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June 5, 2020
Point and Counter Point
Friday, June 5, 2020
June 4, 2020 12:25
Sweden backtracks on its low-pain pandemic cure
Sweden offered hope that the coronavirus could be reined in without great inconvenience or economic pain. Unlike its neighbors in Scandinavia and elsewhere, Sweden didn't put its people in strict lockdown. Restaurants, bars and shops buzzed with their usual customers. Gyms stayed open, and kids under 16 went to school.
Images of Swedes sunning themselves at crowded cafes dowsed many quarantined Americans and Europeans with envy. Even as other societies start letting people venture forth, they still generally require masks for entry in stores and other businesses.
Oh, how we wished Sweden's approach would work! Apparently, it didn't.
Thursday, June 4, 2020
June 3, 2020 11:45
Liberal arts colleges in peril; can they be saved?
There are 4,000 degree-granting colleges and universities in our nation: community colleges, private liberal arts colleges, regional and urban public universities, and graduate research centers. I have taught within each type; each has its strengths and makes distinctive contributions to society.
Yet I have a soft spot in my heart for the liberal arts college, of which there are 700-800 in the U..S. With 500-2,000 students each, the schools offer a personal approach rarely found elsewhere. Rather than specialize the mind, these schools broaden and enlarge the mind.
Thursday, June 4, 2020
June 3, 2020 11:44
COVID-19 reveals a deeper, more enduring tragedy about America
The last several weeks have been hard, the last week perhaps the hardest. Feeling more confined than confident, Americans nonetheless itched to get out, on bike trails, amid neighborhood streets, in stores, at picnic groves, by the shore or lakeside. And it was at those venues -- trails, streets, stores, groves, shoreline and lakeside -- that it became clear to all of us that months into the COVID-19 calamity, we remain full of questions and bereft of answers.
It became clear, too, that many of the questions we harbor -- maybe unexpressed but surely felt -- are vital questions about personal and public character, about the country's resolve and national purpose. These uncertainties always have lain beneath the country's surface, visible only a handful of times -- during the Revolution and the Civil War, to be sure, but also during the two world wars and, vividly, during the Vietnam struggle. And in the civil rights era and again during Watergate.
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
June 2, 2020 12:08
Yes, meet rioters with overwhelming force
Restoring order to America's cities isn't a complicated proposition.
All it requires is resources and determination, and a firm rejection of the longstanding progressive fallacy that an overwhelming police presence is "provocative" and "escalatory" and must be avoided.
As has been established across decades of civil disturbances, it is police passivity that emboldens mobs. When the cops stand by, or don't show up or, even worse, run away, it is a permission slip for destruction. They might as well supply the spray paint, bricks and hammers for the crowds, and beckon them into the local Target or Nike store to take whatever they want.
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
June 1, 2020 11:23
Jeff Sessions, a wild Senate race and Trump's 'personal feelings'
Jeff Sessions is in a surreal place. He spent 20 years as a senator from Alabama, followed by 21 months as U.S. Attorney General, and now he is in a tightly competitive race to win back his old Senate seat. He was the first important national figure in government to endorse candidate Donald Trump back in early 2016. That endorsement was an important boost for Trump, whom other Republicans were dismissing at the time. The newly elected Trump picked Sessions for attorney general.
At the Justice Department, Sessions worked hard to implement the president's agenda on issues like immigration and crime. But as far as relations with Trump were concerned, it all went to hell in early March 2017, when Sessions, who had been on the job all of 21 days, recused himself from supervising the Trump-Russia investigation.
Monday, June 1, 2020
June 31, 2020 10:29
Transcripts released of Flynn's calls may show that he was wrongly pursued
WASHINGTON (AP) — Transcripts of phone calls that played a pivotal role in the Russia investigation were declassified and released Friday, showing that Michael Flynn, as an adviser to then-President-elect Donald Trump, urged Russia's ambassador to be "even-keeled" in response to punitive Obama administration measures, and assured him "we can have a better conversation" about relations between the two countries after Trump became president.
Saturday, May 30, 2020
May 29, 2020 12:37
The return of the tea party
It's 2009 again, or feels like it. That was when spontaneous, grassroots protests against overweening government sprang up and were widely derided in the media as dangerous and wrong-headed.
Saturday, May 30, 2020
May 29, 2020 12:36
Illinois Republican lawmakers want an audit of state employment agency
SPRINGFIELD – A group of four Republican state representatives is calling for a state audit of the Illinois Department of Employment Security to examine a data breach at the agency and its continued slow adaptation to the unprecedented number of unemployment claims during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Friday, May 29, 2020
May 28, 2020 14:40
Bottom line: If you fear an encounter, avoid it, but let us take our own risks
ILLINOIS — Since I live in a small out-of-the way county that has had one reported case of COVID-19, a second recently rumored, I have been hesitant to write about The Big Disruption in our lives. I am obviously not sharing the valiant struggles of nurses and their associates, at the side of infected patients gasping for air, most in densely populated urban centers like Chicago, or in nursing homes.
Friday, May 29, 2020
May 28, 2020 14:39
Summer people are already here. And are Snowbirds staying?
When the pandemic hit this winter, city people with second homes moved into them. This upset the rhythm of beach, lake and mountain communities that attract a lot of "summer people" -- but not until the summer.
As for winter destinations -- Florida, Arizona, Texas or any ski area -- the snowbirds seem to be lingering into the spring. Full-time locals may wonder when they will leave. They're going to leave, right?
Thursday, May 28, 2020
May 27, 2020 11:54
Quarintine game! The Kim Jong Joe plan
We're all going crazy and running out of things to do during this endless shutdown. We've painted the dog, counted pavers in the backyard, and rearranged the spice rack alphabetically and also by color. What we really need right now is a new game!
Thursday, May 28, 2020
May 27, 2020 11:54
Some of our most faithful troops
While serving as a sentry with French forces in the Argonne Forest in 1918, a black American private fought off German attackers. Unfazed by his wounds, he hurled grenades until they ran out, shot his rifle until it jammed, used his rifle as a club until it broke, and finally used a bolo knife until reinforcements arrived.
The French recognized Henry Johnson's heroism with a Croix de Guerre, while the U.S. gave him the Medal of Honor -- posthumously, almost a hundred years later.
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
May 25, 2020 11:21
Jeff Sessions defends himself, but stays loyal to the president
It hasn't been in the news much, but former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, now in a tight Republican primary to win back his old Alabama Senate seat, has been talking a lot about his time in the Justice Department and the issue that made him a persona non grata in Trumpworld: his March 2017 decision to recuse himself from supervising the Trump-Russia investigation.
Saturday, May 23, 2020
May 22, 2020 10:10
Biden's most ridiculous veep prospect
Stacey Abrams has another distinction to add to her resume -- she's among the most preposterous potential vice-presidential candidates ever.
Her attempt to leverage a failed Georgia gubernatorial bid into a spot on the Democratic ticket is so brazenly absurd that it's hard to think of precedents.
Saturday, May 23, 2020
May 22, 2020 10:10
Coronavirus doesn't just kiill people -- it's white!
I guess now it's OK to identify viruses by where they came from. Lately, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been calling COVID-19 the "European virus" 1 million times per press conference.
Here's Cuomo at a single briefing last week: "... the virus that had attacked us from Europe ... the virus came from Europe ... the virus was coming from Europe ... New York is where the European flights were coming in ... Virus came from Europe ... we had this European virus attack us ... we had people coming from Europe bringing the virus."
So "European virus" it is!
Friday, May 22, 2020
May 21, 2020 12:23
To tax or not to tax? Pritzker's graduated tax fails on all counts
The only major, contested issue on the ballot this fall in our Blue State will be whether to enact Gov. JB Pritzker's proposed constitutional amendment to allow graduated income tax rates. I think the Pritzker approach — not the concept — is wrong-headed. I try to explain here.
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
May 18, 2020 13:24
Pandemic makes end-of-life care harder
I just lost a dear elderly friend to cancer. Home hospice workers kept him comfortable. He spent his final weeks watching spring unfold in the outdoor Eden he had nurtured for decades. He died peacefully at night with me present.
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
May 18, 2020 13:24
Don't Stay Home! Die!
Or, to be fair, you may not die; you may just be the type who kills other people.
Sound like government playing God? Making life and death decisions? Just what conservative orthodoxy has insisted for years government must never do? Yes.
Monday, May 18, 2020
May 17, 2020 11:25
Liberal privilege in two tweets
This week, we'll look at two tweets that encapsulate everything that's wrong with the "white privilege" narrative consuming our nation.
Saturday, May 16, 2020
May 15, 2020 11:03
What we still don't know about the Flynn case
The Michael Flynn case will soon be over. It began on Jan. 24, 2017, just four days into the Trump administration, when two FBI agents went to the White House to interview Flynn, then the brand-new national security adviser. Ignoring protocol, they questioned him about a phone call he had a few weeks before, during the transition, with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. By the end of the year, Flynn had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in that interview.
Saturday, May 16, 2020
May 15, 2020 11:02
When believing all women leads to evil
The hashtag #BelieveWomen stemmed from an era when women claiming to have been sexually assaulted were broadly dismissed. That is, if you ignore the history of white women falsely accusing black men of rape. Those women were largely believed and the accused often summarily tortured and hanged by the neck from a tree.
Friday, May 15, 2020
May 14, 2020 11:56
Fauci is not the villain
For his critics, Dr. Anthony Fauci cemented his status as the Rasputin of public health with his Senate testimony the other day.
Friday, May 15, 2020
May 14, 2020 11:55
It happened in New York
New York is the greatest city in the world. It also is uniquely suited to the spread of the coronavirus.
As the national debate over re-opening continues and the political blame game intensifies, it's worth considering the scale of New York's outbreak. There is nothing like it anywhere else in the country, and almost nothing like it in the rest of the world.
Thursday, May 14, 2020
May 13, 2020 12:00
Trump trolling for fun and profit
In 2003, during the George W. Bush administration, the columnist Charles Krauthammer coined the phrase "Bush Derangement Syndrome" to refer to some of the president's more unhinged critics. It was funny, and given Krauthammer's background -- he was a medical doctor specializing in psychiatry -- it had the ring of truth.
Monday, May 11, 2020
May 10, 2020 12:00
Everyone deserves to live under the Biden standard
Why should Joe Biden get due process, but not others accused of sexual misconduct?
That's the question raised by the progressive reaction to Tara Reade's accusation against Biden on the one hand, and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' new rules for handling sexual harassment cases on college campuses on the other.
Saturday, May 9, 2020
May 8, 2020 11:25
Apologies to Helen
"When you're a mother, you'll understand."
How many times did my mother say that? And how many times did I think, "No, I won't, because I'll be a better mother"?
Saturday, May 9, 2020
May 8, 2020 11:26
More than comfort, 'Golden Girls' could be our future
No surprise that Americans have spent much of their lockdown watching TV -- nor that one of the most-watched shows has been "The Golden Girls." First aired in 1985, the sitcom portrays four older women, three widows and one divorcee, sharing a house in Miami.
They're "sheltering in place" in that they don't have outside jobs to go to. They do venture out to restaurants, volunteer work and hospitals, but almost all their activities take place at home. The enemy scratching at their windows is not a virus but the indignities of old age, which they shoo away with biting humor.
Friday, May 8, 2020
May 7, 2020 12:23
Lab theory of Wuhan virus cooked up in a neocon lab
Just because the media say something doesn't necessarily mean it's not true. In the case of Trump's claim that COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan lab -- or as I call it, the All Cultures Are the Same! Theory -- the media are probably right.
Granted, whatever the truth is, it will somehow become an argument for more immigration and more war. Still, the lab theory sounds a lot like what we were told before going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to liberate the poor Afghans and Iraqis from their vile leaders! They're just like us!
Thursday, May 7, 2020
May 6, 2020 11:11
Lockdown extremism is a vice
We will be in a fight against the coronavirus for months, if not years, and yet it is time to declare mission accomplished on one very important goal.
Now, the rhetoric around the shutdowns has shifted, and not very subtly -- flattening the curve and saving the hospitals are "out," and not allowing any additional cases to emerge is "in."
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
May 4, 2020 12:03
50 years ago, America heard the drumming in Ohio
Four dead in Ohio.
It was a newspaper headline before it was a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young lyric. Ripped from the headlines about an event 50 years ago Monday, the song and the moment it commemorated were seared into the memory of a generation, much the way Picasso's 1937 antiwar painting "Guernica" came to symbolize the Spanish Civil War.
Saturday, May 2, 2020
May 1, 2020 12:36
Northwestern engineer think he's found a better way to farm
Since I was a boy growing up in rural Illinois post-World War II, American agriculture has achieved momentous productivity increases, from about 45 bushels an acre of corn back then to an average of 180 today, with farmers in my area sometimes getting 300 bushels per.
Saturday, May 2, 2020
May 1, 2020 12:35
No, science can't tell us how to respond to the coronavirus
If you thought the coronavirus presented difficult policy questions, don't worry -- we have science.
Saturday, May 2, 2020
May 1, 2020 12:34
Federal appeals court in Chicago nixes withholding aid from sanctuary cities
CHICAGO (AP) — A sharply worded ruling by a federal appeals court in Chicago on Thursday said the Trump administration policy of threatening to withhold grant money from so-called sanctuary cities to force them to comply with its more stringent immigration policies violates the separation-of-powers provisions enshrined the U.S. Constitution.
Friday, May 1, 2020
May 31, 2020 16:16
Illinois attorney general asks Supreme Court to weigh in on Bailey's lawsuit
SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois attorney general's office asked the state's highest court to consider arguments in a state representative's case challenging the governor's authority to oversee the COVID-19 pandemic.
Friday, May 1, 2020
May 31, 2020 16:15
Slowed COVID-19 spread leaves 1,000s of makeshift beds in Illinois empty
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Illinois has spent tens of millions of dollars building makeshift field hospitals to prepare for an anticipated flood of coronavirus cases, but so far hasn't had to use the thousands of extra beds. That was exactly the plan.
Friday, May 1, 2020
May 31, 2020 16:14
Q & A on Wuhan virus
As you can well imagine, my mailbox has been overflowing with questions about the coronavirus from precisely ZERO readers. So I decided to write my own questions. I know this is what you would be asking if you were not standing in line, outside, 6 feet apart, to purchase a quart of milk.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
April 29, 2020 12:26
After COVID, will we want what we wanted?
When Germany let smaller stores reopen, the expected didn't happen. Officials thought that shoppers would burst out of their five-week lockdown and spend, spend, spend. They were wrong.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
April 29, 2020 12:25
When would Joe Biden reopen the country?
The most pressing problem facing Americans today is how and when states and local areas reopen after the coronavirus lockdowns. President Trump, stressing the terrible economic damage the lockdowns have done, has (mostly) pressed for reopening sooner rather than later. He has released detailed guidelines for officials in the states to consult when deciding when to reopen.
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
April 28, 2020 12:26
The hospital crisis of our making
We had to destroy the hospitals to save them.
You could be forgiven for thinking that's the upshot of the coronavirus lockdowns that have suspended elective surgeries and generally discouraged people from going to hospitals.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
April 27, 2020 13:25
Coronavirus pandemic identifies fault lines that must be addressed
The coronavirus crisis has exposed critical fault lines in our nation's bedrock, which must be addressed. I identify three below, but there are others, such as fiscal sufficiency for Social Security and Medicare, both programs taking a hit from the virus and our spending to combat it.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
April 27, 2020 13:24
Amidst viral threat, Canada looks askance at U.S.
Chalk up another victim to the coronavirus that has swept across the globe: the decades-old amity that tied Canada to the United States in cross-border marriages and commercial relationships, that deepened during World War II, that took the form of three landmark 20th-century free-trade agreements, and that burst into full flower when Canada welcomed American jetliners and their passengers to Newfoundland after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Monday, April 27, 2020
April 26, 2020 13:24
About the homeless
What about them? They have started dying. It would be surprising if they didn't. What hasn't happened -- but will -- is the numbers becoming concentrated. We'll see television anchors not only in skid row but also on streets full of well-protected neighbors who will not react well to being told that the sidewalk actually belongs to the person who pitched his tent there, and that drug laws cannot be enforced in these tents because they are "homes."
Saturday, April 25, 2020
April 24, 2020 11:19
Social distancing isn't a religion
Forgive Jacksonville, Florida, for it has sinned.
The largest city in Florida partly reopened its beaches, and it became something of a national scandal. CNN ran a disapproving segment, and the hashtag #FloridaMorons trended on Twitter.
Saturday, April 25, 2020
April 24, 2020 11:19
As virus rages, leaders keep dodging blame
Why are some leaders so reluctant to admit that in the early days of the coronavirus crisis, they were slow to realize the seriousness of the threat?
That's the charge leveled against President Trump daily. Just look at the number of times various critics have said he has "blood on his hands." Trump has denied responsibility, and has argued that rather than being slow off the mark, he was actually quick to respond.
There is much angry debate on that point. What is clear now is that more than a few officials around the country were slow to act. And some of them in high positions -- not as high as president of the United States, but quite powerful -- are reluctant to admit it.
Friday, April 24, 2020
April 23, 2020 13:51
Can the Earth breathe deeply as oil use crashes?
The bizarre collapse in oil prices reflects a world largely shut at home. People are no longer driving much or flying at all. Factories are silent. The supply hasn't changed radically in the past month. It's the demand that's crumbled.
Environmentalists, hold that thought.
Thursday, April 23, 2020
April 22, 2020 13:26
Trump and China: A love story
Liberals claim to be appalled that Trump didn't issue his stay-at-home protocols for the Wuhan virus back in January or early February.
What do you think the media's reaction would have been if Trump had started babbling about a viral pandemic in the middle of his impeachment trial?
Thursday, April 23, 2020
April 22, 2020 13:25
The ventilator crisis that wasn't
At a coronavirus task force briefing at the beginning of April, White House adviser Jared Kushner explained the approach that would -- as events proved -- get the country through its ventilator crisis.
He was relentlessly pilloried, mocked and distorted in the press for it.
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
April 20, 2020 13:27
In the time of the virus, grooming takes a hit
A friend closed in his northern Italian apartment for almost six weeks emailed me saying that his wife says he looks like a "clochard." That's French for street bum. This from a man who once was a walking advertisement for fine Italian tailoring.
Monday, April 20, 2020
April 19, 2020 11:36
Four governors who are getting it right
Calvin Coolidge's stance at the Boston Police Strike of 1919 catapulted him to national prominence, to his party's vice presidential nomination a year later, and eventually to the presidency. Herbert Hoover's achievement in feeding starving Europeans after World War I gave him the heroic status that led to the White House.
Saturday, April 18, 2020
April 17, 2020 12:38
The absurd case against the coronavirus lockdown
An irony of the coronavirus debate is that the more successful lockdowns are in squelching the disease, the more vulnerable they will be to attack as unnecessary in the first place.
Friday, April 17, 2020
April 16, 2020 12:00
Liberalism, like the Wuhan virus, will never die
The media are outraged that President Trump is talking about re-opening the country, following their previous position that he sure was taking his sweet time at opening up the country.
Fortunately, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's death forecasts from the Wuhan coronavirus have shrunk from 1.7 million Americans in mid-March; to 100,000 to 200,000 two weeks ago, provided there were massive suppression efforts; to -- most recently -- 60,000.
Thursday, April 16, 2020
April 15, 2020 12:06
COVID-19: Pearl Harbor -- or War of the Worlds?
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams warned that this week of mounting death from the novel coronavirus could be "our Pearl Harbor moment." He was referring, of course, to the surprise 1941 Japanese attack on the U.S. Navy base in Honolulu, which pulled the nation into World War II.
Monday, April 13, 2020
April 12, 2020 11:37
Passover's social justice message resonates through the ages
For two full minutes, he stood amid the flowers and the palms and a handful of American flags, absorbing the applause, exhilarating in it, and when finally the clapping subsided, when a silence fell in the room, Theodore Roosevelt spoke about the meaning of the Jewish holiday of Passover, and about the wealth gap that yawned wide more than a century ago.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
April 10, 2020 11:01
Is Joe Biden weaker today than Hillary Clinton was in 2016?
The polls show Joe Biden leading Donald Trump in the presidential race. Looking at the last 10 surveys in the RealClearPolitics average of polls matching Trump vs. Biden, Biden is leading in every one of them -- by anywhere from 3 to 10 points. Biden's average lead, in those 10 polls, is 5.5 points.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
April 10, 2020 11:03
Blaming China and WHO isn't scapegoating
President Donald Trump slammed the World Health Organization at a news briefing this week and was immediately accused of scapegoating.
Friday, April 10, 2020
April 9, 2020 11:38
I'll have the chicken testicle soup - hold the deadly virus
It's probably a coincidence, but I notice that as businesses go under, jobs are lost, careers are ended and trillions of dollars are drained from the economy, the people most avidly pushing the coronavirus panic are doing quite well.
Thursday, April 9, 2020
April 8, 2020 13:26
We need to make more of our own drugs
A country learns about itself in a crisis, and one revelation in the coronavirus emergency is that we can't make our own penicillin.
The first patient successfully treated with the antibiotic was a woman suffering from sepsis in a Connecticut hospital in 1942. Her treatment took up half the country's supply. Yet in short order we figured out how to mass produce the medicine, saving the lives of countless soldiers in World War II. Once, factories throughout the country made the stuff.
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
April 6, 2020 13:30
The newest federalism
It's "federalism time" again in Washington. No, don't get your "Federalist Paper No. 10" (my favorite) out yet. Federalism time rarely involves a serious debate about the balance of power between the federal government and the states, although that is technically what American federalism is about. It's about politics, pure and simple. It's about who gets what -- in this case, tests, masks and ventilators, among other things -- and who gets blamed, the president or the governor. Every time President Donald Trump assigns one of these imperatives to the governors, as he has done repeatedly during the coronavirus pandemic, he covers for himself and sets the states up for blame. Federalism is the cover story for what can't or won't be said. It's the history many of us learned about as children and unlearned as adults: redemptive but wrong.
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
April 6, 2020 13:29
The ultimate in social distancing
Some of us are obsessed right now with President Trump. Some are drawn to Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York. Others are preoccupied with Dr. Anthony Fauci. I can't stop thinking about Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan.
Jessica Meir? Andrew Morgan?
Monday, April 6, 2020
April 5, 2020 12:09
When will the impact of coronavirus hit state budgets like Illinois?
State officials nationwide fear that a substantial decline in tax collections as a result of the coronavirus pandemic will throw their budgets into turmoil. But they will have to wait for the first hard data on how big the decline might be.
Saturday, April 4, 2020
April 3, 2020 13:20
State lawmakers adapt to new reality during COVID-19 pandemic
SPRINGFIELD – State Rep. Martin Moylan and his staff thought they were ahead of COVID-19.
Saturday, April 4, 2020
April 3, 2020 13:20
In a crisis, everyone turns to borders as first line of defense
When President Donald Trump announced a restriction on travel from Europe in a mid-March Oval Office address, European Union officials erupted in outrage.
Friday, April 3, 2020
April 2, 2020 12:18
The bill for globalism has arrived
When the after-action report on the current pandemic is being prepared, I'm going to ask the guy with the notepad to write down: "China" and "globalists."
Thursday, April 2, 2020
April 1, 2020 12:57
Justice Dept. inspector finds additional failures in FBI wiretap investigations
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department inspector general has found additional failures in the FBI's handling of a secretive surveillance program that came under scrutiny after the Russia investigation, identifying problems with dozens of applications for wiretaps in national security investigations.
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
April 31, 2020 12:27
The #President Cuomo fantasy
How nervous are some Democrats about Joe Biden's chances against President Trump this November? Nervous enough to entertain the notion that another Democrat -- New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo -- might swoop in and save the day.
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
April 31, 2020 12:26
How will we vote? Outbreak revives the national debate on voting by mail
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - As the coronavirus pandemic knocks primary election after primary election off schedule, Democrats argue the outbreak shows the country needs to move toward one of their longtime goals - widespread voting by mail - to protect the November election.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
March 30, 2020 11:58
A crisis is a terrible thing to manufacture
On Jan. 20, the United States confirmed its first case of the coronavirus. The nation's political and media elite obsessed over Mitch McConnell's just-announced resolution governing the impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
March 30, 2020 11:58
Jenny for VP
The novel coronavirus has made clear who in this country actually runs things.
It should be, and occasionally is, the president.
But in this instance, President Donald Trump has mostly been a cheerleader, often cheering for the wrong side -- the side that thought the virus was just a hoax, that there's nothing to worry about here, and that it would disappear. But he's not the one issuing the orders. That would be the governors and mayors. It's the governors who are out there fighting to buy masks and ventilators in a free-for-all triggered by the president. It's the governors and mayors telling us what we can and can't do. It's the governors who, struggling to restrain the virus, are directing where and when hospital beds can be built. I see Gov. Gavin Newsom every day. I see Gov. Andrew Cuomo every day. I haven't seen Sen. Kamala Harris since she dropped out. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, not at all. I'm sure they are voting with Sen. Chuck Schumer.
Saturday, March 28, 2020
March 27, 2020 12:26
Speak Out
Saturday, March 28, 2020
March 27, 2020 12:27
Rainbows Behind the Virus Crisis
Milan is the V-8 engine of Italy's economy. Known as an industrial and financial powerhouse, Milan is also famous for its foul air. Now the city and its region, Lombardy, have become the epicenter of Europe's coronavirus pandemic. To stop the virus' spread, factories, offices, restaurants and bars are closed. People are ordered to stay at home. The traffic is gone.
And the air is much cleaner. Satellites report a dramatic drop in the region's air pollution. Since the lockdown started on March 9, the levels of nitrogen oxide in northern Italy have plunged dramatically. NO2 is a toxic gas that can cause inflammation of the body's air passages. Clean air has been a bright spot in the region's immense suffering.
Saturday, March 28, 2020
March 27, 2020 12:26
The robot rule
What if?
The novel coronavirus' fatality rate is highest in men over 70. All three men left in this presidential race are over 70. I am certainly not the only one who has thought about this.
Friday, March 27, 2020
March 26, 2020 13:36
The cipher as presidential candidate
What William McKinley was to the front-porch campaign, Joe Biden is to the basement campaign.
Sidelined and confined to his house by the dictates of coronavirus social distancing, the former vice president has been limited to intermittent appearances from a makeshift studio in his basement. They have been awkward and low-energy, but that doesn't really set them apart from most other Joe Biden appearances.
Friday, March 27, 2020
March 26, 2020 13:37
The togetherness of social distancing
As the coronavirus stops normal life, trapping more Americans in their homes, some have raised the specter of another health threat: loneliness. Before this crisis seized our anxieties, much discussion centered around the dangers of perceived social isolation and feeling cut off from others.
Thursday, March 26, 2020
March 25, 2020 13:27
How do we flatten the curve on panic?
If, as the evidence suggests, the Chinese virus is enormously dangerous to people with certain medical conditions and those over 70 years old, but a much smaller danger to those under 70, then shutting down the entire country indefinitely is probably a bad idea.
Thursday, March 26, 2020
March 25, 2020 13:26
Biden fails to lead on virus fight
Give Joe Biden some credit. On Jan. 27, he published an op-ed in USA Today recognizing that the coronavirus outbreak could become a big problem. But he devoted nearly the entire piece to bashing President Trump -- who was then fighting off impeachment from Biden's old Democratic colleagues on Capitol Hill -- and nearly none of it to explaining what he, Joe Biden, would do to fight the pandemic.
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
March 24, 2020 13:25
This is not sustainable
Countries have experienced economic depressions before, but not usually as a matter of choice.
The nationwide coronavirus shutdowns over the past two weeks have ground parts of the country to a halt. We have probably never before in our history seen so much economic activity vaporize so quickly -- within days or even hours. The Great Depression and the panics of the 19th century are the only possible analogues.
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
March 24, 2020 13:27
Tale of two families explains our pulling apart
At a recent dinner party, it was wondered why our society appears to be pulling apart. I observed that sometimes unfortunate consequences flow from otherwise benign changes. I illustrated with a "tale of two families," both known to me in my rural central Illinois setting.
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
March 23, 2020 13:25
Only the 'crooks' can save us now
A specter haunts progressive America -- the possibility that a company might make too much money solving the world's coronavirus problem.
Monday, March 23, 2020
March 22, 2020 11:31
The anger piece
I'm old enough to know that anger is sure to harm only one person: the one who is angry. I know because I've done it. So I have learned as best I can to put my anger in a black box, not in my poor stomach.
Monday, March 23, 2020
March 22, 2020 11:31
History's crises lend us guidance and perspective
It turns out that the Greatest Generation left us the greatest example of how to proceed in the greatest health threat of our time.
Saturday, March 21, 2020
March 20, 2020 12:54
Cheap TVs, damn expensive flu
Here's a thought: While self-quarantining with their families in multimillion-dollar Manhattan co-ops, Wall Street wives ought to have a chat with their Master of the Universe husbands about China, globalism and political correctness. Those are the vectors of their robber-baron wealth.
Thursday, March 19, 2020
March 18, 2020 12:57
HIPAA Wasn't Meant for This
HIPAA was a great law for its time. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act protects the privacy of your personal medical records. You don't have to tell anyone about underlying diseases. That's your business, not theirs. For years, it has protected Americans with AIDS and cancer and everything else from discrimination, private or official.
Thursday, March 19, 2020
March 18, 2020 12:56
Caring for the elderly just got more stressful
We who oversee the care of elderly friends or family know what stress is all about -- in normal times. It's a hard job, physically and mentally. Even for those who can hire others to help out, there remains worry about paying good wages to keep good people, and coordinating doctor visits and prescriptions.
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
March 17, 2020 13:32
Trump's coronavirus response isn't the work of a dictator
What happens when the supposed dictator won't dictate? This is the conundrum confronted by the harshest critics of President Donald Trump who have gone from warning he is a budding despot to complaining he hasn't done enough to impose his will during the coronavirus crisis.
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
March 17, 2020 13:34
Alone, together
We used to worry about a country where people were bowling alone. Now we have ample reason to worry about going bowling at all.
The phrase "bowling alone" entered the American lexicon 25 years ago after the Harvard political scientist Robert D. Putnam published a landmark essay bearing that title. In that essay, later expanded into an important book, Putnam argued that civic engagement -- membership in religious, veterans', labor, fraternal, voluntary and parent-teacher organizations -- had dramatically dropped and that late-20th-century Americans increasingly were isolated from each other.
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
March 16, 2020 13:24
Three reasons Joe Biden will never be president
Joe Biden was sworn into the United States Senate on Jan. 3, 1973. He remained in the Senate until Jan. 15, 2009 -- a span of 36 years. If history is any guide, that alone is a disqualifier in Biden's quest for the White House.
What does 36 years in the Senate say about a politician? It says he is a senator -- not a president.
Saturday, March 14, 2020
March 13, 2020 11:15
AOC Must Choose Between the Future and the Political Abyss
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hitched her star to Bernie Sanders -- and vice versa. AOC brought a young, hip Latina vibe to the elderly Sanders' rallies. Photogenic and enjoying a massive social media presence, she joined Bernie in the far left's crusade to take over the Democratic Party.
Saturday, March 14, 2020
March 13, 2020 11:13
How to talk to your children about Elizabeth Warren
Some people see Elizabeth Warren's poor showing on Super Tuesday as just another Democratic hopeful losing her bid.
I see something darker. I see the ugly heart that beats beneath our supposed "democracy." Frankly, I'm afraid.
Friday, March 13, 2020
March 12, 2020 13:48
On coronavirus, the nationalists aren't nationalist enough
A foreign threat, emanating from China and requiring border controls and the exercise of government power to protect Americans, has arrived in the United States.
Yet President Donald Trump spent the initial weeks minimizing the threat and talking of it magically disappearing, despite being a nationalist who has long emphasized the importance of borders and the danger of China.
Friday, March 13, 2020
March 12, 2020 13:47
Identity politics didn't work for Warren, either
Was being a woman Elizabeth Warren's problem? That's the wrong question. Here's a better question: Was playing the protector of all damsels from that infamous rake, Mike Bloomberg, her problem? It was one of them, for certain.
Thursday, March 12, 2020
March 11, 2020 13:49
Calling the Wuhan virus 'the Wuhan virus' isn't racist
The coronavirus outbreak is the first pandemic of the woke era, and as such it's not surprising that there is a fierce debate over how to refer to it without offending against social justice.
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
March 9, 2020 11:48
Watering plants is actually good for you
I know this is an outlier story. It's about Brooklyn brownstone couples who pay over $2,000 for professionals to choose and care for their houseplants. Houseplant designing is actually a service being offered to the urban and suburban gentry. One such "Plant Doctor & Stylist" charges an hourly rate between $125 and $175. Those are psychotherapy prices.
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
March 9, 2020 11:48
The stark cultural differences inside the Democratic party
Yes, Democrats are divided over Bernie Sanders' revolution versus Joe Biden's restoration of status quo Obama. Yes, they are divided over what that means in terms of policy, like Sanders' Medicare for All versus Biden's tweaked Obamacare.
Monday, March 9, 2020
March 8, 2020 11:49
Why must a woman be perfect?
Elizabeth Warren checked every box. Brilliant. Tough. Prepared. A Harvard Law professor who didn't go to a fancy private law school. Married young, followed her husband, made it to the United States Senate by dint of hard work, determination and courage.
Monday, March 9, 2020
March 8, 2020 11:48
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Riverside Children's Home in Rocester was closed by Staffordshire County Council in 1989. It had been the subject of complaints of sexual and physical abuse in the 1980s. As a result of these complaints, a major police investigation named 'Operation Thor' commenced in 1999. The investigation was ran by Staffordshire Police and resulted in eight convictions.
Former social worker Joseph Hopkins was found guilty of rape and other assaults between 1981 and 1985. Former resident Timothy O'Farrell was sentenced to four years in prison for three serious sexual assaults and five indecent assaults. Former deputy head Thomas Watson was also convicted of physical abuse in relation to caning.
Jordans Solicitors have a dedicated team of highly specialist lawyers who can ensure your claim is handled sensitively, enabling you to secure the best level of compensation from those responsible for your traumatic experiences.
If you would like help with pursuing a claim, please make contact with us by e-mail, telephone on our freephone number or by completing a request a call back form.Return to Cases Overview

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Total fertility rate falling in world; rising in Africa, Pakistan
Below is a piece from The Economist, London that explains the phenomena on how total fertility rates are falling in the world while they are rising in Africa and Pakistan. Enjoy!
FATHER, mother and two children: surely the perfect family size. For those concerned, it is neither too big nor too small. For the national economy, it ensures that two new workers will replace the parents in the labour force. And eventually the children will have children of their own and keep the population stable.
For that happy state to be achieved, the "total fertility rate" (a measure used by demographers for the number of children a woman is likely to have during her childbearing years) needs to be above two: around 2.1 in the rich world and more in poorer countries, because some children, particularly in the developing world, die before adulthood.
For many years the United Nations' population forecasts—the gold standard in the demography business—have assumed that, in the long run, fertility the world over would converge on the replacement level and populations would stabilise. But fertility rates everywhere have been declining for decades.
Even in Africa, where large families are still the norm, the number of children per woman in 2010-15 is forecast to fall to 4.7, compared with 5.7 in 1990-95. Global average fertility is already down to about 2.5.
In a growing number of countries the fertility rate has now fallen below replacement level (see map).
In China it is around 1.5 (though official figures put it slightly higher) because of the one-child policy in force since the 1970s, which has also messed up the balance between boys and girls. For Europe as a whole it is 1.6, and well below that in several southern and eastern countries.
In Japan fertility has been declining for decades, to 1.4 now, and the population is already shrinking. South Korea, at 1.3, has the lowest rate of any big country.
Numbers are also slipping below replacement level in less wealthy South-East Asia. Quite soon half the world's people will live in countries where the population is no longer reproducing itself.
This worries governments, because fewer babies mean fewer workers later on, and as people are living longer, they will have to support a growing number of pensioners. Many are trying to persuade couples to be more fruitful.
The UN reckons that last year two-thirds of the countries in more developed regions had policies to raise fertility, compared with one-third in 1996.
Most are in Europe, but in Asia too such measures are on the rise. They range from tax incentives and child benefits to better child-care provision and making it easier for women both to have children and to work.
In some places such policies seem to have had some impact: France and the Nordic countries, which have long had them, have near-replacement fertility levels as well as lots of mothers who hold down jobs.
But Germany combines generous maternity leave with one of the lowest fertility levels in Europe (1.4), and its population is dropping.
Conversely, in America the fertility rate has perked up to close to replacement level, although public policy does little to encourage motherhood. It does not even run to statutory maternity leave, which is standard in rich countries.
See also:
What the world will be like in year 2100
How big is Africa?
Pakistan 6th most populous country now and in 2050
Africa: Nigeria largest economy, China largest single trading partner
The World Bank, meet your challenger: China-led AIIB
Ground breaking of $7.6B TAPI gas pipeline in Turkmenistan
$46B China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: 15 years, 4 phases, 3 routes, 51 projects
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects pick up pace
China gets highest approval from Pakistanis, Africans as world leader
In global competitiveness, Pakistan ranks with Africa's poorest states
BRICS bank an alternative to World Bank/IMF?
But is a fertility rate at replacement level the right target?
In a recent study Erich Striessnig and Wolfgang Lutz, of the Vienna University of Economics and Business and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, argue that in predicting dependency ratios (the number of children and pensioners compared with people of working age), education should also be taken into account. And that makes optimal rates much lower than previously thought.
Not everyone of working age contributes equally to supporting the dependent population. Better-educated people are more productive and healthier, retire later and live longer.
Education levels in most places have been rising and are likely to continue to do so. Using projections by age, sex and level of education for 195 countries, the demographers conclude that the highest welfare would follow from long-term fertility rates of 1.5-1.8. That excludes the effects of migration: for countries with many immigrants, the figure would be lower.
Educating more people to a higher level will be expensive, both because of the direct costs and because the better-educated start work later.
But they will contribute more to the economy throughout their working lives and retire later, so the investment will pay off. Moreover, fewer people will help limit future climate change.
All this suggests that worries about falling populations are better addressed by education than by baby bonuses or tax breaks.
But population policies are not all about rational economics: the world pays more attention to populous countries with sizeable armies than small ones without them. And countries that feel under threat tend to look for safety in numbers.
It is no accident that, almost alone among developed countries, Israel has a fertility rate well above replacement level, at 2.9.
Source: The Economist, London.
To see interactive graph, country- or region-wise, click here.
January 2016 update: UN releases 2010-2015 map
Do not miss our Understanding Pakistan Series
Wali on Pakistan of future
A miracle: Pakistan score in Long Term Orientation goes from Zero to 50
Pakistani culture through 6-D Model
Native languages in Pakistan
How future oriented are we?
How we messed up Pakistan: A series by Wali
Pakistan's two value crimes no one talks about


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Report: Nevada Commission Attempting to Stop Chael Sonnen From Competing at Metamoris 4
By FCF Staff
Although Chael Sonnen is not scheduled to compete in an event that's sanctioned by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, the organization is reportedly working to stop him from grappling at Metamoris 4.
Sonnen, who recently was suspended for two years after failing two drug tests heading into UFC 175, is booked to grapple Andre Galvao on Saturday. According to reports from MMA Junkie.com and Bleacher Report's Jeremy Botter, however, the NSAC is threatening disciplinary action if Sonnen competes at the August 9th event.
The organization has even threatened to fine Sonnen $250,000 per failed drug test, according to the latter report.
Sonnen's lawyer has apparently challenged the NSAC's assertion that the retired fighter cannot compete in a grappling event. Metamoris has yet to comment on the situation.


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Solubility in Water
TEKS Objective
Students will classify matter based on physical properties, including mass, magnetism, physical state (solid, liquid, and gas), relative density (sinking and floating), solubility in water, and the ability to conduct or insulate thermal energy or electric energy.
Essential Understanding
The student knows that (1) matter has measurable physical properties and (2) those properties determine how matter is classified, changed and used.
Science Background
What are Mixtures and Solutions? Virtual Chembook from Elmhurst College (website) - Easy-to-read chart that defines/differentiates between homogenous and heterogeneous mixtures, solutions and colloids.
What are Mixtures and Solutions?
Virtual Chembook from Elmhurst College, www.elmhurst.edu
Solutions and Mixtures: Chem4Kids (website) - Basic information about solutions and mixtures, accompanied by clear illustrations that promote understanding of basic chemistry.
Solutions and Mixtures
by Andrew Rader, Chem4Kids, www.chem4kids.com
Signature Lesson
What Dissolves in Water: BioEd Online (website) - Students investigate whether several common substances are soluble in water.
- Supporting Lessons
- Extensions
- Assessment Ideas
- Literature Connections
- Related
- Additional Resources
Supporting Lessons
How Can We Find Out What Is in Water? BioEd Online (website) - Students use simple paper chromatography to investigate a mystery liquid, comprised of different substances dissolved in water.
How Can We Find Out What Is in Water?
BioEd Online, www.bioedonline.org
Elaboration Lessons and Extensions
State Your Solution: American Chemistry Society (website) - Investigation that helps students understand what it means for a liquid or a gas to dissolve in a liquid.
State Your Solution
by the American Chemistry Society, www.acs.org
Can Gases Dissolve in Water?: American Chemical Society (website) - Students will design experiment to measure gas in club soda.
Gases Dissolve in Water?
American Chemical Society, www.middleschoolchemistry.com
Assessment Ideas
- Have students create a chart of sample mixtures and non-mixtures.
- As a performance assessment, create several different mixtures and challenge students to separate (or come up with plans to separate) the mixtures into their separate components.
Literature Connections
Mixtures and Solutions. Aloian, M. (ISBN-13: 978-0778742500)
Mixtures and Solutions. Karpelenia, J. (ISBN-13: 978-0756946425)
Salt. Walpole, Brenda (ISBN-13: 978-1560740605)
Matter. Cooper, Christopher (ISBN-13: 978-0751361353)
Additional Resources
Examples and Non-Examples of Solutions and Mixtures: SlideShare (website) - Presentation of images showing examples and non-examples of solutions and mixtures.
Examples and Non-Examples of Solutions and Mixtures
SlideShare, www.slideshare.net
TEKS Navigation
Grade 5
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Hormones like estrogen and progesterone are chemicals produced by glands in the body. In our simplified illustration, we are using circles for estrogen and squares for...
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Use the search box in the top right.
"Breast cancer affects one out of every eight women in their lifetime."spread the word


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Thursday, May 9, 2013
Life of Shinran Shonin (VIDEO- ANIME)
I have just uploaded this movie about Shinran's life which is also a good introduction into his teachings. The movie was done by Hongwanji and it is in Japanese but it contains English subtitles. Please enjoy it and share it with others
Published by Josho Adrian Cirlea la 15:05
Categories: ANIME - JODO SHINSHU, AUDIO / VIDEO TEACHINGS AND CEREMONIES, SHINRAN SHONIN
|Did you liked it?
1 comentarii:
Namo Amida Butsu _/l\_
- May 21, 2015 at 7:25 PM
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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 15th, 2011 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Beatle Photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
2 Responses to "GLASSED:"
a glass to see a hole to see the sky through…Ocean Child sees me!
I love this picture, so cute. : )


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When Penny Mae Cormani died in Utah, her family sang Mormon hymns — "Be Still My Soul" — and lowered her small coffin into the earth. The latest victim of a drug epidemic that is now taking 60,000 lives a year, Penny was just 1.
Increasingly, parents and the police are encountering toddlers and young children unconscious or dead after consuming an adult's opioids.
At the children's hospital in Dayton, Ohio, accidental ingestions have more than doubled, to some 200 intoxications a year, with tiny bodies found laced by drugs like fentanyl. In Milwaukee, eight children have died of opioid poisoning since late 2015, all from legal substances like methadone and oxycodone. In Salt Lake City, one emergency doctor recently revived four overdosing toddlers in a night, a phenomenon she called both new and alarming.
"It's a cancer," said Mauria Leydsman, Penny's grandmother, of the nation's opioid problem, "with tendrils that are going everywhere."
While these deaths represent a small fraction of the epidemic's toll, they are an indication of how deeply the American addiction crisis has cut.
And communities from Appalachia to the Rocky Mountains and beyond are feeling its effects at all ages. In August, in the latest sign of the direness of the situation, President Trump said he would declare the opioid crisis a national emergency, a move that could allow cities and states to access federal disaster relief funds.
Eighty-seven children died of opioid intoxication in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, up from just 16 in 1999. By comparison, gunshot wounds kill four or five times as many children each year.
But at hospitals like Primary Children's in Utah, drug overdoses now outstrip gun injuries among young people.
"There are no pill parties happening in preschools," said Dr. Jennifer Plumb, the emergency doctor who recently treated four opioid-sick toddlers in a night. "These kids aren't making a choice because they are trying to get high on a substance. It's that the pills are everywhere."
Unlike infants born with addiction, these children are coming across heroin and other drugs in the days and years after birth.
In Philadelphia this summer, a 9-month-old rolled onto a needle while in bed with her father. Kyleeh Isabella Mazaba, 20 months, died after drinking methadone left in a water bottle in the family van. James Lionel Vessell Jr., 2, swallowed oxycodone pills he found in a purse on his mother's bed. And in early August, Kentucky officials treated an infant and three emergency responders believed to have been sickened by carfentanil-laced heroin that traveled through the air.
Often, emergency responders attempt to revive children with Narcan, an overdose reversal drug that works on small bodies as well as large ones.
Then come the questions for investigators. How did the substance get there? How did the child find it? Can this be stopped?
Sometimes officials charge caretakers with neglect or manslaughter. In one case this year, the authorities accused a couple of child endangerment after they admitted to rubbing Suboxone on their daughter's gums, an attempt to hide the fact that she was born with an addiction.
But often the details go undiscovered, with witnesses too young to offer their own accounts.
Penny Mae Cormani was born Nov. 12, 2014, to Cassandra Leydsman and Casey Cormani, both mired in addiction. A year later, while the three of them were staying with another couple, Penny ingested enough heroin to kill a grown man.
Ms. Leydsman, the grandmother, said she believes Penny was scooting around on the floor during breakfast and found a bit of heroin, eating it like any child would. The official record is silent on exactly how the infant found the substance. But Penny's parents pleaded guilty to third-degree felonies — Cassandra to child abuse homicide and Casey to attempted manslaughter — and went to prison.
Cassandra Leydsman is likely to serve 36 months.
Ms. Leydsman, 68, is a devout Mormon who raised five children with her husband, a retired pharmaceuticals manager. She traced her daughter's addiction back more than a decade, to a car accident that prompted a doctor to prescribe OxyContin.
This led to a pill addiction that led to a heroin addiction that ultimately ended in Penny's death. The family buried Penny in a baby cemetery south of Salt Lake City. Ms. Leydsman visits regularly, bringing with her holiday decorations, balloons and soft toys. In prison, Cassandra is receiving drug treatment.
"She knows she's responsible," Ms. Leydsman said of her daughter. "And it's a terrible burden to go around knowing you're responsible for the death of your child."
In Utah, most opioid overdoses at the state's only children's hospital involve buprenorphine, oxycodone, methadone and hydrocodone, and Dr. Plumb attributes the problem to the state's continued dependence on legal painkillers.
In a state of three million people, pharmacists fill some 7,200 opioid prescriptions a day, according to 2015 data. Curious toddlers, Dr. Plumb said, are finding mom's Suboxone strip, grandpa's OxyContin.
In Montgomery County, Ohio, which includes Dayton, the story is different.
Drug peddlers have flooded the community with fentanyl, a legal synthetic used for extreme pain, and powerful analogues like carfentanil, a substance 5,000 times stronger than heroin.
Inhaling, touching or ingesting a carfentanil dose smaller than a few grains of salt can be lethal. Dr. Kelly Liker, the medical director for child advocacy at Dayton Children's Hospital, attributes a growing number of child overdoses to the rise of these substances.
In September of last year, Lee L. Hayes, 2, died in Montgomery County of fentanyl intoxication. In April, Nathan L. Wylie, 13, died of similar poisoning. And in May, Mari'onna Allen, 1, fatally overdosed in her grandmother's home on Dayton's East Fifth Street.
"It's a disgrace that kids have to be subject to this," said Mari'onna's great-grandmother, who declined to give her name. "They're innocent, they don't have a clue, and they don't know drugs from candy."


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Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble has told Germans to forget about the one million plus "refugees" who flooded into Germany over the past three years ever returning to their home countries.
"We should realize how difficult it is to deport in individual cases. That's why we should not foster too much hope that we can send back the majority of these people," said Schäuble.
"We should not foster too much hope" of sending them back.
He added that all efforts must be made "to integrate them into our society," before he went on to defend Angela Merkel's controversial open border policy as the "right" decision, despite the fact that it has largely ruined her political legacy and caused her approval rating to sink to an all time low.
Schäuble did concede one point to critics of mass immigration; That so-called "refugees" (the majority of whom are economic migrants) should seek refuge in the first safe country they reach, as per the Dublin accord, and not be allowed to travel further north to Europe's welfare havens.
Germany has seen protests against mass immigration in recent weeks in response to the fact that violent crime has risen over the last two years and 90% of it is due to migrants, according to the German government's own statistics.
As we reported earlier this month, a club in Frankfurt was attacked by a gang of 10 Syrian "refugees" who attempted to stab terrified guests while shouting "Allahu Akbar".
Germany has allowed in over 1 million migrants, predominantly from the Middle East, since 2015.
Schäuble's insistence that refugees will not return home, clashes with the view of the Dalai Lama, who recently stated, "Eventually they should return to their own land to rebuild their own countries." The Dalai Lama has been castigated and vilified as far right by the biased mainstream media for his view on this.
Clearly this is just another "shoulder shrug" method of promoting population replacement by default. Only 1% of the 1.2 Million asylum claims were actually read in Germany and once again the Establishment just shrugged their shoulders. This is more deliberate than they care to admit…


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Here's what happened on this episode of The Crispy Noodle Podcast:
- Introduction — Mike is close to finishing his video games
- Sports Sampler — Super Bowl 50 Wrap-Up; Where do the Eagles even begin in handling this off-season?; Villanova ranked overall #1 (for the first time ever) in this week's AP Poll with only a month left until March Madness
- Entertainment Entree — Ice Cream Taste Tester is really, really creepy describing his job; Mike's This Week in Entertainment; Rich and Mike name their favorite "Masterpieces of Crap" or anything that's "So Bad It's Good"
- "The Non-Fortune Cookie" Odd News — Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop is back and up to no good again; Naked dude goes crazy at a Walgreens parking lot and throws money to "make it rain"; Someone in Florida is sexually assaulting goats; Florida man demands oral sex from woman because he's a part of a unique police task force
- What Have We Learned & Conclusion
Thanks for listening to The Crispy Noodle Podcast!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download


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Robodex Ghost Robotics™ Launches Ghost Minitaur™ Direct-Drive Legged Robot Platform
Ghost Minitaur™ is a patent-pending medium-sized legged robot highly adept at perceiving tactile sensations. Its high torque motors, motor controllers, and specialized leg design allow this machine to run and jump over difficult terrain while actively balancing, climb fences, and rapidly reorient from falls. High-speed and high-resolution encoders let the robot see and feel the ground through the motors and adapt faster than the blink of an eye.
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It has been a while since I cooked a big juicy steak for the family dinner. There's no reason for it other than I just kind of forgot about it.
How do you forget about steak?
To tell the truth I forget about a lot of different flavours and meals this time of year, it's what ever is leftover in the fridge, or I double up on what I am cooking for a function. October through to December it is pretty much 15 minute meals in our house!
I was at work yesterday when a colleague came in with a bottle of Shiraz and started telling us about how good it was, and how it is on sale....and did we want to buy a case?.... Of course a tasting was in order before buying anything and seeing how it was after 12pm all was OK. The wine was very quaffable and moreish so I put in my order for a case on the spot. I was also lucky enough to be the only one not working a dinner party that night (I had a canape drop off- yippee!). So I was the lucky one who took the bottle of red home to drink with.....STEAK!
See how my brain works? Anyway, off to the butcher I went and picked out some fabulous New York strip steaks for tea.
If your buying a good quality steak you really want to taste the meat so I don't over do all the trimmings. A simple potato mash (I leave the skin on which drives Nic a little mad!), steamed beans tossed with a hint of olive oil and lemon juice and a delicious mushroom sauce.
The boys thought I was trying to burn the house down when I showed them what happens when you add brandy to the sauteing mushrooms...
-'You shouldn't do that mum, you could burn the house down!' says Max with a serious look on his face while Alex looked on horrified.
Thankfully I managed to keep everything under control and we sat down to a forgotten family favourite of steak and mash that tasted wonderful, especially when served with a smooth bottle of Shiraz.


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Estimating temperate adaptation in ancient maize
Maize as a staple food crop in temperate North America required adaptation to a shorter growing season. On its first introduction in the southwestern United States ∼4000 years ago, maize was extensively grown in the lowlands. Cultivation in the temperate uplands did not occur for another 2000 years. Swarts et al. used ancient DNA data from 1900-year-old maize cobs found in a temperate cave in the southwestern United States and mapped the ancient flowering phenotype. The ancient maize samples were marginally adapted to temperate regions as a result of selection on standing variation.
Science, this issue p. 512
By 4000 years ago, people had introduced maize to the southwestern United States; full agriculture was established quickly in the lowland deserts but delayed in the temperate highlands for 2000 years. We test if the earliest upland maize was adapted for early flowering, a characteristic of modern temperate maize. We sequenced fifteen 1900-year-old maize cobs from Turkey Pen Shelter in the temperate Southwest. Indirectly validated genomic models predicted that Turkey Pen maize was marginally adapted with respect to flowering, as well as short, tillering, and segregating for yellow kernel color. Temperate adaptation drove modern population differentiation and was selected in situ from ancient standing variation. Validated prediction of polygenic traits improves our understanding of ancient phenotypes and the dynamics of environmental adaptation.
The temperate U.S. maize landraces known as "Northern Flints" are one of two maize germ plasm pools that contributed to the development of the agronomically dominant Cornbelt Dent of the United States (1) and were also critical for adapting maize to Europe (2). Morphological similarity (3) and early genetic evidence (4, 5) support the origin of the Northern Flints in the southwestern United States. The environmentally diverse Southwest region sits just above the geographically constricted North American tropics and is the first point where pre-Hispanic maize agriculturalists would have had to contend with greatly reduced growing seasons. Maize in the southwestern United States today is culturally important to indigenous peoples (6), reflected in its morphologic and genetic diversity (7).
Maize was introduced to the Southwest from Mexico by 4000 years before the present (yr B.P.) (Fig. 1A), a finding supported by evidence from both the temperate highlands of the Colorado Plateau and the lowland deserts of southern Arizona (8–12); a recent study suggests an inland, rather than coastal, Mexican route (13). Despite evidence of experimentation with maize in the highlands (10–12, 14), maize agriculture was not fully adopted as a primary subsistence system until between 2400 and 1800 yr B.P. (14). By contrast, soon after introduction, peoples in the southern lowlands rapidly committed to maize agriculture (8, 9). This notable temporal difference between highland and lowland adoption may result from insufficient adaptation (15).
Growing degree days (GDD) are used as a measure of maize development, normalizing heat accumulation across environments. For example, Blanding, Utah (temperate plateau), is geographically and altitudinally near early temperate sites with archaeological maize and has only 46% of the available GDD for maize growth relative to the Tucson basin (desert lowland), 725 km distant [(16); Fig. 1A]. To extend the growing season, farmers developed agronomic practices to exploit substantial microsite variation over time (6, 17). However, temperate adaptation in modern maize is characterized by early flowering (Fig. 1B); we suspect that the delay in full agricultural adoption in the uplands was due to a lack of adaptation to temperate environments (15) in the earliest introduced germ plasm and that agricultural adoption in the uplands transitioned with the introduction of early flowering varieties.
Turkey Pen Shelter (TPS) is a dry-cave shelter on the edge of Grand Gulch in temperate southeast Utah (40 km from and at a similar elevation, 1830 m, to Blanding weather stations); it has evidence for established agriculture and was occupied 1800 to 2000 years ago during agricultural intensification in the uplands (16, 18). We assessed the degree of temperate adaptation in early maize agriculture by predicting days to flowering on the basis of the genotypes of archaeological TPS maize from a modern inbred panel representing a global collection of 2648 inbred lines held in Ames, Iowa [henceforth Ames Inbred Diversity (AID) panel]. Because ancient samples cannot be directly phenotyped, we validated predictions on a modern landrace panel from the southwestern United States. Genotypes of modern landraces and TPS maize were then used to refine the demographic history of maize in the Americas.
Preservation of genetic material in TPS maize was excellent—10 of the 21 samples contained >80% endogenous maize DNA (Fig. 1C, fig. S1, and table S1). Shallow sequencing of unrepaired libraries showed damage patterns typical of ancient DNA (fig. S1) (19). Subsequently, we prepared repaired DNA libraries for 15 samples with >20% endogenous DNA; whole-genome resequencing resulted in 5 to 20× coverage (fig. S1). All samples pursued for deep sequencing were dated with a median probability date of 1844 yr B.P. [(16); Fig. 1C]. We called single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on the 81 million maize variants discovered as part of Hapmap3.21 (20), with an average SNP coverage of 0.55 ± 0.16 (table S1).
Days to flowering in maize is a complex, additively inherited trait (21) critical for temperate adaptation (21, 22). We generated flowering predictions for TPS and a subset of the landraces representing 80 southwestern landrace accessions, phenotyped with three replicates in three environments [Fig. 2, A and B, fig. S2, and tables S2 to S4; (16)]. Maize is monoecious but has imperfect flowers, and flowering time was phenotyped by measuring both female flowering, as days to silking (DTS), and male flowering, as days to anthesis (DTA). Broad-sense heritability was 0.90 for DTS and 0.89 for DTA in the landrace panel (see fig. S2 for correlations across environments). Predictions with the genomic best linear unbiased predictor method were generated from the AID panel (23), with good cross-predictive ability in the phenotyped landrace panel (fig. S3) (prediction accuracy 0.72) (Fig. 2A and figs. S4 and S5). Although, the accuracies of predictions for TPS from AID cannot be evaluated directly, we assume similar accuracy to the modern landrace panel, which covers the parameter space of tropical- and temperate-adapted landraces in the southwestern United States (Fig. 2B and table S2).
TPS is located in the northern part of the Puebloan region of the Southwest, which is inhabited by the modern descendants of TPS. Predicted values for TPS from the AID panel were not significantly different than Puebloan predictions based on Wilcoxon rank-sum test and were one week earlier on average (although not significantly) than the desert-adapted southwestern samples (Fig. 2A, figs. S4 and S5, and table S4). Although TPS individuals were predicted to flower at a time similar to that of most modern temperate inbred lines, they flower later than Northern Flint sweet corn inbred lines, the earliest flowering modern maize. Mean female flowering for TPS was predicted as 73.6 days from the AID panel. This prediction, situated in Blanding, Utah, translates to 96 days by means of GDD conversion (16). Assuming 55 days to physiological maturity (24), TPS maize would take 151 days from planting to full physiological maturity. At 149 average frost-free days (25), TPS maize was therefore likely marginally adapted and, in some years, may have been harvested and had cobs dried off the plant to avoid frost.
We also carried out prediction of two complex traits—height and tillering. As validated in two environments of the modern landrace population and predicted by AID, TPS was relatively short, comparable to the median predictions for modern Puebloan landraces (fig. S6). TPS also was bushy and predicted to tiller more than the median of modern Puebloan landraces on the basis of the phenotyped landraces, as the AID panel is less suited to predict tillering (fig. S7).
We selected 10,000 SNPs with the highest fixation index (FST) values between domesticated maize from the central Mexican lowlands and the Northern Flint landrace Gaspé Flint from Quebec, Canada. We then calculated FST between TPS and tropical and temperate landraces at these highly differentiated SNPs and tested this value against 1000 randomly selected sets of the same size from background SNPs. When compared to the genomic background controls for genetic drift, any deviation from the background suggests selection between TPS and test population. After controlling for drift, we show that temperate adaptation captured in the 10,000 differentiated SNPs is not shared with Mexican and South American populations but is shared with most temperate groups. These results are not consistent with the introduction of preadapted germ plasm from Mexico and suggest instead an in situ temperate adaptation in the southwestern United States (Fig. 2C). The only modern northern sample that shows increased differentiation to TPS is the lower Colorado River germ plasm, a fast-cycle sweet corn from a particularly hot, arid desert region that relies on early flowering to escape heat but would not benefit from additional temperate adaptation.
A significantly higher proportion of the high-FST temperate SNPs, compared with genomic background, segregate in two subspecies of teosinte, which are wild relatives of maize; 90% segregate in Zea mays spp. parviglumis (henceforth Parviglumis) from the Balsas River valley and 84% in the highland teosinte Zea mays spp. mexicana (Mexicana), 21 and 18 standard deviations above the genomic mean, respectively, suggesting that temperate adaptation was selected mainly from ancient standing variation (fig. S8). This is supported by known flowering and photoperiod loci in maize, where large-effect early flowering variants present in TPS also segregate in teosinte (fig. S9 and table S5). Additionally, the genome-wide estimate of nucleotide diversity in TPS is 0.0044, which is comparable to estimates for diverse pan-American modern inbred landraces of 0.0049 (26), suggesting a large population during northward expansion, again consistent with long-term in situ adaptation. In contrast to quantitative traits, for large-effect genes affecting culturally and nutritionally important traits such as kernel color (e.g., y1), TPS has derived alleles, and neighbor joining trees at the y1 locus suggest that high-carotenoid yellow kernel color, which is important for human nutrition, may have evolved de novo in the Southwest (fig. S10).
We genotyped 1316 individual teosintes and landraces (a superset of the landraces used for validation), with a focus on the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, using genotyping-by-sequencing. We clustered these on the basis of geographic location, altitude, and cultural affiliation for subsequent analysis (table S2) and obtained discrete populations for some analyses (fig. S11).
Admixture and multidimensional scaling analysis (MDS) (Fig. 3, A and B) place TPS with the samples from the temperate Southwest, and admixture graph analysis (Fig. 3C and figs. S12 to S14) suggests that modern Puebloan samples result from admixing TPS with ancestors of northern Mexican landraces. This admixture may reflect the influx of floury maize after TPS (13), which is consistent with a very low frequency of the low-diversity flour haplotype at the locus su1 in TPS (fig. S15). The dominant southwestern U.S. admixture component does not derive from either lowland or highland northern Mexican germ plasm on the basis of the estimated FST (0.127 and 0.124, respectively; fig. S16), and the best fit admixture graph model places TPS on a separate lineage from the modern northern Mexican germ plasm. TreeMix results (fig. S17A) are consistent with the inference from Fig. 2C that adaptation to temperate environment occurred in situ in the Southwest.
Highland teosinte, Mexicana, commonly introgresses into domesticated maize (27), and chromosomal inversions have been implicated in highland adaptation and early flowering (28). Evidence for Mexicana introgression was observed across domesticated maize (Fig. 3D and figs. S18 and S19), but TPS received less Mexicana contribution than modern samples and genome-wide FST scans are not consistent with the presence of adaptive Mexicana inversions (fig. S20). Across modern maize, the lower ancestral levels of Mexicana admixture in northern Southwest samples (excepting the admixed desert population) relative to other maize populations is consistent with the primary topological split between the United States and all other germ plasm (fig. S17A).
TPS showed lower levels of Mexicana ancestry, but admixture and MDS analysis (Fig. 3, A and B) model a high proportion of generalized teosinte ancestry in TPS relative to modern landraces. TreeMix analysis commonly models an admixture edge to TPS from the teosintes (typically Balsas Parviglumis) (fig. S17). When we include an ancient maize sample from the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico (29) in TreeMix analysis, this TPS admixture edge transfers to the Tehuacan sample (fig. S21), suggesting that the teosinte signal may be related to the age of TPS. Positive selection leading to modern maize after TPS at domestication and improvement loci (26) can partially explain this pattern (fig. S22).
Advances in ancient genomics and the excellent preservation at TPS allowed us to predict previously unknowable complex traits from archaeological samples. We show here that 1900-year-old maize already maintained the alleles conferring early flowering, although the lineage was likely only marginally adapted to the TPS environment. Integrating archaeological inference with modern and ancient genomics thus supports the hypothesis that ancestral Puebloan people selected for temperate-adapted maize for millennia in situ in the southwestern United States, and, additionally, that alleles for temperate adaptation were selected from preexistent standing variation in teosinte. Reliance on standing genetic variation suggests that maize retains its adaptive capacity and highlights the importance of germ plasm maintenance. However, temperate adaptation in the southwestern United States took 2000 years. In light of predicted climate change, precision breeding with genome-edited crops will be necessary to rapidly adapt modern germplasm.
Supplementary Materials
Materials and Methods
Supplementary Text
Figs. S1 to S22
Tables S1 to S6
This is an article distributed under the terms of the Science Journals Default License.


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The Blue Star Mothers of New Hampshire are again sponsoring the placing of wreaths on graves on Saturday, December 15, 2018 starting at 10:30am.
Instead of designating specific sections, this year wreaths will be placed approximately every third headstone so that the whole cemetery will have wreaths displayed. To ensure your loved one's headstone receives a wreath, we recommend placing your own wreath before the 15th.
If you want your wreath back, please pick it up before January 2, 2019!
For more information, go to their website https://www.bluestarmothersofnh.org/WreathsBoscawen.html
Immediately following the wreath laying will be the WREATHS ACROSS AMERICA ceremony at NOON at the main flags across from the Administration Building. This is hosted by the Civil Air Patrol.
If you come earlier to put wreaths on graves, please plan to stay.
Before this ceremony be sure to grab a hot drink or snack in the Maintenance Building.


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Prince Harry, Meghan Markle Split Rumors Sparked After Queen Elizabeth 'Refused' Couple To Live Together; 'Suits' Season 7 Actress Met Kate Middleton
Prince Harry and girlfriend Meghan Markle have been making it to the headlines since they were first reported dating. Now, rumors have it that their romance might end up soon after Queen Elizabeth disapproved Prince William's brother from seeing the "Suits" Season 7 actress.
Celeb Dirty Laundry reported that Queen Elizabeth prohibited Prince Harry to live together with Meghan Markle before their engagement. According to the news outlet, the younger brother of Prince William and the "Deceit" actress are now planning to move in together following the announcement of their relationship to the public.
Queen Elizabeth, according to reports, did not allow Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to live together under the same roof. CDL stated Her Majesty is old-fashioned and she does want her family members to stick to traditions than to see them have more scandal.
Sources claimed that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been spending so much time together lately, leading to rumors that they could consider living together soon. There are also reports saying that the "Suits" Season 7 actress has spotted for several times at the Kensington Palace where the couple spends their lazy days together.
"After all, Queen Elizabeth made it clear that Meghan doesn't get the same privileges that the rest of the royal family get to enjoy," CDL reported. "Even though Harry desperately wanted Meghan to spend Christmas with him at Sandringham House, the Queen refused to invite her."
Meanwhile, Prince Harry reportedly introduced Meghan Markle to Kate Middleton and Princess Charlotte recently. PEOPLE reported the "Suits" Season 7 actress gave the Duchess a dream diary as a birthday present.
While no other details have been publicized yet, rumors suggest that Meghan Markle also enjoyed spending some time with Prince Harry's niece, Princess Charlotte. Followers of the Royal family, however, are still looking forward to the first meeting of the "Suits" Season 7 actress and Queen Elizabeth.


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TTAB Test: Is MEAT CANDY Merely Descriptive of Food Kiosk Services?
The USPTO issued a Section 2(e)(1) refusal of the mark MEAT CANDY, deeming the mark merely descriptive of "food kiosk services; mobile food kiosk services; mobile street vendor services featuring food and drink; street vendor services featuring food and drink." Applicant appealed, arguing that her mark is suggestive, rather than descriptive, because it is a "tongue in cheek reference to the desirability of certain meat products." How do you think this came out? In re Katakis, Serial No. 85901018 (December 2, 2015) [not precedential].
Applicant asserted that "[c]andy, in common modern American English parlance, is a snarky reference to anything desirable." "Meat Candy," according to applicant, is "merely an expression of desirability of a product - i.e., so good it's like candy." Indeed, numerous website excerpts submitted by Examining Attorney Kara E. Jackson evidenced the laudatory or descriptive nature of "Meat Candy."
Applicant contended that MEAT CANDY is merely suggestive of her services because "many mental steps" are required to get from the mark to the services themselves. The Board, however, found the mark to be laudatory when considered in the context of applicant's services. The connotation of "desirability," as stated by applicant, is the "very connotation which makes the term laudatory ... (i.e., Applicant's service features food that is so good it is meat candy)."
In addition, many third-parties use the term for specific food products: for example, bacon, wrapped sausage, desserts, brisket ends. The Board therefore found that prospective customers "will readily understand that the applied-for mark describes a delicious meat specialty of Applicant's food services.''
The Board therefore affirmed the refusal to register.
Read comments and post your comment here
TTABlog comment: The opinion is a bit muddled, IMHO, but apparently the Board found the applied-for mark to be descriptive both because it is laudatory and because it describes the goods.
Text Copyright John L. Welch 2015.


text: The annual event brings together hospitality professionals with the best of Shanghai's local organizations. Shanghai, China, December 18, 2015 /Isentia Wire/ - Crowne Plaza Shanghai Fudan held the 2015 traditional Christmas Lighting Ceremony, and shared the joyful moment together with the "Santa Claus" from Yangpu Social Welfare Institution. Picture shows the "Santa Claus" in Yangpu Social Welfare Institution (2nd from right) with Mr Shen Jiarong, General Manager of owner company (1st from right) and Mr. Robert Shi, General Manager of Crowne Plaza Shanghai Fudan (1st from left). The Yangpu Social Welfare Institution is part of the local Yangpu government in Shanghai, and assists with the upkeep and living of the area's elderly residents. About Crowne Plaza Shanghai Fudan The Crowne Plaza Shanghai Fudan hotel is next to Fudan University and provides dedicated service and easy access to the city's business and leisure hotspots. 309 elegantly decorated guest rooms including 34 suites with five-star facilities and amenities were designed to satisfy all the expectations of both the international business and leisure guests. Source: Crowne Plaza Shanghai Fudan Website Information: https://www.ihg.com/crowneplaza/hotels/us/en/shanghai/shgfd/hoteldetail


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Here is look at foreign hostages believed held by the Islamic State group and some of those who have been released, reportedly in exchange for ransom payments:
JOHN CANTLIE: British photojournalist who appeared in several Islamic State propaganda videos delivering statements, purportedly from the Syrian border town of Kobani and the Iraqi city of Mosul, likely under duress. He was kidnapped with American journalist James Foley in November 2012. An Islamic State group militant beheaded Foley last August.
FATHER PAOLO DALL"OGLIO: The Italian Jesuit priest went missing in July 2013 after traveling to meet Islamic militants in the Syrian city of Raqqa.
SAMIR KASSAB: A Lebanese cameraman for satellite channel Sky News Arabia. He was kidnapped Oct. 15 while working near Aleppo, Syria"s commercial capital and the scene of heavy fighting since rebels seized part of the city in 2012.
ISHAK MOKHTAR: A Mauritanian reporter for Sky News Arabia. He was kidnapped Oct. 15 while working near Aleppo.
UNIDENTIFIED AMERICAN WOMAN: She was captured last year in Syria while working for aid groups. U.S. officials have asked that the woman not be identified out of fears for her safety.
THREE WORKERS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS: The three were taken near Saraqeb, in Syria"s Idlib province, in October 2013. The organization has declined to provide information on their identities nor who has them, citing fears for their safety.
SEVEN LEBANESE SOLDIERS: Abducted in August in the Lebanese border town of Arsal during a cross-border militant raid from Syria.
GRETA RAMELLI and VANESSA MARZULLO: The Italian aid workers, aged 20 and 21, returned home in January after being held hostage in Syria for more than five months.
NICOLAS HAMMARSTROM and MAGNUS FALKEHED: Swedish freelance journalists released in January after about 90 days in captivity. Swedish officials declined to say who seized them or how they were set free.
EDOUARD ELIAS, DIDIER FRANCOIS, NICOLAS HENIN and PIERRE TORRES: French journalists released in April after being held hostage for 10 months.
JAVIER ESPINOSA, RICARDO GARCIA VILANOVA and MARC MARGINEDAS: Spanish journalists released in March after being held hostage for months.


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The Federal Reserve, seeking to ease a painful credit crisis, will be making $75 billion of much-in-demand treasury securities available to big investment firms next week. Investment houses will get an opportunity to bid on a slice of the securities at a Federal Reserve auction next Thursday. The new lending program was announced by the Fed last week. It will allow investment firms to borrow up to $200 billion in super-safe treasury securities by using some of their more risky investments as collateral.
The Federal Reserve says big Wall Street investment companies are taking advantage of its unprecedented offer to secure emergency loans. A Fed report says those firms averaged $13.4 billion in daily borrowing over the past week from the central bank's new lending facility. The reports does not identify the borrowers. The offer is part of a major effort by the Fed to help a financial system in danger of freezing.
A U.S. House committee chairman has begun an investigation into the electrocutions of at least 12 service members in Iraq. California Congressman Henry Waxman has asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to hand over documents relating to the management of electrical systems at facilities in Iraq. Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, died January 2nd of cardiac arrest after being electrocuted while showering at his barracks in Baghdad. Maseth's parents have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Houston-based KBR. KBR is responsible for maintaining Maseth's barracks. An army investigation found the death was due to improper grounding of the electric pump that supplied water to the building. KBR declined comment on the lawsuit, but said it would cooperate with agencies investigating Maseth's death.
Dynegy is drafting a report for shareholders on its efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The California State Teachers' Retirement System and the North Carolina Retirement System requested the report, asking about the feasibility of adopting reduction goals for existing and proposed power plants. Dynegy operates six coal-fired generating facilities and hopes to build as many as six more. Meanwhile, the Sierra Club organized a letter-writing campaign voicing concerns about the proposed plants, delivering them to Dynegy's office on Louisiana.
Austin-based Pondera Capital Management has filed for an air permit with state regulators to build a new power plant on Lockwood in northeast Harris County. The first phase of the 3,500-megawatt, natural gas-fired plant would consist of three gas turbines and one steam turbine, producing about 800 megawatts, by 2009.
NASA's Constellation Program has selected five space-related companies to receive contract awards for a 210-day independent evaluation of a design concept for a lunar lander. NASA is awarding $1.5 million for the study of its in-house design. The selected companies include Boeing, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Northrop Grumman, Andrews Space and Odyssey Space Research. The Constellation Program is building NASA's next generation fleet of spacecraft, including the Ares I and Ares V rockets, the Orion crew capsule and the Altair lunar lander. NASA plans to send humans beyond low Earth orbit and back to the moon. Four astronauts are to visit the moon by 2020.
Custom home builder Schumacher Homes has started a program to help new home buyers while they wait for their old home to sell. They are allowing up to a year without a mortgage payment. They will put a percentage of the net purchase price into an FDIC-insured account with its mortgage partners to make interest payments during construction and mortgage—principal and interest—payments for up to a year. Their program comes at a time when orders for custom homes have begun to increase, according to the Commerce Department. But consumers have been finding it takes a little longer to sell their old home.
Dell is developing models aimed at Chinese and Indian consumers to drive personal computer sales in fast-growing Asian markets. CEO Michael Dell offered details during a news conference in Beijing. Both Round Rock-based Dell and China's Lenovo Group unveiled low-cost PCs last year for rural and novice users. Dell says the company in 2008 plans to introduce 50 percent more notebook platforms than last year–including products aimed at Chinese customer needs. Dell says its consumer sales in China grew by 54 percent last year, more than three times the industry average of 17 percent. Dell company has two factories in southeast China and a design center in Shanghai. Also, Dell says it will donate $210,000 to build six education centers in China to teach computer skills to children of migrant workers.
Texas is seeking bids from private companies for a border video camera network. It's similar to a state pilot program that allowed the public to help spot illegal activity via the Internet. Governor Rick Perry's Emergency Management Division calls it a "virtual border neighborhood watch." The plan is designed to help crack down on drug running, human trafficking and other crime along the Texas border with Mexico. Proposals are due April 7th. Those watching on the Web will be able to contact law enforcement about suspicious activity they see by using the Internet or a toll-free telephone number. Perry's office has identified $2 million in federal grants for the border video surveillance camera program on private property.
Irish building materials firm Cement Roadstone Holdings is expanding into India. The company announced it's buying a 50 percent stake in a rapidly growing cement manufacturer, My Home Industries. CRH has signed a contract to pay $450 million to the privately-owned firm to become a joint partner running the business. The deal is expected to be completed in the second half of 2008. CRH last week announced a $540 million deal to acquire Pavestone Group of Dallas. Pavestone has 18 U.S. plants making landscaping products in concrete and stone.
A regulatory filing shows the head of Entergy received compensation valued at $9.3 million during 2007. CEO and Board Chairman J. Wayne Leonard received a base salary of $1.2 million. That's a four percent increase from 2006. As in 2006, Leonard was not paid a bonus. He received $1.8 million from a non-equity incentive plan and stock and options awards worth $6.2 million on the dates they were awarded. That's down from $12 million in 2006. Leonard also received financial counseling and the personal use of Entergy aircraft valued at $81,000. Entergy provides electricity in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. The Associated Press calculations of total pay include executives' salary, bonuses, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The calculations don't include changes in the value of pension benefits, and they can differ from the totals companies list in the summary compensation table of proxy statements.


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We celebrate reading all year, but Independent Bookstore Day is when we sound the book alarm the loudest. Since 2014, we and our sister stores across the country have come together on the last Saturday of April to raise a toast to everything that makes indies important. On April 29, show us what you love most about books, reading, and belonging to a literary community.
11:00 am: Golden Book Storytime!
Hopefully we all age as well as Little Golden Books. We're celebrating the 75th anniversary of these beloved editions with a special storytime of a handpicked list of old favorites, as well as a special photobooth. Stay golden, everyone.
What an honor to have authors Brian Floca, Tim Miller, and Ibi Zoboi join the ranks of WORD booksellers for the day. Stop by to have one of their books personalized, get a book recommendation, or simply strike up a conversation!
If you're not familiar already, here's a bit about them!
Brian Floca is the Caldecott-winning author/illustrator of nonfiction children's favorites Moonshot, Lightship, and Locomotive, to name just a few.
Ibi Zoboi's stunning YA debut, American Street, published earlier this year, is based on her own experiences emigrating to the U.S. from Haiti, infused with heart and magical realism.
Author/illustrator Tim Miller is the author/illustrator of brand-new picture book Moo-Moo in a Tutu. He is also responsible for the giggle-inducing illustrations in Snappsy the Alligator, written by Julie Falatko and Hamstersaurus Rex, written by Tom O'Donnell.
6:00 pm:
Who better to host a delightfully smutty evening of trivia than romance author and Brooklyn local Sarah MacLean?
Three rounds of rapid fire questions, focused on literary romance across ALL genres. Complimentary wine and pizza from Sizzle Pie provided. Let's get ridiculous.


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|Useful Information
ILCA Class Rules
|Upcoming Events
|How do I vote?
|Thursday, 22 September 2011 17:16
The voting deadline is September 23rd. If you are from CAN or USA, select North America as your country at this link. More information on the proposed rule change also appears at the same link.
|Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 September 2011 15:56


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A belated birthday celebration for Charles Dickens, who included lawyers and the legal process extensively in his novels. Some web sites to explore:
Dickens Concordance - Looking for a phrase or a quote? Use this Concordance to search in particular novels.
Dickens page - detailed information about Dickens and search for phrases across all of Dickens' works.
Dickens v. Lawyers - an entertaining and informative NY Times op-ed about Charles Dickens' experience and writing on the law.
Download Dickens' works - from Project Gutenberg
And, of course, there are lots of free apps out there for phone and tablets.
Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat
Above the Law - A Legal Tabloid - News, Gossip, and Colorful Commentary on Law Firms and the Legal Profession