delivery thereof by said second party, and all freight and transportation charges shall be paid by said consignees. The acceptance of goods subsequently sold and shipped by the first party, and the placing of the same in their stores and warehouses at New Lewisville, Arkansas, or elsewhere, shall be held and considered sufficient to bring such goods within and under the terms hereof, shall be mentioned or referred to in the order so given or in the invoices given and delivered with each invoice.
Said first party shall keep all goods purchased hereunder properly insured at their expense for the benefit of second party; but the loss or destruction of such goods by fire or otherwise shall not cancel the indebtedness thereof, but said first party shall still remain liable to second party for any part of the purchase price remaining unpaid.
In witness whereof the parties above named have hereunto placed their hands and seals in duplicate this 20th day of July, 1905
E. M. Newton & Co.,
Swofford Bros. Dry Goods Co.,
Signed by Wm. Moore, Sec.
2. The contract was not filed or recorded.
3. Pursuant to the contract, and prior to June 30, 1905, the dry goods company delivered to the Newtons goods of the value of $15,369.57. The latter paid on account thereof the sum of $2,059.01. On June 30, 1905, the unpaid balance was $13,310.56.
4. The goods delivered under the contract were placed by the Newtons in their stock with other goods obtained from other parties, but they were of such character and contained such marks as rendered them capable of being identified and [214 U.S. 279, 283] separated. It was contemplated by the parties that the Newtons might sell the goods so delivered in the usual course of their business. The Newtons did not keep separate accounts of their resales of the goods, nor did the dry goods company require them to make reports thereof.
5. On June 30, 1905, when the Newtons were insolvent and the dry goods company knew it, they surrendered to the dry goods company, as belonging to it under the provisions of the contract, goods of the value of $5,337.21, notes to the amount of $1,684.32, and customers' accounts to the amount of $8,277.04. The goods were so surrendered by the Newtons as being the unsold part of those delivered under the contract, and the notes and accounts as representing proceeds of their sales of like goods. Actual possession was taken by the dry goods company.
6. In fact, the goods surrendered to the goods company were, with slight exception, goods that had been delivered under the contract; but only about one half in amount of the notes and accounts surrendered represented proceeds of other goods delivered under the contract.
7. On July 3, 1905, three days after the surrender of the property as above mentioned, the Newtons filed their voluntary petition in bankruptcy, were adjudged bankrupts, and Thad. A. Bryant was appointed receiver. In one of the schedules attached to the verified petition in bankruptcy the dry goods company was listed as a secured creditor, with a statement of the facts upon which its rights were based, and recitals of the surrender to it of the goods, notes, and accounts, that the notes and accounts were proceeds of the goods furnished by the dry goods company under the contract and resold by the Newtons to their customers, and that the goods, notes, and accounts were then in possession of that company.
8. After the appointment of the receiver in the bankruptcy proceeding he demanded from the dry goods company possession of the goods, notes, and accounts mentioned. The [214 U.S. 279, 284] demand was refused, but afterwards the dry goods company surrendered them to the receiver under a written stipulation that they might be disposed of by him in connection with the sale of the other property in his hands, but that the dry goods company should not be prejudiced thereby, and that the proceeds should be held in lieu of the property so surrendered, to abide the final determination of a court of competent jurisdiction as to the ownership thereof; and, if the dry goods company prevailed, it should have the proceeds free of fees, charges, and expenses. As one of the conditions upon which it was made, it was expressly admitted in this stipulation that the goods, notes, and accounts in controversy were then in the actual, exclusive, and adverse possession of the dry goods company, that the goods were part of those delivered to the Newtons under the contract of July 20, 1904, and that the notes and accounts were proceeds of other goods delivered under that contract. This stipulation was made subject to the approval of the referee in bankruptcy. It was executed by the dry goods company and the receiver, and the referee duly indorsed his approval thereon. Upon the faith thereof the goods, notes, and accounts were then surrendered to the receiver. No fraud or deception was practised by the dry goods company upon the referee or the receiver in connection with the making of this stipulation.
9. Thad. A. Bryant, who had been appointed receiver, was duly selected as trustee. He sold the goods in controversy for $3,135. The notes and accounts were not sold, but, at the time of the hearing of this matter before the referee, he had collected $2,250 on account thereof, and still retained in his hands those that were uncollected. He has kept a separate account of these funds, and held sufficient funds to answer the result of the litigation.
10. The dry goods company thereupon presented its intervening petition, seeking the payment to it of the sums realized as mentioned in the preceding finding, and the restitution to it of the uncollected notes and accounts. The controversy [214 U.S. 279, 285] in the cause was presented by the intervening petition, the trustee's answer thereto, and the reply of the dry goods company.
Conclusions of Law.
1. The contract of July 20, 1904, is a contract of conditional sale, and not of mortgage, and as such was not required by the laws of Arkansas to be filed or recorded.
2. Under the laws of Arkansas the contract was valid as between the parties thereto, notwithstanding the fact that it authorized the vendees to resell the goods delivered thereunder.
3. It was also valid as between the parties thereto not only in respect of such of the goods delivered thereunder as remained unsold when the vendor demanded and secured possession from the vendees, but also in respect of the notes and accounts which represented proceeds of like goods resold by the vendee to their customers, and which could be so identified and segregated.
4. The contract being valid under the local law as between the parties thereto, the trustee in bankruptcy of the vendees cannot avoid or defeat the title of the vendor, who took possession prior to the institution of the proceedings in which the vendees were adjudged to be bankrupts. The trustee has no greater right or title than the bankrupts.
5. Inasmuch as the bankruptcy court obtained from the vendor possession of the notes and accounts in controversy upon the faith of a stipulation made with its approval, and without practice of fraud or deceit, that such notes and accounts were the proceeds of goods covered by the contract of conditional sale, and still holds to such possession, the trustee is estopped from disputing the fact stipulated.
6. Swofford Bros. Dry Goods Company, the vendor, is entitled to a decree that the trustee in bankruptcy pay to it the sum of $3,135, the proceeds of the goods in controversy, and the further sum of $2,250, the collections of notes and accounts in controversy, made by the trustee prior to the hearing [214 U.S. 279, 286] before the referee, and also for such collections as may have been made since that time, and for the surrender of such of said notes and accounts as may remain uncollected, and for costs. The sums mentioned should be paid in full.
Messrs. William H. Arnold and James K. Jones for appellant.
[214 U.S. 279, 288] Messrs. Ernest S. Ellis, Edgar C. Ellis, and Webber & Webber for appellee.
Mr. Justice Moody delivered the opinion of the court:
The merchandise which was delivered by Swofford Bros. Dry Goods Company to E. M. Newton & Company was delivered under the terms of a written contract. That contract provided that the title to the goods until their sale, and to the proceeds derived from their sale, whether in the form of cash, notes, or book accounts, should be and remain in the dry goods company. The contract gave the Newtons the right to sell the goods in the ordinary course of business, but, as has been said, provided that the proceeds of the sale, in whatever form they existed, should be the property of the dry goods company. When the Newtons became insolvent and ceased business, they, in recognition of the obligations due from them under this contract, returned to the dry goods company that part of their goods which remained unsold. The character and marks of the goods rendered them capable of being identified and separated. They turned over at the same time, as and for the notes and accounts respresenting the proceeds of sales of the company's goods, certain notes and customers' accounts. It was found as a fact that one half in amount of these notes and accounts represented the proceeds of sales of other goods than those delivered under the contract. It, therefore, now appears, if it is competent to show it, that this one half or the [214 U.S. 279, 290] notes and accounts did not belong to the dry goods company, and ought not to have been turned over to it, and that, on the contrary, they should have gone into the estate of the Newtons, who subsequently became bankrupt. Three days after the surrender of this property the Newtons, on their voluntary petition, were adjudged bankrupts, and the appellant was appointed receiver. He demanded of the dry goods company the possession of the goods, notes, and accounts mentioned, but the demand was refused. Subsequently a written contract was entered into between the dry goods company and the receiver, with the approval of the referee. No fraud or deceit induced the making of this contract. By its terms the dry goods company, on its part, surrendered the goods, notes, and accounts to the receiver, and agreed that he might dispose of them in connection with the assets of the estate, and that the proceeds of the property thus disposed of should be held in lieu of it to abide the determination of a court of competent jurisdiction. The receiver, on the other hand, agreed that the goods, notes, and accounts were in the actual and adverse possession of the dry goods company, and that the goods were part of those delivered to the Newtons under the contract between them and the dry goods company, before referred to, and that the notes and accounts were the proceeds of other goods delivered under that contract. Subsequently, the receiver was appointed trustee, and sold the goods, and collected a part of the notes and accounts. The proceeds of the goods and of the collections are held to await the result of this litigation, which is in the form of an intervening petition of the dry goods company.
We think it clear that the contract under which the goods were delivered to the Newtons was one of conditional sale. Harkness v. Russell, 118 U.S. 663 , 30 L. ed. 285, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 51; William W. Bierce v. Hutchins, 205 U.S. 340 , 51 L. ed. 828, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 524. There is nothing in the nature of this contract which would forbid the parties from entering into it if it is valid by the laws of the state where made, but in bankruptcy the construction and validity of such a contract must be [214 U.S. 279, 291] determined by the local laws of the state. Thompson v. Fairbanks, 196 U.S. 516 , 49 L. ed. 577, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 306: Humphrey v. Tatman, 198 U.S. 91 , 49 L. ed. 956, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 567; York Mfg. Co. v. Cassell, 201 U.S. 344 , 50 L. ed. 782, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 481. That such a contract is a conditional sale and is valid without record is the law of Arkansas. Triplett v. Mansur & T. Implement Co. 68 Ark. 230, 82 Am. St. Rep. 284, 57 S. W. 261. The trustee has no higher rights in this regard than the bankrupt. York Mfg. Co. v. Cassell, supra.
It follows that, so far as the identified goods and notes and accounts are concerned, the intervener, the dry goods company, must prevail.
It has turned out, according to the finding of facts, that some small fraction of the goods and about one half of the notes and accounts which were delivered by the Newtons to the dry goods company, as and for the goods, notes, and accounts which were the property of that company, were not in fact such, and the question therefore arises whether, under the circumstances disclosed in the findings, the trustee is entitled to avail himself of these facts. We think it was rightly held by the court below that he was not. There seems to be no reason for a nice consideration of the powers of receivers and trustees. When the receiver was appointed he found all the property in dispute in the hands of the dry goods company, to which it had been delivered by the Newtons, as and for the property of the company, and by which it had been received as its own property. When the receiver made his demand for it the return was at first refused. The parties in the controversy, then being at arms' length, agreed that if the dry goods company would give up the advantages of possession, and, instead of converting the goods, notes, and accounts into cash in its own way and on its own account, permit the receiver to do so, then those goods should be deemed part of those delivered under the contract, and the notes and accounts the proceeds of other goods delivered under the contract. This arrangement was approved by the referee. The trustee has taken the property under it and has never offered to return the property, or [214 U.S. 279, 292] any part of it. The property has in large part been sold or otherwise disposed of in the course of the bankruptcy administration. Under these circumstances we are of opinion that the trustee, the appellant in this case, was bound by the agreement of the receiver, that all the property in dispute should be conclusively deemed that which passed under the original conditional contract, or the proceeds thereof.
Judgment affirmed.
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First, lets define what a tax is. A tax is a compulsory extraction of resources undertaken by a government, for which failure to comply results in threat of penalty. A government can do this because it monopolizes the use of force. A tax can be fair or unfair, regressive, progressive, good, bad, or ugly. Not every forceful extraction of resources is a tax per se, but every tax is certainly a forceful extraction of resources. Governments can be (and are) lax, selective, even grossly unjust, in enforcing stated penalties, but so long as the threat exists, an extraction is a tax. No threat of penalty for nonpayment, no tax.
Now let's look at three reasons why Starbucks' £20m pledge cannot possibly be a tax.
- It is not being imposed by a government. Despite the BBC calling this an "agreement," Starbucks itself has characterized the 20m as the product of its own internal decision-making processes. Sure, it's responding to public pressure, but that's not government extraction.
- It is not compulsory. After David Cameron piled on at Davos, Starbucks hinted that it might change its mind about its pledge, maybe not be quite so generous if the government won't even bother to be decently grateful about its magnanimity. Who's to stop that? Not HMRC.
- There is no penalty if Starbucks doesn't actually hand over the money. At least, not by government; the court of public opinion might be a different story, depends on the news cycle I suppose. But having failed to levy taxes, HMRC can hardly argue if the 20m doesn't show up at some point.
One happy result is that at least Starbucks will not be able to immediately claim the 20m as a credit against taxes it owes at home in the USA (not a tax, let alone one on income, so no foreign tax credit). But what can we say then of the 20m? If it is not a tax, what is it?
The answer is, it is a charitable contribution to the UK government. Why, you may say, that would imply that it's deductible! Yes, depending on the UK's rules for deductibility of contributions to the government. I suspect it would be deductible (UK readers, correct me if I am wrong). Certainly in the US a similar pledge would be deductible under s170:
[T]he term "charitable contribution" means a contribution or gift to or for the use of—
(1) A State, a possession of the United States, or any political subdivision of any of the foregoing, or the United States or the District of Columbia, but only if the contribution or gift is made for exclusively public purposes.Notice: no need for it to be out of generosity, just need a contribution for exclusively public purposes. Not, say, lobbying, outings for lawmakers, bribery, kickbacks, collusion, etc. But I digress.
Keep in mind that the whole point here is that Starbucks has no income in the UK against which to take any deduction, should it be available...at least, right now. But if the UK rules for NOLs are anything like those in the US, they can hold that £20m on the books for years, maybe even a couple of decades and deduct it later, if and when they ever do have positive income being booked in the UK (maybe subject to some limitations, as in the US).
So, it's not a tax, but if Starbucks in fact turns it over it will be a tax benefit, tucked away somewhere in some regulatory filing in extreme fine print, to be used at some future date to--wait for it---reduce the company's tax bill.
Neat trick!

subset: commoncrawl


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The Gator coach had words — and almost more — with an Orlando Sentinel reporter over what he thought was unfair treatment of Tim Tebow. For a man with stress-related health problems, this was not a good moment for Meyer.
Click to view
(Video via GatorBait.net)
Jeremy Fowler wrote this column Monday, in which he spoke to WR Deonte Thompson about starting the season with a new quarterback.
Thompson said, and we (and Fowler) quote:
You never know with Tim. You can bolt, you think he's running but he'll come up and pass it to you. You just have to be ready at all times. With Brantley, everything's with rhythm, time. You know what I mean, a real quarterback."
Fowler then used actual, objective statistics to show that Thompson hadn't gotten the ball much under Tebow.
Apparently Meyer considers facts and quotes a reporter taking an unfair swipe at Tebow. He got in Fowler's face at practice today, telling him "If that was my son, we'd be going at it right now."
You'll be out of practice - you understand that? - if you do that again," said Meyer, while a couple of spectators still sat in the stands. "I told you five years ago: Don't mess with our players. Don't do it. You did it. You do it one more time and the Orlando Sentinel's not welcome here ever again. Is that clear? It's yes or no." (finger pointing toward the face)
"Urban, come on. Don't make any threats," I said. "That's fine. I'll play by rules. But all I was doing is quoting the guy. I don't think I was the only one."
"You're a bad guy, man," Meyer said. "You're a bad guy."
After practice, Meyer left through the back exit, avoiding the media. The coach/reporter relationship is a symbiotic one. And today, Meyer savaged a reporter for doing his job, while he failed to do his own.
(UPDATE: For reference, here's video of Thompson's interview. Judge for yourself if he was taken out of context.)
Jeremy Fowler: Why Urban Meyer says I'm a "bad guy" [Orlando Sentinel]


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How Did the Taft-Hartley Act Come About?Google Questions
Mr. Wagner, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of History, Department of Social Science, Missouri Southern State College.
The Taft-Hartley Act was a major revision of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (the Wagner Act) and represented the first major revision of a New Deal act passed by a post-war Congress. So, in order to understand the Taft-Hartley Act, one must begin with the Wagner Act. The Wagner Act was the most important labor law in American history. It gave a major impetus to labor organizations and earned the nickname "labor's bill of rights." It covered all firms and employees in activities affecting interstate commerce except government employees, agricultural workers, and those subject to the Railway Labor Act. It gave workers the right to organize and join labor unions, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to strike. It also set up the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an independent federal agency with three members appointed by the president, to administer the act and gave it the power to certify that a union represented a particular group of employees.
The Wagner Act also forbade employers from engaging in five types of labor practices: interfering with or restraining employees exercising their right to organize and bargain collectively; attempting to dominate or influence a labor union; refusing to bargain collectively and in "good faith" with unions representing their employees; and, finally, encouraging or discouraging union membership through any special conditions of employment or through discrimination against union or non-union members in hiring. This last provision, in effect, permitted closed and union shops (a closed shop is when an employer agrees to hire only union members and a union shop is when an employer agrees to require anyone hired to join the union). There were no provisions in the Wagner Act that prohibited union practices that Congress might deem unfair. Another omission, according to the act's opponents, was a provision that would allow the government to delay or block a strike that threatened national interests.
In the mid-term elections of 1946, the Republican Party won control of the upcoming Eightieth Congress, gaining majorities in both houses for the first time since 1931. The "Class of 1946," as the first-term Republicans were called, was dominated by members of the conservative "old guard": John Bricker of Ohio, William Jenner of Indiana, William Knowland of California, George Malone of Nevada, Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, Arthur Watkins of Utah, John Williams of Delaware, Richard Nixon of California, Karl Mundt of South Dakota, and Charles Kersten of Wisconsin. These freshmen congressmen were eager to overturn as much New Deal legislation as possible and one of their first priorities was to amend the Wagner Act.
On June 23, 1947, the Republican-controlled Congress passed, over President Truman's veto, the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947 (The Taft-Hartley Act, co-sponsored by Republican Senators Robert Taft of Ohio and Fred Hartley of New Jersey). The Taft-Hartley Act retained the features of the earlier Wagner Act but added to it in ways widely interpreted as anti-labor. Labor leaders dubbed it a "slave labor" bill and twenty-eight Democratic members of Congress declared it a "new guarantee of industrial slavery."
The act allowed the president, when he believed that a strike would endanger national health or safety, to appoint a board of inquiry to investigate the dispute. After receiving the report of the investigation, the president could ask the Attorney General to seek a federal court injunction to block or prevent the continuation of the strike. If the court found that the strike was endangering the nation's health or safety it would grant the injunction, requiring the parties in the dispute to attempt to settle their differences within the next sixty days. Other provisions extended the negotiating period by twenty days, in effect creating an eighty-day "cooling off" period during which the law would prohibit a "national emergency strike."
To the Wagner Act's list of prohibited management practices, the Taft-Hartley Act added a list of prohibited labor union practices. These practices included secondary boycotts (when a union induces employees to strike against their employer to get him or her to stop doing business with another employer with whom the real dispute exists); sympathy strikes or boycotts (attempting to compel an employer, other than one's own, to recognize or bargain with an unrecognized union--a practice anti-labor groups often called "blackmail picketing"); and jurisdictional strikes and boycotts (attempting to force an employer to give work to members of one particular union instead of another). Also outlawed were the closed shop and union hiring halls that discriminated against non-union members. The law allowed union shops as long as state law did not forbid them. This led to movements in several states for the passage of so-called "right-to-work" laws. Another provision that would become contentious required all union officers to file a non-communist affidavit and take an oath that they were not communists.
During the Eisenhower administration, labor policy debate centered on amending the Taft-Hartley Act. Eisenhower did not favor repeal of the act as organized labor advocated, but he did feel that some of its provisions were too harsh and needed amending. In his final years, Senator Taft had come to share these views. Early efforts to amend the act failed, however, and by the mid 1950s the motivation to do so had waned. Historian R. Alton Lee, in his book on the topic, concluded that "urgency for amending Taft-Hartley waned during the 1950s because it did not become the slave labor law union leaders predicted. Continued prosperity calmed fears that the law would adversely affect wages, hours, and working conditions, and labor-management relations steadily improved in most parts of the nation."
Presidents have invoked the Taft-Hartley Act thirty-five times in attempts to halt work stoppages in labor disputes. All but two of those attempts were successful. The most recent attempt, however, was in 1978 when President Jimmy Carter attempted to use the law to end a coal strike, but the courts refused to issue an injunction. The last successful attempt was in 1971 when President Nixon invoked the law to end a longshoremen's strike. The Taft-Hartley Act's eighty-day "cooling off" period has been enough time for the dispute to be settled 70% of the time.
On October 7, an attempt by Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao to negotiate a thirty-day contract extension between port operators and the International Longshore Warehouse Union broke down. Port operators rejected the contract extension, believing that it would result in a work slow down, which they claim precipitated their lockout of the longshoremen. The union accepted the contract extension, and claimed the port operators were seeking government intervention.
Hours after the breakdown in negotiations, President Bush took the first step toward invoking Taft-Hartley by appointing the required board of inquiry to report to him on the economic damage of the shutdown and the likelihood that the parties involved could settle the dispute on their own. The board reported back to the president the following day, October 8, stating that they had "no confidence that the parties [would] resolve the West Coast port dispute within a reasonable time." President Bush then requested that the Federal District Court in San Francisco issue a court order halting the lockout.
As justification for invoking the act, President Bush said that he was worried about the movement of military supplies through West Coast ports in the event of war in Iraq or elsewhere. His aides, meanwhile, stressed the President's fear that a prolonged shutdown would undermine the nation's economic recovery (economists have estimated that the shutdown has already cost more than $10 billion). Later that evening Judge William Alsup issued a temporary injunction that ordered the ports reopened immediately. Judge Alsup said he would hold a hearing this week on whether to grant a full 80-day injunction.
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matt eugene hood - 6/4/2007
In 1963 the petro-chemical industry conspired with ABC non-union industrial constactors in Freeport, Texas to use the Taft-Harty act,"the right to work law," to destroy the union after a 6 month strike. They used every legal and illegal act at their desposal. I work the last union job in Freeport Texas at Dow Chemical at plant B for Gunnels Industrial Paint Company. The petro-chemical industries and the non-union ABC contractors used for 30 years illegals with willingly fore-knowledge of malice that destroyed my life time Union job. I went from $15 dollars an hour in 1981 with full union benefits with Painters Local 130, Houston and healthcare to $10 dollars an hour with zero benefit in 2 months. Over half of the non-union employees where illegals. The petro-chemical industry has become a plantation of no hope of a future. The Taft-Hartly has given this nation organized slavery where non-union wages have been frozen because they have fixed the wages among themselves. They have dstroyed the unioon. They no longer have to compete with union jobs.THE RIGHT TO WORK LAW is what destroyed Nazi Germany. Its fascism! The few get rich while the rest support the few. Democracy is dead. What we have is a criminal conspiracy by our elected officials to fabricate the illusion this nation has a say about their government. Democracy was murdered on its way to Washington when Bush, the grandson of a Nazi, was elected President
Todd Jordan - 4/30/2005
What's Wrong With The Labor Unions?
Todd Jordan - 4/30/2005
We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. The constitution of the United States of America is not designed to be something that would protect the working-class in America. The problems and conflicts contrary to the working-class interests in our constitution are the defensive articles for corporate rights and private property. These articles in our constitution not only limit the ability of the working-class, but defend the capitalist structure which works contrary to the people it is suppose to represent. The constitution defends the ruling-class of America and the quest for profit over human needs. To this day the labor movement has relied on the law created by the ruling-class to operate in. This structure is designed to reduce the threat of a revolution against the current system in America. The ruling-class of America has been preparing their long term strategy against the working-class while distracting them with trivial short term tactics within this structure. Since the labor movement began it's path away from true unionism and social justice it has been on set back after another for the working-class in America.
Today we rely on this structure of laws as a means of meaningless power and false protection. These laws are often used against us and offer no real protection and only a false since of power to the working-class. The laws within this structure are tested and attacked every year since their passage to distract and weaken further and movement within this country. Instead of keeping the mission of the union and economic freedom from exploitation and slavery by the means of market wages, the America unions made the wrong decisions for the movement which ultimately effect the change of all social movements within the working-class in America. They moved to support this structure of laws to operate within and the era of partnership with the ruling-class was born. In the end as a total change came to it's final day of victory the leaders of the labor movement feared the rise of this revolution that was swelling within the working-class in the mid 1900's. They feared what they created as a threat to their new personal wealth and power they had achieved from the movement's progress against the ruling-class.
Today we now see the betrayal and the results of this mistake of greed in our country. There can never be a brotherhood of labor and capital. They are forever two opposing forces working against one another. There is no law or any type of reform that will ever help the movement. These things operate within a capitalist law structure and provide only temporary gains and solutions to the larger problem. Today, it is not in the interest of the labor movement's leadership to change this system. They have gained to much from their bureaucratic system that they built around them at the expense of the movement. The New Deal legislation is a clear understanding of this process to transform the movement into a controled entity. This is an example of the betrayal to the working-class. It is very negative to the movement's political power and potential.
The ideology behind accepting these traps is to endorse and accept the present system of capitalism while attempting to reform a system that can't operate in the interests of the working-class. Forced to limit strikes and operate within boundaries of this structure the unions watch as their solidarity and membership decline. The Taft-Hartley Act simply expanded on the attacks against the working-class. Part of the capitalist ruling-class long term strategy, this slave legislation only added more fuel to the fire and stopped any potential movement against the current system. Unions began losing far left thinking leaders and members durning the Cold War as a result, this tearing down of the movement continues today as a threat to the current leaders bureaucratic control. Leaders and officials within the movement labeled communist or socialist where removed by force from their offices under this deception of the ruling-class and their lieutenants in power over the labor unions. This deprived the labor movement of the last elements of building a revolution against capitalism within the labor unions of America.
Now we sit idle and watch the corporations control the very soul and direction of the labor movement. To this day the labor unions in America hold on to the capitalist Democratic Party and operate within this structure. They continue to act as lap dogs and house slaves to a corrupt two party system of capitalist rule. Labor gives te capitalist system a fear far greater than any market drop. The labor movement has potential to lead the many other social movements in America to challenge the very existance of capital, this is why they place priority on this strategy and fear solidarity above any threat. Trapped within a controlled structure of rules, laws and bureaucracy unions are sustained in an immobilised state. Only through radical change can this be stopped. The laws are stacked against the working-class in order to protect capitalism and the ruling-class. Everyday new laws are introduced that in some manner expand their power and their control over the working-class.
The biggest defeat of labor within this structure was the inability to strike at will over any injustice in the workplace. The corrupt bureaucratic structure of the NLRB and the union leadership stop any real progress toward change. It must start from the movement first, there will never be a real change so long as the cast and solid influence of the union bureaucrats remain unchallenged and unhurt. The movement's leaders run the unions from the top down, this control is the first obstacle in the way of breaking out of the structural prison built around the working-class in America.
Neither constitutions, nor bills of rights, republics, nor constitutional monarchies can ever make men free as long as their livelihoods are at the mercy of a small class which holds sway over the means of life. Workers of the world unite!
Vince Treacy - 4/18/2005
The Act permits labor unions and employers to negotiate pension and welfare benefit plans that are administered by joint labor-management boards of trustees.
It is in section 302(c)(5) and is codified at 29 U.S.C. 186(c)(5).
Insurance can cover medical or hosoital care, pensions, compensation for injuries, unemployment, life insusrance, accident, illness or disability insurance.
The law is still in effect.
Dr. Milton A. Reid - 1/12/2004
I want to know if the Taft Hartley Act regarding insuring
all Americans is still operational? What kind of insurance
that can be provided under this act?
Dee - 11/15/2003
I was looking for a quick reference on the legacy of the Wagner Act. Looks like I found one!
chas. - 9/24/2003
i work for a major railroad in the u.s, it is the largest a matter a fact. i am a union memeber , whether i want to or not!! they still take union dues out of my check monthly. i believe every person in the u.s that works for a large company that has a union has a right to strike. it only protects the working people. if not for strikes the working person gets behind in wages and benefits and the big man on top only gets fatter!!
Joe Mellor - 9/19/2003
i like history on Tuesdays!
Margaret S. Blanchard - 9/18/2003
HRM course paper
Gail McDaniel - 9/17/2003
I am studying this case for a final exam in my business law. This article helps. Were there any other legal action taken on this case that you know of? GAil
wendy - 7/11/2003
Thanks for the great article. It was a grea source of info on my paper on factors contributing to the passage of Taft Hartley.
sara - 5/27/2003
what are you talking about sex has nothing to do with the labor act.
kb - 4/28/2003
this helps alot considering that you answered exactly what i needed for my government class.
John - 4/1/2003
this site sucks
alison wilson - 4/1/2003
i am a lezbo so if u have a daughter i will take her!!!!
joe bob - 4/1/2003
im not a prostitute but i can give you what you want
- Josh Hawley Earns F in Early American History
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- "Car Brain" Has Long Normalized Carnage on the Roads
- Hawley's Use of Fake Patrick Henry Quote a Revealing Error
- Health Researchers Show Segregation 100 Years Ago Harmed Black Health, and Effects Continue Today
- Nelson Lichtenstein on a Half Century of Labor History
- Can America Handle a 250th Anniversary?
- New Research Shows British Industrialization Drew Ironworking Methods from Colonized and Enslaved Jamaicans
- The American Revolution Remains a Hotly Contested Symbolic Field
- Untangling Fact and Fiction in the Story of a Nazi-Era Brothel


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NEW YORK, NY – Girl Scouts of America were charged with numerous counts of kidnapping, false imprisonment and slavery.
Girl Scouts of America (GSoA) was founded in 1912 and was chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1950. Today, membership to the all girls club is in excess of 3.2 million. GSoA touts that "girls discover the fun, friendship, and power of girls together". But it seems as though their collective power went to their heads.
Reports show that cookie sales this year were through the roof. Many financial analysts have suspected hat GSoA might even make the Forbes top 100 companies list. However, trying to keep up with the demand for this year's cookie sales seemed to be too much for the 'green beret wearing' cookie peddlers. Evidently, in a last ditch effort to meet the demand, the cute little ladies decided to imprison the Keebler elves in order to supply their delicious once a year cookies to all their hungry fans.
News broke shortly after Ernest J. Keebler, AKA Ernie was found running half naked alongside Highway 9. Joey and Susie Washburn saw Ernie as they, ironically, were on their way to pick up their order of Thin Mints and Tagalongs from their local GSoA troupe.
"At first we thought he was a leprechaun, and we were like, yes, we're gonna be f**king rich!" said Joey.
The couple immediately pulled over, threw a bag over the elf's head, and tossed him in the back seat of their 1973 AMC Gremlin, pictured here.
"As soon as the bag went over my head, I thought to myself, 'Oh no, not again'", said Ernie.
The couple quickly discovered that Ernie was not in fact a leprechaun but the leader of the Keebler elves.
After hearing of the elf's ordeal, the couple, without delay, took him to the local police station where he gave the following account of the ordeal:
"It was just another average day at the Tree when there was a knock at the door. To our surprise it was a group of adorable Girl Scouts. We knew that their sales were through the roof this year so we assumed that they stopped by to ask for our help. We used to make cookies for them in the 1930s but had since then broken ties with the girls. Never in our wildest dreams did we think that they would enslave us all," stated Ernie in the police report.
GSoA did not return our phone calls or emails regarding the incident. So it seems as though we will just have to wait and see how it all unfolds in the courts. Just hope that the sweet treat you bite into this season is a cruelty-free cookie.


text: Dr. Schneider was among a pioneering group of doctors who made screening for Jewish genetic diseases more commonplace. By screening patients for genetic diseases and then using in vitro fertilization, she helped ensure babies would not be born with these diseases. When she started, Jewish genetic screenings included five diseases. Now they screen for more than 200, 96 of which apply to Jewish communities.


text:
Warning: This document describes an old release. Check here for the current version.
Source Control
To check code out from git, run:
$ git clone git://github.com/nimbusproject/nimbus.git
View the code online.
CVS: Deprecated
History from before the move to GitHub (October 1st, 2009) can be viewed here and checked out anonymous using "CVSROOT=:pserver:[email protected]:/home/globdev/CVS/globus-packages" and then "cvs co -P -d nimbus workspace/vm"


text:
Our K-6 curriculum is research-based, common core aligned, and comprehensive - with over 300,000 math problems and explanations. But even better, students will feel like they're playing a game.
Our teachers work hand in hand with our designers to make sure math problems and videos are instructive and help students develop ways of thinking about math.
Our game designers add interactivity and incentives, and create a world in which math feels like play. Points, badges, cute monsters...who knew learning could be this enjoyable?
AdaptedMind was created with the simple idea that each child is unique. Our algorithm identifies each student's strengths and weaknesses, and customizes a learning plan accordingly.
Each student starts with a quick pretest. The pretest determines the best starting point in the curriculum for the student.
As students continue to practice on AdaptedMind, we adjust the difficulty of the math automatically. We use data to find and address learning gaps.
AdaptedMind automatically administers formative assessments on new and old skills, assuring that students' mastery of topics is robust.
If a student ever misses a problem, one of our teachers explains it to them in a video.
This ensures your child can work independently without ever getting stuck.
With AdaptedMind, it's easy to see student progress. Our reports are simple, intuitive and actionable.
And if you'd like, we can send them straight to your inbox.
by email
Classroom reporting for teachers
Over 95% of AdaptedMind members improve math confidence and ability.


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Core i7 System Buyers Guideby Wesley Fink on February 5, 2009 3:00 AM EST
- Posted in
- Guides
When the System Buyers Guide: $1000 to $2000 was published a few weeks ago it was obvious the last system guide in the series should be the High End Buyers Guides for systems above $2000. It was our full intention at that point to present both AMD and Intel systems for our High-End Buyers Guide, but an AnandTech meeting with all the editors quickly changed that idea. It was the consensus that as of today there is only one CPU at the top of the performance heap, and that CPU is the Intel Core i7.
With the introduction of the Phenom II, AMD now has a legitimate competitor to Intel Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad systems. The recent price cuts by both Intel and AMD in that market segment just reinforced the fact that Phenom II competes very well with Intel Penryn. Perhaps with higher speeds Phenom II processors might make the High-End Buyers Guide in the future, but as of today the Intel Core i7 owns the high-end of the CPU market.
With that reality in mind, it seemed almost pointless to publish a high-end system guide that just presented a dream Core i7 system. It is also clear to us that, despite the fact that Phenom II does not compete well at the very top, it is still a significant achievement for AMD and the processor market, and it deserves better than to be ignored.
Therefore you will see two specialty guides in the next few weeks. This guide will concentrate on Intel Core i7 systems. After some announcements by AMD, we will also be posting a guide for Phenom II systems. While Core i7 and Phenom II now cover different market segments and different price points, they both are significant CPUs in their own right and both deserve a spotlight on CPU compatibility and getting the most from each CPU. Core i7 and Phenom II are where the action and interest are in today's computer market, and the guides will try to provide help in selecting components for your new Core i7 or Phenom II system.
This Core i7 Buyers Guide looks at three different i7 builds that you might consider. The Core i7 is high on the performance tree but it is also expensive compared to other solutions. Not everyone can afford the $2000 Core i7 system presented in the $1000 to $2000 Buyers Guide. For builders who want an i7 system for as little money as possible we put together a Core i7 Entry system. The goal is simple: build a competent i7 system for as little money as possible. We managed to cut more that 25% from our last Core i7 system price without significant compromises.
Another typical buyer is attracted to the Core i7 because of the tremendous overclocking potential of the processor. As seen in Overclocking Core i7 and other Core i7 articles, the 2.66GHz 920 can reach 3.6GHz to 4GHz with proper air cooling. That is faster than the stock speed available even with the $1000 Core i7 965. The goal of the Core i7 Overclocking System build is a system that provides the flexibility and components to maximize overclocking. The slant is to the value end of overclocking - overclocking to increase value - rather than the absolute highest performance options. However, we do make some recommendations for those who overclock strictly for performance.
Finally, there is the Core i7 High-End System. The goal is to select the best performing components available, and not just the most expensive. The very high end of any system in the computer industry will rarely yield the best bang for the buck. Squeezing the last bit of performance from a component usually means spending a great deal more money than buying the component that delivers the best performance for the dollar. However, luxury and top performance sell well, and these components are still the stuff that computer dreams are made of. Our Dream Core i7 system reaches around $5000, and frankly we could have extended the cost much further by expanding storage and selecting a RAID 5 controller and drive array. Still, the components in the High-End Guide should be food for thought as you select your own Core i7 System.
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cjcoats - Thursday, February 5, 2009 - linkOnly 6GB RAM for the dream system surprised me. IIRC, there are benchmarks showing >10% performance improvement for some games when you went from 6GB to 12GB. Similarly, I have Linux benchmarks showing >15% improvement for large-RAM Opteron systems.
Finally - Thursday, February 5, 2009 - link...as in "nightmare", I guess.
If you buy that, you can hear your money burning as a background noise...
The entry level one, on the other hand, is interesting.
But you should clarify who in the world really would benefit from that kind of thing...
Kroneborge - Thursday, February 5, 2009 - linkBenefiting is all subject. Most people think the benefit of choosing real high end compenents is not worth while. But for those with too much cash, why not get what you want?
I personally wouldn't spend that much, but I'm not going to knock the people that do. It's no different than the people that spend hundreds of thousands extra on peformance between say a Ferrari, and a corvette.
It's all personal preferences.
strikeback03 - Thursday, February 5, 2009 - linkWould it be possible to list the price of all "in the tower" components and sum their cost before adding monitor/speakers/etc? On the concept of selling off a complete C2D tower and replacing it with an i7 tower?
I would have liked to see a less gaming, more workstation oriented choice. For example, for photoshop a 4870 isn't needed, but more RAM is. Is a 3+ GHz overclock on a 920 possible with 6GB and 12GB RAM configurations? And if so, how good a RAM kit and motherboard are needed?
I agree with the previous poster that a Blu-Ray drive isn't necessary on the i7 entry system; each user will know if they need Blu-Ray and budget accordingly. Personally I don't plan on jumping on the Blu-Ray train until the burners can be had for under $100.
Will there be a power consumption guide for i7 coming? All your power supply recommendations are 700W and up, but in the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P test, your published power draw at load for the 920 system is 264W at the wall (which I'm guessing is for a 6GB/single 4870 1GB configuration). Would be nice to know what kind of power is actually drawn when overclocking and such.
paradoxnighthawk - Thursday, February 5, 2009 - linkGood job on the entry system. For the dream system, whats with the Evolution X58 mobo. I would much rather have an Asus Rampage X58 or MSI Eclipse X58 mobo.
Anonymous Freak - Thursday, February 5, 2009 - linkUh... Dare I ask why this Core i7 build guide has pictures of a boxed Core 2 Quad, and a picture of a Socket 775 motherboard on the 'entry' system? (Shouldn't it use the same Core i7 boxed pic as the 'thumbnail' for the article uses; and shouldn't the motherboard picture be a picture of the motherboard the build uses?
In addition, for the 'Dream' system, there should be a picture of the Core i7 965 Extreme box, not a non-extreme box.
Wesley Fink - Thursday, February 5, 2009 - linkYou have great eyes. The links and images have been corrected. Thanks for helping us out.
Anonymous Freak - Thursday, February 5, 2009 - link[quote]You have great eyes[/quote]
Why thank you! (Blushes and bats eyebrows coyly.)
Concillian - Thursday, February 5, 2009 - linkQuote: "This Core i7 Overclocking System leans toward the value side of the overclocking equation. Generally parts were selected, like the Core i7 920, because they are a good value that becomes an outstanding value when overclocked."
I'm confused by this. A Value based overclocker would spend $50 more on a case than the entry case just because he's overclocking? And would buy a Blu-Ray instead of a DVD player?
I think the sections are fundamentally flawed. A 'value based overclocking option' should be a minor part selection difference on top of function based categories.
There should be major categories like:
- Entry
- Video Encode / Decode
- Mild Gamer
- Hardcore Gamer
Then there should be two or three components for an overclock recommend on each of those sections. You don't need a better case to overclock. You will want a better HSF, might need better memory and in rare cases a PSU upgrade is warranted, but you do not need a Blu-Ray instead of a DVD player or a 3" larger monitor in order to overclock.
Hxx - Thursday, February 5, 2009 - linkActually a better case will help your overclock. An aluminum case will disipate heat much better than a metal/plastic case.


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Tonight's Terriers was co-written by Phoef Sutton and Jon Worley, the guys previously credited with "Change Partners" and "Fustercluck," respectively; and it was directed by John Dahl, a veteran crime-pic helmer best known for the '90s neo-noirs Red Rock West and The Last Seduction. So it's fair to say that Terriers had an A-team in place for "Agua Caliente," and outside of one minor complaint, I'd say the A-team stepped up.
"Agua Caliente" has more of a unified storyline than the last couple of episodes, and though it's bound together by a strong theme, it's not as blunt about expressing it as "Ring-A-Ding-Ding" or "Missing Persons." This episode was all about exploring the partnership of Hank and Britt, by pulling them apart.
The guys start out in the same place: on a golf course, where Hank is putting like a pro and Britt's duffing it up. They're there to serve legal papers to one of the club's members, but when their prey sees the document in Britt's hand, he flees. It's up to Hank to give chase through the fancy clubhouse to the grubby underground cart-shed (a nifty visual metaphor for Terriers itself). When Hank finishes the job, he emerges from the dank and finds Britt's cell phone laying on the ground, with no Britt in sight and only a patch of burnt tire-rubber on the pavement as a clue.
So to find his new partner, Hank has to call on his old one: Detective Mark Gustafson, who gets more screen-time in this episode than he has before, and is put to excellent use. I don't know whether the credit's due to Rockmond Dunbar (who plays Gustafson), or to Dahl, or to Sutton and Worley, or to Terriers' editors, but much of what's really going on in "Agua Caliente" is conveyed in Gustafson's muttered asides and reactions. It's in the way Gustafson studies Hank's face while Hank's telling another cop what he knows about Britt's past, to see if Hank's lying. And it's in the way that—after they find out Britt was grabbed by a Mexican drug cartel and taken to Tijuana—Gustafson is swayed by Hank's enthusiastic entreaty, "Come with me, Mark, the kid's in trouble," and the allure of being able to do what he thinks is right for once without worrying about its legality.
Meanwhile, across the border, Britt comes to and realizes that the man responsible for his predicament is his old partner Ray, who lost some of the cartel's product and has promised the scary gun-toting drug men that there's not a vault in Mexico that Britt can't break into, nor any swag Britt can't grab. One problem: this particular swag is sitting in the evidence room of the local PD. An even bigger problem: the cartel has a man tailing Britt's not-yet-fiancée Katie back in Ocean Beach, and will kill her unless he gets a call by 6 saying that Britt's come through.
And so we get a classic Terriers plan. Britt picks a fight with Ray in a bar to get them both arrested, then Ray shits out a condom full of lockpicks. (Britt: "You wash that?" Ray: "It was in a rubber!") While Britt's doing his always-cool-looking skulking-about move and locating the detergent boxes full of drugs he's meant to snatch, Ray punches out a cop, steals his uniform, and perp-walks Britt out the door with the stash. What follows is a classic Terriers complication. When they get back to the warehouse hideout, Britt and Ray find that the bad guys have been pinned down by their scary gun-toting drug bosses. And before the boys can walk in and give back the missing product and get the cartel's enforcer called off of Katie, the bosses shoot everybody in the room, effectively crushing Britt's chances to save his girl.
Except that Britt is Britt—persistent and fearless. One of the things I love about this show is that the writers have a great feel for their characters' defining traits, and as I've noted week after week, Britt's not one for elaborate ruses if he can avoid them. Sometimes this works against him, as it did at the golf course, when his insufficient sneakiness tipped off the mark. But sometimes his courage is staggering, and effective. Here he walks up to the druglords, hands them their detergent, and asks if he can take a cell phone from one of the dead guys. The boss weighs the situation and then agrees, laughing, "His minutes have expired."
Britt has trouble getting through to Katie—for reasons I'll get to in a moment—but he is able to reconnect with Hank, who has found out from the TJ cops that Britt was brought in and that he escaped. Hank tells Britt to hop into Gustafson's trunk for the run back across the border. ("You like living in America, don't you?" he says to a skeptical Britt.) And in another of those reaction-shots-that-tells-the-untold-story moments I was referring to before, as the boys are pulling out, Gustafson sees Ray in the back of a patrol car—Ray, whose potential arrest and extradition Hank had dangled in front of Gustafson as a reason to take this trip in the first place. Now they're leaving Ray behind, because Hank has his own defining character trait: manipulating his friends into doing what Hank wants.
My one complaint about "Agua Caliente"—again, a minor one—is that it resolves a little too neatly, especially in comparison to the similarly tense "Fustercluck." But up until the finish, the episode draws its web tighter and tighter, with sublime fustercluckery. While Katie's being watched by the cartel, she's also taking her final exam in the class taught by the professor she drunkenly slept with a couple of weeks ago. Britt can't reach her because she accidentally leaves her phone in class, and when she gets home, she doesn't have time to check the machine or answer the home-phone because she hears Winston barking… at the cartel enforcer, who's waiting for her. And then everything converges: the professor arrives to bring her phone back, and gets taken hostage. The uniformed officers that Gustafson had sent over to watch Katie show up, followed shortly afterward by Hank and Britt, who suss out the situation quickly. Inside the apartment, Katie tries and fails to disarm the intruder with a pair of scissors she palmed while he was distracted, but Hank has better luck when he sneaks in the back while Britt comes in the front. In the end, Hank gets shot, but Katie's safe, the professor gets a warning from Hank to leave Katie alone, and Britt ends the episode happy, still blissfully unaware that his girl cheated on him.
I said up top that "Agua Caliente" was about the relationship between Hank and Britt, even though they spend most of the episode apart. I was thinking while I was watching the episode that I don't know many other shows that would spend a minute of screentime on a scene as trifling or adorable as the moment where Hank and Britt find each other in the streets of Tijuana by guiding each other via cell phone. And yet that scene says so much about who these guys are: seat-of-the-pants, moment-to-moment, and often deluded into thinking that they're more in sync than they actually are.
As Hank's getting loaded into an ambulance, Britt stops Gustafson to throw back in his face something he said in "Dog And Pony," about how Hank will eventually let him down. "I never said he wouldn't have his moments," Gustafson shrugs. And as Gustafson's walking away, Britt gushes, "We don't deserve him, Mark, either of us." And the detective delivers a terse, fed-up line that sums up what his face has been silently saying all day:
Grade: A-
Stray observations:
-I promised I'd tell y'all when the theme song was available on iTunes, and, well… here you go. Worth a buck, for sure.
-Was that a Big Lebowski reference when Britt says to Hank, "Dude, I didn't know you were a bowler" on the golf course?
-I liked all the Britt/Hank debate about the proper thing to say when serving the papers. Britt likes, "You got served," but Hank complains that this is "not an urban dance competition." Later, when they're going over the script for what they're going to do, Hank asks him why he didn't say his line. Britt mutters, "I don't want to wear it out."
-Maggie, on the current location of her baby: "At home with his father, dreaming and shitting." I'm really starting to love Maggie.
-Hank makes a casual comparison to an investigator asking an abused child to "show me where the bad man touched you," which makes Gustafson do a double-take and grumble, "You're really sick, you know that?"
-Hank, admiring Gustafson's telephone demeanor: "I miss that voice: that talking-to-a-girl voice."
-Hank won't accept morphine from the doctors because it'll mess up his sobriety.
-Katie has my exact cell phone model. I kinda hate that phone, I have to confess.
-"You guys have water-spots on your ceiling."


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About Us Going back to nature at Green Meadow, the only green cemetery in Lehigh Valley…(more)
Rules & Regulations Everything you need to know about arranging for and conducting natural burials at Green Meadow….(more)
Photo Gallery View our images of our lovely grounds throughout the year…(more)
WELCOME to Green Meadow at Fountain Hill Cemetery: A Natural Burial Ground
Located in Fountain Hill, PA, in Lehigh County, our green cemetery offers green — or natural — burial in a wildflower meadow on the grounds of Fountain Hill Cemetery.
Established in 2012, Green Meadow is the Lehigh Valley's only green cemetery. On our quarter-acre field of wildflowers and grasses the dead are returned to the natural cycle of life – to nourish soil, green a meadow, and, in that way, live on.
We invite you to visit and see how that idea lives on in eastern Pennsylvania.


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Women need to be educated about female cardiovascular disease, and the medical community must be propelled toward changeStreisand donates $5M to Cedars-Sinai Apr 16, 2008
I like challenges, and it's time to do things that I haven't done beforeStreisand prepares for European tour May 01, 2007
What a joy it will be to perform in so many wonderful countries for the first timeStreisand prepares for European tour May 01, 2007
Don't ignore the obvious influence on the Bush administration of such special interests as the oil industry, the chemical companies and the logging industry ... just to name a fewEntertainment Today: Showbiz News Sep 30, 2002
It's a very sad time, a very frightening time, for our country'West Wing' wins 8 Emmys Nov 05, 2001
Barbra Joan Streisand (pronounced /ˈstraɪsænd/; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award.
She is one of the most commercially and critically successful entertainers in modern entertainment history, with more than 71.5 million albums shipped in the United States and 140 million albums sold worldwide. She is the best-selling female artist on the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) Top Selling Artists list, the only female recording artist in the top ten, and the only artist outside of the rock and roll genre. Along with Frank Sinatra, Cher, and Shirley Jones, she shares the distinction of being awarded an acting Oscar and also recording a number-one single on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart.
According to the RIAA, Streisand holds the record for the most top ten albums of any female recording artist - a total of 31 since 1963. Streisand has the widest span (46 years) between first and latest top ten albums of any female recording artist. With her 2009 album, Love Is the Answer, she became one of the only artists to achieve number-one albums in five consecutive decades. According to the RIAA, she has released 51 Gold albums, 30 Platinum albums, and 13 Multi-Platinum albums in the United States.


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church and stepping stone studios
This is a towns and cities photo called "church and stepping stone studios". It is featured in the image gallery called "Maidstone". This gallery and many others can be found in the Places and Towns and Cities section(s) of the Photorasa website. Open the image below to view a sharper and higher resolution version in a window. The photo can be saved to your digital device by clicking on the download button below. A higher resolution image for "church and stepping stone studios" minus the watermark is available upon request.


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The deal announced yesterday is for just one 1.65MW machine going to a research and development and demonstration project developed by the National Research Energy Centre (NERC).
The project is located in Shoubak, bordering the western town of Tafilah, close to the planned-117MW wind farm of the same name.
In May this year, Danish turbine giant Vestas said it was negotiating a 117MW contract, although declined to confirm Talifah was the target. As yet no deal has been announced.
With the Jordan contract, MTOI is consolidating footholds in the Middle East region. Although MTOI has a factory in Olvega, Spain, its Spanish partners have ceded 90% control to Egyptian electrical engineering and cable giant El Sewedy.
MTOI says it is already supplying 37 1.65MW machines to the Dernah project, Libya's first wind farm, and towers to a 200MW project in Egypt.


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One of the mos useful Firefox extensions has to be the Greasemonkey extension. This extension lets you download scripts from userscripts.org or write your own to change different aspects of a website.
I use GMail & Google Reader the most and I find these Greasemonkey scripts a life saver! I am listing them here so it will be a helpful reference for me and hopefully you as well.
Update: This list started out to be a Top 15 but I keep adding useful ones here so it helps everyone out in finding some of the best ones out there.
Gmail Scripts
- Gmail Macros: This script provides extra customizable keyboard shortcuts and macros. It is one of the popular scripts loved by GMail users.
- Gmail Air Skin: Provides a cleaner GMail layout that is easy on our eyes and other little modifications.
- Gmail Conversation Preview Mod: This is such a time saver for me. You can right click on an email and read it from the main page. It does act a little quirky sometimes but useful nonetheless.
- Gmail – Insert HTML Signature: I use my Feedburner banner as my email signature and I get quite a number of hits through that. But, Gmail doesn't support HTML signatures and hence this script. This script even lets you have multiple HTML signatures. My new favorite way of adding HTML signature in GMail is with the Black Canvas Gmail Signatures Firefox extension. It is feature rich and provides the most easy to use HTML signature options for the power GMail user. (updated 8/19/08)
- Gmail Full Width: As the name implies, it removes the advertisements in the Gmail window and makes the email messages full width. Improves readability a ton.
- Gmail Signature Float: Ever been annoyed by the fact that your signature gets attached all the way at the bottom of all previous messages instead of your current message? This script fixes it. Also, it enables HTML signature and in fact I have started preferring this over the other especially if you just use one.
- Gmail with different attachment icons: I love to see the kind of attachment in a mail even without opening it. Works well with the Conversation Preview script.
- GMail Contact List: Gmail should have this to start with. It adds a contact list by the To field.
- Gmail Box for Google Reader: Adds a Google Reader subscription box with individual feed counts to your Gmail inbox.
- Gmail Sublabels: Now you can have sub-labels in Gmail by adding a subfolder separator ::
Folders4Gmail: This one is much better! (Thanks to Ryan) You can organize labels into subfolder like hierarchy. Create a parent label like Home and then create sublabels like Home\Bills, Home\Receipts, etc.
- GMailAgenda: GMailAgenda adds Google Calendar in the right side of your Gmail view making it easy to keep track of your appointments. A very promising script with new features coming soon. (updated 8/19/08)
(updated 02/10/09) Gmail 2.0 is here. So, don't forget to check out the updated Gmail 2.o Greasemonkey Scripts. Also, find out how you can easily pimp your Gmail.
Google Reader Scripts
- Google Reader Preview Enhanced: You can now replace the Gmail article summary with a frame containing the original blog item. There is a button to toggle back and forth between two views.
- Google Reader for wider screens: Widescreen LCDs are the norm these days. I don't have one at home but I do at work and this script really helps to utilize the extra real estate you have.
- Google Reader + del.icio.us: You can feed items to del.icio.us online bookmarking service from within Google Reader.
- Auto Add Feed to Google Reader: Instead of jumping through hoops every time you want add a feed to Google Reader, this script lets you add directly.
- Google Reader Print Button: For those of us who sometimes prefer to print articles to read on the road or keep as a reference, you can add a print button to your Google Reader to facilitate this.
- One-Click Unsubscribe: It adds a quick one-click unsubscribe button to the Google Reader interface. Easy to clean up your overloaded Google Reader feeds. (added 02/28/08)
- Google Reader Filter: A great script for regex (regular expression) users to filter out or highlight keywords with grey or lime accents. (added 03/13/08)
- Auto Add Feed to Google Reader: As the name suggests this script lets you add the feed you just clicked on directly to Google reader without having to jump through hoops. A must have. (added 03/13/08)
- Mark Until Current as Read: Shift-Y to mark all entries above the current entry as read. Shift-I to mark all entries below the current entry as read. (updated 10/22/08)
- Remember the Milk Cow in Google Reader: Adds a RTM cow icon in entries so you can easily add a url to RTM task for later action. (updated 10/22/08)
- Google Reader + Delicious: Lets you tag and post to your delicious account right from your Google Reader account! (updated 11/12/08)
- AddTo Google Reader: Great for sharing non-feed pages in your Google Shared items. Just press F4 to get the share window with notes. (updated 02/10/09)
- Mark Until Current As Read: If you have a long list of unread items and you want to come back later, just do a Shift-Y to make until the current items as read! Very handy! (updated (03/19/09)
- Google Reader Favicon ++: Adds Favicons to feeds and entries in Google Reader making it so easy to spot the feeds of interest. (updated (03/19/09)
Of course, there is the Better GReader Firefox extension fron Lifehacker.com that combines some of the best Greasemonkey scripts for Google Reader into one Firefox extension.
Everyone loves a nice free bonus in a list of 15, right? Well, I just happen to have one for you.
- Google Reader – Read by Mouse: Some people prefer keyboard shortcuts but there are actually a few people who prefer the mouse. You get to add a button to Google reader that toggles to mouse mode. Left-click goes to next item, right-click goes to previous item and middle click gives you other options. Nifty.
Hope you enjoyed this list and found some scripts that you can use. Visit userscripts.org to find more Greasemonkey scripts not just for these 2 apps but for a wide variety of web applications.
Don't forget to tell us your favorite Greasemonkey script(s). In a list like this one, more often than not it's the comment section that adds value when readers contribute more scripts that aren't in the list. So, what are you waiting for?
Update: If you'd like to learn how to use Greasemonkey Firefox extension and how to find and add Greasemonkey scripts, Internet Duct Tape has an extensive guide with lots of illustrative pictures.


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Название :
King T (Cali Expert)
Данные: текст песни / слова песни
Жанры : hard rock black metal death metal rock n roll glam metal
featuring King T
Ha hah
No deezee, heh
When they need work, they call the cali drug expert
Smashin in a six hundred dollar ?bill burnt?
lookin flossy, livin costly, and off the edge
Out of state, they gots to break bread fo` sho`
I needs mo`, ice drops for the Lex-o
Baguette sets glow when I`m stippin the Mo`
Freelancin, tryin to build a mansion and stay faded
Have hoes walk around my crib buttnaked
The gravy train, chronic got me losin my brain
but soothin my pain, I`m true to the game
I got my mind made, I gotta be that rich motherfucker
Set it up, so my grandkids don`t suffer
The fat Hummer, the fat drummer what`s your choice
Tryin to find a sister with a voice, make her moist
My thirst runs deeps as Lake Tahoe
in the black Tahoe
911 codes all over the Bravo
Ain`t nuttin but tabledancers and strip models, they bring bottles
but trip, niggaz at parties grabbin they best friend
Tryin to dodge, from the Aftermath entourage
No camouflage, fine linen, fine women
Busters get slugs in em
I twist my spliffs with the green, I make a sick scene
scream through some six by nines and fifteens
Tighten my rhymes like bitch jeans
Mix my dimes with ginseng, controllin this thing
Rock on, get your ride on when you hear it
The forbidden gangland lyrics
Playa haters fear it, get you right up close near it
Posessed by the Eazy-E spirit
Dr. Dre set the limit, and niggaz won`t cross this line
it`s suicide, and niggaz won`t cross this line
In your mouth, puffin with my niggaz down South
What the fuck it`s really all about me
I`m comin out, front and back, ninety-eight Brougham
All you fake G`s stay home
Leave the shit alone, King T`s back on the throne
and my niggaz on the mic straight gone, CRAZAY
Y`all niggaz wanna know the real deal?
I freestyle and smack you in your grill
Bomb lyrics, no special effects or gimmicks
The Aftermath`ll put you in the mix, beyotch!
Hah, Organized Rhyme in effect
Peace to my nigga Nino
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Practical Implications of Current Intimate Partner Violence Research for Victim Advocates and Service Providers
Document Type
Publication Date
Intimate partner violence, IPV, Domestic violence
This guide uses a question-and-answer format to inform victim advocates and service providers of the findings of published research on intimate partner violence (IPV) and their relevance for practice. The first of 13 sections of the guide poses and answers 11 questions pertinent to the issue, "What is intimate partner violence?" The issues addressed include the various behaviors and circumstances that constitute IPV, whether men and women are equally likely to be victims or perpetrators of IPV, and whether women's use of IPV is different from men's.The second major section poses and answers 12 questions related to IPV victimization rates, addressing issues of populations at increased risk for IPV, with special attention to women who are separated or divorced, pregnant, disabled, elderly, LGBT, live in rural areas. The guide's third section poses and answers 19 questions related to the impact of IPV on victims. The fourth section poses and answers 20 questions related to the characteristics of persons who perpetrate IPV. Other sections of the guide pose and answer questions related to victim characteristics that predict IPV victimization; whether IPV victims seek assistance and services; protective factors and coping skills that mitigate the adverse impact of IPV; the services that are typically available to IPV victims; whether victim services work; health-care providers' role in responding to IPV; what victim advocates and service providers need to know about the legal system; the features of IPV victim advocacy; and the performance measures advocates should adopt in evaluating the criminal justice response to IPV. The implications drawn from the research are offered as guidance, not rules of practice. 884 references are provided.
This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Funding Organization
U.S. Department of Justice
Recommended Citation
Hart BJ, Klein AF. Practical Implications of Current Intimate Partner Violence Research for Victim Advocates and Service Providers. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Criminal Justice Reference Service; January, 2013. NCJ 244348.
Included in
Domestic and Intimate Partner Violence Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons


text:
With proper diagnosis, treatment and a healthy dose of good, old-fashioned skin care, acne and rosacea can be less of a nuisance for patients, dermatologists have said.
Speaking today at the 68th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology (Academy), dermatologist Jenny J. Kim, MD, PhD, FAAD, associate professor of dermatology at the University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) David Geffen School of Medicine in Los Angeles, discussed the latest treatments for acne and rosacea and how ongoing research into the causes of these conditions holds promise for future therapies.
"Sometimes it is hard for patients dealing with acne or rosacea to understand why, even with ongoing treatment, they cannot get rid of their symptoms forever," said Dr. Kim. "I explain to them that these conditions are similar to having any chronic disease, like having diabetes - there is no cure yet, but we can control the symptoms. Just like insulin helps maintain a diabetic''s blood sugar, patients with acne and rosacea need to find a treatment regimen that works for them to maintain clear skin."
It is estimated that 40 million to 50 million Americans are affected by some form of acne. While acne is commonly associated with teenagers struggling with the growing pains of adolescence, this skin condition can strike at any age. In fact, Dr. Kim emphasized that it affects adults in their 20s, 30s, 40s and even in their 50s, especially in women and even in people who never had acne as teenagers. The causes of acne include excess oil production, skin inflammation, skin cells in the hair follicles that shed too quickly and an increased number of the acne-causing bacteria Propionbacterium acnes. However, hormones also influence both oil production and the shedding of skin cells, thereby contributing to the formation of acne lesions. For example, when androgens (the male hormones present in both men and women) over-stimulate the oil glands and hair follicles in the skin, hormonal acne flares can occur.
In the past, most cases of acne were treated solely with antibiotics. While these treatments can be very successful, a growing concern about long-term antibiotic use is that bacteria are evolving to become resistant to these medications. As a result, the development of other effective therapies and combination therapies has evolved.
For example, Dr. Kim noted that some of the newer therapies for acne are anti-inflammatories, which can be used in some cases to lessen the severity of acne. Controlled-release of lower dose doxycycline is a newer anti-inflammatory oral medication that some dermatologists use to reduce the redness and swelling of acne. Combination therapies, which may include an anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial effects that can decrease resistance and are more convenient to use for patients, has made combination therapeutics increasingly common treatments used to manage acne.
Another newer approach to treating acne is the use of lasers and light-based technologies as a complementary treatment to traditional medical therapies. Dr. Kim noted that these technologies include the pulsed-dye laser, red and blue light, and photodynamic therapy, which target the sebaceous (or oil) glands and can reduce acne flares. While Dr. Kim does not recommend lasers and light-based technologies as first-line therapies for acne, she believes it is a promising new area of research.
"Patients are becoming increasingly concerned about the long-term use of oral medications to fight acne, so lasers and light sources appeal to them," said Dr. Kim. "The problem is that there are limited large, prospective, well-controlled studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of laser and light technology at this point, so that will be an area we need to explore in the future. It's very likely that with the advancement in dermatologic research, we will see sebaceous gland targeting lasers in the future that will be effective for the treatment of acne."
Dr. Kim added that many patients are concerned about scarring that can result from acne, and many acne scars can be very aggressive and difficult to treat. For mild scarring, retinoids, chemical peels, microdermabrasion, and lasers can give mild improvement. In addition, fillers can be used successfully to fill in depressed areas and improve the appearance of scars.
Another therapy that is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for acne scarring is fractional laser resurfacing. This laser technology works by targeting damaged skin in columns of microscopic treatment zones, which include the outermost and underlying layers of skin known as the epidermis and the dermis. Fractional laser resurfacing thermally damages the tiny columns of scarred skin while the surrounding healthy skin is left intact.
"One of the main benefits of fractional resurfacing is wound healing and increased collagen production that reduces acne scars," said Dr. Kim. "However, most patients will notice only a modest improvement in acne scarring and multiple treatments are required. For more severe scarring, such as deep 'ice pick'' scars, several acne surgical procedures can be used - including punch grafting or punch excision - to remove, raise, fill or separate the scar tissue from the underlying skin. These surgical procedures in combination with other therapies, including lasers and fillers, can produce improvement for severe acne scarring."
Rosacea Triggers and Treatments
Rosacea, another chronic skin condition, affects an estimated 14 million people in the United States and is characterized by redness, flushing and prominent blood vessels on the face. Dr. Kim explained that rosacea commonly occurs in older people, and there are many known triggers for this bothersome condition - including sunlight, alcohol, spicy foods, caffeine, heat, citric acid, and stress.
While the exact cause of rosacea is not fully understood, Dr. Kim noted that a recent study suggests that the presence of an abnormal peptide (a small protein) in the skin of rosacea patients may contribute to the disease.
"There is some evidence to suggest that the peptide cathelicidin within the skin is processed differently in rosacea patients than in individuals not affected by rosacea and induces inflammation that may contribute to rosacea," explained Dr. Kim. "These findings are encouraging, as we can identify better treatments for the disease if we have a better understanding of what the cause might be."
Over the years, lasers have been shown to be effective in treating the symptoms of rosacea. For example, Dr. Kim mentioned that pulsed-dye lasers work well for rosacea patients with lots of broken blood vessels, and both pulsed-dye laser and intense-pulsed light treatments are effective at treating redness on the face and flushing associated with rosacea.
"Patients undergoing laser therapy for rosacea will likely need multiple treatments. However, I have found lasers and light treatments to be very effective and produce long-lasting results," said Dr. Kim.
In addition to oral treatments, a number of topical medications have been introduced to treat rosacea, and Dr. Kim explained that metronidazole and azeleic acid are two topicals that are tolerated well and effective in reducing the symptoms of rosacea.
Good Skin Care: Good for All
For patients with acne or rosacea whose skin is often sensitive, Dr. Kim emphasized that proper skin care is very important as part of their overall treatment regimen. In addition to avoiding products or behaviors that tend to make acne or rosacea worse, patients may find that gentle skin care can help alleviate some of the redness or irritation common with these conditions.
"I advise my patients to use a mild cleanser and sun protection that is non-irritating to the skin every day, particularly a moisturizer that contains sunscreen," said Dr. Kim. "While skin care products containing too many acids can be irritating to sensitive skin, I find that products containing salicylic acid are useful for some acne patients. Separating treatments, such as using salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide in the morning and a retinol-based product at night, might be helpful for patients with sensitive skin."
Dr. Kim also noted that while over-the-counter products containing salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide may help control mild acne, patients should avoid using too many products at once on their skin to try to manage acne.
"The old adage 'less is more'' applies to patients with sensitive skin," said Dr. Kim. "The best advice is to discuss your skin care regimen with your dermatologist who can recommend products based on not only your specific skin condition, but your individual skin type as well."
Source: Newswise


text:
By Danny Schechter.
The TV series House of Lies is about business but it could as easily be about government and foreign policy.
In a recent episode, one of the management consultants pitches a company about the need to launch a new product. She recounts the story of the Polaroid Company known as the Apple of its day, widely admired for the cool design of its instant cameras.
When I lived in Cambridge MA, Polaroid was one of the town's biggest employers, an economic powerhouse.
But soon it was gone. It failed to see new competitive products on the horizon. It only saw the future as its past.
It went bankrupt.
That seems to be the case of our own bankrupt foreign policy that operates with a limited playbook, of negative "options" build around threats, warnings, covert actions and military adventures.
The gap between what we say and what we do has become a chasm, a paper tiger in words first coined by Chairman Mao.
Here's President Obama, counseling Israel, a nuclear power not to attack Iran which fears could become one. No one mentions that nuclear deterrence has been a cornerstone of US policy since we became the first and only nation to drop a nuclear bomb on civilians.
In some ways, the mad policy of "Mutually Assured Destruction( (MAD) kept the nuclear peace since the 1940's. To date we have opposed tougher UN rules to stop nuclear proliferation when it involves our allies or us.
Now, to keep the peace and stop a war on Iran, President Obama says we should practice "diplomacy".
Diplomacy like Nixon used on "Red" China that led to a reversal of decades of isolation and included mutual recognition and booming trade? (Without China, our economy would be in a deeper depression than it is,)
Nope, "not that kind of diplomacy.
Obama has gone back further to the failed policy of embargo and isolation that was supposed to bring The Cuban Revolution to its knees in the 1960s.
60 years later, Cuba has reformed but not changed its system while we still refuse to officially recognize its existence.
Our country, born in revolution, still won't recognize Iran's Revolution of 33 years ago either, Instead, in the name of diplomacy, the White House has released an executive order imposing tough new sanctions on Tehran,
When I asked Iran's President Ahmadinejad during a very recent trip there if he would talk to Washington, he told me they wouldn't talk to him or his government
So much for diplomacy!
Does anyone remember how covert diplomacy with Iran in 1980 delayed the release of the hostages, a manuever that helped conservative hero Ronald Reagan win election?
Instead, of any diplomacy, the United States is sending more Naval armadas to surround Iran while it is suspected that Israel has been assassinating its scientists and sabotaging its nuclear program with sophisticated viruses.
Everyday new bombing threats are being heard, shades of Dick Cheney singing "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran…." Hahaha!
To my surprise, most of the Iranians I spoke to at a recent conference I attended in Tehran seemed not as alarmed as I thought they would be. Most, naively perhaps, believe that the US or Israel would not dare attack Iran because it is too strong and will retaliate.
That is certainly the rhetoric we are hearing from the country's Supreme Ruler Khomeini/ His response to sanctions seems to be 'bring them on," arguing they will only force Iran into becoming stronger militarily and more self-reliant economically.
He has responded to our threats with some of his own, taking tough about supporting resistance to Israel and countering US initiatives. His hard line is becoming harder in response to ours.
The New York Times reports growing anxiety among Iran's middle classes.
Already there have been reports of new military maneuvers by Iran and US troops being dispatched to islands off the coat of Yemen, near Iran,
Under Republican and Israeli criticisms, Obama feels he has to appear even tougher. "Appear" is the operative word.
But remember that saying, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."
Where are we going?
Rather than relax tensions, US style diplomacy is raising them to higher levels accompanied by escalating media propaganda built on calculated leaks by "intelligence experts" warning of imminent Iranian attacks on the US.
The less the evidence, the more pyscops rumors become news.
There are even reports of Iran is unleashing Al Qaeda terrorists even though Tehran has jailed many and is ideologically at odds with the Saudi-oriented Wahabi brand of Islam. favored by the late Sheikh bin Laden.
The Wall Street Journal, no supporter of the Ayatollahs, ran a full-page story Monday on "US Fears Iran's Links to Al Qaeda." That was the headline. In the body of the story, unnamed US officials were quoted downplaying the link and dismissing the idea.
One said: "There is not significant information to suggest a working relationship between Iran and al Qaeda." (Excuse me but hasn't Obama also been implying that by killing bin Laden, al Qaeda has been contained as a threat?)
The Journal also quotes Hilary Mann Leverett, a National Security aide in the Clinton and Bush Administrations. She says bluntly," I think (there) is a war-fevered hysteria going on now. A lot of this stuff is really flimsy and is really questionable."
Questionable or not, deceptive claims are making headlines and feeding more hysteria that could lead to the very military actions that Obama is saying he doesn't support.
The late Richard Nixon used to approach diplomacy by drawing three columns on a piece of paper.
One said, "What We Want,' the second, "What They Want, and the third, "What can we agree on?"
Obama seems to have only one column on his agenda: 'How can I get reelected," a goal he says, humbly, he feels he "deserves."
Right now, he and his Secretary of State are pandering to the right and the Israeli Lobby while pretending to cut military spending,
As the objective situation becomes more dangerous, all this game playing aimed at perception management goes on.
We are talking here about more than a conflict with a country we have had a conflict with for decades but the danger of a third world war.
China and Russia are no t exactly on board the US escalation train. Iran's neighbors don't need new tensions in the region because they have plenty of their own.
Is our past once more destined to become our future?
Filmmaker Danny Schechter is just back from a visit to Iran. Access to his News Dissector blog seems to be blocked so he will be posting on Http://mediachannel1.org Comments to firstname.lastname@example.com.